Rostering in a rail passenger carrier

In this paper we present an applied study, commissioned by the regional rail passenger carrier EuskoTren, into how the annual workload of drivers can be allocated in an egalitarian fashion. The allocation must meet the constraints arising from working conditions and the preferences of employees, as reflected in collective bargaining agreements. The workload varies over the five periods, into which the year is divided, and according to the day of the week. Moreover, not all morning, evening and night shifts are of equal duration. Reduced services on public holidays are also considered. The solution to the problem proposed is obtained in four linked steps, at each of which a binary programming problem is solved using commercial software. Step one is to build five lists of weekly multi-shift patterns, two of them rotating, that contain all the shifts in the week. Step two consists of the partially rotating annual assignment of patterns to drivers, step three involves the extraction of shifts by reduction of services on public holidays, and step four incorporates the durations in hours into the shifts already assigned. The final solution obtained is quite satisfactory: all drivers are assigned a similar number of morning, evening and night shifts and Sundays off, and they work practically the same number of days and hours per year. The results obtained, the adaptability of the system to new requirements and the computation time used are fully satisfactory to the firm, which has decided to implement the model.     

Analytical model for MPEG video frame loss rates and playback interruptions on packet networks

This paper presents and studies objective video quality evaluation techniques for a network where frame losses can be considered independent, for example a best effort not heavy loaded packet switching network. The total or partial loss of a frame’s information affects the quality of video playback, as the frame cannot be decoded and other frames that depend on it cannot be correctly decoded too. Therefore, during some time the video playback has errors in the image and the user will perceive them as interruptions. In this paper, the total number of decoded frames and the video playback interruptions duration will be considered important parameters to quantify the video quality. The analytical formulation for them will be presented and the importance of considering them together will be highlighted.     

SpiNNaker: Fault tolerance in a power- and area- constrained large-scale neuromimetic architecture

SpiNNaker is a biologically-inspired massively-parallel computer designed to model up to a billion spiking neurons in real-time. A full-fledged implementation of a SpiNNaker system will comprise more than 10⁵ integrated circuits (half of which are SDRAMs and half multi-core systems-on-chip). Given this scale, it is unavoidable that some components fail and, in consequence, fault-tolerance is a foundation of the system design. Although the target application can tolerate a certain, low level of failures, important efforts have been devoted to incorporate different techniques for fault tolerance. This paper is devoted to discussing how hardware and software mechanisms collaborate to make SpiNNaker operate properly even in the very likely scenario of component failures and how it can tolerate system-degradation levels well above those expected.     

Selenium,iodine, ω-3 PUFA and natural antioxidant from Melissa officinalis L.: A combination of components from healthier dry fermented sausages formulation

A new formulation of dry fermented sausage, including ingredients that improve the nutritional and health benefits of this type of product is presented. Se yeast (2 g/kg), iodized salt (26 g/kg), linseed:algae (3:2) emulsion (62.5 g/kg), and lyophilized water extract of Melissa officinalis L. as a source of natural antioxidants (686 mg/kg), yielded dry fermented sausages with technological and sensory properties similar to traditional ones.     

Protocol-agnostic method for monitoring interactivity time in remote desktop services

Multimedia Tools and Applications - The growing trend of desktop virtualisation has facilitated the reduction of management costs associated with traditional systems and access to services from...     

Proteomic Characterization of Plasma Rich in Growth Factors and Undiluted Autologous Serum

Over the last three decades, there has been special interest in developing drugs that mimic the characteristics of natural tears for use it in the treatment of several ocular surface disorders. Interestingly, the composition of blood plasma is very similar to tears. Therefore, different blood-derived products like autologous serum (AS) and plasma rich in growth factors (PRGF) have been developed for the treatment of diverse ocular pathologies. However, scarce studies have been carried out to analyze the differences between both types of blood-derived products. In the present study, blood from three healthy donors was drawn and processed to obtain AS and PRGF eye drops. Then, human corneal stromal keratocytes (HK) were treated with PRGF or undiluted AS. Proteomic analysis was carried out to analyze and characterize the differential protein profiles between PRGF and AS, and the differentially expressed proteins in HK cells after PRGF and AS treatment. The results obtained in the present study show that undiluted AS induces the activation of different pathways related to an inflammatory, angiogenic, oxidative stress and scarring response in HK cells regarding PRGF. These results suggest that PRGF could be a better alternative than AS for the treatment of ocular surface disorders.     

Textural Properties of Pork Frankfurters Containing Thermally/Enzymatically Modified Soy Proteins

ABSTRACT: Native, heated, and enzyme (Alcalase®, Flavourzyme™)-hydrolyzed soy protein isolates (SPI, 2%) were incorporated into pork frankfurters. Both heated and hydrolyzed SPIs improved product-cooking yield. The addition of heated and Alcalase-hydrolyzed SPIs produced a fine-stranded microstructure and improved frankfurter hardness, while addition of Flavourzyme-hydrolyzed SPI resulted in a more porous gel structure with reduced hardness, cohesiveness, and breaking strength. These results indicate that functional performance of SPI in frankfurters is critically affected by its pre-application treatment.     

Use of natural antioxidants from lyophilized water extracts of Borago officinalis in dry fermented sausages enriched in ω-3 PUFA

An evaluation of the capacity of a lyophilized water extract of borage leaves to delay the lipid oxidation process in dry fermented sausages enriched with ω-3 PUFAs has been performed. Lyophilized extract (340 ppm) showed an antioxidant capacity equivalent to 200 ppm of a butylhydroxyanisol (BHA) and butylhydroxytoluene (BHT) mixture. Two batches of dry fermented sausages enriched in ω-3 PUFA were developed. One of them was supplemented with a synthetic antioxidants mixture (200 ppm of BHA + BHT) and the other one with natural antioxidants (340 ppm of lyophilized water extract of borage leaves). Furthermore, a traditional formulation of this type of dry fermented sausage (Control), was also manufactured. The natural extract gave rise to lower amount of volatile compounds (including hexanal), than the mixture of synthetic antioxidants (2202 and 2713 ng dodecane/g dry matter, respectively). TBARS and Cholesterol Oxidation Products (COPs) did not show significant differences between products with different antioxidants. The sensorial analysis showed that lyophilized water extracts of borage leaves did not affect the sensorial properties of the products. From the economical and safety standpoints, the use of a by-product (borage leaves) and water as extracting solvent are valuable alternatives for obtaining natural antioxidants to be added to dry fermented sausages enriched in ω-3 PUFA.     

How do highly proficient bilinguals control their lexicalization process? Inhibitory and language-specific selection mechanisms are both functional.

The authors report 4 experiments exploring the language-switching performance of highly proficient bilinguals in a picture-naming task. In Experiment 1, they tested the impact of language similarity and age of 2nd language acquisition on the language-switching performance of highly proficient bilinguals. Experiments 2, 3, and 4 assessed the performance of highly proficient bilinguals in language-switching contexts involving (a) the 2nd language (L2) and the L3 of the bilinguals, (b) the L3 and the L4, and (c) the L1 and a recently learned new language. Highly proficient bilinguals showed symmetrical switching costs regardless of the age at which the L2 was learned and of the similarities of the 2 languages and asymmetrical switching costs when 1 of the languages involved in the switching task was very weak (an L4 or a recently learned language). The theoretical implications of these results for the attentional mechanisms used by highly proficient bilinguals to control their lexicalization process are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)