Search results for "pret"

The effect of abrasive pretreatment on the drying kinetics and phenolic compounds in goji berries ( Lycium barbarum L.)

2020

The paper investigated the effect of a physical surface abrasion of goji berries on drying kinetics and the evolution of phenolic compounds at 323, 333, and 343 K. A diffusion model was developed to describe the drying process. The effective diffusion coefficient estimated by the model ranged from 7.5 × 10–9 to 4.2 × 10–8 m2/s for cylinder and 2.0 × 10–9 to 1.15 × 10–8 m2/s for sphere for untreated samples (UTR). Higher values were found for treated samples (TR) (from 2.50 × 10–8 to 1.20 × 10–7 m2/s for cylinder and 8.0 × 10–9 to 2.70 × 10–8 m2/s for sphere). For the UTR samples, the values of activation energy were found to be 79.5 and 80.8 kJ/mol, respectively, in the cylinder and sphere …

Spectroscopic analysis of hot-water- and dilute-acid-extracted hardwood and softwood chips

2017

Hot-water and dilute sulfuric acid pretreatments were performed prior to chemical pulping for silver/white birch (Betula pendula/B. pubescens) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) chips to determine if varying pretreatment conditions on the original wood material were detectable via attenuated total reflectance (ATR) infrared spectroscopy. Pretreatment conditions varied with respect to temperature (130 °C and 150 °C) and treatment time (from 30 min to 120 min). The effects of the pretreatments on the composition of wood chips were determined by ATR infrared spectroscopy. The spectral data were compared to those determined by common wood chemistry analyses to evaluate the suitability of ATR spe…

A theoretical framework for product relationships description over space and time in integrated design

2016

ABSTRACTThis paper presents a novel qualitative description theory in the context of integrated design, which here incorporates assembly sequence planning in the early product design stages (also called assembly oriented design – AOD). Based on a literature review of current AOD approaches, product models and mereotopology-based theories, the authors introduce a promising mereotopological theory which enables the formal product relationships description in integrated design by introducing an emerging framework, four-dimensionalism (i.e. perdurantism in philosophy). The proposed efforts aim at providing a concrete basis for describing the evolution of spatial entities (i.e. product parts) an…

2021

Classification approaches that allow to extract logical rules such as decision trees are often considered to be more interpretable than neural networks. Also, logical rules are comparatively easy to verify with any possible input. This is an important part in systems that aim to ensure correct operation of a given model. However, for high-dimensional input data such as images, the individual symbols, i.e. pixels, are not easily interpretable. Therefore, rule-based approaches are not typically used for this kind of high-dimensional data. We introduce the concept of first-order convolutional rules, which are logical rules that can be extracted using a convolutional neural network (CNN), and w…

A Meta-Model for Intelligent Engineering Design of Complex City

2019

A city is a complex system, requiring the input of multiple disciplines for its (re)design. It shares some properties of two kinds of objects: empirical objects as well as theoretical objects. As city emerges as a complex object for multi-disciplinary studies, it is of the highest importance to adopt a systemic and global approach in order to bring new knowledge to this field. To master the growing complexity of cities and to consider in the same spot heterogeneous ways of thinking of city, we need intellectual tools and models. The goal of this paper is to propose a model for describing engineering modelling knowledge with relationships and transformations between four domains: (1) citizen…

Essais cliniques institutionnels : quel monitoring ?

2013

Resume Objectif Les promoteurs assument la responsabilite de la qualite des essais cliniques. Ces methodes d’assurance qualite doivent etre les plus efficaces possible, et avoir un cout maitrise. Nous voulions decrire les erreurs les plus frequentes, a partir de la litterature, leur impact sur les resultats, et proposer les strategies de monitoring les plus efficientes. Resultats Les defauts rencontres concernent la conception, les procedures, la gestion des donnees et l’analyse. L’impact sur les resultats est presque toujours une surestimation de l’effet traitement. Aucune methode de monitoring n’ayant ete demontree superieure, un monitoring econome, cible sur les risques d’erreurs, avec d…

Severe pre-eclampsia is associated with alterations in cytotrophoblasts of the smooth chorion.

2016

Pre-eclampsia (PE), which affects ∼8% of first pregnancies, is associated with faulty placentation. Extravillous cytotrophoblasts (CTBs) fail to differentiate properly, contributing to shallow uterine invasion and deficient spiral artery remodeling. We studied the effects of severe PE (sPE) on the smooth chorion portion of the fetal membranes. The results showed a significant expansion of the CTB layer. The cells displayed enhanced expression of stage-specific antigens that extravillous CTBs normally upregulate as they exit the placenta. Transcriptomics revealed the dysregulated expression of many genes (e.g. placental proteins, markers of oxidative stress). We confirmed an sPE-related incr…

Enhancing methane production from lignocellulosic biomass by combined steam-explosion pretreatment and bioaugmentation with cellulolytic bacterium Ca…

2018

Abstract Background Biogas production from lignocellulosic biomass is generally considered to be challenging due to the recalcitrant nature of this biomass. In this study, the recalcitrance of birch was reduced by applying steam-explosion (SE) pretreatment (210 °C and 10 min). Moreover, bioaugmentation with the cellulolytic bacterium Caldicellulosiruptor bescii was applied to possibly enhance the methane production from steam-exploded birch in an anaerobic digestion (AD) process under thermophilic conditions (62 °C). Results Overall, the combined SE and bioaugmentation enhanced the methane yield up to 140% compared to untreated birch, while SE alone contributed to the major share of methane…

Models for preterm cortical development using non invasive clinical EEG

2017

AbstractThe objective of this study was to evaluate the piglet and the mouse as model systems for preterm cortical development. According to the clinical context, we used non invasive EEG recordings. As a prerequisite, we developed miniaturized Ag/AgCl electrodes for full band EEG recordings in mice and verified that Urethane had no effect on EEG band power. Since mice are born with a “preterm” brain, we evaluated three age groups: P0/P1, P3/P4 and P13/P14. Our aim was to identify EEG patterns in the somatosensory cortex which are distinguishable between developmental stages and represent a physiologic brain development. In mice, we were able to find clear differences between age groups wit…

Diagnostic odyssey in severe neurodevelopmental disorders: toward clinical whole-exome sequencing as a first-line diagnostic test

2016

The current standard of care for diagnosis of severe intellectual disability (ID) and epileptic encephalopathy (EE) results in a diagnostic yield of ∼50%. Affected individuals nonetheless undergo multiple clinical evaluations and low-yield laboratory tests often referred to as a 'diagnostic odyssey'. This study was aimed at assessing the utility of clinical whole-exome sequencing (WES) in individuals with undiagnosed and severe forms of ID and EE, and the feasibility of its implementation in routine practice by a small regional genetic center. We performed WES in a cohort of 43 unrelated individuals with undiagnosed ID and/or EE. All individuals had undergone multiple clinical evaluations a…