Use of Ontologies as Representation Support of Workflows Oriented to Administrative Management

One of the applications of workflow systems is the management of administrative processes characterized by the transmission of information elements among users of an organization. Tasks contained in these processes are carried out by users responsible for confirming, modifying or adding information throughout. These processes need to be defined in workflow management systems in which all the elements are perfectly identified and are easily adaptable to changes that may arise in the sequences of tasks, in the users involved or in the data transmitted from one task to another. For this kind of processes is easier to reuse those represented in ontologies. On one hand, existing ontologies for representing some domain elements can be reused. At the same time, ontologies have an excellent expressive capacity to define tasks, their relationships and the flow control among them with precision. This paper proposes a complete model, together with the necessary software tools, for tackling this issue.

Proteomic analysis in cerebrospinal fluid of patients with atypical nonketotic hyperglycinemia and pulmonary hypertension - A pilot study

A variant phenotype of nonketotic hyperglycinemia has been described by our group associated with pulmonary hypertension. The aim of this study is to investigate the cerebrospinal fluid proteomes to get an insight into this neurodegenerative process producing leukoencephalopathy with white matter spongiform degeneration. DIGE and MALDI-TOF-TOF analyses were performed to carry out the proteomic study of four patients against three normal controls and one additional control of a classical nonketotic hyperglycinemia. The differential proteomic analysis showed a displacement of some series of spots toward the acidic side. The shifted proteins showed a high degree of carbonylation and increased methionine sulfoxidation was found in cystatin C and in vitamin-D-binding protein. These findings in addition to the increase of serum malondialdehyde concentration provide evidence of an oxidative stress in the patients under study, which is probably systemic rather than mainly confined to the CNS. The similarities of our findings with those found in other neurodegenerative diseases suggest that oxidative damage is commonly involved in these pathologies. DIGE technology improves the 2-D PAGE differential analysis and it is suitable in proteomic studies with a small number of cases.     

High resolution CMOS current comparators: design and applications to current-mode function generation

This paper uses fundamental models to derive design conditions for maximum speed and resolution in CMOS transimpedance comparators. We distinguish two basic comparator architectures depending on whether the input sensing node is resistive or capacitive, and show that each type yields advantages for different ranges of input current. Then, we introduce a class of current comparator structures which use nonlinear sensing and/or feedback to combine the advantages of capacitive-input and resistive-input architectures. Two members of this class are presented demonstrating resolution levels (measured on silicon prototypes) in the range of pAs. They exhibit complementary functional features: one, the current steering comparator, displays better transient response in the very comparison function, while operation of the other, the current switch comparator, is easily extended to support systematic generation of nonlinear transfer functions in current domain. The paper explores also this latter extension, and presents current-mode circuit blocks for systematic generation of nonlinear functions based on piecewise-linear (PWL) approximation. Proposals made in the paper are demonstrated via CMOS prototypes in two single-poly CMOS n-well technologies: 2m and 1.6m. These prototypes show measured input current comparison range of 140 dB, resolution and offset below 10 pA, and operation speed two orders of magnitude better than that of conventional resistive-input circuits. Also, measurements from the PWL prototypes show excellent rectification properties (down to a few pAs) and small linearity errors (down to 0.13%).     

Equivalent-optical-waveguide model for the analysis of optical waveguides by means of an asymptotic effective-index method

We present a theoretical method that makes it possible to analyze three-dimensional (3-D) integrated optical waveguides with arbitrary refractive-index profiles. With this method it is easy to obtain effective indexes, propagation constants, and coupling-switching properties of planar and channel optical waveguides. This theoretical approach involves one's modeling the original optical waveguide by means of an equivalent optical waveguide whose effective index is evaluated by the application of a technique that we call the asymptotic effective-index method. The numerical values show good convergence and accuracy for effective indexes, propagation constants, and coupling-switching characteristics. Theoretical and experimental results are given.     

Microbial growth and biochemical changes on naturally contaminated chilled-beef subcutaneous adipose tissue stored aerobically

Naturally contaminated beef-brisket fat showed a psychrotroph count of 4 × 10(9) CFU/cm(2) after 14 days of aerobic refrigerated storage (5°C ± 1°C). Pseudomonas was the predominating genus. Other micro-organisms, such as Enterobacteriaceae and Brochothrix thermosphacta, grew up to 2·5 × 10(8) cfu/cm(2) and 1·6 × 10(8) cfu/cm(2), respectively. Concentrations of different substrates that could support microbial growth were measured. Glucose concentration dropped to approximately one-third of the initial level during the first week of storage. Lactic acid also declined. Free fatty acids increased significantly (P < 0·05) during refrigeration. However, other lipid-deterioration indices, such as the thiobarbituric acid number and the peroxide value, remained unchanged. Beef subcutaneous fat had a high initial microbial load and a capacity to support extensive bacterial growth. It may therefore constitute an important source of contamination for meat and manufactured meat products.     

Deterministic Polymorphic Engineering of MoTe2 for Photonic and Optoelectronic Applications

Developing selective and coherent polymorphic crystals at the nanoscale offers a novel strategy for designing integrated architectures for photonic and optoelectronic applications such as metasurfaces, optical gratings, photodetectors, and image sensors. Here, a direct optical writing approach is demonstrated to deterministically create polymorphic 2D materials by locally inducing metallic 1T′-MoTe₂ on the semiconducting 2H-MoTe₂ host layer. In the polymorphic-engineered MoTe₂, 2H- and 1T′- crystalline phases exhibit strong optical contrast from near-infrared to telecom-band ranges (1–1.5 µm), due to the change in the band structure and increase in surface roughness. Sevenfold enhancement of third harmonic generation intensity is realized with conversion efficiency (susceptibility) of ≈1.7 × 10⁻⁷ (1.1 × 10⁻¹⁹ m² V⁻²) and ≈1.7 × 10⁻⁸ (0.3 × 10⁻¹⁹ m² V⁻²) for 1T′ and 2H-MoTe₂, respectively at telecom-band ultrafast pump laser. Lastly, based on polymorphic engineering on MoTe₂, a Schottky photodiode with a high photoresponsivity of 90 AW⁻¹ is demonstrated. This study proposes facile polymorphic engineered structures that will greatly benefit realizing integrated photonics and optoelectronic circuits.     

Optimal Control of Nonlinear Systems Using Experience Inference Human-Behavior Learning

Safety critical control is often trained in a simulated environment to mitigate risk. Subsequent migration of the biased controller requires further adjustments. In this paper, an experience inference human-behavior learning is proposed to solve the migration problem of optimal controllers applied to real-world nonlinear systems. The approach is inspired in the complementary properties that exhibits the hippocampus, the neocortex, and the striatum learning systems located in the brain. The hippocampus defines a physics informed reference model of the real-world nonlinear system for experience inference and the neocortex is the adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) or reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm that ensures optimal performance of the reference model. This optimal performance is inferred to the real-world nonlinear system by means of an adaptive neocortex/striatum control policy that forces the nonlinear system to behave as the reference model. Stability and convergence of the proposed approach is analyzed using Lyapunov stability theory. Simulation studies are carried out to verify the approach.      

Stability and electronic properties of armchair boron nitride/carbon nanotubes

In this work are studied the electronic and structural properties of armchair boron nitride/carbon nanotubes using first principles calculations. The density functional within the generalized gradient approximation (HSEh1PBE-GGA) is used. For each composition, different bonding schemes for the construction of the hybrid systems were employed. Among them, structural stability with neutral charge was determined for the following compositions: T1: B₄₀N₃₅C₇₅H₂₀, T2: B₃₅N₄₀C₇₅H₂₀, T3: B₃₇N₃₈C₇₅H₂₀, T4 : B₃₇N₃₇C₇₆H₂₀, and T7: B₃₅N₃₅C₈₀H₂₀. All these hybrid nanotubes have high polarity; the T3, T4 and T7 are semiconductors: whereas T1 and T2 are conductor in character. The formers also have magnetic behavior. These properties together with a low-chemical potential suggest applications as nano-vehicle for drug delivery. These mixed nanotubes also have potential applications in the electronic devices based on the small work function.     

Criticality Analysis for Maintenance Purposes: A Study for Complex In‐service Engineering Assets

The purpose of this paper is to establish a basis for a criticality analysis, considered here as a prerequisite, a first required step to review the current maintenance programs, of complex in‐service engineering assets. Review is understood as a reality check, a testing of whether the current maintenance activities are well aligned to actual business objectives and needs. This paper describes an efficient and rational working process and a model resulting in a hierarchy of assets, based on risk analysis and cost–benefit principles, which will be ranked according to their importance for the business to meet specific goals. Starting from a multicriteria analysis, the proposed model converts relevant criteria impacting equipment criticality into a single score presenting the criticality level. Although detailed implementation of techniques like Root Cause Failure Analysis and Reliability Centered Maintenance will be recommended for further optimization of the maintenance activities, the reasons why criticality analysis deserves the attention of engineers and maintenance and reliability managers are precisely explained here. A case study is presented to help the reader understand the process and to operationalize the model. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.