Metabolic profiling by ultra-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry and parallel factor analysis for the determination of disease biomarkers in Eucalyptus

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

A Fuzzy Goal Programming model for solving aggregate production-planning problems under uncertainty: A case study in a Brazilian sugar mill

This paper proposes a Fuzzy Goal Programming model (FGP) for a real aggregate production-planning problem. To do so, an application was made in a Brazilian Sugar and Ethanol Milling Company. The FGP Model depicts the comprehensive production process of sugar, ethanol, molasses and derivatives, and considers the uncertainties involved in ethanol and sugar production. Decision-makings, related to the agricultural and logistics phases, were considered on a weekly-basis planning horizon to include the whole harvesting season and the periods between harvests. The research has provided interesting results about decisions in the agricultural stages of cutting, loading and transportation to sugarcane suppliers and, especially, in milling decisions, whose choice of production process includes storage and logistics distribution. (C)2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A mixed-integer quadratically-constrained programming model for the distribution system expansion planning

This paper presents a mixed-integer quadratically-constrained programming (MIQCP) model to solve the distribution system expansion planning (DSEP) problem. The DSEP model considers the construction/reinforcement of substations, the construction/reconductoring of circuits, the allocation of fixed capacitors banks and the radial topology modification. As the DSEP problem is a very complex mixed-integer non-linear programming problem, it is convenient to reformulate it like a MIQCP problem; it is demonstrated that the proposed formulation represents the steady-state operation of a radial distribution system. The proposed MIQCP model is a convex formulation, which allows to find the optimal solution using optimization solvers. Test systems of 23 and 54 nodes and one real distribution system of 136 nodes were used to show the efficiency of the proposed model in comparison with other DSEP models available in the specialized literature. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

An Efficient Parallel Algorithm for Multiple Sequence Similarities Calculation Using a Low Complexity Method

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Undernutrition fetal programming: effects on kidney morphology, renal steroid and angiotensin receptors expression and urinary sodium excretion

Maternal undernutrition affects the foetal development, promoting renal alterations and adult hypertension. The present study investigates, in adult male rats, the effect of food restriction in utero on arterial blood pressure changes (AP), and its possible association with the number of nephrons, renal function and angiotensin II (AT1R/AT2R), glucocorticoid (GR) and mineralocorticoid (MCR) receptors expression. The daily food supply to pregnant rats was measured and one group (n=5) received normal quantity of food (NF) while the other group received 50% of that (FR50) (n=5). The AP was measured weekly. At 16 weeks of life, fractionator’s method was used to estimate glomeruli number in histological slices. The renal function was estimate by creatinine and lithium clearances. Blood and urine samples were collected to biochemical determination of creatinine, sodium, potassium and lithium. At 90th and 23rd days of life, kidneys were also processed to AT1R, AT2R, GR and MCR immunolocalization and for western blotting analysis. FR50 offspring shows a significant reduction in BW (FR50: 5.67 ± 0.16 vs. 6.84 ± 0.13g in NF, P<0.001) and increased AP from 6th to 12nd week (6thwk FR50: 149.1 ± 3.4 vs. 125.1 ± 3.2mmHg in NF, P<0.001and, 12ndwk FR50: 164.4 ± 4.9 vs. 144.0 ± 3.3 mmHg in NF, P=0.02). Expression of AT1R and AT2R were significantly decreased in FR50 (AT1, 59080 ± 2709 vs. 77000 ± 3591 in NF, P=0.05; AT2, 27500 ± 95.50 vs. 67870 ± 1509 in NF, P=0.001) while the expression of GR increased in FR50 (36090 ± 781.5 vs. 4446 ± 364.5 in NF, P=0.0007). The expression of MCR did not change significantly. We also verified a pronounced decrease in fractional urinary sodium excretion in FR50 offspring (0.03 ± 0.02 vs. 0.06 ± 0.04 in NF, p=0.03). This occurred despite unchanged creatinine clearance. The study led us to suggest that fetal undernutrition, with increased fetal exposure... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Integrated cutting machine programming and lot sizing in furniture industry

In this paper a mathematical model that combines lot-sizing and cutting-stock problems applied to the furniture industry is presented. The model considers the usual decisions of the lot sizing problems, as well as operational decisions related to the cutting machine programming. Two sets of a priori generated cutting patterns are used, industry cutting patterns and a class of n-group cutting patterns. A strategy to improve the utilization of the cutting machine is also tested. An optimization package was used to solve the model and the computational results, using real data from a furniture factory, show that a small subset of n-group cutting patterns provides good results and that the cutting machine utilization can be improved by the proposed strategy.

Bit-parallel coprocessor for standard ECC-GF(2m) on FPGA

This paper presents the design of a high-speed coprocessor for Elliptic Curve Cryptography over binary Galois Field (ECC- GF(2m)). The purpose of our coprocessor is to accelerate the scalar multiplication performed over elliptic curve points represented by affine coordinates in polynomial basis. Our method consists of using elliptic curve parameters over GF(2163) in accordance with international security requirements to implement a bit-parallel coprocessor on field-programmable gate-array (FPGA). Our coprocessor performs modular inversion by using a process based on the Stein's algorithm. Results are presented and compared to results of other related works. We conclude that our coprocessor is suitable for comparing with any other ECC-hardware proposal, since its speed is comparable to projective coordinate designs.

Using Threads to Overcome Synchronization Delays in Parallel Multiple Progressive Alignment Algorithms

Sao Paulo State Research Foundation-FAPESP

Modelos dinâmicos simplificados, para verificação do comportamento de rede de satélites amarrados por cabos flexíveis, usando-se o método explícito das diferenças finitas

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Seasonal variation of biotic and abiotic parameters in parallel neotropical fishponds

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Fetal kidney programming by severe food restriction: effects on structure, hormonal receptor expression and urinary sodium excretion in rats

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Deriving vegetation indices for phenology analysis using genetic programming

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Recovery Tests of an Hybrid Current Limiter Composed of a SFCL in Parallel to an Air-Core Power Reactor

The resistive-type superconducting fault current limiters (RSFCL) prototypes using YBCO-coated conductors have shown current limitation for medium voltage class applications for acting time up to 80 ms. By connecting an air-core reactor in parallel with the RSFCL, thus making an hybrid current limiter, one can extend the acting time for up to 1 s. In this work, we report the performance of a hybrid current limiter subjected to an AC peak fault current of 2 kA during 1 s for which within the first 80 ms the SFCL limits the current concurrently with the air-core reactor, and for the remaining 920 ms, only the air-core reactor limits the current. In order to evaluate the actual conditions for subsequent reconnection of RSFCL to the power grid, the hybrid fault current limiter was tested varying the time interval for recovery from 900 ms and 1.2 s, followed again by the concurrent operation of the hybrid limiter during 1 s (SFCL during 80 ms). From this evaluation test, the recovery time can be measured and compared using the voltage peak generated in superconducting module from the first and second fault test. The recovery time was also determined through the pulsed current method (PCM) on short-length sample test. The results showed that the fault current was limited from 1.9 kA down to 514 A after 1 cycle of 60 Hz frequency, with recovery time lower than 1.2 s for two subsequent fault current tests.

Short-term expansion planning of radial electrical distribution systems using mixed-integer linear programming

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

The use of nonlinear programming as a tool for maximum profit feed formulation of broilers

The purpose of this study was to compare linear and nonlinear programming models for feed formulation, for maximum profit, considering the real variation in the prices of the corn, soybean meal and broilers during the period from January of 2008 to October of 2009, in the São Paulo State, Brazil. For the nonlinear formulation model, it was considered the following scenarios of prices: a) the minimum broiler price and the maximum prices of the corn and soybean meal during the period, b) the mean prices of the broiler, corn and soybean meal in the period and c) the maximum broiler price and the minimum prices of the corn and soybean meal, in the considered period; while for the linear formulation model, it was considered just the prices of the corn and the soybean. It was used the Practical Program for Feed Formulation 2.0 for the diets establishment. A total of 300 Cobb male chicks were randomly assigned to the 4 dietary treatments with 5 replicate pens of 15 chicks each. The birds were fed with a starter diet until 21 d and a grower diet from 22 to 42 d of age, and they had ad libitum access to feed and water, on floor with wood shavings as litter. The broilers were raised in an environmentally-controlled house. Body weight, body weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion ratio and profitability (related to the prices variation of the broilers and ingredients) were obtained at 42 d of age. It was found that the broilers fed with the diet formulated with the linear model presented the lowest feed intake and feed conversion ratio as compared with the broilers fed with diets from nonlinear formulation models. There were no significant differences in body weight and body weight gain among the treatments. Nevertheless, the profitabilities of the diets from the nonlinear model were significantly higher than that one from the linear formulation model, when the corn and soybean meal prices were near or below their average values for the studied period, for any broiler chicken price.