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The work is dedicated to the use of the software package Turbulence Problem Solver (TPS) for numerical simulation of a wide range of laser problems. The capabilities of the package are demonstrated by the example of numerical simulation of the interaction of femtosecond laser pulses with thin metal bonds. The software package TPS developed by the authors is intended for numerical solution of hyperbolic systems of differential equations on multiprocessor computing systems with distributed memory. The package is a modern and expandable software product. The architecture of the package gives the researcher the opportunity to model different physical processes in a uniform way, using different numerical methods and program blocks containing specific initial conditions, boundary conditions and source terms for each problem. The package provides the the opportunity to expand the functionality of the package by adding new classes of problems, computational methods, initial and boundary conditions, as well as equations of state of matter. The numerical methods implemented in the software package were tested on test problems in one-dimensional, two-dimensional and three-dimensional geometry, which included Riemann's problems on the decay of an arbitrary discontinuity with different configurations of the exact solution.

Thin films on substrates are an important class of targets for nanomodification of surfaces in plasmonics or sensor applications. Many articles are devoted to this subject. Most of them, however, focus on the dynamics of the film itself, paying little attention to the substrate, considering it simply as an object that absorbs the first compression wave and does not affect the surface structures that arise as a result of irradiation. The paper describes in detail a computational experiment on the numerical simulation of the interaction of a single ultrashort laser pulse with a gold film deposited on a thick glass substrate. The uniform rectangular grid and the first-order Godunov numerical method were used. The presented results of calculations allowed to confirm the theory of the shock-wave mechanism of holes formation in the metal under femtosecond laser action for the case of a thin gold film with a thickness of about 50 nm on a thick glass substrate.

The problem is formulated for description of objects having various natures which uses a system of linear equations with variable number exceeding the number of the equations. An important feature of this problem that substantially complicates its solving is the existing of restrictions imposed on a number of the variables. In particular, the choice of biochemical reaction aggregate that converts a preset substrate (a feedstock) into a preset product belongs to this kind of problems. In this case, unknown variables are the rates of biochemical reactions which form a vector to be determined. Components of this vector are subdivided into two groups: 1) the defined components, $\vec{y}$; 2) those dependent on the defined ones, $\vec{x}$. Possible configurations of the domain of $\vec{y}$ values permitted by restrictions imposed upon $\vec{x}$ components have been studied. It has been found that a part of restrictions may be superfluous and, therefore, unnecessary for the problem solving. Situations are analyzed when two or more $\vec{x}$ restrictions result in strict interconnections between $\vec{y}$ components. Methods of search of the basis solutions which take into account the peculiarities of this problem are described. Statement of the general problem and properties of its solutions are illustrated using a biochemical example.

A vector-matrix approach to the theoretical design of metabolic pathways converting chemical compounds, viz., preset substrates, into desirable products is described. It is a mathematical basis for computer–aided generation of alternative biochemical reaction sets executing the given substrate–product conversion. The pathways are retrieved from the used database of biochemical reactions and utilize the reaction stoichiometry and restrictions based on the irreversibility of a part of them. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of restriction interrelations. It is shown that the number of restrictions can be notably reduced due to the existence of families of parallel restricting planes in the space of reaction flows. Coinciding planes of contradirectional restrictions result in the existence of fixed reaction flow values. The problem of exclusion of so called futile cycles is also considered. Utilization of these factors allows essential lowering of the problem complexity and necessary computational resources. An example of alternative biochemical pathway computation for conversion of glucose and glycerol into succinic acid is given. It is found that for a preset “substrate–product” pair many pathways have the same high-energy bond balance.

It is shown that the basic amount of homologous parts at inulinases from various species is presented by Gln, Asn and Glu residues. Carboxyl groups of Asp and Glu side chains (a part of active center of inulinase) can play the role of contact groups for substrate molecules and also carry out acid-base catalysis. Comparison of primary structures of inulinases has shown that frequency of residue substitution is very variable along the polypeptide chain. The phylogenetic tree of inulinases from various sources is constructed. It is revealed that high homology degree is characteristic for enzymes from Aspergillus awamori, Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus ficuum. Rather small relation degree is shown for endo- and exo-inulinases.

The paper presents a mathematical model that describes the process of obtaining biogas from livestock waste. This model describes the processes occurring in a biogas plant for mesophilic and thermophilic media, as well as for continuous and periodic modes of substrate inflow. The values of the coefficients of this model found earlier for the periodic mode, obtained by solving the problem of model identification from experimental data using a genetic algorithm, are given.

For the model of methanogenesis, an optimal control problem is formulated in the form of a Lagrange problem, whose criterial functionality is the output of biogas over a certain period of time. The controlling parameter of the task is the rate of substrate entry into the biogas plant. An algorithm for solving this problem is proposed, based on the numerical implementation of the Pontryagin maximum principle. In this case, a hybrid genetic algorithm with an additional search in the vicinity of the best solution using the method of conjugate gradients was used as an optimization method. This numerical method for solving an optimal control problem is universal and applicable to a wide class of mathematical models.

In the course of the study, various modes of submission of the substrate to the digesters, temperature environments and types of raw materials were analyzed. It is shown that the rate of biogas production in the continuous feed mode is 1.4–1.9 times higher in the mesophilic medium (1.9–3.2 in the thermophilic medium) than in the periodic mode over the period of complete fermentation, which is associated with a higher feed rate of the substrate and a greater concentration of nutrients in the substrate. However, the yield of biogas during the period of complete fermentation with a periodic mode is twice as high as the output over the period of a complete change of the substrate in the methane tank at a continuous mode, which means incomplete processing of the substrate in the second case. The rate of biogas formation for a thermophilic medium in continuous mode and the optimal rate of supply of raw materials is three times higher than for a mesophilic medium. Comparison of biogas output for various types of raw materials shows that the highest biogas output is observed for waste poultry farms, the least — for cattle farms waste, which is associated with the nutrient content in a unit of substrate of each type.

Bioenergetic regularities determining the maximal biomass yield in aerobic microbial growth on various substrates have been considered. The approach is based on the method of mass-energy balance and application of GenMetPath computer program package. An equation system describing the balances of quantities of 1) metabolite reductivity and 2) high-energy bonds formed and expended has been formulated. In order to formulate the system, the whole metabolism is subdivided into constructive and energetic partial metabolisms. The constructive metabolism is, in turn, subdivided into two parts: forward and standard. The latter subdivision is based on the choice of nodal metabolites. The forward constructive metabolism is substantially dependent on growth substrate: it converts the substrate into the standard set of nodal metabolites. The latter is, then, converted into biomass macromolecules by the standard constructive metabolism which is the same on various substrates. Variations of flows via nodal metabolites are shown to exert minor effects on the standard constructive metabolism. As a separate case, the growth on substrates requiring the participation of oxygenases and/or oxidase is considered. The bioenergetic characteristics of the standard constructive metabolism are found from a large amount of data for the growth of various organisms on glucose. The described approach can be used for prediction of biomass growth yield on substrates with known reactions of their primary metabolization. As an example, the growth of a yeast culture on ethanol has been considered. The value of maximal growth yield predicted by the method described here showed very good consistency with the value found experimentally.

The biomass growth yield is the ratio of the newly synthesized substance of growing cells to the amount of the consumed substrate, the source of matter and energy for cell growth. The yield is a characteristic of the efficiency of substrate conversion to cell biomass. The conversion is carried out by the cell metabolism, which is a complete aggregate of biochemical reactions occurring in the cells.

This work newly considers the problem of maximal cell growth yield prediction basing on balances of the whole living cell metabolism and its fragments called as partial metabolisms (PM). The following PM’s are used for the present consideration. During growth on any substrate we consider i) the standard constructive metabolism (SCM) which consists of identical pathways during growth of various organisms on any substrate. SCM starts from several standard compounds (nodal metabolites): glucose, acetyl-CoA 2-oxoglutarate, erythrose-4-phosphate, oxaloacetate, ribose-5- phosphate, 3-phosphoglycerate, phosphoenolpyruvate, and pyruvate, and ii) the full forward metabolism (FM) — the remaining part of the whole metabolism. The first one consumes high-energy bonds (HEB) formed by the second one. In this work we examine a generalized variant of the FM, when the possible presence of extracellular products, as well as the possibilities of both aerobic and anaerobic growth are taken into account. Instead of separate balances of each nodal metabolite formation as it was made in our previous work, this work deals at once with the whole aggregate of these metabolites. This makes the problem solution more compact and requiring a smaller number of biochemical quantities and substantially less computational time. An equation expressing the maximal biomass yield via specific amounts of HEB formed and consumed by the partial metabolisms has been derived. It includes the specific HEB consumption by SCM which is a universal biochemical parameter applicable to the wide range of organisms and growth substrates. To correctly determine this parameter, the full constructive metabolism and its forward part are considered for the growth of cells on glucose as the mostly studied substrate. We used here the found earlier properties of the elemental composition of lipid and lipid-free fractions of cell biomass. Numerical study of the effect of various interrelations between flows via different nodal metabolites has been made. It showed that the requirements of the SCM in high-energy bonds and NAD(P)H are practically constants. The found HEB-to-formed-biomass coefficient is an efficient tool for finding estimates of maximal biomass yield from substrates for which the primary metabolism is known. Calculation of ATP-to-substrate ratio necessary for the yield estimation has been made using the special computer program package, GenMetPath.

Working memory mechanisms in spiking neural networks consisting of leaky integrate-and-fire neurons with adaptive threshold and synaptic plasticity are studied in this work. Moderate size networks including thousands of neurons were explored. Working memory is a network ability to keep in its state the information about recent stimuli presented to the network such that this information is sufficient to determine which stimulus has been presented. In this study, network state is defined as the current characteristics of network activity only — without internal state of its neurons. In order to discover the neuronal structures serving as a possible substrate of the memory mechanism, optimization of the network parameters and structure using genetic algorithm was carried out. Two kinds of neuronal structures with the desired properties were found. These are neuron pairs mutually connected by strong synaptic links and long tree-like neuronal ensembles. It was shown that only the neuron pairs are suitable for efficient and reliable implementation of working memory. Properties of such memory units and structures formed by them are explored in the present study. It is shown that characteristics of the studied two-neuron memory units can be set easily by the respective choice of the parameters of its neurons and synaptic connections. Besides that, this work demonstrates that ensembles of these structures can provide the network with capability of unsupervised learning to recognize patterns in the input signal.

A mathematical model for the production of biogas from animal waste was developed. An algorithm for identification of model parameters was developed. The accuracy of model identification was performed. The result of simulation for batch and continuous modes of supply of substrate was shown. The optimum flow rate of the substrate for continuous operation was found.

The work aims to study the admissibility of the quasi-steady approach application in fluid flow modeling inside of evaporating drops placed on a solid horizontal substrate. Non-steady model has been developed to compare results with a quasi-steady model. For the first time one-dimensional motion equation of fluid in a drop is proposed from a momentum conservation law. We have shown that inward flow is possible on the edge of drop in one-dimensional models. It may be explained by existence of stagnation points.