Evaluation of gamma irradiation effect on physico-chemical properties of a mixed beverage based in soy milk and grape juice

The effects of the main operation variables on the electrochemical oxidation of simulated tributyl phosphate (TBP) waste by a boron-doped diamond anode are individually studied. The optimum operating conditions are obtained as follows: 4 g L^?1 initial TBP concentration, 180 min degradation time, 40 mA cm^?2 current density, 0.5 mol L^?1 Na₂SO₄ as the supporting electrolyte, and unadjusted pH of the aqueous phase. Under such conditions, a chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal ratio of 82.3% is achieved, and the energy consumption is 26.16 kWh m^?3. A degradation mechanism of TBP is tentatively proposed.     

Link-wise artificial compressibility method

The artificial compressibility method (ACM) for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations is (link-wise) reformulated (referred to as LW-ACM) by a finite set of discrete directions (links) on a regular Cartesian mesh, in analogy with the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). The main advantage is the possibility of exploiting well established technologies originally developed for LBM and classical computational fluid dynamics, with special emphasis on finite differences (at least in the present paper), at the cost of minor changes. For instance, wall boundaries not aligned with the background Cartesian mesh can be taken into account by tracing the intersections of each link with the wall (analogously to LBM technology). LW-ACM requires no high-order moments beyond hydrodynamics (often referred to as ghost moments) and no kinetic expansion. Like finite difference schemes, only standard Taylor expansion is needed for analyzing consistency. Preliminary efforts towards optimal implementations have shown that LW-ACM is capable of similar computational speed as optimized (BGK-) LBM. In addition, the memory demand is significantly smaller than (BGK-) LBM. Importantly, with an efficient implementation, this algorithm may be among the few which are compute-bound and not memory-bound. Two- and three-dimensional benchmarks are investigated, and an extensive comparative study between the present approach and state of the art methods from the literature is carried out. Numerical evidences suggest that LW-ACM represents an excellent alternative in terms of simplicity, stability and accuracy.     

Approximation of slow and fast dynamics in multiscale dynamical systems by the linearized Relaxation Redistribution Method

In this paper, we introduce a fictitious dynamics for describing the only fast relaxation of a stiff ordinary differential equation (ODE) system towards a stable low-dimensional invariant manifold in the phase-space (slow invariant manifold – SIM). As a result, the demanding problem of constructing SIM of any dimensions is recast into the remarkably simpler task of solving a properly devised ODE system by stiff numerical schemes available in the literature. In the same spirit, a set of equations is elaborated for local construction of the fast subspace, and possible initialization procedures for the above equations are discussed. The implementation to a detailed mechanism for combustion of hydrogen and air has been carried out, while a model with the exact Chapman–Enskog solution of the invariance equation is utilized as a benchmark.     

Inference of analytical thermodynamic models for biological networks

We present an automated algorithm for inferring analytical models of closed reactive biochemical mixtures, on the basis of standard approaches borrowed from thermodynamics and kinetic theory of gases. As input, the method requires a number of steady states (i.e. an equilibria cloud in phase–space), and at least one time series of measurements for each species. Validations are discussed for both the Michaelis–Menten mechanism (four species, two conservation laws) and the mitogen-activated protein kinase–MAPK mechanism (eleven species, three conservation laws).     

Method of invariant grid for model reduction of hydrogen combustion

The Method of Invariant Grid (MIG) is a model reduction technique based on the concept of slow invariant manifold (SIM). The MIG approximates the SIM by a set of nodes in the concentration space (invariant grid). In the present work, the MIG is applied to a realistic combustion system: an adiabatic constant volume reactor with H₂-air at stoichiometric proportions. By considering the thermodynamic Lyapunov function of the detailed kinetic system, the notion of the quasi-equilibrium manifold (QEM) is adopted as an initial approximation to the SIM. One- and two-dimensional discrete approximations of the QEM (quasi-equilibrium grids) are constructed and refined via MIG to obtain the corresponding invariant grids. The invariant grids are tabulated and used to integrate the reduced system. Excellent agreement between the reduced and detailed kinetics is demonstrated.