Small-scale mining: a new entrepreneurial approach

Includes bibliography

Domain reduction using GRASP construction phase for transmission expansion planning problem

This paper proposes a new strategy to reduce the combinatorial search space of a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) problem. The construction phase of greedy randomized adaptive search procedure (GRASP-CP) is employed to reduce the domain of the integer variables of the transportation model of the transmission expansion planning (TM-TEP) problem. This problem is a MILP and very difficult to solve specially for large scale systems. The branch and bound (BB) algorithm is used to solve the problem in both full and the reduced search space. The proposed method might be useful to reduce the search space of those kinds of MILP problems that a fast heuristic algorithm is available for finding local optimal solutions. The obtained results using some real test systems show the efficiency of the proposed method. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.

Local and regional features of surface radiation fluxes over the tropical Atlantic ocean near Sao Pedro and Sao Paulo archipelago: Evidence of small scale upwelling

To properly describe the interactions between the ocean and atmosphere, it is necessary to assess a variety of time and spatial scales phenomena. Here, high resolution oceanographic and meteorological data collected during an observational campaign carried out aboard a ship in the tropical Atlantic Ocean, on May 15-24, 2002, is used to describe the radiation balance at the ocean interface. Data collected by two PIRATA buoys, along the equator at 23°W and 35°W and satellite and climate data are compared with the data obtained during the observational campaign. Comparison indicates remarkable similarity for daily and hourly values of radiation fluxes components as consequence of the temporal and spatial consistence presented by the air and water temperatures measured in situ and estimated from large scale information. The discrepancy, mainly in the Sao Pedro and Sao Paulo Archipelago area, seems to be associated to the local upwelling of cold water, which is not detected in all other estimates investigated here. More in situ data are necessary to clarify whether this upwelling flow has a larger scale effect and what are the meteorological and oceanographic implications of the local upwelling area on the tropical waters at the Brazilian coast.

Argentina: Dissemination of genetically modified cotton and its impact on the profitability of small-scale farmers in the Chaco province

Includes bibliography

Uma ferramenta alternativa para síntese de circuitos lógicos usando a técnica de circuito evolutivo

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Prospecção química e biológica do fungo endofítico Camarops sp. isolado de Alibertia macrophylla (Rubiaceae)

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Variações genéticas para caracteres silviculturais em progênies e procedências de Dipteryx alata Vogel

Pós-graduação em Ciência Florestal - FCA

Otimização da técnica de MIRU (Mycobacterial Interspersed Repetitive Units) para o estudo epidemiológico de pacientes com tuberculose

Pós-graduação em Biotecnologia - IQ

Algoritmos culturais com abordagem memética e multipopulacional aplicados a problemas de otimização

Em muitos problemas de otimização há dificuldades em alcançar um resultado ótimo ou mesmo um resultado próximo ao valor ótimo em um tempo viável, principalmente quando se trabalha em grande escala. Por isso muitos desses problemas são abordados por heurísticas ou metaheurísticas que executam buscas por melhores soluções dentro do espaço de busca definido. Dentro da computação natural estão os Algoritmos Culturais e os Algoritmos Genéticos, que são considerados metaheurísticas evolutivas que se complementam devido ao mecanismo dual de herança cultura/genética. A proposta do presente trabalho é estudar e utilizar tais mecanismos acrescentando tanto heurísticas de busca local como multipopulações aplicados em problemas de otimização combinatória (caixeiro viajante e mochila), funções multimodais e em problemas restritos. Serão executados alguns experimentos para efetuar uma avaliação em relação ao desempenho desses mecanismos híbridos e multipopulacionais com outros mecanismos dispostos na literatura de acordo com cada problema de otimização aqui abordado.

Automatic Orientation of Multi-Scale Terrestrial Images for 3D Reconstruction

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

An unequivocal normalization-based paradigm to solve dynamic economic and emission active-reactive OPF (optimal power flow)

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

Criopreservação de embriões bovino produzidos in vitro: estado da arte

In the last years, the embryo in vitro production for every domestic species and mainly for bovine has attained a notorius status. This reproductive biotechnical procedure associate with ultrasound-guided ovum pick up (OPU) has been more and more incorporated and spread in our cattle herds, ranking up Brazil already at the top of the list in number of in vitro embryo produced. Some significant advantages provided, such as the possibility of using the premature or pregnant animals oocytes, without necessarily requiring the use of hormonal treatment, to make it possible to generate pregnancy at a shorter period of time, the rationalization in the use of semen and optimization in the use of sexed semen were determinant factors for OPU/IVP to reach this outstanding position. Nevertheless, right now the possibility of IVP embryo cryopreservation, just now is the biggest impediment for maximizing the use of this biotechnology, due to both lack of efficient methods and low laboratory produced embryo cryotolerance. Nowadays, the most used methods of IVP embryo cryopreservation are: slow freezing and vitrification. Traditionally, slow freezing is still the most used methods for in vivo and in vitro produced embryo cryopreservation. However, more recently vitrification - although still not commercially used in large scale - has been presenting satisfactory results in IVP embryo cryopreservation, according to searches

Efficient Forest Data Structure for Evolutionary Algorithms Applied to Network Design

The design of a network is a solution to several engineering and science problems. Several network design problems are known to be NP-hard, and population-based metaheuristics like evolutionary algorithms (EAs) have been largely investigated for such problems. Such optimization methods simultaneously generate a large number of potential solutions to investigate the search space in breadth and, consequently, to avoid local optima. Obtaining a potential solution usually involves the construction and maintenance of several spanning trees, or more generally, spanning forests. To efficiently explore the search space, special data structures have been developed to provide operations that manipulate a set of spanning trees (population). For a tree with n nodes, the most efficient data structures available in the literature require time O(n) to generate a new spanning tree that modifies an existing one and to store the new solution. We propose a new data structure, called node-depth-degree representation (NDDR), and we demonstrate that using this encoding, generating a new spanning forest requires average time O(root n). Experiments with an EA based on NDDR applied to large-scale instances of the degree-constrained minimum spanning tree problem have shown that the implementation adds small constants and lower order terms to the theoretical bound.

Fermentation medium and oxygen transfer conditions that maximize the xylose conversion to ethanol by Pichia stipitis

The xylose conversion to ethanol by Pichia stipitis was studied. In a first step, the necessity of supplementing the fermentation medium with urea. MgSO(4) x 7H(2)O, and/or yeast extract was evaluated through a 2(3) full factorial design. The simultaneous addition of these three nutritional sources to the fermentation medium, in concentrations of 2.3, 1.0, and 3.0 g/l, respectively, showed to be important to improve the ethanol production in detriment of the substrate conversion to cell. In a second stage, fermentation assays performed in a bioreactor under different K(L)a (volumetric oxygen transfer coefficient) conditions made possible understanding the influence of the oxygen transfer on yeast performance, as well as to define the most suitable range of values for an efficient ethanol production. The most promising region to perform this bioconversion process was found to be between 2.3 and 4.9 h(-1), since it promoted the highest ethanol production results with practically exhaustion of the xylose from the medium. These findings contribute for the development of an economical and efficient technology for large scale production of second generation ethanol. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A modified Primal-Dual Logarithmic-Barrier Method for solving the Optimal Power Flow problem with discrete and continuous control variables

The aim of solving the Optimal Power Flow problem is to determine the optimal state of an electric power transmission system, that is, the voltage magnitude and phase angles and the tap ratios of the transformers that optimize the performance of a given system, while satisfying its physical and operating constraints. The Optimal Power Flow problem is modeled as a large-scale mixed-discrete nonlinear programming problem. This paper proposes a method for handling the discrete variables of the Optimal Power Flow problem. A penalty function is presented. Due to the inclusion of the penalty function into the objective function, a sequence of nonlinear programming problems with only continuous variables is obtained and the solutions of these problems converge to a solution of the mixed problem. The obtained nonlinear programming problems are solved by a Primal-Dual Logarithmic-Barrier Method. Numerical tests using the IEEE 14, 30, 118 and 300-Bus test systems indicate that the method is efficient. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.