Potential use of phenolic antioxidants on peanut to control growth and aflatoxin B1 accumulation by Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus

Food‐grade antioxidants: butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA), propyl paraben (PP) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) (10 and 20 mmol g^?1) and all the mixtures of these chemicals were tested for inhibitory activity on the growth of and aflatoxin B₁ (AFB₁) accumulation by Aspergillus parasiticus and A. flavus on irradiated (7 kGy) peanut grains. Also, the influence of these treatments was evaluated in different water conditions (0.982, 0.955, 0.937a_w) at 11 and 35 days of incubation at 28 °C. Water activity (a_w) affected the fungal growth, no fungal development was observed at the highest stress water condition (0.937a_w). Butylated hydroxyanisole at 10 mmol g^?1 level and all the mixtures with PP and/or BHT were significantly effective (P = 0.05) in increasing lag phase and reducing growth rate and colony forming units per gram of peanut of both Aspergillus section Flavi strains and AFB₁ accumulation. The application of BHA at concentrations of 20 mmol g^?1 alone or with PP and/or BHT totally inhibited fungal growth at 11 and 35 days of incubation. The results suggest that the addition of these chemical mixtures on peanut grains at low levels has potential to impact synergically on the control of Aspergillus section Flavi. Copyright © 2007 Society of Chemical Industry     

Elimination of organic matter present in wastewaters from the cork industry by membrane filtration

BACKGROUND: The first stage of the cork industrial process generates great volumes of wastewater with moderate to high organic pollutant content that must be purified using different procedures, such as filtration by membranes. RESULTS: The tangential filtration of these wastewaters was studied using two different laboratory equipments. In the first one, three ultrafiltration (UF) membranes were tested, with molecular weight cut‐off (MWCO) 100 kDa and 30 kDa, and two operating modes were used: total recycling of permeate and retentate streams, and in continuous mode, without recycling both streams. In the total recycling UF experiments, the influence of the operating variables on the permeate flux was first established. The effectiveness of the different membranes was determined by evaluating the rejection coefficients for several parameters that measure the global pollutant content of the effluent. The values found for these rejection coefficients were in the following order: ellagic acid and color > absorbance at 254 nm > tannic content > COD (chemical oxygen demand). In the continuous mode experiments, the fouling mechanism for each membrane was established by fitting the experimental data to various filtration fouling models given in the literature. The operating mode in the second equipment was batch concentration, and additional experiments were carried out with an UF membrane (2 kDa), and with a NF membrane (with MWCO in the range 150–300 Da). CONCLUSIONS: The three operating modes tested provided different rejection levels of organic matter; among them, the most effective procedure tested was batch concentration mode using a NF membrane. Copyright © 2007 Society of Chemical Industry     

Control of discrete time nonlinear systems with a time-varying structure

In this paper, we present a control methodology for a class of discrete time nonlinear systems that depend on a possibly exogenous scheduling variable. This class of systems consists of an interpolation of nonlinear dynamic equations in strict feedback form, and it may represent systems with a time-varying nonlinear structure. Moreover, this class of systems is able to represent some cases of gain scheduling control, Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy systems, as well as input-output realizations of nonlinear systems which are approximated via localized linearizations. We present two control theorems, one using what we call a “global” approach (akin to traditional backstepping), and a “local” approach, our main result, where backstepping is again used but the control law is an interpolation of local control terms. An aircraft wing rock regulation problem with varying angle of attack is used to illustrate and compare the two approaches.     

Nonuniformity of phase structure in immiscible polymer blends

This article is focused on the phase structure development in immiscible polymer blends during melt mixing. Nonuniformity of the phase structure, i.e., the coexistence of areas containing particles with markedly different size distribution, was detected in quenched and compression molded samples of a number of various blends prepared by long and intensive mixing in the chamber of a Plasticorder. The same effect was found also for polystyrene/polyamide blends prepared in a twin‐screw extruder. It was shown that neglecting nonuniformity of the phase structure can lead to considerable error in evaluation of the effect of system parameters on the blend morphology. The reasons for the effect were discussed and it was found that inhomogeneous flow field in mixers is a plausible explanation of the nonuniform phase structure. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2008. © 2008 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Stability robustness of networked control systems with respect to packet loss

This paper is concerned with stability analysis of discrete-time networked control systems over a communication channel subject to packet loss whose behavior is modeled by an i.i.d Bernoulli process with a packet dropping probability bounded by a constant. A necessary and sufficient condition for stability is obtained. A packet dropping margin is introduced as a measure of stability robustness of a system against packet dropping, and a formula for it is derived. A design method is proposed for achieving a large margin subject to a constraint that the system has a set of prescribed nominal closed-loop poles.     

Molecular weight effect on the obtainment of parallel and perpendicular orientation in thermotropic poly(diethylene glycol <Emphasis Type="Italic">p,p′</Emphasis>-bibenzoate)

Summary The effect of molecular weight on the uniaxial orientation process has been analyzed in two samples of thermotropic poly(diethylene glycol p,p′-bibenzoate), evaluating the influence of that parameter on the type of orientation obtained. Several strain rates and deformation temperatures have been tested in order to map out the conditions for obtaining the two different kinds of orientation. The results show that in the lower molecular weight PDEB sample (M_w=31200) it is rather easy to get exclusively perpendicular “anomalous” orientation, with the molecular axes aligned transversely to the stretching direction. However, it is extremely difficult to obtain 100% parallel “normal” orientation. On the contrary, either type of orientation or a mixture of them can be easily developed for the higher molecular weight PDEB sample (M_w=102900).     

Decentralized adaptive coordinated control of multiple robot arms without using a force sensor

This paper presents a distributed adaptive coordinated control method for multiple robot arms grasping a common object. The cases of rigid contact and rolling contact are analyzed. In the proposed controller, the dynamic parameters of both object and robot arms are estimated adaptively. The desired motions of the robot arms are generated by an estimated object reference model. The control method requires only the measurements of the positions and velocities of the object and robot arms, but not the measurements of forces and moments at contact points. The asymptotic convergence of trajectory is proven by the Lyapunov-like Lemma. Experiments involving two robot arms handling a common object are shown.     

Simultaneous sulfide and acetate oxidation under denitrifying conditions using an inverse fluidized bed reactor

BACKGROUND: Simultaneous removal of sulfur, nitrogen and carbon compounds from wastewaters is a commercially important biological process. The objective was to evaluate the influence of the CH₃COO^?/NO₃^? molar ratio on the sulfide oxidation process using an inverse fluidized bed reactor (IFBR). RESULTS: Three molar ratios of CH₃COO^?/NO₃^? (0.85, 0.72 and 0.62) with a constant S^2?/NO₃^? molar ratio of 0.13 were evaluated. At a CH₃COO^?/NO₃^? molar ratio of 0.85, the nitrate, acetate and sulfide removal efficiencies were approximately 100%. The N₂ yield (g N₂ g^?1 NO₃^?‐N consumed) was 0.81. Acetate was mineralized, resulting in a yield of 0.65 g inorganic‐C g^?1 CH₃COO^?‐C consumed. Sulfide was partially oxidized to S⁰, and 71% of the S^2? consumed was recovered as elemental sulfur by a settler installed in the IFBR. At a CH₃COO^?/NO₃^? molar ratio of 0.72, the efficiencies of nitrate, acetate and sulfide consumption were of 100%, with N₂ and inorganic‐C yields of 0.84 and 0.69, respectively. The sulfide was recovered as sulfate instead of S⁰, with a yield of 0.92 g SO₄^2?‐S g^?1 S^2? consumed. CONCLUSIONS: The CH₃COO^?/NO₃^? molar ratio was shown to be an important parameter that can be used to control the fate of sulfide oxidation to either S⁰ or sulfate. In this study, the potential of denitrification for the simultaneous removal of organic matter, sulfide and nitrate from wastewaters was demonstrated, obtaining CO₂, S⁰ and N₂ as the major end products. Copyright © 2008 Society of Chemical Industry     

Controlled linear system with delayed relay output under impulse random disturbances

The paper is devoted to the first order delayed linear system with relay output controlled by the proportional-integral (PI) regulator. The deterministic system exhibits stable oscillations, and, since the system itself is stable, it can be suitable to switch off the controller if there are no disturbances during a long time interval. In the present work, the random disturbances are modelled by a Poisson stream of impulses, and the goal is to determine the instants of switching on (off) of the PI controller. After several assumptions and quantization of the time axis, we construct the new optimal control problem which is successfully solved with the help of the dynamic programming approach.