Extra Unit Research Articles

Relationship between triglyceride-glucose index and blood eosinophils among asthmatic individuals in the USA

BackgroundPresently, the majority of investigations primarily evaluate the correlation between triglyceride-glucose index (TyGI) with lung diseases, such as asthma. However, they did not delve into the correlation between TyGI and inflammatory responses related to the disease. Few studies have explored the association between TyGI and blood eosinophil count (BEOC). Thus, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data were used in this study to evaluate the correlation between TyGI and BEOC in individuals with asthma.MethodsThis study investigated 3902 individuals with asthma. Linear regression analysis was performed to investigate the association between TyGI and BEOC in patients with asthma. Subsequently, the GAM and threshold effect models were used to validate the presence of either a nonlinear or linear association between TyGI and BEOC. Finally, stratified analyses were conducted to ascertain the correlations between different subgroups.ResultsFour linear regression models confirmed a positive linear correlation between TyGI and BEOC in patients with asthma. In Model D, which controlled for all covariates, BEOC increased by 12.44 cells/uL for every extra unit of TyGI. The GAM and threshold effect models further verified the positive linear correlation between TyGI and BEOC. The XGBoost model indicated that the six most significant variables influencing BEOC, in order of relative importance, were age, cholesterol level, body mass index (BMI), poverty-to-income ratio (PIR), BNEUC, and TyGI.ConclusionsIn patients with asthma, the study discovered a linear positive correlation between TyGI and BEOC. This indicates a potential connection between TyGI and alterations in the immune status of individuals with asthma, which may help detect abnormalities in a timely manner and provide a reference for clinical decision-making. This study offers fresh insights for the future exploration of the management and treatment of asthma.

Performance Estimation of a Medium-Resolution Earth Observation Sensor Using Nanosatellite Replica.

In many areas of engineering, the design of a new system usually involves estimating performance-related parameters from early stages of the project to determine whether a given solution will be compliant with the defined requirements. This aspect is particularly relevant during the design of satellite payloads, where the target environment is not easily accessible in most cases. In the context of Earth observation sensors, this problem has been typically solved with the help of a set of complex pseudo-empirical models and/or expensive laboratory equipment. This paper describes a more practical approach: the illumination conditions measured by an in-orbit payload are recreated on ground with the help of a replica of the same payload so the performance of another Earth observation sensor in development can be evaluated. The proposed method is specially relevant in the context of small satellites, as the possibility of having extra units devoted to these tasks becomes greater as costs are reduced. The results obtained using this method in an actual space mission are presented in this paper, giving valuable information that will help in further stages of the project.

Marginal profit maximization estimation of supply chains by waste energy decrement: a case study of the power industry

Economic growth and excessive fossil energy consumption have direct effects on environmental destruction and greenhouse gas increments. The existing appropriate pattern for economic performance increase as well as pollution emissions abatement is a basic issue in industry activities. In this paper, a data envelopment analysis (DEA) model is introduced for estimating the directional marginal profit maximization of supply chain divisions based on wasted energy and power losses. The purpose of this study is to estimate the directional marginal productivity in the supply chain, which enables us to find the optimal direction of efficient divisions on the frontier. This makes the allocation of resources create a marginal profit increase and the pollution emissions be abated simultaneously. Indeed, the proposed model considers the synergistic effects of each input on MP estimation in predetermined directions. The model is able to estimate the marginal profit maximization of desirable output and undesirable output decrease for each input simultaneously. The results suggested that the gas field division of one of the supply chains had fundamental capacities for energy production increments and flare gas decrements. Furthermore, the gas field division of this supply chain also had a considerable structure for the marginal profit maximization of outputs based on flare gas decreases. Additionally, the distribution lines of 0.80% supply chains provided wasted energy reduction by adding one extra unit to the line's capacity in the determined direction. Especially, there were supply chains that had investment opportunities for an acceptable abatement of power losses. This not only enables divisions to respond to fluctuations in demand as they produce more energy in critical situations like climate change but also decreases harmful emissions as wasted energy in supply chain divisions.

Influence of Unit Water Content Control on Concrete Performance in the Ready-Mixed Concrete Production Process.

This study examined the effects of increasing concrete unit water content and artificially controlling water content on concrete performance in the production process of ready-mixed concrete. Results showed that changes in the unit water content of 20 concrete mix proportions without air-entraining significantly reduced concrete compressive strength, increased porosity, and in-creased occurrence of bleeding. A unit water content increase of 25 kg/m3 or more may reduce the compressive strength of concrete below the design standard and significantly affect the occurrence of bleeding water. Moreover, an extra unit water content of at least 25 kg/m3 could significantly affect the diffusion of chloride ions in the concrete. The carbonation depth of concrete was extremely high with the increase in unit water content and water addition. In the production of concrete requiring at least normal strength or durability, the extra water change to total unit water content should be maintained at 15 kg/m3 or less. And a water-cement ratio of 48% or less and a unit water content of 155 kg/m3 or less are considered effective for management of concrete quality. Considering the aggregate type, absorption rate, and moisture state, the management of unit water content error in concrete production processes requires greater.

Labile oxygen-driven catalytic ozonation via surface peroxide pathway for efficient wastewater treatment

The aluminosilicate-based heterogeneous catalysts hold great promise for industrial catalytic ozonation; however, the lack of exploration into novel active sites and mechanism studies has impeded their development. In this work, we demonstrate that labile oxygen (Olab) can be generated in mullite (mullite-Olab) by the introduction of extra Al-O4 tetrahedral units. In our experiments, mullite-Olab exhibits excellent performance in terms of catalytic ozone activation, with a degradation rate of 87.4 % within 15 min for nonbiodegradable atrazine, corresponding to a high quasi-first-order rate constant (k, 0.112 min−1), while the degradation constant is close to 0 for mullite without Olab. Operando Raman and density functional theory (DFT) simulations further reveal that Olab activates ozone via a novel surface peroxide pathway to generate surface Olab-O* species with a high oxidizing ability. The mullite-Olab is stable with an average Al3+ leaching of 0.339 ppm during cycling, meeting the effluent discharge standard of the total Al. Moreover, we achieve the kilogram synthesis of mullite-Olab, which shows promising activity in the catalytic ozonation of acrylic fiber wastewater, with the chemical oxygen demand (COD) and total organic carbon (TOC) removal rates of 46.0 %±4.8 % and 24.9 %±2.8 % for 5 cycles. This work is the first to demonstrate the role of Olab in ozone activation and provides an advanced mullite-Olab catalyst for future nonbiodegradable wastewater treatment.

Global routing between capsules

Current convolutional neural networks (CNNs) lack viewpoint equivariance. Hence, they perform poorly when dealing with viewpoints unseen during training procedures. CNN achieves invariance via pooling operations in image classification tasks. However, the pooling operation does not necessarily improve viewpoint generalization, rather relying on more data to achieve viewpoint equivariance. Capsule network (CapsNet) is proposed to tackle this issue, but it is inefficient and inaccurate when applied to complex datasets. We propose a novel CapsNet architecture called Global Routing CapsNet (GR-CapsNet) to solve this problem. Specifically, colored background in the input image can generate invalid background voting capsules to reduce the performance of CapsNet. Therefore, we first construct a dynamic linear unit (DLU), which avoids the generation of invalid background voting capsules. Then we present two extra learnable units: frequency domain unit (FDU) and spatial unit (SPU). The former is used to capture finer features in the frequency domain and aims to improve classification performance on complex datasets. The latter is applied to construct the spatial relationship between the voting capsules and component capsules and aims to enhance robustness to affine transformation. Finally, we propose a global routing mechanism to simplify the routing process for CapsNet, which obtains more feature information to improve the performance of CapsNet. Extensive experiments on nine datasets show that our method obtains better robustness and generalization and achieves SOTA performance compared to other related methods. And it has fewer the number of parameters and GPU memory consumption than these related methods. The source code is available on https://github.com/cwpl/GR-CapsNet.

Radiotherapy Resources in Latin America and the Caribbean: An International Atomic Energy Agency Analysis of Current and Projected Needs

The inequitable access to radiotherapy (RT) is recognized to be a complex undertaking that will require sustained work identifying gaps and mobilizing efforts to fill in those gaps. Data can support policy-makers as they embark on programs to reduce premature mortality from cancer in their countries and regions. The purpose of this analysis is to identify the current gaps and needs in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). We created a database of 41 countries in LAC using open-source data, including data on population size (UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs data), gross national income per capita (GNIPC) (World Bank Data), current and projected cancer incidence and mortality (Globocan 2020). The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Directory of Radiotherapy Centers (DIRAC) was used to identify the number and operational status of megavoltage (MV) teletherapy machines (Cobalt-60 and Linear Accelerators LINACs) and brachytherapy facilities (HDR and LDR). To calculate current and projected gaps in external beam RT (EBRT) facilities, we matched DIRAC data with Globocan cancer incidence data for 2020 and projections for 2025 and 2030 while applying a 64% optimal EBRT utilization rate (taking into account re-treatment). For brachytherapy, analysis took into account both HDR and LDR capacity and was primarily focused on needs based on current and projected incidence of cervical cancer cases in LAC. EBRT was available in 32 (76%) of 41 countries. There were 742 RT centers in 32 countries with a total of 1131 MV units. Average coverage in 2022 based on an optimal utilization rate of 64% was 64%. LINACs accounted for 87% of the total MV units and Cobalt-60 capacity decreased to 13% of total teletherapy capacity compared to capacity in 2018. Most countries clustered in the same range of GNIPC to teletherapy units per 1000 cases, however outliers were most notable in the Caribbean. The median GNIPC was $6340 and the median MV units per 1000 cancer cases were 1.4. The current deficit in MV units is estimated at 672 megavoltage units and projected to be 2455 units by 2030 representing more than double the current capacity. 28 out of 41 countries (68%) had brachytherapy including 279 installed services, both HDR and LDR. At a 75% optimal utilization rate of brachytherapy in locally advanced cervical cancer, the current brachytherapy capacity in LAC could treat 108,420 patients with cervical cancer/year, which meets the current needs in the region albeit with significant inequity in distribution of resources. There is 15% improvement in the current EBRT capacity in LAC compared to 2018. However, there is still shortage of at least 672 extra units needed. By 2030, the need for MV units will be double the current capacity. The current brachytherapy capacity meets needs albeit with inequitable distribution across the region primarily in the Caribbean.

Coupling membrane electro-bioreactor with anammox process to treat wastewater at low temperatures

Membrane bioreactors (MBRs)have been extensively applied to municipal wastewater treatment. Nevertheless, MBRs cannot eliminate nutrients to an adequate level without extra operation units and intensive chemical supplies. Furthermore, low temperatures destroy the performance of the MBR process. In this work, a pioneering anammox membrane electro-bioreactor (MEBR/anammox) system was designed and operated at a constant flow rate of 7L/d with continuous monitoring of sludge liquor temperature (8–22 °C). The MEBR/anammox worked with a sludge retention time (SRT) of 20 days and a hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 24 h. It was found that temperature variations did not significantly influence the effluents quality in terms of nutrients and COD. At lower operating temperatures, the effluent concentrations of NH4-N, TN, PO4-P, and COD in the MEBR-anammox were 0.77 mg/L, 6.42 mg/L, 0.80 mg/L, and 24.95 mg/L, respectively. The corresponding removal efficiencies were 94.46%, 88.62%, 95.60%, and 90.76%, respectively. Taken together, the implementation of a low/periodic direct current (DC) of 14.85 A/m2 and anammox process inside the MBR, achieving a MEBR/anammox, was found to enhance the efficacy of the treatment system, improve sludge properties and increase membrane fouling control in low-temperature milieus compared to traditional MBR. The MEBR/anammox system, introduced in this work, establishes an innovative wastewater technology that minimizes the footprint, capital and operating expenditures of the plant. In addition, this system could open new prospects for the treatment of municipal sewage in cold regions.

Life cycle assessment of sequential microbial-based anaerobic-aerobic reactor technology developed onsite for treating textile effluent

Although biological treatment of textile effluent is a preferred option for industries avoiding toxic chemical sludge production and disposal, requirement of several extra pre-treatment units like neutralization, cooling systems or additives, results in higher operational cost. In the present study, a pilot scale sequential microbial-based anaerobic-aerobic reactor technology (SMAART) was developed and operated for the treatment of real textile effluent in the industrial premises in continuous mode for 180 d. The results showed an average ∼95% decolourization along with ∼92% reduction in the chemical oxygen demand establishing the resilience against fluctuations in the inlet parameters and climate conditions. Moreover, the pH of treated effluent was also reduced from alkaline range (∼11.05) to neutral range (∼7.76) along with turbidity reduction from ∼44.16 NTU to ∼0.14 NTU. A comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) of SMAART with the conventional activated sludge process (ASP) showed that ASP caused 41.5% more negative impacts on environment than SMAART. Besides, ASP had 46.15% more negative impact on human health, followed by 42.85% more negative impact on ecosystem quality as compared to SMAART. This was attributed to less electricity consumption, absence of pre-treatment units (cooling and neutralization) and less volume of sludge generation (∼50%) while using SMAART. Hence, integration of SMAART within the industrial effluent treatment plant is recommended to achieve a minimum waste discharge system in pursuit of sustainability.

Side-Chain Engineering in Hydrophilic n-Type π-Conjugated Polymers for Enhanced Reactivity

Minor changes to side chains in conjugated polymers (CPs) can have pronounced effects on polymer properties by altering backbone planarity, solubility, and interaction with ions. Here, we report the photocontrolled synthesis of hydrophilic CPs from Grignard monomers and find that switching from alkyl to oligo(ethylene glycol) (OEG) side chains changes their photoreactivity. Specifically, installing hydrophilic side chains on the same monomer core yields higher molecular weight polymers and allows polymerization to proceed with lower-energy red light. Additionally, we discover a side chain decomposition pathway for N-OEG monomers, which are prevalent in CP research. Decomposition can be overcome by adding an extra methylene unit in the side chains without compromising polymer molecular weight or hydrophilicity. Importantly, this polymerization does not require transition metal catalysts and is a promising approach to the preparation of n-type conjugated block copolymers.

The shale revolution, geopolitical risk, and oil price volatility

The U.S. shale revolution, using new technologies to extract crude oil, has led to new dynamics in the supply side of the global oil market. We ask whether the shale revolution has dampened the role of geopolitical risk in oil price volatility. We extend a reduced form Structural Break Threshold Vector Autoregressive (SBT-VAR) model to a structural SBT-VAR model and identify the structural innovations by allowing conditional heteroskedasticity. Compared with the conventional reduced form VAR and TVAR models, an SBT-VAR with a constant threshold and a break in April 2014 are supported by the data. We then analyse the conditional (co)variance impulse response concerning two distinct shock scenarios, one with only a geopolitical risk shock, and the other with a simultaneous shale production shock and a geopolitical risk shock. The volatility responses are due to the identified contemporaneous relationships amongst geopolitical risk, shale production and oil prices, and are conditional on volatilities at the points in time. With the extra unit shale production shock, we find that the volatility response of oil prices to a geopolitical risk shock is higher, but the response is less correlated with the geopolitical risk factor.

Peniandranoids A-E: Meroterpenoids with Antiviral and Immunosuppressive Activity from a Penicillium sp.

Peniandranoids A-E (1-5), five new meroterpenoids, together with three known analogues (6-8), were isolated from the fermentation of a soil-derived fungus, Penicillium sp.sb62. Their structures including absolute configurations were determined by extensive spectroscopic analysis, and the absolute configurations of compounds 1 and 5 were further elucidated by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Peniandranoids A-E belong to a rare class of andrastin-type meroterpenoids incorporating an extra polyketide unit (a C10 polyketide unit for 1 and 2, a C9 polyketide unit for 3 and 4, and a furancarboxylic acid unit for 5). Compounds 1 and 6 exhibited favorable inhibitory activities against influenza virus A (H1N1) with EC50 values of 19 and 14 μg/mL, respectively. Compounds 3-8 exhibited potent immunosuppressive activities against concanavalin A-induced T cell proliferation with EC50 values ranging from 4.3 to 27 μM and lipopolysaccharide-induced B cell proliferation with EC50 values ranging from 7.5 to 23 μM, respectively.

Double air suctioned carding process: A method for achieving improved quality ring-spun carded yarn

This study aims to maximize yarn realization by minimizing hard waste generation. A new method has been evaluated in a conventional carding machine for this purpose by adding extra air suction units immediately above the doffer and in the brush roller above the stripping roller. Various yarn samples were spun using the double air suction carding (DASC) method and the traditional carding process, and the yarn quality parameters were compared. The results indicated that the DASC yarn had considerable technical improvements in all yarn characteristics (U%, CVm%, thick place, thin place, neps, hairiness) and mechanical properties (breaking strength and elongation). The number of classimat faults in the DASC yarn has also significantly decreased. Even though the DASC technique produced more droppings-1, it generated less pneumafil and hard waste, resulting in improved yarn realization. This research also examined cost analysis, advantages, and limitations. Overall, the findings indicate that the newly introduced DASC yarn has the potential to be a superior product in terms of both quality and cost.

Наблюдения обратного сейсмоэлектрического эффекта II рода при электрозондированиях в районе Центрально-Сахалинского разлома

The results of experiments on electrical sounding of the near-surface layer of the Earth's crust in the fault zone, which have involved a recording of seismoacoustic and seismic noise in the close zone near the source (the primary dipole source), are represented. The experiments were carried out in 2021-2022 in the southern part of the Central Sakhalin fault with the use of the generator of electric pulses developed at IMGG FEB RAS, output electric power being up to 3 kW. The aim was to reveal seismoacoustic signatures of the medium reaction to the soundings with current pulses of 5–13 A. The generator provided significantly higher current in the dipole than its typical characteristics in the case of soundings for electrical exploration by resistance methods, as well as in the case of conventional seismic and electrical exploration. At the same time, the range of current amplitudes was much smaller in comparison with the case of a deep sounding based on application of geophysical MHD generators or other extra high-power electric pulses units. Up to now, the inverse seismoelectric effect has remained practically unexplored at currents in the “intermediate” range of ~10 A and scale lengths of the order of few hundreds of meters. The presence or absence of the medium reaction to electrical soundings was distinguished by the records of molecular-electronic sensors developed by R-sensors LLC: the CME-6111 broadband seismometer and the hydrophone, installed at a distance of about 50 m from one of the poles of the electric dipole source. An increase in the average level of seismoacoustic noise during electrical soundings was revealed, which is essentially a variety of the inverse seismoelectric effect of the second kind (excitation of elastic waves during an electric current run in a two-phase medium). Previously, no similar signature of medium reaction to the current pulses was noted in the close zone adjacent to one of the dipole electrodes. The noise level increase occurs almost without delay after the start of electrical soundings, and this is in accordance with the previously obtained results on the responses of seismic acoustic emission to powerful current pulses, which were used for a deep sounding in the Northern Tien Shan.

The Golden Touch by Light: A Finely Engineered Luminogen Empowering High Photoactivatable and Photodynamic Efficiency for Cancer Phototheranostics

AbstractPhotoactivatable agent is a powerful tool in biomedicine studies due to high‐precision spatiotemporal control of light. However, those previously reported agents generally suffer from short wavelength, fluorescence self‐quenching effect, and the lack of photosensitizing property, which severely restrict their practical applications. To address these issues, molecular engineering of 1,4‐dihydropyridine derivatives is conducted to obtain an optimized agent, namely TPA‐DHPy‐Py, which exhibits low oxidation potential, high photoactivation efficiency, and excellent type I/II combined photodynamic activity. Concurrently, its photoactivated counterpart is featured by aggregation‐induced near‐infrared emission and remarkable reactive oxygen species (ROS) production efficiency. Upon photoactivation, TPA‐DHPy‐Py is capable of precisely identifying cancer cells from co‐culturing cancer cells and normal cells without the assistance of any extra targeting units, and in situ monitoring lipid droplets and endoplasmic reticulum alteration under ROS stress, as well as achieving fluorescent visualization of tumor in vivo with supremely high imaging contrast. Furthermore, the unprecedented performance on photodynamic cancer therapy is demonstrated by the significant inhibition of tumor growth. Therefore, the photoactivatable TPA‐DHPy‐Py with dual‐organelle‐targeted and excellent photodynamic activity associated with self‐monitoring ability is highly promising for cancer theranostics in clinical trials.

Programmatic Cost-Effectiveness of a Second-Time Visit to Detect New Tuberculosis and Diabetes Mellitus in TB Contact Tracing in Myanmar.

Integration of diabetes mellitus screening in home visits for contact tracing for tuberculosis could identify hidden patients with either tuberculosis or diabetes mellitus. However, poor compliance to the first home screening has been reported. A second time visit not only increases screening compliance but also the cost. This study aimed to determine if an additional second time visit was cost effective based on the health system perspective of the tuberculosis contact tracing program in Myanmar. This cross-sectional study was based on usual contact tracing activity in the Yangon Region, Myanmar, from April to December 2018 with integration of diabetes mellitus screening and an additional home visit to take blood glucose tests along with repeated health education and counseling to stress the need for a chest X-ray. New tuberculosis and diabetes mellitus cases detected were the main outcome variables. Programmatic operational costs were calculated based on a standardized framework for cost evaluation on tuberculosis screening. The effectiveness of an additional home visit was estimated using disability-adjusted life years averted. The willingness to pay threshold was taken as 1250.00 US dollars gross domestic product per capita of the country. Single and additional home visits could lead to 42.5% and 65.0% full compliance and 27.2 and 9.3 additional years of disability-adjusted life years averted, respectively. The respective base costs and additional costs were 3280.95 US dollars and 1989.02 US dollars. The programmatic costs for an extra unit of disability-adjusted life years averted was 213.87 US dollars, which was lower than the willingness to pay threshold. From the programmatic perspective, conducting the second time visit for tuberculosis contact tracing integrated with diabetes mellitus screening was found to be cost effective.

Cooperative MEC With Non-Uniform User Density: Resource Planning and State Control Optimization

Mobile edge computing (MEC) allows mobile devices to offload computationally intensive tasks to nearby base stations equipped with computational resources. MEC also provides a solution for supporting low latency responses. However, MEC increases the system power consumption by adding extra computational units. It is important to carefully plan computational resources to achieve a balance between quality of service (QoS) and power consumption. Moreover, the MEC system control should shut down unused resources when traffic rates fall to further decrease the power consumption. In this letter, we investigate a workload-based core power state control for cooperative MEC systems and a heterogeneous resource planning method. We also formulate a joint resource planning and workload-threshold optimization problem for power consumption minimization. The problem is solved using a hybrid method using metaheuristic and heuristic algorithms. The problem is first solved for an equivalent uniform system using integer gaining and sharing knowledge (IGSK). The resources are then redistributed over the base stations using a heuristic that considers the effect of power state control on core distribution. The results show that the iterative algorithm can accomplish a satisfactory QoS with the same number of resources obtained by other approaches or less. Additionally, threshold control reduced the system power consumption by 19.6%.

Two-Stage stochastic optimization for operating a Renewable-Based Microgrid

• A conventional MILP algorithm does not consider the uncertainty in operating a renewable-based Microgrid. • The two-Stage stochastic optimization algorithm takes into consideration the potential future PV profile. • The proposed method improves the Microgrid reliability by a 19.4% decrease in the Energy not supplied. • The proposed method decreases the operation cost by 18.8%. Carbon emissions are increasing as a result of urbanization and population growth all over the world. Scientists agree that these emissions are one of the main causes of climate change and global warming. The power industry is shifting to renewable energy sources (RES) such as solar power (PV) and employing different Energy Storage Systems (ESS) to enable a clean energy future and compensate for the scarcity of fossil fuel. However, the intermittent behaviour of renewable resources causes some obstacles such as power fluctuation, committing extra reserve units, and load shedding. Microgrid (MG) technology is introduced as a promising solution for integrating different RES and loads into the grid. Operating the MG in islanded mode with a limited ESS capacity requires a sophisticated scheduling method. Previous studies on MG addressed the operation issue, neglecting the supply–demand uncertainty or adopting the worst-case scenario. Uncertainty is an inherent characteristic in power systems; on the other hand, considering the worst-case scenario may unnecessarily increase the operation and planning costs. To address the uncertainty and fluctuant characteristics of RES-based MG, this paper proposes a two-stage stochastic optimization integrated with a novel ANN-based prediction model. A new model for PV power prediction is proposed by which the predicted data is in a probability density function (PDF) form. A stochastic optimization (SO) method is proposed to minimize the operation cost and load shedding during the islanding mode. In the proposed SO, the optimal scheduling decision is made in the current moment taking into account the probability of potential supply, load, and ESS capacities in the near future. For this purpose, an ANN-based prediction model is developed to represent the PV output uncertainty in the SO problem. The proposed prediction model proves efficient in the prediction with nRMSE of 9.7% and nMAE of 9.1%. The proposed method is applied to a real Microgrid designed by the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA) and compared to a conventional optimization method. The proposed scheduling method reduces both the average Energy Not Supplied (ENS) and operation costs by 19.4% and 18.8%, respectively, with no additional investment cost. A sensitivity study is also conducted to assess the performance of the proposed method in terms of ENS, cost, and simulation time.

Did submission rules affect the submission sizes of the units to the UK’s Research Excellence Framework in 2014?

ABSTRACT The Research Excellence Framework (REF) follows a set of submission rules. Here we analyse whether the submission rules of the impact element arguably shaped the submission sizes of the submitting units – a group of academics researching on a specific subject area in higher education providers – to the REF in 2014. The number of impact case studies required was determined by the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) staff members submitted by the unit. We argue that units that did not have an extra impact case study or units’ perception of lower quality of additional impact case study made some units to lower their submission sizes. We show that there were proportionately more submissions with a size just below the threshold FTE – a threshold used to identify the numbers of impact case studies – than those just above the threshold, suggesting that some units arguably decreased their size to return fewer impact studies.

Protatif anaerobik biyoreaktör tasarımı ve üretim denemeleri

Biogas is a flammable gas mixture that can be produced by anaerobic digestion of organic wastes. It contains 50-65% methane gas, 35-50% carbon dioxide (CO2) gas and 100-1000 ppm hydrogen sulfide (H2S) gas in biogas. One of the biggest disadvantages in biogas production technologies is the cost of purification technologies that convert biogas to biomethane. In this study, a portable, intermittent anaerobic bioreactor and a 20 liter gasometer were designed. The purpose of using gasometer is to ensure the adsorption of H2S and CO2 gases in the raw biogas coming out of the bioreactor, using only the production power of the biogas without requiring any external intervention. In this context, only the produced biogas amount and biogas content of the batch bioreactor with an effective volume of 5 liters were tested twice. Within the scope of this production, a sample was taken every five days from the start of gas production in the batch reactor and the removal of chemical oxygen demand was compared with the initial situation. Each production trial lasted 36 days. Then, the second stage of the study was started and the biogas outlet was directly connected to the gasometer tank. At this stage, biogas and organic waste samples were taken from the gasometer and batch reactor every five days and tested. While the H2S and CO2 contents of the biogas formed as a result of the experiments without gasometer were 558 ± 55 ppm and 55.4 ± 2.9%, respectively, these values were found to be 45 ppm and 24.5%, respectively, as a result of the production with gasometer. As a result, it has been determined that an industrial-scale gasometer system adsorbs approximately 88% of H2S and 55% of CO2 in biogas without requiring an extra biogas purification unit. For further studies, changing the gasometer volume and increasing the holding times of the water in the gasometer are recommended as CO2 and H2S concentrations can be further reduced.