Physicochemical properties and silicon content in wheat flour treated with diatomaceous earth and conventionally stored

This study was done to evaluate the physicochemical properties and to quantify the residual silicon in flour from wheat grains treated with different dosages of DE and stored in a conventional system for 180 days. Samples containing 10.0 kg of wheat grain were treated with 0.00, 2.00 and 4.00 g kg⁻¹ of DE and then homogenized and stored in cotton bags at 22 °C and 70 ± 5 g 100 g⁻¹ relative humidity. Physicochemical analyses were carried out at 0, 60, 120 and 180 days of storage. The experiment was conducted in a randomized design with a factorial 3 × 4 arrangement (three doses of DE × four storage periods), totaling 12 treatments, with three replicates for each treatment. The wheat flour samples were digested and the silicon residue quantification was conducted through colorimetry. The wheat treated with DE presented a lower test weight compared with control, +b^∗ chromaticity coordinate for color and increased ash content and L^∗. The physicochemical changes in the grain and wheat flour were proportional to the amount of DE applied.     

Immediate adaptation of the dog kidney to acute hypercapnia

Studies were performed to determine whether ammoniagenesis could adapt instantaneously to acidosis in the dog kidney. Following acute respiratory acidosis, renal glutamine extraction rose acutely in dogs with stable renal blood flow but did not change when the renal blood flow fell by more than 25%. Acute hypercapnia immediately increased renal ammonia production in both groups of dogs. The rate of both glutamine extraction and ammonia production in acutely hypercapnic dogs without hemodynamic changes was comparable to the rates observed in dogs with chronic metabolic acidosis. Furthermore, the renal metabolite profile observed in acute hypercapnia was similar to the pattern described in chronic metabolic acidosis, i.e., a marked fall in renal glutamate and alpha-ketoglutarate concentrations and a fivefold increase in malate and oxaloacetate concentrations. In the liver and muscle, acute hypercapnia induced no significant change in glutamine concentration but glutamate and alpha-ketoglutarate concentrations decreased. Our findings demonstrate that the dog kidney can adapt immediately to acidosis but that hemodynamic change may mask this adaptation.     

The Semantic Web Vision: Where Are We?

Semantic Web developers have adopted OWL to represent knowledge. OWL, or a language with similar theoretical foundations, will lead the way in the semantic exploration of the Web. Currently, Web-based standards are the preferred way to represent knowledge. Furthermore, respondents mainly use ontologies to allow both humans and computers to understand knowledge and domain models. Web 3.0 can bring a new breed of spectacular applications compared to Web 2.0. with the same magnitude that separates Web 2.0 from Web 1.0.     

Flow Intensity Parameter in Pier Scour Experiments

Technical note discusses a detailed approach to dimensional analysis for the bridge pier scour phenomenon and the introduction of flow intensity. It demonstrates the dependence of critical upstream velocity on the rest of the parameters describing the process and its implications on dimensional analysis. Assuming that the viscous effects are negligible in the local scour phenomenon, it is concluded that the flow intensity of the approaching undisturbed flow is not an adequate parameter to describe the process in usual laboratory conditions. A new proposal is established.     

Virtualized Web server cluster self-configuration to optimize resource and power use

This work proposes a reusable architecture that enables the self-configuration of a supporting infrastructure for Web server clusters using virtual machines. The goal of the architecture is to ensure service quality, evaluating how broadly it complies with the application's operating restrictions and proportionally acting on the configuration of physical servers (hosts) or virtual machines. In addition, through the rational use of resources, the proposal aims at saving energy. A prototype of the architecture was developed and a performance evaluation carried out with two different resource management approaches. This evaluation shows how fully functional and advantageous the proposal is in terms of using resources, avoiding waste, yet maintaining the application's quality of service within acceptable levels. The architecture also shows to be flexible enough to accept, with a reasonable amount of effort, different resource self-configuration policies.     

Unconstrained springback behavior of Al-Mg-Si sheets for different sitting times

In this work, the springback behavior of the commercial 6022 aluminum alloy in temper aging (T4) is investigated taking into account that the sheets, prior to deformation process, are initially pre-strained and then submitted to various sitting times at room temperature. The unconstrained cylindrical bending test based on the NUMISHEET2002 proceedings as presented by Yoon et al. [Yoon JW, Pourboghrat F, Chung K, Yang DY. Springback prediction for sheet metal forming process using a 3D hybrid membrane/shell method. International Journal of Mechanical Sciences 2002;44:2133-53] is selected as validation benchmark. For finite element simulations, the geometry is modeled by solid-shell finite elements using the formulation of Alves de Sousa et al. [Alves de Sousa RJ, Yoon JW, Cardoso RPR, Fontes Valente RA, Grácio JJ. On the use of a reduced enhanced solid-shell (RESS) element for sheet forming simulations. International Journal of Plasticity 2007;23:490-515; Alves de Sousa RJ, Cardoso RPR, Fontes Valente RA, Yoon J-W, Natal Jorge RM, Grácio JJ. A new one-point quadrature enhanced assumed strain (EAS) solid-shell element with multiple integration points along thickness: Part I—Geometrically linear applications. International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering 2005;62:952-77; Alves de Sousa RJ, Cardoso RPR, Fontes Valente RA, Yoon JW, Grácio JJ, Natal Jorge RM. A new one-point quadrature enhanced assumed strain (EAS) solid-shell element with multiple integration points along thickness: Part II—Nonlinear applications. International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering 2006;67:160-88]. The material behavior is described based on the work of Correia et al. [Correia JPM, Simões F, Gracio JJ, Barlat F, Ahzi S. A simple hardening rule accounting for time-dependent behavior in Al-Mg-Si alloys. Materials Science Engineering A 2007;456:170-9]. The results of conducted experiments and numerical simulations are compared. It can be concluded about the good agreement between experiments and simulations attesting the effectiveness of the material model utilized to describe the time-dependent hardening behavior.     

Fatty acid profiles in meat from Caiman yacare (Caiman crocodilus yacare) raised in the wild or in captivity

Chemical composition and fatty acid profiles were determined in Caiman yacare meat originating from the neck and tail cuts of animals raised in the wild (n = 6) or in captivity (n = 6), slaughtered at a live weight of approximately 6 kg. All experimental methods were approved by the appropriate environmental protection agencies. Most chemical components were affected by the origin-cut interaction, with the tail cut of wild animals having the highest amount of intramuscular fat (19.2% of DM) and the lowest of moisture (71.8%) and protein (77.0% of DM). Yacare meat had low amounts of SFA (35.1%), which were similar (P > 0.05) in the cuts and origins studied. The total amount of PUFA was higher (P < 0.05) in wild (31.0%) than in captive animals (23.6%), and n − 3 fatty acids had means of about 5% and 2% for the same groups, respectively (P < 0.05). In general, the FA profile of intramuscular fat in yacare meat had a desirable PUFA/SFA ratio above 0.4.