Compound parabolic concentrators are relevant systems used in solar thermal technology. With adequate tailoring, they can be used as an efficient and low-cost alternative in residential water heating applications. This work presents a simulation study using a ray tracing analysis. With this technique, we simulate the interaction between solar rays and solar concentrator to quantify the amount of energy that impinges on the receiver at a particular time. Energy availability is evaluated in a comparison of two configurations throughout the year: static setup at 21° and multi-position setup; tilted with respect to the horizontal, depending on three seasonal positions: 0° for summer, 16° for spring/autumn, and 32° for winter, with the aim to evaluate the amount of available energy in each season. The fact that a tracking system can be dispensed with also represents an economical option for the proposed application. The results showed that at 21°, the proposed solar Compound Parabolic Concentrator (CPC) works satisfactorily; however, by carrying out the selected angular adjustments, the overall energy availability increased by 22%, resulting in a more efficient option. The most effective design was also built and analyzed outdoors. The obtained thermal efficiency was of ~43%. The optical design and its evaluation developed herein proved to be a valuable tool for prototype design and performance evaluation.

In the context of proteomic-scale research, it is imperative to automatically analyze numerous species and subspecies to discern distinctive characteristics present in multiple species of the fungi kingdom that contain sequences of interest that could fulfill a specific biological function. To achieve this, complex sequences must be recognized within an organism’s entire set of proteomes. Our study presents FungiRegEx, a piece of software that facilitates the identification of regular expressions of proteomes of fungal organisms and uses real-time data retrieval of the different species from the JGI Mycocosm database without the need to download any file. Integrating a graphical user interface that makes it easy to use, the tool offers regular expression searches on 2402 fungal species from the JGI Mycocosm portal. The tool was validated with the AXSXG sequence and the RXRL effector, demonstrating the effectiveness of FungiRegEx in identifying user-defined patterns in the recovered sequences. This tool allows customization and filtering, and it can save results if required, combining speed, adaptability, and ease of use. It provides an experience without a console and programming, displaying the results in a GUI and making them easier to read. Its architecture guarantees optimized use of resources, time consumption, and implementation flexibility, allowing the customization of specific software parameters for resource management. The tool’s potential for future research and exploration is emphasized, providing a nuanced perspective on its practical use within the fungal genomics community. The tools are available at the addresses mentioned in the text.

Software projects often accumulate technical debt, which undermines code quality, maintainability, and long-term viability. This article analyses twelve categories of technical debt and examines the capabilities of existing mitigation tools. To achieve this, we conducted a systematic literature review. Based on the results, we categorise and describe each debt type as it occurs in practice, and we assess prominent tools (such as AnaConDebt, CAST, DebtFlag, Visminer TD, and TD-Tracker) with respect to the debt types they target, the programming languages they support, and their adherence to established software quality models or methodologies. Our analysis shows that most current solutions focus on code and architectural debt, whereas documentation and process debt remain largely unaddressed. Moreover, most tools do not conform to software quality models or standards, which none of them explicitly incorporate.

The increasing complexity and fragmentation of bioinformatics tools presents significant challenges for researchers, particularly those without extensive programming expertise. This research presents BioSuiteT v1.0, a unified web-based platform that integrates multiple bioinformatics tools into a single, user-friendly environment. BioSuiteT incorporates twelve core functionalities, including DNA and protein sequence analysis, transcription processes, sequence alignment, BLAST integration, PDB visualization and analysis, phylogenetic tree construction, MOTIFS analysis, and regular expression searching. The platform was developed using the Django framework and MongoDB, following ISO/IEC 29110 standards. Performance testing demonstrated the platform’s capability to handle concurrent users while maintaining stable performance with reduced memory usage. Validation testing involving eight researchers, five bioinformatics experts, and sixty practitioners showed a 95% reduction in technical support requirements compared to traditional installable tools and a 90% reduction in tool switching time. BioSuiteT effectively addresses key challenges identified in bioinformatics software usage, including installation barriers, programming expertise requirements, and tool fragmentation, while maintaining the necessary functionality for biological sequence analysis.

Compound parabolic concentrators are relevant systems used in solar thermal technology. With adequate tailoring, they can be used as an efficient and low-cost alternative in residential water applications. This work presents a simulation study using a ray tracing methodology. With this technique we simulate the interaction between solar rays and solar concentrator to quantify the amount of energy that impinges on the receiver at a particular time. Energy availability is evaluated in a comparison of two configurations: stationary at 21° throughout the year and multi position setup; tilted with respect to the horizontal depending on three seasonal positions: 0° for summer, 16° for spring / autumn and 32° for winter, with the objective of increasing the amount of available energy in each season. The fact that a tracking system can be dispensed with also represents an economical option for the proposed application. The results showed that at 21°, the proposed system works satisfactorily; however, by carrying out the selected angular adjustments, the overall energy availability increased by 22%, resulting in a more efficient option. The methodology developed herein proved to be a valuable tool for prototype design and performance evaluation.