Economic simulation of biodiesel production: SIMB-E tool

Recently biodiesel has been receiving increasing attention as an alternative fuel due to its environmental benefits. It is derived from renewable sources which are considered as strategic opportunities to favor environmental sustainability, to improve the population's quality of life and to promote the development of more efficient and equitable economic systems. Besides technical aspects, economics feasibility is also of great importance to access the biodiesel production viability. This paper traces the development of a software tool capable of performing economic analysis of different biodiesel plants considering the contemporary industry practices. The economic indexes considered during the analysis are the net present value (NVP), the Benefit–Costs Ratio (BCR), the Capital Return Time (CRT) and the Internal Rate of Return (IRR). Fixed capital costs, operating costs, depreciation, and auxiliary costs are also taken into account for the economic calculations.     

Virtual networks: isolation, performance, and trends

Currently, there is a strong effort of the research community in rethinking the Internet architecture to cope with its current limitations and support new requirements. Many researchers conclude that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for all of the user and network provider needs and thus advocate for a pluralist network architecture, which allows the coexistence of different protocol stacks running at the same time over the same physical substrate. In this paper, we investigate the advantages and limitations of the virtualization technologies for creating a pluralist environment for the Future Internet. We analyze two types of virtualization techniques, which provide multiple operating systems running on the same hardware, represented by Xen, or multiple network flows on the same switch, represented by OpenFlow. First, we define the functionalities needed by a Future Internet virtual network architecture and how Xen and OpenFlow provide them. We then analyze Xen and OpenFlow in terms of network programmability, processing, forwarding, control, and scalability. Finally, we carry out experiments with Xen and OpenFlow network prototypes, identifying the overhead incurred by each virtualization tool by comparing it with native Linux. Our experiments show that OpenFlow switch forwards packets as well as native Linux, achieving similar high forwarding rates. On the other hand, we observe that the high complexity involving Xen virtual machine packet forwarding limits the achievable packet rates. There is a clear trade-off between flexibility and performance, but we conclude that both Xen and OpenFlow are suitable platforms for network virtualization.     

Modeling and simulation of breakthrough curves during purification of two chitosanases from Metarhizium anisopliae using ion-exchange with expanded bed adsorption chromatography

A mathematical model was developed to predict breakthrough curves during purification of the two chitosanases from Metarhizium anisopliae by expanded bed adsorption, taking into account the axial dispersion of liquid and using Streamline DEAE and SP XL adsorbents, anion and cation exchange resins, respectively. All the experiments were performed without clarification (with cells) aiming at the reduction of unit operations in future projects of separation processes, thereby reducing capital and operating costs. Chitosanases are enzymes that hydrolyze the carbohydrate chitosan, resulting in oligosaccharides that have many remarkable biological activities, such as anti-cancer, anti-HIV and antioxidant activities. The two adsorbents had similar performance in relation to hydrodynamics and mass transfer. The results of the parametric sensitivity analysis agree with the literature, and the model was validated with an average high degree of fit (94.68%) between simulated and experimental data obtained in this work.     

Insight on the periodate oxidation of dextran and its structural vicissitudes

Periodate oxidized dextran has been widely studied in a broad range of biotechnological applications, regardless of this, usually little attention is paid to the oxidation extension consequences on the properties of the final modified dextran. Based on a bidimensional NMR analysis, we suggest that the two aldehydes groups, resulting from the periodate oxidation, are not fully reactive with N-nucleophiles, under certain pH conditions. The aldehyde group bonded to C₃ appeared to be the only prone to react. The other aldehyde might be arrested in more stable hemiacetal structures. The hemiacetals are also responsible for oxidized dextran crosslinking, interfering in simple processing steps, such as dissolution and solubility, as well as increasing the viscosity of the solutions. The molecular weight variation on the oxidized samples can be followed by dynamic mechanical thermal analysis in consequence of the variation of glass transition temperature with the molecular weight, which was corroborated by the onset temperature of the thermal degradation.     

Clays for polymeric nanocomposites

We discuss test methods and results for determining individual clay platelets shape, size, size distribution, elemental composition, and impurities. Commercial sodium salt varieties of natural, semisynthetic and synthetic clay (Cloisite®‐Na⁺, Somasif ME‐100, and Topy‐Na⁺, respectively) were analyzed. In this international collaboration, eight laboratories on three continents carried out the work within the VAMAS TWA‐33 activities. There are large differences between the three nanofillers as far as: (1) the platelet orthogonal dimensions, (2) chemical composition, and (3) contaminants (their diversity and quantity) are concerned. Elaborate purification of natural clays leaves behind 2–5 wt% of organic and mineral impurities, whose nature, shape, size, and chemistry depend on the clay origin. These contaminants affect nanocomposite performance, thus controlling their composition and quantity is essential. The article describes the developed methods, summarizes the preliminary results, discusses the encountered difficulties, and proposes methods for solving them. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2011. © 2011 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Novel strategies for sparse regenerator placement in translucent optical networks

In this paper, we propose two strategies for sparse regenerator placement (RP) in translucent optical networks, named most used regenerator placement (MU-RP), and most simultaneous used regenerator placement (MSU-RP). Our proposals are compared to well known RP algorithms presented in literature for two different network topologies for different network loads, distribution of load along the networks and number of translucent nodes. MSU-RP presented remarkable results and outperformed all previous approaches in all cases, while MSU-RP obtained a slightly superior or similar performance when compared to previous approaches presented in the literature.     

Effects of signal power control strategies and wavelength assignment algorithms on circuit OSNR in WDM networks

Software-defined networking is enabling wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) networks to be programmable down to individual components. While taking into account typical gain and noise figure profiles of erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) components, the authors consider a number of signal power control strategies and compare their performance in terms of achievable lightpath optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR). These strategies are applied network-wide to concurrently control the gain of each individual amplifier and the signal power equalization at each reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer. Simulation and (in part) experimental results show that the lightpath OSNR is affected by three factors: the EDFA gain control strategy, power equalization strategy and wavelength assignment (WA) algorithm. A trade-off between lightpath average OSNR and OSNR variance across the WDM channels is also noted. Experimental work is conducted using a five-node meshed WDM network testbed proving both feasibility and effectiveness of a coordinated use of signal power control strategies and WA algorithms.     

Green Cloud Meta-Scheduling

This article aims to evaluate the flexibility of GreenMACC (Metascheduling Green Architecture to Provide Quality of Service in Cloud Computing). The GreenMACC has a module called LRAM (Local Resource Allocation Manager) to automate the execution of all scheduling policies implemented in the architecture. This module enables the Meta-scheduler automatically adjust for each type of service requested by the user of a private cloud. Due to this function, can be ensure the most appropriate behavior to the principles of GreenIT while worrying about the quality of service. In this paper is shown the importance of the LRAM on GreenMACC. This article is also shown how to include a new policy in GreenMACC in a way that identifies the LRAM and automatically use. Through the performance evaluation of the new policy included it could be concluded that the GreenMACC is a flexible, reliable architecture and the LRAM module enables the automation of choosing the best scheduling mechanism in a private cloud.     

Improvement of storage stability and physicochemical properties by addition of benzoguanamine in melamine‐formaldehyde resin synthesis

The improvement of melamine‐formaldehyde resin storage stability was achieved using benzoguanamine as partial replacement of melamine during synthesis (up to 15% substitution of melamine). The results showed that when benzoguanamine is added in the later stages of reaction, the resulting resins have improved storage stability (4 days or more, compared to 1 day in unmodified melamine‐formaldehyde resin). High‐pressure laminates produced with décor paper impregnated with the new developed resins showed surface properties equivalent to those obtained using commercial melamine‐formaldehyde resins. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2017 , 134, 45185.