Locally perceived hard global constraints in multi-agenty schedulling

We propose how to model enterprise facilities (like factories, warehouses, etc.) in a multi-product production/distribution network, capacity management at those facilities, and scheduling agents which act as enterprise managers, taking decisions that affect the available capacity. A coordination mechanism through which scheduling agents can locally perceive hard global temporal constraints is also proposed

Thermodynamics of interacting systems: the role of the topology and collective effects

We will study a class of system composed of interacting quantum dots (QDs) placed in contact with a hot and cold thermal baths subjected to a non-conservative driving worksource. Despite their simplicity, these models showcase an intricate array of phenomena, including pump and heat engine regimes as well as a discontinuous phase transition. We will look at three distinctive topologies: a minimal and beyond minimal (homogeneous and heterogeneous interaction structures). The former case is represented by stark different networks ("all-to-all" interactions and only a central interacting to its neighbors) and present exact solutions, whereas homogeneous and heterogeneous structures have been analyzed by numerical simulations. We find that the topology plays a major role on the thermodynamic performance if the individual energies of the quantum dots are small, in part due to the presence of first-order phase-transitions. If the individual energies are large, the topology is not important and results are well-described by a system with all-to-all interactions.Comment: 11 pages, 12 figures (comments are welcome

Recovering capitalization and punctuation marks for automatic speech recognition: case study for Portuguese broadcast news

The following material presents a study about recovering punctuation marks, and capitalization information from European Portuguese broadcast news speech transcriptions. Different approaches were tested for capitalization, both generative and discriminative, using: finite state transducers automatically built from language models; and maximum entropy models. Several resources were used, including lexica, written newspaper corpora and speech transcriptions. Finite state transducers produced the best results for written newspaper corpora, but the maximum entropy approach also proved to be a good choice, suitable for the capitalization of speech transcriptions, and allowing straightforward on-the-fly capitalization. Evaluation results are presented both for written newspaper corpora and for broadcast news speech transcriptions. The frequency of each punctuation mark in BN speech transcriptions was analyzed for three different languages: English, Spanish and Portuguese. The punctuation task was performed using a maximum entropy modeling approach, which combines different types of information both lexical and acoustic. The contribution of each feature was analyzed individually and separated results for each focus condition are given, making it possible to analyze the performance differences between planned and spontaneous speech. All results were evaluated on speech transcriptions of a Portuguese broadcast news corpus. The benefits of enriching speech recognition with punctuation and capitalization are shown in an example, illustrating the effects of described experiments into spoken texts.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Challenges and opportunities of decarbonization for the economic recovery post-pandemic: The question of directionality in innovation policies

Countries face a double challenge of unprecedented scale consisting in drastically reducing carbon emissions in the time of a generation, while recovering the economy from the worst pandemic crisis in a century. Innovation is key in the response to this double challenge. Innovation policies are increasingly directed at achieving both goals, as governments seek opportunities for transforming the economic structure along with decarbonization. We raise the question of the effect of the direction in the success of the policies for the sustainability transition to achieve the economic transformation. We start by analyzing the processes of change in the economic structure. We identify three possible strategies of transformation: decarbonization, dematerialization and digitalization. Then we compare the evolution of the economic complexity of Portugal, which aspires to transform its economy, with that of three countries that are respectively reference in each one of the three strategies: Denmark, The Netherlands, and Ireland. Successful strategies evidence specialization in products that involve extensive and sophisticated knowledge, produced with high connectivity to other activities and with low carbon footprint. Based on these results and informed by the theory, we propose a set of conditions—related to the promotion of connectivity to growing sectors, high social return technologies and variety— that need to be aligned in the direction of the policies in order to increase their potential for transformative change.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Rethinking reusable resources

We address the common and recurring problem of data reuse, focusing on the following topics: (i) the current state of affairs (in particular, problems with data); (ii) requirements for change; (iii) the proposed solution (its problems and advantages, as well as related work in this area), including the canonical-, I/O-, and data transformation models; (iv) maintenance issues; (v) implementation and deployment aspects; (vi) conclusions and future directions, including results from work done so far and aspects that merit future work.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Obtaining efficient collisional engines via velocity dependent drivings

Brownian particles interacting sequentially with distinct temperatures and driving forces at each stroke have been tackled as a reliable alternative for the construction of engine setups. However they can behave very inefficiently depending on the driving used for the worksource and/or when temperatures of each stage are very different from each other. Inspired by some models for molecular motors and recent experimental studies, a coupling between driving and velocities is introduced as an alternative ingredient for enhancing the system performance. Here, the role of this new ingredient for levering the engine performance is detailed investigated from stochastic thermodynamics. Exact expressions for quantities and distinct maximization routes have been obtained and investigated. The search of an optimal coupling provides a substantial increase of engine performance (mainly efficiency), even for large $\Delta T$. A simple and general argument for the optimal coupling can be estimated, irrespective the driving and other model details.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, comments are welcom

Extending automatic transcripts in a unified data representation towards a prosodic-based metadata annotation and evaluation

This paper describes a framework that extends automatic speech transcripts in order to accommodate relevant information coming from manual transcripts, the speech signal itself, and other resources, like lexica. The proposed framework automatically collects, relates, computes, and stores all relevant information together in a self-contained data source, making it possible to easily provide a wide range of interconnected information suitable for speech analysis, training, and evaluating a number of automatic speech processing tasks. The main goal of this framework is to integrate different linguistic and paralinguistic layers of knowledge for a more complete view of their representation and interactions in several domains and languages. The processing chain is composed of two main stages, where the first consists of integrating the relevant manual annotations in the speech recognition data, and the second consists of further enriching the previous output in order to accommodate prosodic information. The described framework has been used for the identification and analysis of structural metadata in automatic speech transcripts. Initially put to use for automatic detection of punctuation marks and for capitalization recovery from speech data, it has also been recently used for studying the characterization of disfluencies in speech. It was already applied to several domains of Portuguese corpora, and also to English and Spanish Broadcast News corpora

Caracterização química e físico-química de novos híbridos de Maracujá Amarelo.

O maracujá pertence à ordem Passiflorales, família Passifloraceae, gênero Passiflora. No Brasil, existem cerca de 150 espécies nativas de maracujá. As espécies mais cultivadas no Brasil e no mundo são os maracujás amarelo (Passiflora edulis Sims f. flavicarpa Deg.), roxo (P. edulis f. edulis Sims), e doce (Passiflora alata Curtis), sendo a última de grande ocorrência silvestre no Brasil (Junqueira, 2006)

Sensory analysis and consumers studies of açai beverage after thermal, chlorine and ozone treatments of the fruits.

Açai is a fruit of the Amazon region consumed as beverage, pulp, and other products, being exported to many countries because of its peculiar characteristic flavor and antioxidant power potential. For Açai there is still a need for improving sanitizing processes, making it more effective, reducing the microbiological contamination without affecting either the physicochemical and sensory characteristics of final product. Thermal (blanching at 80 and 90C) and nonthermal treatments (150 mg/L-1 chlorination and 4 mg/L-1 aqueous ozonation) were applied to fruits in order to evaluated their anthocyanins content and also processed beverages for coloring, sensory characteristics, and their purchase intentions. Ozonated fruits exhibited less anthocyanins content and beverage originated from this process showed higher color difference from the traditional beverage. Consumers could not distinguish among beverages processed thermally and sanitized by chlorination. Beverage from blanched fruits in both temperatures obtained good notes and positive purchase intention