Yeast viability during fermentation and sur lie ageing of a defined medium and subsequent growth of Oenococcus oeni

Interactions between the yeast strain used for primary oenological fermentation and the bacterium used to conduct subsequent malolactic fermentation were studied under model winemaking conditions. A commercial Saccharomyces cerevisiae wine yeast (strains, EC 1118, AWRI 835 and CY-3079) was grown in a defined medium whose composition approximated grape juice. Fermentations by all strains reached dryness, and retained a cell viability of greater than 90% upon completion of fermentation. Highest total viable cell number and percentage of viable cells were recorded for EC 1118. A sur lie ageing of the fermented medium over a 12 week period revealed a bi-phasic decay of culture viability for all strains. Thus 99% of cells had died within 2 weeks post-fermentation. Viabilities were then stable for the subsequent 4–6 week period before a second decline phase ensued and ended in either a minimal ( ca 100 CFU/mL, EC 1118) or no viable cells being detected at 12 weeks of ageing. The growth response of an Oenococcus oeni inoculum to yeast culture supernatants, previously aged for up to 12 weeks in the presence or absence of yeast lees, was evaluated in a bio-assay. In this way, yeast strains could be designated as being either inhibitory, neutral or stimulatory to the growth of O. oeni (strain Lc5p). Inhibition by supernatants of strain EC 1118 was evident, but found to be reduced by ageing the supernatant (with or without lees). Conversely, longer ageing on yeast lees increased the magnitude of the stimulatory response in O. oeni (strain Lc5p) to the supernatant from the wine yeast (strain CY-3079).     

Teaching Software Evolution in Open Source

Most software engineering courses require students to develop small programs from scratch, but professional engineers typically work on the evolution of large software systems. Using open source software and a software change process model can narrow this gap without imposing excessive demands on students or instructors.     

Model-based testing of software and systems: recent advances and challenges

Model-based testing is focused on testing techniques which rely on the use of models. The diversity of systems and software to be tested implies the need for research on a variety of models and methods for test automation. We briefly review this research area and introduce several papers selected from the 22nd International Conference on Testing Software and Systems (ICTSS).     

Grain-Boundary Diffusion of 51Cr in MgO and Cr-Doped MgO

The grain-boundary diffusion product, D'δ , of ⁵¹Cr in MgO and Cr-doped MgO as a function of grain-boundary orientation and point-defect concentration was determined at T =1200° to 1450°C. A large degree of anisotropy was found in the grain-boundary diffusion behavior in MgO. The ratio of D'δ_|| parallel to D'δ_‖ perpendicular to the growth direction, D'_||/D'_‖ , is 10² for a 5° (100) tilt boundary, decreased to ∼2 in boundaries with tilt angles > 10°. The decrease in D'_||/D'_‖ is due to a large increase in D'_‖ with increasing tilt angle. The results indicate that grain-boundary diffusion in MgO is connected to the orientation of dislocations and the mechanism is one of dislocation pipe diffusion. The grain-boundary diffusion product D'δ increases with increasing Cr concentration in MgO and is ∼4 times larger for MgO containing 0.56 at. % Cr than for the undoped MgO. For all bicrystals studied, the activation energies are within 180 ± 20 kJ/mol which is 60% of the activation energy for ⁵¹Cr diffusion in undoped MgO.     

Generating asynchronous test cases from test purposes

Context

Input/output transition system (IOTS) models are commonly used when next input can arrive even before outputs are produced. The interaction between the tester and an implementation under test (IUT) is usually assumed to be synchronous. However, as the IUT can produce outputs at any moment, the tester should be prepared to accept all outputs from the IUT, or else be able to block (refuse) outputs of the implementation. Testing distributed, remote applications under the assumptions that communication is synchronous and actions can be blocked is unrealistic, since synchronous communication for such applications can only be achieved if special protocols are used. In this context, asynchronous tests can be more appropriate, reflecting the underlying test architecture which includes queues.

Objective

In this paper, we investigate the problem of constructing test cases for given test purposes and specification input/output transition systems, when the communication between the tester and the implementation under test is assumed to be asynchronous, performed via multiple queues.

Method

When issuing verdicts, asynchronous tests should take into account a distortion caused by the queues in the observed interactions. First, we investigate how the test purpose can be transformed to account for this distortion when there are a single input queue and a single output queue. Then, we consider a more general problem, when there may be multiple queues.

Results

We propose an algorithm which constructs a sound test case, by transforming the test purpose prior to composing it with the specification without queues.

Conclusion

The proposed algorithm mitigates the state explosion problem which usually occurs when queues are directly involved in the composition. Experimental results confirm the resulting state space reduction.     

Coverage-driven Automated Compiler Test Suite Generation

The paper presents a novel approach to automated compiler test suite generation based on the source level specification. Several coverage criteria are introduced. The application of the proposed methodology to testing the realistic programming language is discussed.     

Increase in the Charge State of the Uranium Ion Beam Generated by the MEVVA Ion Source

The Metal Vapor Vacuum Arc (MEVVA) ion source and its modifications are investigated at the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (ITEP). In a series of the experiments, the possibility of increasing the charge state of the generated uranium ion beam was revealed. The charge state increases as a result of developing a high-current vapor vacuum arc discharge from the source cathode to an auxiliary anode located in an increasing axial magnetic field. The uranium ion beam with a total current of 150 mA was obtained, U⁷⁺ uranium ions being 10% of the current.     

Chemical reactions in spherically symmetric problems of mechanochemistry

A stress-assisted chemical reaction front propagation in a linear elastic solid is considered. The reaction between gas and solid constituents is sustained by the diffusion of the gas through the transformed material. The consideration is based on the kinetic equation in a form of the dependence of the reaction front velocity on the normal component of the chemical affinity tensor that in turn depends on stresses and gas concentration. Spherically symmetric problems of mechanochemistry are solved for the reaction front propagation in a sphere, in a body with a spherical hole and in an inclusion placed into an infinite medium. It is demonstrated how stresses can enhance, retard and even lock the reaction. The effects of the sign and value of the reaction front curvature are also examined.