In-vitro iron dialysability from legumes: Influence of phytate and extrusion cooking

In-vitro iron dialysability from five Italian legumes (mottled bean, white bean, faba bean, chickpea, lentil) and the influence of phytate and extrusion cooking on it were evaluated. Iron dialysability was 2·3 and 2·4% in mottled and white bean respectively, 1·2% infaba bean, 2·7% in chickpea and 1·1% in lentil. After extrusion cooking the flours showed a marked iron contamination and a decrease in iron dialysability, but these changes were significant only for mottled bean. Enzymic phytate removal induced an increase in iron dialysability > 100% in all the raw legumes except mottled bean which showed an increase of only 57%. This finding indicates that, although phytate consistently modifies iron dialysability, it is difficult to identify a quantitative relationship between phytate content and iron dialysability.     

Irreversible refrigerators with isothermal heat exchanges: Réfrigérateurs irréversibles avecéchanges thermiques isotherms

A maximum for the coefficient of performance (COP_f) is verified for a temperature difference between reservoirs and the hot isotherm of a closed irreversible cyclical refrigerator working at steady-state conditions. A maximum also exists when the COP_f is considered as a function only of a parameter depending on the thermal characteristics of the heat exchangers. The influence of the parameter and entropy generation on the COP_f maxima is described.     

Designing Templates for Mining Association Rules

Current approaches to data mining usually address specific userrequests, while no general design criteria for the extraction of associationrules are available for the end-user. In this paper, we propose aclassification of association rule types, which provides a general frameworkfor the design of association rule mining applications. Based on theidentified association rule types, we introduce predefined templates as ameans to capture the user specification of mining applications. Furthermore,we propose a general language to design templates for the extraction ofarbitrary association rule types.     

Saw and digital technologies in mutlicarrier demodulators

One key technology, for the implementation of future on-board processing payloads, is the multicarrier demodulator (MCD). The MCD is instrumental in allowing FDMA/TDM access schemes which optimize the use of on-board and ground resources in VSAT networks. This paper deals with the analogue and digital implementations of MCD, trying to assess the fields of application of each of the two technologies.     

Variable-gain up-converter with current reuse for 5-GHz WLAN applications

A variable-gain up-conversion mixer for 5-GHz WLAN applications is presented, whose input stage is based on a novel variable gain transconductor. The proposed topology features reduced power consumption by exploiting dc current reuse for mixer biasing. Moreover, a new low-consumption control circuit is introduced, which achieves a temperature-stable and linear-in-dB characteristic, providing a 40-dB dynamic range within ±1 dB gain error.     

Two-Way Protocol with Imperfect Devices

The security of a deterministic quantum scheme for communication, namely the LM05 [1], is studied in presence of a lossy channel under the assumption of imperfect generation and detection of single photons. It is shown that the scheme allows for a rate of distillable secure bits higher than that pertaining to BB84 [2]. We report on a first implementation of LM05 with weak pulses.     

Near optimal solutions to least-squares problems with stochastic uncertainty

In this paper, we consider least-squares (LS) problems where the regression data is affected by parametric stochastic uncertainty. In this setting, we study the problem of minimizing the expected value with respect to the uncertainty of the LS residual. For general nonlinear dependence of the data on the uncertain parameters, determining an exact solution to this problem is known to be computationally prohibitive. Here, we follow a probabilistic approach, and determine a probable near optimal solution by minimizing the empirical mean of the residual. Finite sample convergence of the proposed method is assessed using statistical learning methods. In particular, we prove that if one constructs the empirical approximation of the mean using a finite number N of samples, then the minimizer of this empirical approximation is, with high probability, an ε-suboptimal solution for the original problem. Moreover, this approximate solution can be efficiently determined numerically by a standard recursive algorithm. Comparisons with gradient algorithms for stochastic optimization are also discussed in the paper and several numerical examples illustrate the proposed methodology.     

Transmission line routing for reduced external field disturbance

When immersed in a disturbing electromagnetic field, electronic systems are subject to interference due to the energy injected by the external field into the system through the electronic units and, especially, through the transmission lines connecting units one another. The issue of reducing the unwanted energy injection through connecting transmission lines is addressed in this contribution from the point of view of the routing, i.e. of the disposition of the connecting lines that minimizes the injection. The problem is formulated as an optimization problem, dealt with by the simulated annealing minimization technique combined with an efficient way of computing the field coupling to the lines. Results are reported for various cases, and the relation between the characteristics of the interfering field and the efficiency of the reduction is discussed.     

A VLSI structure forX(modm) operation

High-computing speed and modularity have made RNS-based arithmetic processors attractive for a long time, especially in signal processing, where additions and multiplications are very frequent. The VLSI technology renewed this interest because RNS-based circuits are becoming more feasible; however, intermodular operations degradate their performance and a great effort results on this topic. In this paper, we deal with the problem of performing the basic operationX(modm), that is the remainder of the integer divisionX/m, for large values of the integerX, following an approximating and correcting approach, which guarantees the correctness of the result. We also define a structure to computeX(modm) by means of few fast VLSI binary multipliers, which is exemplified for 32-bit long numbers, obtaining a total response time lower than 200 nsec. Furthermore, such a structure is evaluated in terms of VLSI complexity and area and time figuresA=?(n ² T _m ² ) andT=?(T _M ) for the parameterT _M in \([\log n,\sqrt n ]\) are derived. A simple positional-to-residue converter is finally presented, based on this structure; it improves some complexity results previously obtained by authors.