Geopolitical concerns (unstable supply of gasoline, environmental pollution, and regular price hikes), economic, and employment concerns have been prompting researchers, entrepreneurs, and policy makers to focus on harnessing the potential of lignocellulosic feedstock for fuel ethanol production and its commercialization. The carbohydrate skeleton of plant cell walls needs to be depolymerised into simpler sugars for their application in fermentation reactions as a chief carbon source of suitable ethnologic strains for ethanol production. The role of cellulolytic enzymes in the degradation of structural carbohydrates of the plant cell wall into ready-to-fermentable sugar stream is inevitable. Cellulase synergistically acts upon plant cell wall polysaccharides to release glucose into the liquid media. Cellulase predominantly dominates all the plant cell wall degrading enzymes due to their vast and diverse range of applications. Apart from the major applications of cellulases such as in detergent formulations, textile desizing, and development of monogastric feed for ruminants, their role in biorefinery is truly remarkable. This is a major area where new research tools based upon fermentation based formulations, biochemistry, and system biology to expedite the structure-function relationships of cellulases including cellulosomes and new designer enzymatic cocktails are required. In the last two decades, a considerable amount of research work has been performed on cellulases and their application in biomass saccharification. However, there are still technical and economic impediments to the development of an inexpensive commercial cellulase production process. Advancements in biotechnology such as screening of microorganisms, manipulation of novel cellulase encoding traits, site-specific mutagenesis, and modifications to the fermentation process could enhance the production of cellulases. Commercially, cheaper sources of carbohydrates and modified fermentation conditions could lead to more cost-effective production of cellulases with the goal to reduce the cost of ethanol production from lignocellulosics. Implementation of integrated steps like cellulase production and cellulase mediated saccharification of biomass in conjunction with the fermentation of released sugars in ethanol in a single step so called consolidated bio-processing (CBP) is very important to reduce the cost of bioethanol. This paper aims to explore and review the important findings in cellulase biotechnology and the forward path for new cutting edge opportunities in the success of biorefineries.

The setup of heuristics and metaheuristics, that is, the fine-tuning of their parameters, exercises a great influence in both the solution process, and in the quality of results of optimization problems. The search for the best fit of these algorithms is an important task and a major research challenge in the field of metaheuristics. The fine-tuning process requires a robust statistical approach, in order to aid in the process understanding and also in the effective settings, as well as an efficient algorithm which can summarize the search process. This paper aims to present an approach combining design of experiments (DOE) techniques and racing algorithms to improve the performance of different algorithms to solve classical optimization problems. The results comparison considering the default metaheuristics and ones using the settings suggested by the fine-tuning procedure will be presented. Broadly, the statistical results suggest that the fine-tuning process improves the quality of solutions for different instances of the studied problems. Therefore, by means of this study it can be concluded that the use of DOE techniques combined with racing algorithms may be a promising and powerful tool to assist in the investigation, and in the fine-tuning of different algorithms. However, additional studies must be conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.

This paper presents the Taguchi Method, a statistical design modelling for experiments applied in environmental engineering. This method was applied to optimize the treatment conditions of polyester-resin effluent by means of Advanced Oxidative Processes (AOPs) using chemical oxygen demand (COD) as response parameter. The influence of each independent parameter including respective interactions was evaluated by Taguchi Method, which allowed determining the most statistically significant variables and conditions to best fit the process. Results showed that Taguchi Method is a very useful tool for environmental engineering field and possible simplifications of analysis and calculations through commercially available software.

No abstract

This paper aims to introduce an innovative framework, named FCAUP, for planning and implementing conformity assessment based on a conceptual analogy with Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle of Quantum Mechanics. Conformity assessment is a very important issue in many different areas, such as, operations and quality management, international trade, sustainable development, and so on. FCAUP means "Framework for Conformity Assessment inspired by the Uncertainty Principle". This original procedure employs quantitative and qualitative techniques for analysis, classification, purposive sampling and execution of double inspections in order to reduce the uncertainty in conformity assessment activities. Its preliminary evaluation has been performed by means of three simulations regarding conformity assessments in manufacturing industries. Simulation results suggest that FCAUP is a consistent method to be used in several categories of conformity assessment.The most common technical procedures to assess conformity in many different areas are inspection, sampling, testing, quality management system assessment and audit. Inspection is defined by ISO 9000 (2015) as "determination of conformity to specified requirements" and a similar definition is given by Juran and Godfrey (1999). Liepina et al. (2014) stated that "conformity assessment is closely related to quality management" and discussions about quality management remain relevant in several areas as pointed out by Cho et al.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract