Reference classes: a tool for benchmarking universities’ research

Based on new comparison principles that take into account both the volume of scientific production and its impact, this paper proposes a method for defining reference classes of universities. Several tools are developed in order to enable university managers to define the value system according to which their university shall be compared to others. We apply this methodology to French universities and illustrate it using the reference classes of the best ranked universities according to several value systems.     

Additional high-energy milling to enhance the performance of porcelain stoneware manufacturing

Porcelain stoneware tile is the best class of ceramic tiles regarding technical performance. Low porosity and high glass content are some of its highlighted characteristics. The manufacturing cost is highly dependent on the feldspar content and the processing flow rate. Certain technical bottlenecks in the manufacturing steps, such as milling, forming, and firing, are intrinsically associated with limitations in the processing properties, such as the dry strength, bulk density, and pyroplastic deformation. In this work, improvements in these properties were achieved using high-energy milling (HEM) after conventional milling (CM). This study was carried out on a pilot industrial scale in the milling stage. Six experimental runs were evaluated. Slurries were spray-dried. The powders were humidified with 6.5% moisture. Specimens were conformed under a specific pressure of 45 MPa. The firing was performed using temperature ranging from 1150 to 1230°C. The use of HEM, in comparison to traditional milling for the similar particle-size distributions, has increased the dry density, +0.2 g.cm⁻³, dry bending strength, +1.0 MPa, and decreased the pyroplastic deformation index, −1.10⁻⁵ cm⁻¹. These results allow an estimated thickness reduction of 10%.     

Assessment of Cell Disruption and Carotenoids Extraction from Sporidiobolus salmonicolor (CBS 2636)

The increasing demand for carotenoids by industries has drawn attention to their bio-production. Since pigments are intracellular, extraction steps are then needed after cell cultivation. In this work, different strategies for extraction of carotenoid pigments from Sporidiobolus salmonicolor (CBS 2636) were studied. Different solvents (dimethyl sulfoxide, petroleum ether, hexane, ethyl acetate, chloroform, and acetone), liquid N₂, and diatomaceous earth were used to disrupt the cell and thus release the intracellular carotenoids. The results of this study showed that when multiple solvents were used, a synergistic effect on the extent of carotenoids recovery was obtained. Maximum concentration of total carotenoids (913 μg/L) was obtained in the treatment using liquid N₂ and dimethyl sulfoxide to disrupt the cell, followed by the extraction with a solution of acetone/methanol (7:3, v/v).     

Sensory Imbalance as Mechanism of Orientation Disruption in the Leafminer <Emphasis Type="Italic">Phyllocnistis citrella</Emphasis>: Elucidation by Multivariate Geometric Designs and Response Surface Models

Experimental designs developed to address mixtures are suited ideally to many areas of experimental biology, including pheromone blend studies, because such designs address the confounding of proportionality and concentration intrinsic to factorial and one-factor-at-a-time designs. Geometric multivariate designs coupled with response surface modeling allowed us to identify optimal blends of a two-component pheromone for attraction and trap disruption of the leafminer moth, Phyllocnistis citrella, a major pest in citrus growing areas around the world. Field trials confirmed that the natural 3:1 blend of (Z,Z,E)-7,11,13-hexadecatrienal:(Z,Z)-7,11-hexadecadienal was most effective as an attractant for male moths. However, the response surface generated in mating orientation trials revealed that the triene component alone was more effective than the natural blend in disrupting trap catch. Each individual component was effective at disrupting orientation in field trials, but (Z,Z,E)-7,11,13-hexadecatrienal was approximately 13 times more effective, at the same concentration, compared with (Z,Z)-7,11-hexadecadienal alone. In addition, the application of geometric design and response surface modeling to field studies provided insight into a possible mechanism of mating disruption and supported sensory imbalance as the operating mechanism for this species.     

Study of the bio‐production of carotenoids by Sporidiobolus salmonicolor (CBS 2636) using pre‐treated agro‐industrial substrates

BACKGROUND: The increasing industrial demand for carotenoids has aroused interest in their bio‐production, and the need to reduce production costs has encouraged the use of low cost industrial substrates, such as agro‐industrial residues. Thus the objective of this research was the bio‐production of carotenoids by Sporidiobolus salmonicolor using agro‐industrial substrates (corn steep liquor and sugarcane molasses), pre‐treated with acids (sulphuric and phosphoric). RESULTS: Bio‐production was carried out in an orbital shaker using a 10% (v/v) inoculum, incubation at 25 °C, and agitation at 180 rpm for 120 h in a non‐illuminated environment. The carotenoids were recovered using liquid N₂ combined with dimethylsulphoxide for cell rupture, and an acetone/methanol mixture (7:3 v/v) for extraction. CONCLUSION: The complete second‐order design allowed for optimisation of the carotenoid concentration obtained from industrial substrates pre‐treated with acids (sulphuric and phosphoric), obtaining a total carotenoid content of 541.5 µg L^?1 using 10 g L^?1 sugarcane molasses, 5 g L^?1 corn steep liquor and 5 g L^?1 yeast hydrolysate at 25 °C, with agitation at 180 rpm and an initial pH of 4.0. Copyright © 2008 Society of Chemical Industry     

Advanced performance evaluation of a reverse osmosis treatment for oilfield produced water aiming reuse

Technology advancements and the increasing need for fresh water resources have created the potential for desalination of oil field brine (produced water) to be a cost-effective fresh water resource for beneficial reuse. At the mature oil and gas production areas in the northeast of Brazil, the majority of wells produce a substantial amount of water in comparison with oil production (more than 90%). At these fields, the produced water has to be treated on site only for oil and solids removal aiming re-injection. The aim of this work is to assess the quality of the produced water stream after a reverse osmosis desalination process in terms of physicochemical characteristics influencing reuse of the water for irrigation or other beneficial uses.     

Effect of specimen geometry on kinetics of thermal decomposition of minerals in porous ceramic tiles

Porous ceramic tiles are used as covering for indoor vertical surfaces in buildings. Clay and limestone are the starting raw materials. The firing step consolidates the product's properties in the manufacturing process. In this step several reactions occur, among them are the dehydroxylation of the clay minerals and decomposition of the carbonates. This study determined the kinetics parameters associated with the decomposition of these 2 minerals. Two different methods of samples preparation were investigated. In the first method, 60 mg of a spray-dried powder was submitted to analysis in traditional thermogravimetric equipment. In the second method, compacted specimens with dimensions of 80 × 20 × 2.5 mm³ and a mass of 7 g, compacted at 25 MPa, were submitted to analysis using customized thermogravimetric apparatus. The curves were obtained for 6 different heating rates between 2.5 and 20 K min⁻¹. The activation energy, the pre-exponential factor of the specific velocity equation, and the reaction mechanism were determined. Depending on the methods and compaction degree the activation energy varies from 177.0 to 224.7 kJ mol⁻¹ and from 188.5 to 230.2 kJ mol⁻¹ for kaolinite and calcium carbonate, respectively. For accurate measurement of the activation energy, the heat transfer needs to be considered for each particular experimental configuration.     

Energy-efficiency standards for electric motors in Brazilian industry

The first regulation of the “Energy Efficient Act” for electric motors, launched in 2002, established two sets of minimum efficiency performance standards (MEPS), for ‘standard’ (mandatory) and ‘high efficiency’ (voluntary) motors. An updated regulation, from the end of 2005 (Edict 553/2005), established the previous high-efficiency MEPS as mandatory for all motors in the Brazilian market. This paper analyses the consequences of this new regulation, which is foreseen to take effect in 2010. These new Brazilian MEPS are compatible with those implemented in other countries. The cost–benefit analysis, considered for different scenarios for industrial consumers, showed that motor substitution (from standard to high efficiency) is generally advantageous. A sample of nine thousand industrial motors has been used, with measured operation in actual conditions, to analyze the investment cost–benefit in three different scenarios. This analysis also demonstrated the benefit of motor substitution, with an average MWh cost from 20 to 35 US$, and with only a few substitutions presenting an unfavorable cost–benefit relationship to the user. We assess that Edict 553 avoided construction of 350 MW of hydroelectric capacity. Nevertheless, since the cost of conserved energy for this energy-saving measure is generally below the marginal cost of expansion of the Brazilian electric system, we propose mechanisms to share investment costs among the society as a whole, including demand-side bidding.     

Efficient query filtering for streaming time series with applications to semisupervised learning of time series classifiers

In this paper, we define time series query filtering, the problem of monitoring the streaming time series for a set of predefined patterns. This problem is of great practical importance given the massive volume of streaming time series available through sensors, medical patient records, financial indices and space telemetry. Since the data may arrive at a high rate and the number of predefined patterns can be relatively large, it may be impossible for the comparison algorithm to keep up. We propose a novel technique that exploits the commonality among the predefined patterns to allow monitoring at higher bandwidths, while maintaining a guarantee of no false dismissals. Our approach is based on the widely used envelope-based lower-bounding technique. As we will demonstrate on extensive experiments in diverse domains, our approach achieves tremendous improvements in performance in the offline case, and significant improvements in the fastest possible arrival rate of the data stream that can be processed with guaranteed no false dismissals. As a further demonstration of the utility of our approach, we demonstrate that it can make semisupervised learning of time series classifiers tractable. Li Wei is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of California, Riverside. She received her B.S. and M.S. degrees from Fudan University, China. Her research interests include data mining and information retrieval. Eamonn Keogh is an Assistant Professor of computer science at the University of California, Riverside. His research interests include data mining, machine learning and information retrieval. Several of his papers have won best paper awards, including papers at SIGKDD and SIGMOD. Dr. Keogh is the recipient of a 5-year NSF Career Award for “Efficient Discovery of Previously Unknown Patterns and Relationships in Massive Time Series Databases”. Helga Van Herle is an Assistant Clinical Professor of medicine at the Division of Cardiology of the Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She received her M.D. from UCLA in 1993; completed her residency in internal medicine at the New York Hospital (Cornell University; 1993–1996) and her cardiology fellowship at UCLA (1997–2001). Dr. Van Herle holds an M.Sc. in bioengineering from Columbia University (1987) and a B.Sc. in chemical engineering from UCLA (1985). Agenor Mafra-Neto, Ph.D., is the CEO of ISCA Technologies, Inc., in California and the founder of ISCA Technologies, LTDA, in Brazil. His research interests include the analysis of insect behavior and communication systems, the manipulation of insect behavior, and the automation of pest monitoring and pest control. Dr. Mafra-Neto is currently coordinating the deployment of area-wide smart sensor and effector networks to micromanage agricultural and public health pests in the field in an automatic fashion. Russell J. Abbott is a Professor of computer science at California State University, Los Angeles, and a member of the staff at the Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA. His primary interests are in the field of complex systems. He is currently organizing a workshop to bring together people working in the fields of complex systems and systems engineering.     

Chemical Characterization of Six Microalgae with Potential Utility for Food Application

Microalgae contain high levels of proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids, and have found a useful application in enhancing the nutritional value of foods. These organisms can also synthesize long‐chain fatty acids in the form of triacylglycerols, such as α‐linolenic acid (ALA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), linolenic acid (LA), γ‐linolenic acid (GLA) and arachidonic acid (AA). The aim of this study was to determine the chemical composition and measure protein, carbohydrates, fibers, lipids as well as the fatty acids composition of six microalgae species with potential application in the food industry. Two freshwater species, Chlorella vulgaris and Spirulina platensis, and four marine species, Nannochloropsis oculata, Nannochloropsis gaditana, Porphyridium cruentum, and Phaeodactylum tricornutum, were used in the experiments. Intracellular protein was the most prominent algal component (42.8–35.4 %), followed by carbohydrate + fiber (32.3–28.6 %), and lipids (15.6–5.3 %). N. gaditana is rich in saturated fatty acids, mainly palmitic acid (5.1 g/100 g), while the cells of S. platensis and C. vulgaris algae are abundant in GLA (1.9 g/100 g) and ALA (2.8 g/100 g) acids, respectively. P. cruentum differs from other algae, because it contains a large amount of AA (3.7 g/100 g). The marine microorganisms N. oculata and P. tricornutum are also a source of essential long‐chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC‐PUFA‐?3), mainly composed of EPA and DHA. Our results suggest that the freshwater species C. vulgaris and S. platensis are attractive nutritional supplements because of their low fiber and high protein/carbohydrate contents, while the marine species P. tricornutum and N. oculata can enrich foods with LC‐PUFA‐ω3, because of their favorable ω3/ω6 ratio.