An instrumented oven for the monitoring of thermal reactions during the baking of sponge cake

An electric convective oven was conceived and equipped to allow monitoring thermal reactions during the baking of sponge cake. High total heat fluxes of between 6000 and 9000 W m⁻² were recorded under baking temperatures of 140-200 °C. The mapping of thermal conditions indicated satisfactory thermal homogeneity, with average temperature variations of 5 °C and maximum relative variations of the convective heat transfer coefficient of 15% on the thermal domain investigated. Internal heat and mass transfers, the extent of thermal reactions within the sponge cake and repeatability of the baking operation were all characterized by experimental measurements. Some of the main operating variables were monitored in the cake (core and surface temperatures, moisture content, levels of chemical reactants and products) and others in the baking atmosphere (temperature, humidity and concentrations of volatile compounds). Specific non-disruptive sampling devices were designed to extract data from cakes and the oven atmosphere in order to follow the kinetics of thermal reactions during the baking operation. Three phases could be identified during baking, corresponding to the relative importance of conductive and evaporative internal heat transfer regimes and to macroscopic changes in the cake structure with formation of a crust. The progress of thermal reactions was monitored with satisfactory precision in both the cake and the baking vapors: relative standard deviations of 2% and 8.7% were obtained respectively for the water content and hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) content of three replicates during a baking operation.     

Robustness in Regulatory Interaction Networks. A Generic Approach with Applications at Different Levels: Physiologic, Metabolic and Genetic

Regulatory interaction networks are often studied on their dynamical side (existence of attractors, study of their stability). We focus here also on their robustness, that is their ability to offer the same spatiotemporal patterns and to resist to external perturbations such as losses of nodes or edges in the networks interactions architecture, changes in their environmental boundary conditions as well as changes in the update schedule (or updating mode) of the states of their elements (e.g., if these elements are genes, their synchronous coexpression mode versus their sequential expression). We define the generic notions of boundary, core, and critical vertex or edge of the underlying interaction graph of the regulatory network, whose disappearance causes dramatic changes in the number and nature of attractors (e.g., passage from a bistable behaviour to a unique periodic regime) or in the range of their basins of stability. The dynamic transition of states will be presented in the framework of threshold Boolean automata rules. A panorama of applications at different levels will be given: brain and plant morphogenesis, bulbar cardio-respiratory regulation, glycolytic/oxidative metabolic coupling, and eventually cell cycle and feather morphogenesis genetic control.     

The definition and measurement of job involvement.

The purpose of the present research was to define job involvement, develop a scale for measuring it, gather evidence on the reliability and validity of the scale, and to learn something about the nature of job involvement through its correlation with other job attitudes. This paper describes the development and validation of a scale measuring job involvement, the resulting scales, the relation between job involvement, and other job attitudes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Organizing Maintenance Work At Two American Nuclear Power Plants

Organizational strategies used by operations and maintenance personnel at two US nuclear power plants are compared with those described by the Berkeley group in their extensive high reliability organization studies. Using the method of strategic analysis, we show that the two organizations use quite different strategies in their search for reliability and effectiveness. The focus on the coordination of workers and structuring of tasks reveals areas not completely dealt with in previous HRO-related studies. It is argued that adopting a complementary approach in which elements of both methods are selectively applied may lead to an analytic framework of greater theoretical and explanatory power.     

Probability models of microcell coverage

Once a subscriber unit served by a microcell initiates a call, it must remain in the coverage area of the microcell long enough to complete call set up and hand-off functions. This restricts the minimum size attainable by a microcell. This paper derives the relationship between the microcell size, the call processing time, and the probability that a subscriber unit, initiating a call, will remain inside the microcell coverage area for at least the duration of call processing. Under simple assumptions, time spent in the coverage area of the microcellbefore andafter call initiation have the same cumulative density function, which is derived in this paper for traffic conditions encountered in highway and metropolitan settings.This paper is based on a contribution to the ETSI GSM2 Standards, Ronneby, Sweden, September 1991 [1].     

New metric for <Emphasis Type="Italic">IQ</Emphasis> imbalance compensation in optical QPSK coherent systems

We report on a simple alternative method for the compensation of quadrature imbalance in optical quadrature phase-shift-keying (QPSK) coherent systems. By introducing a new metric, the phase imbalance can be determined and compensated. The proposed method is theoretically and numerically analyzed. In particular, it is shown that the method exhibits a small bias of estimated phase imbalance value. Thanks to its deterministic property, this bias can be simply compensated by incorporating at the receiver a phase rotator (or phase shift) whose value can be determined based on an analytical analysis. Moreover, the algorithm is also experimentally validated through bit-error-rate and error vector magnitude (EVM) measurements. A good agreement on the performance of the proposed method with that of the Gram–Schmidt orthogonalization procedure is shown in a 20-Gbit/s optical QPSK experiment. The robustness of both methods was verified with up to \(30^\circ \) phase imbalance by comparing the signal with and without phase imbalance compensation. A 10% reduction in EVM is achieved with our method for a high phase imbalance of \(30^\circ \), while the implementation complexity can be reduced owing to the suppression of the use of square-root operators.     

Analyzing the influence of different synthetic talcs in waterborne polyurethane nanocomposites obtainment

Waterborne polyurethane (WPU) nanocomposites were produced utilizing synthetic talc in gel form in order to improve its physical–chemical properties. Synthetic talc manufactured in nano‐gel form are interesting because their interaction with water occurs through hydrogen bonding favoring fillers dispersion within the WPU matrix. WPUs are environmental friendly materials because no organic solvents are used in its production. The nanocomposites obtained with the three synthetic talc nano‐gel fillers presented a good dispersion even when higher amounts of fillers were added, as seen by X‐ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy analyses. The addition of synthetic talcs improved WPU nanocomposites mechanical properties. Storage and loss modulus results proved fillers incorporation into the WPU matrix corroborating with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy results. Results demonstrated that synthetic talcs in nano‐gel form are interesting to obtain WPU nanocomposites with superior mechanical properties. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2018 , 135, 46107.     

Causal modeling and inference for electricity markets

How does dynamic price information flow among Northern European electricity spot prices and prices of major electricity generation fuel sources? We use time series models combined with new advances in causal inference to answer these questions. Applying our methods to weekly Nordic and German electricity prices, and oil, gas and coal prices, with German wind power and Nordic water reservoir levels as exogenous variables, we estimate a causal model for the price dynamics, both for contemporaneous and lagged relationships. In contemporaneous time, Nordic and German electricity prices are interlinked through gas prices. In the long run, electricity prices and British gas prices adjust themselves to establish the equilibrium price level, since oil, coal, continental gas and EUR/USD are found to be weakly exogenous.     

Growth inhibition of wood-decay fungi by lignin-related aromatic compounds

European Journal of Wood and Wood Products - The relation between lignin-related structure and antifungal activities was assessed against the white-rot fungus Trametes versicolor and two brown-rot...