Design of automatic control system for the precipitation of bromelain from the extract of pineapple wastes

In this work, bromelain was recovered from ground pineapple stem and rind by means of precipitation with alcohol at low temperature. Bromelain is the name of a group of powerful protein-digesting, or proteolytic, enzymes that are particularly useful for reducing muscle and tissue inflammation and as a digestive aid. Temperature control is crucial to avoid irreversible protein denaturation and consequently to improve the quality of the enzyme recovered. The process was carried out alternatively in two fed-batch pilot tanks: a glass tank and a stainless steel tank. Aliquots containing 100 mL of pineapple aqueous extract were fed into the tank. Inside the jacketed tank, the protein was exposed to unsteady operating conditions during the addition of the precipitating agent (ethanol 99.5%) because the dilution ratio "aqueous extract to ethanol" and heat transfer area changed. The coolant flow rate was manipulated through a variable speed pump. Fine tuned conventional and adaptive PID controllers were on-line implemented using a fieldbus digital control system. The processing performance efficiency was enhanced and so was the quality (enzyme activity) of the product.

Brazil nut sorting for aflatoxin prevention: a comparison between automatic and manual shelling methods

The impact of automatic and manual shelling methods during manual/visual sorting of different batches of Brazil nuts from the 2010 and 2011 harvests was evaluated in order to investigate aflatoxin prevention.The samples were tested as follows: in-shell, shell, shelled, and pieces in order to evaluate the moisture content (mc), water activity (Aw), and total aflatoxin (LOD = 0.3 µg/kg and LOQ 0.85 µg/kg) at the Brazil nut processing plant. The results of aflatoxins obtained for the manually shelled nut samples ranged from 3.0 to 60.3 µg/g and from 2.0 to 31.0 µg/g for the automatically shelled samples. All samples showed levels of mc below the limit of 15%; on the other hand, shelled samples from both harvests showed levels of Aw above the limit. There were no significant differences concerning the manual or automatic shelling results during the sorting stages. On the other hand, the visual sorting was effective in decreasing the aflatoxin contamination in both methods.

Voimalaitoksen energiaraportoinnin kehittäminen

Diplomityössä tarkasteltiin Metsä Board Simpeleen voimalaitoksen energiaraportointi kokonaisuutta. Tarkastelun kohteena olivat lämpö-, sähkö- ja polttoaine-energiat. Tarkastelun pääpaino oli energian määritykseen tarvittavissa mittapisteissä sekä niistä muodostuvissa raporteissa. Työn tavoitteena oli saada luotettavat energiaraportit, jotka ovat jaoteltu selkeästi ja johdonmukaisesti. Tavoitteena oli myös vähentää kuukausiraportoinnin muodostamiseen tarvittavaa henkilötyöaikaa. Teoriaosuudessa käsitellään yleisesti voimalaitosprosessin toimintaa sekä siinä käytettäviä polttoaineita. Energiataseen muodostamisen perusteita tarkasteltiin voimalaitosprosessin kannalta. Energian määrityksiin käytettävät prosessimittaukset käytiin läpi. Raportointivelvollisuudet selvitettiin, niin tilastokeskuksien, kuin viranomaistenkin suuntaan. Työosuudessa perehdyttiin käytössä oleviin raportointikäytäntöihin sekä raporttipohjiin. Energialaskentayhtälöt ja parametrit tarkastettiin tarvittavilta osin. Työnaikana havaittiin nopeasti, että raportointi muodostetaan pitkälti Microsoft Excel-taulukkolaskentaohjelmiston avulla. Olemassa olevia automatisoituja raportteja ei hyödynnetty ollenkaan, koska niitä pidettiin epäluotettavina. Työn tuloksena automatisoidut kuukausiraportit tarkastettiin, virheet korjattiin ja ne otettiin käyttöön. Automaattisiin raportteihin tehtiin päivitysehdotukset uusista raporttipohjista. Viralliseen kuukausiraportointiin rakennettiin myös kokonaan uudet raportointipohjat, jotka hyödyntävät automaattisesti muodostuvia raportteja. Uudet raporttipohjat nopeuttivat raportointityötä merkittävästi. Polttoaine-energian hallintajärjestelmä todettiin vanhanaikaiseksi ja sen uusimista suositellaan. Uusinnalla raportointityö helpottuisi ja sen avulla siitä saataisiin kattavampi.

Incorporating Sustainability in Global Sourcing Process, Industry Focus- Apparel / Textile

This is a Master’s thesis research, which mainly aims at identifying the sustainability issues in sourcing process and to identify the core competencies in sourcing process through triple bottom line adaptation. The focus of this thesis is on apparel industry’s sourcing process. The purpose of this thesis is to examine global apparel industry’s reality in their sourcing process and how buyers-suppliers are cooperating with their sourcing process to incorporate sustainability. Other goal of this research paper is to provide recommendation for sustainable sourcing process for companies and how the stakeholders can be benefitted by sustainable sourcing. The literature review part of this paper has presented the research gaps from the earlier researches along with the key concepts, academic purposes and key definitions. Theoretical framework chapter has focused on global sourcing strategies and firm’s competencies and sustainable strategies. From the theoretical framework, author has presented essential theory which establishes the link between research questions and proposed hypotheses. Main results and findings have been presented in empirical findings and in data analysis chapter. This study is an exploratory research followed by deductive method and primary data has been used to evaluate the current situation of apparel industry; which will assist to build the recommendation model. Primary data has been collected through online questionnaires and secondary data has used to cover the literature and theoretical parts. Therefore, the potential outcome of this paper will display the importance of sustainable sourcing from academic point of view and also from the business perspective. As a final point, this paper has followed the research objectives and has generated some new directions for further studies.

Verkkosivuston käytön mittaaminen

Tässä työssä käsitellään kävijäseurannan menetelmiä ja toteutetaan niitä käytännössä. Web-analytiikkaohjelmistojen toimintaan tutustutaan, pääasiassa keskittyen Google Analyticsiin. Tavoitteena on selvittää Lappeenrannan matkailulaitepäätteiden käyttömääriä ja eriyttää niitä laitekohtaisesti. Web-analytiikasta tehdään kirjallisuuskatsaus ja kävijäseurantadataa analysoidaan sekä vertaillaan kahdesta eri verkkosivustosta. Lisäksi matkailulaitepäätteiden verkkosivuston lokeja tarkastellaan tiedonlouhinnan keinoin tarkoitusta varten kehitetyllä Python-sovelluksella. Työn pohjalta voidaan todeta, ettei matkailulaitepäätteiden käyttömääriä voida nykyisen toteutuksen perusteella eriyttää laitekohtaisesti. Istuntojen määrää ja tapahtumia voidaan kuitenkin seurata. Matkailulaitepäätteiden kävijäseurannassa tunnistetaan useita ongelmia, kuten päätteiden automaattisen verkkosivunpäivityksen tuloksia vääristävä vaikutus, osittainen Google Analytics -integraatio ja tärkeimpänä päätteen yksilöivän tunnistetiedon puuttuminen. Työssä ehdotetaan ratkaisuja, joilla mahdollistetaan kävijäseurannan tehokas käyttö ja laitekohtainen seuranta. Saadut tulokset korostavat kävijäseurannan toteutuksen suunnitelmallisuuden tärkeyttä.

Focus Group Report

Report to Terry O'Malley from Tom highlighting favourable responses from a focus group on the "Butter It" campaign.

Attention focus and balance control in young and older adults

This thesis investigated attention focus and balance control in eighteen healthy young adults and eighteen healthy older adults. All participants performed sixteen consecutive trials of a balance task which involved standing for 30-s on an unstable platform that could rotate only in the roll direction. There were no attention focus instructions provided on any of the sixteen trials. Following the completion of the initial and final attempt in the series, participants reported "where" their attention had been focused when performing the task. The results showed differences in balance between young and older adults and improvements in balance with practice in both young and older adults. However, there were no differences in attention focus strategies between young and older adults. Both age groups directed attention to multiple sources during the balance task. An equal focus on internal (i.e., feet, trunk, and other body parts) and external (i.e., the platform) sources with little focus on events not related to the task dominated on the first attempt of the balance task. Focus on internal sources was maintained and focus on events not related to the task increased at the expense of focus on external sources on the final attempt of the balance task. Following the series of sixteen trials to establish "natural" attention focus, participants performed three randomly presented trials, each with specific attention focus instructions (i.e., think about minimizing movements of the feet, the trunk, or the platform). The results showed that, in contrast to the literature, instructions to focus on an internal source, the trunk, actually augmented control of the task as reflected in reduced trunk sway whereas instructions to focus on an internal source, the feet, or an external source, the platform, did not benefit performance on the task. Thus, the distance fi-om the interaction point of the body with the external source is critical and may not depend on whether the source is internal or external. Thus, a global attention focus instruction may not be beneficial and the nature of the task should be considered when adopting attention focus instructions for young and older adults.

Automatic evolution of conceptual building architectures

This thesis describes research in which genetic programming is used to automatically evolve shape grammars that construct three dimensional models of possible external building architectures. A completely automated fitness function is used, which evaluates the three dimensional building models according to different geometric properties such as surface normals, height, building footprint, and more. In order to evaluate the buildings on the different criteria, a multi-objective fitness function is used. The results obtained from the automated system were successful in satisfying the multiple objective criteria as well as creating interesting and unique designs that a human-aided system might not discover. In this study of evolutionary design, the architectures created are not meant to be fully functional and structurally sound blueprints for constructing a building, but are meant to be inspirational ideas for possible architectural designs. The evolved models are applicable for today's architectural industries as well as in the video game and movie industries. Many new avenues for future work have also been discovered and highlighted.

Automatic Inference of Graph Models for Complex Networks with Genetic Programming

Complex networks can arise naturally and spontaneously from all things that act as a part of a larger system. From the patterns of socialization between people to the way biological systems organize themselves, complex networks are ubiquitous, but are currently poorly understood. A number of algorithms, designed by humans, have been proposed to describe the organizational behaviour of real-world networks. Consequently, breakthroughs in genetics, medicine, epidemiology, neuroscience, telecommunications and the social sciences have recently resulted. The algorithms, called graph models, represent significant human effort. Deriving accurate graph models is non-trivial, time-intensive, challenging and may only yield useful results for very specific phenomena. An automated approach can greatly reduce the human effort required and if effective, provide a valuable tool for understanding the large decentralized systems of interrelated things around us. To the best of the author's knowledge this thesis proposes the first method for the automatic inference of graph models for complex networks with varied properties, with and without community structure. Furthermore, to the best of the author's knowledge it is the first application of genetic programming for the automatic inference of graph models. The system and methodology was tested against benchmark data, and was shown to be capable of reproducing close approximations to well-known algorithms designed by humans. Furthermore, when used to infer a model for real biological data the resulting model was more representative than models currently used in the literature.

The effects of consistency and inconsistency between attentional focus and task objective in learning a golf putting task

Converging evidence has demonstrated learning advantages when an individual is instructed to focus their attention externally. However, many of the motor tasks utilized in past research had clear external objectives (i.e., putting accuracy), creating a compatible relationship between an external focus of attention (i.e., outcome) and an external task objective (i.e., putting accuracy). The present study examined whether or not the consistency of instructions and task objective would differentially impact the acquisition of a golf putting task. Participants performed a putting task in a control condition or in one of four experimental conditions resulting from the factorial interaction of task instructions (internal or external) and task objective (internal or external). The retention and transfer data revealed that participants who received an external task objective demonstrated superior outcome scores. Participants who received technique information paired with outcome information demonstrated superior technique scores.

HUMAN GENOME VARIATIONS AND EVOLUTION WITH A FOCUS ON THE ANALYSIS OF TRANSPOSABLE ELEMENTS

Genome sequence varies in numerous ways among individuals although the gross architecture is fixed for all humans. Retrotransposons create one of the most abundant structural variants in the human genome and are divided in many families, with certain members in some families, e.g., L1, Alu, SVA, and HERV-K, remaining active for transposition. Along with other types of genomic variants, retrotransponson-derived variants contribute to the whole spectrum of genome variants in humans. With the advancement of sequencing techniques, many human genomes are being sequenced at the individual level, fueling the comparative research on these variants among individuals. In this thesis, the evolution and functional impact of structural variations is examined primarily focusing on retrotransposons in the context of human evolution. The thesis comprises of three different studies on the topics that are presented in three data chapters. First, the recent evolution of all human specific AluYb members, representing the second most active subfamily of Alus, was tracked to identify their source/master copy using a novel approach. All human-specific AluYb elements from the reference genome were extracted, aligned with one another to construct clusters of similar copies and each cluster was analyzed to generate the evolutionary relationship between the members of the cluster. The approach resulted in identification of one major driver copy of all human specific Yb8 and the source copy of the Yb9 lineage. Three new subfamilies within the AluYb family – Yb8a1, Yb10 and Yb11 were also identified, with Yb11 being the youngest and most polymorphic. Second, an attempt to construct a relation between transposable elements (TEs) and tandem repeats (TRs) was made at a genome-wide scale for the first time. Upon sequence comparison, positional cross-checking and other relevant analyses, it was observed that over 20% of all TRs are derived from TEs. This result established the first connection between these two types of repetitive elements, and extends our appreciation for the impact of TEs on genomes. Furthermore, only 6% of these TE-derived TRs follow the already postulated initiation and expansion mechanisms, suggesting that the others are likely to follow a yet-unidentified mechanism. Third, by taking a combination of multiple computational approaches involving all types of genetic variations published so far including transposable elements, the first whole genome sequence of the most recent common ancestor of all modern human populations that diverged into different populations around 125,000-100,000 years ago was constructed. The study shows that the current reference genome sequence is 8.89 million base pairs larger than our common ancestor’s genome, contributed by a whole spectrum of genetic mechanisms. The use of this ancestral reference genome to facilitate the analysis of personal genomes was demonstrated using an example genome and more insightful recent evolutionary analyses involving the Neanderthal genome. The three data chapters presented in this thesis conclude that the tandem repeats and transposable elements are not two entirely distinctly isolated elements as over 20% TRs are actually derived from TEs. Certain subfamilies of TEs themselves are still evolving with the generation of newer subfamilies. The evolutionary analyses of all TEs along with other genomic variants helped to construct the genome sequence of the most recent common ancestor to all modern human populations which provides a better alternative to human reference genome and can be a useful resource for the study of personal genomics, population genetics, human and primate evolution.