Sequences of knots and their limits

Hyperfinite knots, or limits of equivalence classes of knots induced by a knot invariant taking values in a metric space, were introduced in a previous article by the author. In this article, we present new examples of hyperfinite knots stemming from sequences of torus knots

Enzymes in Food Processing: A Condensed Overview on Strategies for Better Biocatalysts

Food and feed is possibly the area where processing anchored in biological agents has the deepest roots. Despite this, process improvement or design and implementation of novel approaches has been consistently performed, and more so in recent years, where significant advances in enzyme engineering and biocatalyst design have fastened the pace of such developments. This paper aims to provide an updated and succinct overview on the applications of enzymes in the food sector, and of progresses made, namely, within the scope of tapping for more efficient biocatalysts, through screening, structural modification, and immobilization of enzymes. Targeted improvements aim at enzymes with enhanced thermal and operational stability, improved specific activity, modification of pH-activity profiles, and increased product specificity, among others. This has been mostly achieved through protein engineering and enzyme immobilization, along with improvements in screening. The latter has been considerably improved due to the implementation of high-throughput techniques, and due to developments in protein expression and microbial cell culture. Expanding screening to relatively unexplored environments (marine, temperature extreme environments) has also contributed to the identification and development of more efficient biocatalysts. Technological aspects are considered, but economic aspects are also briefly addressed

Economic cycles and term structure : application to Brazil

The objective of this work is to describe the behavior of the economiccycle in Brazil through Markov processes which can jointly model the slopefactor of the yield curve, obtained by the estimation of the Nelson-SiegelDynamic Model by the Kalman filter and a proxy variable for economicperformance, providing some forecasting measure for economic cycles

A study into loyalty-inducing programmes which do not induce loyalty

Motivated by the lack of evidence showing that loyalty programmes are successful in inducing switching costs, this paper offers an alternative rationale for their ubiquity. In a setting where two duopolists compete over price and over the value of a discount to hand to repeat-buyers, it is shown that though customers do not become locked-in, the firms will nevertheless find it in their interest to reward repeat buyers. Doing so weakens the competitive aggressiveness of its rivals. It is shown that prices, the discount offered by the firms and firms' profits are all increasing with the share of the frequent consumers.

Belgium’s 2008 recentralization of wage-setting mechanisms and the decentralization-unit labor costs-net exports link: Chronicle of a Death Foretold?

Anchored on scholarly literature on international competitiveness and the classical definition of competitiveness as net exports, policy making institutions support decentralized wage-setting mechanisms. The rationale is that decentralized wage-setting systems lower wages and unit labor costs (ULC) and, therefore, increase net exports. This paper contains a literature review on the wage-setting–ULC–net exports link and challenges conventional rationales by examining the co-evolution of Belgium’s real wages and net exports across wage percentiles and sectors. Belgium is a case in point, since the country experienced both increasing real wages and increasing net exports after recentralizing wage-setting mechanisms in 2008

Introduction of non-topological costs in syntactic analyses: the case of Gulbenkian estate

Space syntax is a set of theories and techniques for analysing urban settlements and buildings. Focused on the study of the configuration of convex spaces, space syntax is based on the concept of topological depth, that is, in the number of steps to go from some space (or axial line) to every other space in a spatial complex. Typically, non-topological costs like stairs, ramps, accentuated slopes or walls are not considered in space syntax analyses, or are incorporated in an insufficient fashion, namely, with the arbitrary introduction of axial lines in order to increase depth. This article proposes an innovative method to deal with these costs that uses logic programming with Prolog language. In this way, it is possible to better understand the relative segregation of the Gulbenkian estate within its urban environment, the city of Odivelas near Lisbon (Portugal), noting that it was the largest public housing estate built within the scope of the resettlement plan for those displaced by the great floods of November 25-26, 1967, established by the Ministry of Public Works and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in the late 1960s.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio