Heat–Moisture Treatment on Pinhão Starch Impacts the Properties of the Biodegradable Films

Using non-conventional starch can benefit the industry since it can present different properties. It also can lead to new properties upon physical modification, which improves its derivate film properties. Therefore, the aim of this work is to evaluate the heat–moisture treatment (HMT) on pinhão starch and its effectiveness in film properties. After isolation using water as a solvent, the pinhão starch is treated by HMT for 16 h at 110 °C. Native and HMTed starches are used to produce biodegradable films. Pinhão starch and starch films chemical and physical properties are properly characterized. The HMT causes some changes in short-range ordered structures, reduces the relative crystallinity, and shifts the pinhão starch from C-type to A-type. Also, HMT decreases the peak viscosity and the breakdown, and improves thermal stability. These starch changes upon HMT reduces water vapor permeability, increases tensile strength, and elongation at the break of pinhão starch films. Desirable changes in starch and film properties are achieved by physically modifying pinhão starch using HMT, which is a promising alternative to chemical modifications.     

The spatial focus of attention is controlled at perceptual and cognitive levels.

Selective attention has been hypothesized to reduce distractor interference at both perceptual and postperceptual levels (Lavie, 2005), respectively, by focusing perceptual resources on the attended location and by blocking at postperceptual levels distractors that survive perceptual selection. This study measured the impact of load on these selection mechanisms using a flanker paradigm (Eriksen & St. James, 1986) and indexing distractor interference as a function of separation. It distinguished changes in the extent of focus of the distractor-interference function of separation (reflecting perceptual selection) from changes in the amplitude of distractor interference not accompanied by changes in focus (reflecting postperceptual selection). It showed that: (1) the spatial profile of perceptual resources is shaped like a “Mexican hat” (Müller et al., 2005); (2) increasing perceptual load focuses perceptual resources (Caparos & Linnell, 2009); (3) increasing cognitive load defocuses perceptual resources; and (4) participants with reduced working-memory span show reduced postperceptual blocking of distractors. While these findings are consistent with two levels of selective attention, they show that the first perceptual level is affected not only by perceptual but also by cognitive-control mechanisms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Crack Growth Modeling and Life Prediction of Pipeline Steels Exposed to Near-Neutral pH Environments: Dissolution Crack Growth and Occurrence of Crack Dormancy in Stage I

This investigation was initiated to provide governing equations for crack initiation, crack growth, and service life prediction of pipeline steels in near-neutral pH (NNpH) environments. This investigation has focused on the crack initiation and early-stage crack growth. The investigation considered a wide range of conditions that could lead to crack initiation, crack dormancy, and crack transition from a dormant state to active growth. It is concluded that premature rupture caused by stress cracking at a service life of about 20 to 30 years previously observed during field operation could take place only when the worst conditions responsible for crack initiation and growth have been realized concurrently at the site of rupture. This also explains the reason that over 95 pct of NNpH cracks remain harmless, while about 1 pct of them become a threat to the integrity of pipeline steels.     

Genetic algorithms for layout optimization in crossdocking operations of a manufacturing plant

In this study, we use genetic algorithms to optimize the lane layout associated with the crossdocking operation at the Toyota Motor Manufacturing plant in Georgetown, Kentucky, USA. A genetic algorithm solution can be obtained within seconds, whereas an exhaustive search would require a computing time of over five days on a 1?GHz Intel Pentium III. The results of this study show that a simple rearrangement of the lanes will lead to a decrease in workload of nearly 34% in the crossdocking area and ultimately result in an overall reduced lead time.     

Modelling the Water Sorption Isotherms of Quinoa Seeds (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Chenopodium quinoa</Emphasis> Willd.) and Determination of Sorption Heats

Adsorption and desorption isotherms of quinoa seeds (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) were measured using the static gravimetric method at three temperatures (20, 40 and 60 °C). Water activity ranged from 0.118 to 0.937. The moisture sorption behaviour of quinoa was temperature dependent, as indicated by a decrease in equilibrium moisture content, at all levels of a _w, with increasing temperature. Eight mathematical equations available in the literature were used to model the experimental data, namely, GAB, BET, Caurie, Henderson, Oswin, Halsey, Smith and Iglesias–Chirife. All the equations showed generally a good fit; however, the Iglesias–Chirife and Oswin equations were considered the best to predict the experimental data for both isotherms. Effect of temperature on model parameters was analysed and studied through an Arrhenius-type equation. The net isosteric heats of desorption and adsorption were determined by applying the Clausius–Clapeyron equation resulting in 69.24 kJ mol⁻¹ for desorption and 61.26 kJ mol⁻¹ for adsorption. The experimental heat data were satisfactorily modelled by Tsami’s equation.     

Effects of tropical fruit pulps and partially hydrolysed galactomannan from Caesalpinia pulcherrima seeds on the dietary fibre content,probiotic viability,texture and sensory features of goat dairy beverages

The use of cheese whey and probiotic cultures in the production of dairy beverages has been highly attractive; nonetheless, whey-based goat beverages tend to be poor and watery when compared to fermented milks. The addition of fruits and fibre ingredients might improve texture and mouthfeel of this kind of product. Fermented whey-based goat beverages prepared using Streptococcus thermophilus TA-40 as starter culture, with added guava or soursop pulps, and with or without addition of partially hydrolysed galactomannan from Caesalpinia pulcherrima seeds (PHGM), showed to be good vehicles for Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis BB-12 and Lactobacillus rhamnosus Lr-32, maintaining their viability above 7 log CFU/ml during 21 days. PHGM increased the dietary fibre content and enhanced the instrumental texture and sensory features of both guava and soursop dairy beverages, especially texture, appearance, and overall acceptability. The PHGM might be recommended to improve nutritional and sensory quality of fermented probiotic beverages produced with goat milk and cheese whey.     

Enhancing IP cores specifications using hierarchical composition and set theory

During the functional verification, complex interactions between multiple blocks that compose an Intellectual Property (IP) core can reveal hard-to-find bugs. Functional verification specifications must be precise to assure these interactions occur during the simulation. In this work, we are proposing a technique for improving the functional verification specification of individual blocks, preserving the occurrence of these interaction scenarios in the composition phase. Our approach was implemented for the VeriSC methodology, a SystemC-based functional verification methodology. After each block that composes the IP core was stand-alone verified, we exploit the composition phase using set theory to increase the coverage numbers and to justify why some of these numbers cannot, or need not, reach 100%. By applying our approach in a MPEG 4 video decoder design, we show how our work can save functional verification time during the hierarchical composition. Using mutation based-tests, we demonstrate that our work can contribute to error detection. Furthermore, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach with regard to traditional structural coverage metrics, such as line coverage and branch coverage.