Wine Fining with Plant Proteins

: Fining treatments involve the addition of a substance or a mixture to wine, and are generally carried out in order to clarify, stabilize or modify the wine\u2019s organoleptic characteristics. Usually these fining agents will bind the target compound(s) to form insoluble aggregates that are subsequently removed from the wine. The main reasons to perform wine fining treatments are to carry out wine clarification, stabilization and to remove phenolic compounds imparting unwanted sensory characteristics on the wine, which is an operation that often relies on the use of animal proteins, such as casein, gelatin, egg and fish proteins. However, due to the allergenic potential of these animal proteins, there is an increasing interest in developing alternative solutions including the use of fining proteins extracted from plants (e.g., proteins from cereals, grape seeds, potatoes, legumes, etc.), and non-proteinaceous plant-based substances (e.g., cell wall polysaccharides and pomace materials). In this article, the state of the art alternative fining agents of plant origins are reviewed for the first time, including considerations of their organoleptic and technological effects on wine, and of the allergenic risks that they can pose for consumer

Efficient sharing mechanisms for virtualized multi-tenant heterogeneous networks

The explosion in data traffic, the physical resource constraints, and the insufficient financial incentives for deploying 5G networks, stress the need for a paradigm shift in network upgrades. Typically, operators are also the service providers, which charge the end users with low and flat tariffs, independently of the service enjoyed. A fine-scale management of the network resources is needed, both for optimizing costs and resource utilization, as well as for enabling new synergies among network owners and third-parties. In particular, operators could open their networks to third parties by means of fine-scale sharing agreements over customized networks for enhanced service provision, in exchange for an adequate return of investment for upgrading their infrastructures. The main objective of this thesis is to study the potential of fine-scale resource management and sharing mechanisms for enhancing service provision and for contributing to a sustainable road to 5G. More precisely, the state-of-the-art architectures and technologies for network programmability and scalability are studied, together with a novel paradigm for supporting service diversity and fine-scale sharing. We review the limits of conventional networks, we extend existing standardization efforts and define an enhanced architecture for enabling 5G networks' features (e.g., network-wide centralization and programmability). The potential of the proposed architecture is assessed in terms of flexible sharing and enhanced service provision, while the advantages of alternative business models are studied in terms of additional profits to the operators. We first study the data rate improvement achievable by means of spectrum and infrastructure sharing among operators and evaluate the profit increase justified by a better service provided. We present a scheme based on coalitional game theory for assessing the capability of accommodating more service requests when a cooperative approach is adopted, and for studying the conditions for beneficial sharing among coalitions of operators. Results show that: i) collaboration can be beneficial also in case of unbalanced cost redistribution within coalitions; ii) coalitions of equal-sized operators provide better profit opportunities and require lower tariffs. The second kind of sharing interaction that we consider is the one between operators and third-party service providers, in the form of fine-scale provision of customized portions of the network resources. We define a policy-based admission control mechanism, whose performance is compared with reference strategies. The proposed mechanism is based on auction theory and computes the optimal admission policy at a reduced complexity for different traffic loads and allocation frequencies. Because next-generation services include delay-critical services, we compare the admission control performances of conventional approaches with the proposed one, which proves to offer near real-time service provision and reduced complexity. Besides, it guarantees high revenues and low expenditures in exchange for negligible losses in terms of fairness towards service providers. To conclude, we study the case where adaptable timescales are adopted for the policy-based admission control, in order to promptly guarantee service requirements over traffic fluctuations. In order to reduce complexity, we consider the offline pre­computation of admission strategies with respect to reference network conditions, then we study the extension to unexplored conditions by means of computationally efficient methodologies. Performance is compared for different admission strategies by means of a proof of concept on real network traces. Results show that the proposed strategy provides a tradeoff in complexity and performance with respect to reference strategies, while reducing resource utilization and requirements on network awareness.La explosion del trafico de datos, los recursos limitados y la falta de incentivos para el desarrollo de 5G evidencian la necesidad de un cambio de paradigma en la gestion de las redes actuales. Los operadores de red suelen ser tambien proveedores de servicios, cobrando tarifas bajas y planas, independientemente del servicio ofrecido. Se necesita una gestion de recursos precisa para optimizar su utilizacion, y para permitir nuevas sinergias entre operadores y proveedores de servicios. Concretamente, los operadores podrian abrir sus redes a terceros compartiendolas de forma flexible y personalizada para mejorar la calidad de servicio a cambio de aumentar sus ganancias como incentivo para mejorar sus infraestructuras. El objetivo principal de esta tesis es estudiar el potencial de los mecanismos de gestion y comparticion de recursos a pequei\a escala para trazar un camino sostenible hacia el 5G. En concreto, se estudian las arquitecturas y tecnolog fas mas avanzadas de "programabilidad" y escalabilidad de las redes, junto a un nuevo paradigma para la diversificacion de servicios y la comparticion de recursos. Revisamos los limites de las redes convencionales, ampliamos los esfuerzos de estandarizacion existentes y definimos una arquitectura para habilitar la centralizacion y la programabilidad en toda la red. La arquitectura propuesta se evalua en terminos de flexibilidad en la comparticion de recursos, y de mejora en la prestacion de servicios, mientras que las ventajas de un modelo de negocio alternativo se estudian en terminos de ganancia para los operadores. En primer lugar, estudiamos el aumento en la tasa de datos gracias a un uso compartido del espectro y de las infraestructuras, y evaluamos la mejora en las ganancias de los operadores. Presentamos un esquema de admision basado en la teoria de juegos para acomodar mas solicitudes de servicio cuando se adopta un enfoque cooperativo, y para estudiar las condiciones para que la reparticion de recursos sea conveniente entre coaliciones de operadores. Los resultados ensei\an que: i) la colaboracion puede ser favorable tambien en caso de una redistribucion desigual de los costes en cada coalicion; ii) las coaliciones de operadores de igual tamai\o ofrecen mejores ganancias y requieren tarifas mas bajas. El segundo tipo de comparticion que consideramos se da entre operadores de red y proveedores de servicios, en forma de provision de recursos personalizada ya pequei\a escala. Definimos un mecanismo de control de trafico basado en polfticas de admision, cuyo rendimiento se compara con estrategias de referencia. El mecanismo propuesto se basa en la teoria de subastas y calcula la politica de admision optima con una complejidad reducida para diferentes cargas de trafico y tasa de asignacion. Con particular atencion a servicios 5G de baja latencia, comparamos las prestaciones de estrategias convencionales para el control de admision con las del metodo propuesto, que proporciona: i) un suministro de servicios casi en tiempo real; ii) una complejidad reducida; iii) unos ingresos elevados; y iv) unos gastos reducidos, a cambio de unas perdidas insignificantes en terminos de imparcialidad hacia los proveedores de servicios. Para concluir, estudiamos el caso en el que se adoptan escalas de tiempo adaptables para el control de admision, con el fin de garantizar puntualmente los requisitos de servicio bajo diferentes condiciones de trafico. Para reducir la complejidad, consideramos el calculo previo de las estrategias de admision con respecto a condiciones de red de referenda, adaptables a condiciones inexploradas por medio de metodologias computacionalmente eficientes. Se compara el rendimiento de diferentes estrategias de admision sobre trazas de trafico real. Los resultados muestran que la estrategia propuesta equilibra complejidad y ganancias, mientras se reduce la utilizacion de recursos y la necesidad de conocer el estado exacto de la red.Postprint (published version

Chapter Monitoring coastal areas: a brief history of measuring instruments for solar radiation

The first measuring instruments of solar radiation, for meteorological aims, were made only in 1800s. In 1896 OMI established a commission for radiometry which led, in 1905, to choose Ångström pyrheliometer as standard instrument. Later, radiometers were built with a chart recorder for measuring solar radiation components. Instruments using thermopile or photocell as sensitive element were made. From 1980s radiometers with data logger were built. In 2000s devices were developed for measuring solar radiation components in water column, for studies on physical and biological marine quantities

Probabilità e integrali di percorso

In questo elaborato tratteremo principalmente il concetto di Integrale di Percorso e come si applichi alla Meccanica Quantistica. In particolare seguiremo il modus operandi di Feynman e Hibbs, cercando quindi di evidenziare uno dei maggiori vantaggi di questo processo di calcolo, ossia la capacità di prestarsi bene all’analisi delle leggi fisiche che governano i fenomeni, più che alla loro interpretazione matematica. Inizieremo studiando la variazione nel concetto di probabilità di un evento tra la Fisica Classica e la Meccanica Quantistica. Poi procederemo introducendo l’Integrale di Percorso, che è una notazione particolare del concetto di Somma su tutti i percorsi, e mostrando alcune sue applicazioni semplici. Termineremo infine cercando di illustrare come i risultati a problemi quantistici ottenuti con gli Integrali di Percorso si riconducano a quelli ricavati partendo dall’Equazione di Schroedinger

A Novel Method for the Quantification of White Wine Mannoproteins by a Competitive Indirect Enzyme-Linked Lectin Sorbent Assay (CI-ELLSA)

Mannoproteins (MPs) are cell wall proteoglycans released in wine by yeast during fermentation and ageing on lees, a procedure used for the production of several wines to enrich them in these components with consequences from both a technological and sensory point of view. Given the significance that wine MPs have for wine quality, winemakers would welcome a simple and accurate method for their quantification, as this would allow them to have a better control of this aspect at different winemaking stages. This study develops and validates a novel, simple and accurate method for MPs quantification in white wines based on a competitive indirect enzyme-linked lectin sorbent assay (CI-ELLSA), using the highly mannosylated yeast invertase as the standard. The method utilizes the lectin concanavalin A (ConA) as the immobilized ligand for MPs, and peroxidase, an enzyme rich in mannose, as the competitor for ConA. After addition of the peroxidase substrate, the intensity of the signal produced by the activity of this enzyme (absorbance at 450 nm) is inversely proportional to the amount of mannosylated proteins in the sample. Results have been validated on several wine styles including still, sparkling and sweet wines

Requirements and modelling of fast particle injection in RFX-mod tokamak plasmas

The planned upgrade of the RFX-mod device is a good opportunity to widen the operational space of the machine, in both RFP and tokamak configurations. Installation of a power neutral beam injector is also envisaged and a NB system compatible with RFX-mod, formerly installed in TPE-RX, is already available on site. In this work, the METIS simulator is used to study the feasibility of TPE-RX injector integration in RFX-mod circular tokamak plasmas. METIS code allows the simulation of a full tokamak discharge, with the addition of the neutral beam injection (NBI) which, in METIS, is described by a decay equation applied in a simplified geometry and an analytical solution of the Fokker\u2013Planck equation. In this work, RFX-mod scenarios with NBI have been studied, with careful attention to the beam absorption and plasma response to the additional heating

Protein evolution in white wine during winemaking

Background and Aims: Grape proteins are responsible for the appearance of haziness in white wines during storage after bottling. However, only a few studies have approached the analysis of the fate of must proteins throughout the alcoholic fermentation. This study aimed to systematically investigate the daily variations in protein type and content during the fermentation in order to understand its influence on hazing potential and to attain some basic information to improve the practical management of grape proteins involved in the hazing of white wines. Methods and Results: The evolution of total soluble protein and individual protein fractions was studied in samples taken before, during and after alcoholic fermentation of a white grape must. The results were then related to variations in protein instability as measured by the heat test. Both the quantity of soluble protein and the protein instability increased during fermentation and then decreased after 1-month storage of the wine. Protein composition did not vary during fermentation as assessed by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and anion exchange chromatography (AEC). However, variations in the relative proportions of the six protein fractions obtainable by AEC were noted in the different samples. The contribution of each AEC protein fraction to wine instability was determined by considering both the intrinsic instability and the relative quantity of each of the individual protein fractions in the wine. It was demonstrated that the grape thaumatin-like protein VVTL1, as identified by mass spectrometry, showed the largest increase during fermentation and accounted for almost 40% of the heat-induced haze of the final wine. Moreover, the decreased protein instability noted after one month storage of the wine could be attributed to the stabilizing effect of polysaccharides released by the yeast cells. Conclusions: The quantity and relative proportion of soluble proteins vary during and after the alcoholic fermentation, as does their heat instability in wine. Grape VVTL1, constituting a large proportion of the total proteins in wine, seems to play a major role in protein haze formation. The release of yeast polysaccharides is related to an increased heat stability of total wine protein, despite the increase in the relative proportion of their most unstable component VVTL1. Therefore, the hazing potential of a white wine seems to be affected by variations in the relative proportions of its macromolecular components occurring in the early stages of winemaking. Significance of the Study: This study addressed for the first time the issue of the protein changing during the fermentation of white wine. The results obtained here offer useful information to aid understanding of the contribution of individual proteins to white wine instability, which can be applied for the improvement of the winemaking process. Abbreviations AEC anion-exchange chromatography; KDS potassium dodecyl sulfate; MS mass spectrometry; MW molecular weight, PAS periodic acid-Schiff stain, PR-proteins pathogenesis-related proteins, RT retention time, SDS-PAGE sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, TL thaumatin-like, VVTL1 Vitis vinifera thaumatin-like protei

Maximizing Infrastructure Providers' Revenue Through Network Slicing in 5G

Adapting to recent trends in mobile communications towards 5G, infrastructure owners are gradually modifying their systems for supporting the network programmability paradigm and for participating in the slice market (i.e., dynamic leasing of virtual network slices to service providers). Two-fold are the advantages offered by this upgrade: i) enabling next generation services, and ii) allowing new profit opportunities. Many efforts exist already in the field of admission control, resource allocation and pricing for virtualized networks. Most of the 5G-related research efforts focus in technological enhancements for making existing solutions compliant to the strict requirements of next generation networks. On the other hand, the profit opportunities associated to the slice market also need to be reconsidered in order to assess the feasibility of this new business model. Nonetheless, when economic aspects are studied in the literature, technical constraints are generally oversimplified. For this reason, in this work, we propose an admission control mechanism for network slicing that respects 5G timeliness while maximizing network infrastructure providers' revenue, reducing expenditures and providing a fair slice provision to competing service providers. To this aim, we design an admission policy of reduced complexity based on bid selection, we study the optimal strategy in different circumstances (i.e., pool size of available resources, service providers' strategy and trafic load), analyze the performance metrics and compare the proposal against reference approaches. Finally, we explore the case where infrastructure providers lease network slices either on-demand or on a periodic time basis and provide a performance comparison between the two approaches. Our analysis shows that the proposed approach outperforms existing solutions, especially in the case of infrastructures with large pool of resources and under intense trafic conditions.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Timely admission control for network slicing in 5G with machine learning

© 2021 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.For guaranteeing the strict requirements foreseen for 5G, network slicing has been proposed as a dynamic and scalable mechanism for the allocation of customized resources to service providers. Many solutions have been proposed in the literature for the scenario where multiple service providers share the same pool of resources, while the exclusive allocation to different providers is still an open issue due to the associated complexity. In this work, we define a policy-based admission mechanism for exclusive intraservice slice allocation, at fine and adaptable timescales. In particular, we consider the case where optimal admission strategies are pre-computed offline for network state conditions that are representative of typical traffic loads and resource availability. This offline phase is also used to train a Machine learning algorithm; a neural network (NN) learns the best admission policies from a more computationally expensive mechanism in previously studied network conditions. Thus, the NN is used for providing near-optimal admission decisions at runtime under network conditions for which no optimal policy has been computed. The potential of the 5G marketplace in terms of revenue and quality of service is demonstrated for the particular case of services with strict latency constraints by means of a proof of concept tested over network traces from a real network operator. Different strategies are compared for the computation of the admission strategies and results are provided in terms of efficiency in resource utilization, fairness to the service providers, network owners’ revenue and complexity. This study confirms the feasibility of a policy-based approach for exclusive intra-service resource allocation, especially if computationally-efficient mechanisms are adopted in the case of missing information about network states.This work was supported in part by the EU Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (5GAuRA) under Grant 675806, and in part by the Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca del Departament d’Empresa i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya under Grant 2017 SGR 376.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Simposio per Immagini. Sesto Simposio Internazionale Il monitoraggio costiero mediterraneo: problematiche e tecniche di misura

Il volume è un appendice del VI Simposio "Il Monitoraggio Costiero Mediterraneo: problematiche e tecniche di misura" ed è curato da Gianni Fasano e Alessandro Materassi Vengono illustrate le attività scientifico-culturali svolte in concomitate dell'Evento Nel Volume sono presenti contributi di Paola Baldari, Antonio Raschi, Alessandra Potenti, Laura Pellegrino, Matteo De Vincenzi, Francesca Giampaolo