215 research outputs found

    Avaliação do método capacitivo de placas coplanares para determinação de umidade dos grãos de soja em movimento

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    Resumo: A medição do teor de umidade de grãos é um processo de fundamental importância para a cadeia produtiva da soja e outros cultivares. A quantidade de água contida nos grãos é determinante, desde a fase de colheita da soja, para garantir a sua conservação, qualidade e preço final. Diversos métodos de medida podem ser utilizados para determinar a umidade dos grãos de soja. Os métodos diretos são mais precisos, porém dispendiam muito tempo para se determinar a quantidade de água contida nos grãos, não sendo, portanto, um método viável para um sistema de medição em malha-fechada. Os métodos indiretos, baseados na correlação de grandezas elétricas com a variação da quantidade de água contida nos grãos, são os mais utilizados, com medidores práticos já desenvolvidos e estudos apresentando resultados cada vez mais promissores. O método capacitivo é um dos métodos indiretos mais conhecidos, pois a medida capacitiva apresenta boa estabilidade e correlação com o teor de umidade dos grãos de soja. Este trabalho analisa a aplicação de um sensor capacitivo de placas coplanares para realizar a medida do teor de umidade dos grãos de soja em movimento, simulando-se as condições de movimentação dos grãos em um secador. O estudo visa estimar os desvios que a movimentação dos grãos causa no processo de medida. Para desenvolver este trabalho, foi projetado um sensor de placas coplanares a partir de simulações utilizando o Método dos Elementos Finitos no Domínio do Tempo. Foram medidos os parâmetros de impedância do sensor com a soja em movimento e parada, em diferentes níveis de umidade e frequências de medição. O sensor capacitivo de placas coplanares desenvolvido neste trabalho, mostrou-se uma boa opção para se determinar a umidade de grãos de soja em movimento

    Integrating Machine Learning and Multiscale Modeling: Perspectives, Challenges, and Opportunities in the Biological, Biomedical, and Behavioral Sciences

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    Fueled by breakthrough technology developments, the biological, biomedical, and behavioral sciences are now collecting more data than ever before. There is a critical need for time- and cost-efficient strategies to analyze and interpret these data to advance human health. The recent rise of machine learning as a powerful technique to integrate multimodality, multifidelity data, and reveal correlations between intertwined phenomena presents a special opportunity in this regard. However, classical machine learning techniques often ignore the fundamental laws of physics and result in ill-posed problems or non-physical solutions. Multiscale modeling is a successful strategy to integrate multiscale, multiphysics data and uncover mechanisms that explain the emergence of function. However, multiscale modeling alone often fails to efficiently combine large data sets from different sources and different levels of resolution. We show how machine learning and multiscale modeling can complement each other to create robust predictive models that integrate the underlying physics to manage ill-posed problems and explore massive design spaces. We critically review the current literature, highlight applications and opportunities, address open questions, and discuss potential challenges and limitations in four overarching topical areas: ordinary differential equations, partial differential equations, data-driven approaches, and theory-driven approaches. Towards these goals, we leverage expertise in applied mathematics, computer science, computational biology, biophysics, biomechanics, engineering mechanics, experimentation, and medicine. Our multidisciplinary perspective suggests that integrating machine learning and multiscale modeling can provide new insights into disease mechanisms, help identify new targets and treatment strategies, and inform decision making for the benefit of human health

    Colour reconnection in e+e- -> W+W- at sqrt(s) = 189 - 209 GeV

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    The effects of the final state interaction phenomenon known as colour reconnection are investigated at centre-of-mass energies in the range sqrt(s) ~ 189-209 GeV using the OPAL detector at LEP. Colour reconnection is expected to affect observables based on charged particles in hadronic decays of W+W-. Measurements of inclusive charged particle multiplicities, and of their angular distribution with respect to the four jet axes of the events, are used to test models of colour reconnection. The data are found to exclude extreme scenarios of the Sjostrand-Khoze Type I (SK-I) model and are compatible with other models, both with and without colour reconnection effects. In the context of the SK-I model, the best agreement with data is obtained for a reconnection probability of 37%. Assuming no colour reconnection, the charged particle multiplicity in hadronically decaying W bosons is measured to be (nqqch) = 19.38+-0.05(stat.)+-0.08 (syst.).Comment: 30 pages, 9 figures, Submitted to Euro. Phys. J.

    Search for R-Parity Violating Decays of Scalar Fermions at LEP

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    A search for pair-produced scalar fermions under the assumption that R-parity is not conserved has been performed using data collected with the OPAL detector at LEP. The data samples analysed correspond to an integrated luminosity of about 610 pb-1 collected at centre-of-mass energies of sqrt(s) 189-209 GeV. An important consequence of R-parity violation is that the lightest supersymmetric particle is expected to be unstable. Searches of R-parity violating decays of charged sleptons, sneutrinos and squarks have been performed under the assumptions that the lightest supersymmetric particle decays promptly and that only one of the R-parity violating couplings is dominant for each of the decay modes considered. Such processes would yield final states consisting of leptons, jets, or both with or without missing energy. No significant single-like excess of events has been observed with respect to the Standard Model expectations. Limits on the production cross- section of scalar fermions in R-parity violating scenarios are obtained. Constraints on the supersymmetric particle masses are also presented in an R-parity violating framework analogous to the Constrained Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model.Comment: 51 pages, 24 figures, Submitted to Eur. Phys. J.

    Measurement of the Hadronic Photon Structure Function F_2^gamma at LEP2

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    The hadronic structure function of the photon F_2^gamma is measured as a function of Bjorken x and of the factorisation scale Q^2 using data taken by the OPAL detector at LEP. Previous OPAL measurements of the x dependence of F_2^gamma are extended to an average Q^2 of 767 GeV^2. The Q^2 evolution of F_2^gamma is studied for average Q^2 between 11.9 and 1051 GeV^2. As predicted by QCD, the data show positive scaling violations in F_2^gamma. Several parameterisations of F_2^gamma are in agreement with the measurements whereas the quark-parton model prediction fails to describe the data.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the proceedings of Photon 2001, Ascona, Switzerlan

    Modulation of the β-Catenin Signaling Pathway by the Dishevelled-Associated Protein Hipk1

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    BACKGROUND:Wnts are evolutionarily conserved ligands that signal through beta-catenin-dependent and beta-catenin-independent pathways to regulate cell fate, proliferation, polarity, and movements during vertebrate development. Dishevelled (Dsh/Dvl) is a multi-domain scaffold protein required for virtually all known Wnt signaling activities, raising interest in the identification and functions of Dsh-associated proteins. METHODOLOGY:We conducted a yeast-2-hybrid screen using an N-terminal fragment of Dsh, resulting in isolation of the Xenopus laevis ortholog of Hipk1. Interaction between the Dsh and Hipk1 proteins was confirmed by co-immunoprecipitation assays and mass spectrometry, and further experiments suggest that Hipk1 also complexes with the transcription factor Tcf3. Supporting a nuclear function during X. laevis development, Myc-tagged Hipk1 localizes primarily to the nucleus in animal cap explants, and the endogenous transcript is strongly expressed during gastrula and neurula stages. Experimental manipulations of Hipk1 levels indicate that Hipk1 can repress Wnt/beta-catenin target gene activation, as demonstrated by beta-catenin reporter assays in human embryonic kidney cells and by indicators of dorsal specification in X. laevis embryos at the late blastula stage. In addition, a subset of Wnt-responsive genes subsequently requires Hipk1 for activation in the involuting mesoderm during gastrulation. Moreover, either over-expression or knock-down of Hipk1 leads to perturbed convergent extension cell movements involved in both gastrulation and neural tube closure. CONCLUSIONS:These results suggest that Hipk1 contributes in a complex fashion to Dsh-dependent signaling activities during early vertebrate development. This includes regulating the transcription of Wnt/beta-catenin target genes in the nucleus, possibly in both repressive and activating ways under changing developmental contexts. This regulation is required to modulate gene expression and cell movements that are essential for gastrulation

    Neural representations of the sense of self

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    The brain constructs representations of what is sensed and thought about in the form of nerve impulses that propagate in circuits and network assemblies (Circuit Impulse Patterns, CIPs). CIP representations of which humans are consciously aware occur in the context of a sense of self. Thus, research on mechanisms of consciousness might benefit from a focus on how a conscious sense of self is represented in brain. Like all senses, the sense of self must be contained in patterns of nerve impulses. Unlike the traditional senses that are registered by impulse flow in relatively simple, pauci-synaptic projection pathways, the sense of self is a system- level phenomenon that may be generated by impulse patterns in widely distributed complex and interacting circuits. The problem for researchers then is to identify the CIPs that are unique to conscious experience. Also likely to be of great relevance to constructing the representation of self are the coherence shifts in activity timing relations among the circuits. Consider that an embodied sense of self is generated and contained as unique combinatorial temporal patterns across multiple neurons in each circuit that contributes to constructing the sense of self. As with other kinds of CIPs, those representing the sense of self can be learned from experience, stored in memory, modified by subsequent experiences, and expressed in the form of decisions, choices, and commands. These CIPs are proposed here to be the actual physical basis for conscious thought and the sense of self. When active in wakefulness or dream states, the CIP representations of self act as an agent of the brain, metaphorically as an avatar. Because the selfhood CIP patterns may only have to represent the self and not directly represent the inner and outer worlds of embodied brain, the self representation should have more degrees of freedom than subconscious mind and may therefore have some capacity for a free-will mind of its own. S everal lines of evidence for this theory are reviewed. Suggested new research includes identifying distinct combinatorially coded impulse patterns and their temporal coherence shifts in defined circuitry, such as neocortical microcolumns. This task might be facilitated by identifying the micro-topography of field-potential oscillatory coherences among various regions and between different frequencies associated with specific conscious mentation. Other approaches can include identifying the changes in discrete conscious operations produced by focal trans-cranial magnetic stimulation

    Cross-Coupling of α-carbonyl sulfoxonium ylides with C-H bonds

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    The functionalization of carbon-hydrogen bonds in non-nucleophilic substrates using α-carbonyl sulfoxonium ylides has not been so far investigated, despite the potential safety advantages that those reagents would provide over diazo compounds or their in situ precursors. We describe the cross-coupling reactions of sulfoxonium ylides with C(sp2)-H bond of arenes and heteroarenes in the presence of a rhodium catalyst. The reaction proceeds by a succession of C-H activation, migratory insertion of the ylide into the carbon-metal bond and protonation, the last step being turnover-limiting. The method is applied to the synthesis of benz[c]acridines when allied to an iridium-catalyzed dehydrative cyclization
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