Penalty Reduction Research Articles

The Rise of the Current Mortality Pattern of the United States, 1890-1930.

This article examines how the epidemiologic transition and the reduction of the urban mortality penalty gave rise to the current mortality regime of the United States and demonstrates how the 1918 influenza pandemic signaled its advent. This article approaches those issues through the analysis of urban-rural mortality differentials from 1890 to 1930. Until 1910, infectious diseases dwarfed degenerative diseases in leading causes of death, and generally, the more urban the location was, the higher infectious disease and overall death rates were—a direct relationship. But by 1930, degenerative diseases had eclipsed infectious diseases, and infectious disease mortality had ceased to differ between cities and rural areas. The 1918 influenza pandemic broke out toward the end of these changes, and the larger the city was, the lower influenza and overall death rates were in that year—an inverse relationship. Such gradations characterized a new mortality regime emerging in the late 1910s and foreshadowed urban-rural mortality differentials in 1930 among persons aged 45 years or older, the group whose high rates of degenerative disease death would symbolize that regime. Thus, intertwined changes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—a shift in leading causes of death from infectious diseases to degenerative diseases and a concomitant shift from a direct relationship to an inverse relationship between urban environment and mortality—produced the current mortality regime of the United States.

Comparative potential of natural gas, coal and biomass fired power plant with post - combustion CO2 capture and compression

The application of carbon capture and storage (CCS) and carbon neutral techniques should be adopted to reduce the CO2 emissions from power generation systems. These environmental concerns have renewed interest towards the use of biomass as an alternative to fossil fuels. This study investigates the comparative potential of different power generation systems, including NGCC with and without exhaust gas recirculation (EGR), pulverised supercritical coal and biomass fired power plants for constant heat input and constant fuel flowrate cases. The modelling of all the power plant cases is realized in Aspen Plus at the gross power output of 800MWe and integrated with a MEA-based CO2 capture plant and a CO2 compression unit. Full-scale detailed modelling of integrated power plant with a CO2 capture and compression system for biomass fuel for two different cases is reported and compared with the conventional ones. The process performance, in terms of efficiency, emissions and potential losses for all the cases, is analysed. In conclusion, NGCC and NGCC with EGR integrated with CO2 capture and compression results in higher net efficiency and least efficiency penalty reduction. Further, coal and biomass fired power plants integrated with CO2 capture and compression results in higher specific CO2 capture and the least specific losses per unit of the CO2 captured. Furthermore, biomass with CO2 capture and compression results in negative emissions.

Real-Time ROADM Filtering Penalty Characterization and Generalized Precompensation for Flexible Grid Networks

Concatenated filtering is an important impairment in high-spectral density transmission systems enabled by flexible-grid reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs). In this paper, an analytical model for wavelength selective switches (WSS) modules is used to determine the statistical distribution of experimentally measured filter shapes and to obtain the cascaded filter characteristics. A generalized approach for filtering penalty assessment is proposed and verified using a commercial 200G 16-quadrature amplitude modulation (16QAM) transponder and WSS modules. A practical method for filter penalty reduction is described, whereby a single, optimized digital pre-equalization filter is used to compensate filtering effects of multiple concatenated WSSs. This pre-equalization of cascaded ROADM filters is demonstrated with a 100G quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) C-form factor pluggable (CFP) transponder operating on the 37.5-GHz grid, resulting in a doubling of the number of WSSs, which can be supported per link from three to six.

Zwyczajny i nadzwyczajnie złagodzony wymiar kary w świetle kodeksu karnego po nowelizacji z 20 lutego 2015 roku

The ordinary and extraordinarily mitigated imposition of penalty under Criminal Code following the revision of 20 February 2015The paper demonstrates the penal law consequences of making changes to the provisions of Art. 58 § 1, repealing Art. 58 § 3 and instead adding Art. 37a and Art. 37b to the Criminal Code of 1997 effected through the revision dated 20 February 2015 Journal of Laws item 396. The author points out that the intention to modify the policy followed by courts in their judicial decisions, most notably to significantly reduce the number of cases with sentences imposing penalty of deprivation of liberty, with a conditional suspension of its enforcement disturbs the logic of the system of sanctions on which the Criminal Code was based along with the entire system of criminal law to which the Criminal Code applies. Furthermore, the difference between the ordinary imposition of penalty and the extraordinarily mitigated imposition of penalty has been blurred, with the latter to be applied only when there are special grounds for such measures, which means only in exceptional situations meriting an extraordinarily mitigated consideration, which is not required when ruling the ordinary imposition of penalty.The paper also disputes the arguments according to which the provision of Art. 37a of the Criminal Code supplements simple sanctions providing only for imposition of deprivation of liberty with non-custodial alternative penalties such as fine or limitation of liberty. Criticism is also expressed with regard to the proposed reduction of the lowest penalty of deprivation of liberty from one month to one week.The paper calls for repealing Art. 37a of the Criminal Code and reviving the imposition of penalty stipulated in the repealed Art. 58 § 3 of the Criminal Code, however without the preference included there concerning the additional imposition of a penal measure. It is also pointed out that it is high time to carry out a thorough revision of the penal sanctions for all kinds of crimes stipulated in the Polish legal order with the author naming a number of specific suggestions in this respect.

Sensitivity Improvements in an 850-nm VCSEL-Based Link Using a Two-Tap Pre-Emphasis Electronic Filter

We present an investigation of an ISI penalty reduction for on–off keying in an 850-nm VCSEL-based short optical link using a two-tap electronic pre-emphasis filter and quantify the improvement relative to an equivalent link without pre-emphasis. Error-free operation is demonstrated at bit rates above the $-$ 3 dB modulation bandwidth of the link. Sensitivity improvement up to 9 dB compared to nonemphasized signaling is shown. A maximum error-free bit rate achievable in the link is increased to 57 Gb/s, compared to 52 Gb/s without the pre-emphasis.

Enhancements in mass transfer for carbon capture solvents part II: Micron-sized solid particles

The mass transfer of CO2 into amine-based carbon capture solvents was improved with the addition of heterogeneous micron- and nano-sized particle additives. Enhancement in CO2 removal rate was determined in a stirred reactor with a flat steady gas-liquid interface and in a small packed-bed absorption column. The screening of several particle types in the stirred reactor indicated that carbon particles are best suited to enhance the rate of CO2 diffusion in 30wt.% monoethanolamine (MEA), and tests in the small packed-bed absorption column showed improved CO2 mass transfer in three solvents, MEA, piperazine (PZ), and hexanediamine (HDA), upon addition of nano-sized activated carbon particles. The enhancement of CO2 capture efficiency and KG increases with increasing solvent kinetics, in order of methyldiethanolamine (MDEA)<MEA<PZ<HDA, confirming the particle additives have a larger impact on kinetically faster, liquid-side diffusion limited, solvents. The combined benefits of the particle additives were then demonstrated on an absorption-desorption integrated bench-scale CO2 capture unit, in both MEA and the thermally stable advanced amine blend: 1-amino-2-propanol (A2P)/2-amino-2-methyl-1-propanol (AMP). The combined system translated to an overall 26% reduction in energy penalty for CO2 capture on the CAER Bench-scale unit.

Extended hybrid-space SENSE for EPI: Off-resonance and eddy current corrected joint interleaved blip-up/down reconstruction

IntroductionGeometric distortions along the phase encode direction caused by off-resonant spins are still a major issue in EPI based functional and diffusion imaging. If the off-resonance map is known it is possible to correct for distortions. Most correction methods operate as a post-processing step on the reconstructed magnitude images. Theory and methodsHere, we present an algebraic reconstruction method (hybrid-space SENSE) that incorporates a physics based model of off-resonances, phase inconsistencies between k-space segments, and T2*-decay during the acquisition. The method can be used to perform a joint reconstruction of interleaved acquisitions with normal (blip-up) and inverted (blip-down) phase encode direction which results in reduced g-factor penalty. ResultsA joint blip-up/down simultaneous multi slice (SMS) reconstruction for SMS-factor 4 in combination with twofold in-plane acceleration leads to a factor of two decrease in maximum g-factor penalty while providing off-resonance and eddy-current corrected images. ConclusionWe provide an algebraic framework for reconstructing diffusion weighted EPI data that in addition to the general applicability of hybrid-space SENSE to 2D-EPI, SMS-EPI and 3D-EPI with arbitrary k-space coverage along z, allows for a modeling of arbitrary spatio-temporal effects during the acquisition period like off-resonances, phase inconsistencies and T2*-decay. The most immediate benefit is a reduction in g-factor penalty if an interleaved blip-up/down acquisition strategy is chosen which facilitates eddy current estimation and ensures no loss in k-space encoding in regions with strong off-resonance gradients.

Process Simulations of CO2 Desorption in the Interaction between the Novel Direct Steam Stripping Process and Solvents

Intensive energy consumption is one of the major challenges for large-scale implementation of amine-based CO2 chemical absorption processes. The study of diverse typical solvents in a novel process can effectively exploit the potential of energy saving to the utmost. This work focuses on the optimization of a novel direct steam stripping process using three typical solvents, monoethanolamine (MEA), 2-amino-2-methyl-1-propanol (AMP), and piperazine (PZ). A rate-based model was established to investigate the regeneration process. The direct steam stripping process exhibits 20–30% reduction in energy penalty for different solvents. Detailed information on the concentration and pressure profiles along the stripping column was presented in the direct steam stripping process. There is a strong flash process at the top of the column, which results in an enormous reduction of the latent heat. Therefore, using MEA as the absorbent shows the best performance on reducing energy penalty as a result of its best proper...

Optimisation of Operational Parameter and Economic Analysis of Amine Based Acid Gas Capture Unit

Electricity demand in Malaysia has been projected to escalate and this has led to additional coal-fired power plants being built. Combustion of coal has released greenhouse gases such as CO2 into the atmosphere. It is predicted that CO2 emission from coal fired power plants will grow 4.1 % annually to reach 98 Mt by 2020. Greenhouse gases like CO2 is claimed to be the root of global warming, closely related to the verdict of 2 °C increase in global temperature. To resolve this issue, amine unit has been integrated into the power plant for acid gas removal. Amine is highly preferred due to its characteristic of high selectivity. The drawbacks of this technology are costly operation, energy intensive and exhibits process dynamic. Detailed process simulation utilising Aspen Plus is able to optimise the process and overcome these limitations. In steady state simulation, the optimal operating conditions of absorber and stripper are found. Absorber should be operated at 30 °C (1 atm), while stripper at 120 °C (2 atm). The MDEA to MEA ratio is fixed at 3 : 7 with 40 wt% of amine in the solvent. By comparing the optimised parameters to TNBR’s result, acid gas removal rate showed an increment of 5.5 % which resulted in 91.27 % of CO2 removal rate. 300 % reduction in energy penalty and heat duty cost are achieved when MEA/MDEA is used instead of MEA. A more economical and feasible acid gas removal process with optimum operation is achieved. This has provided better insight for large scale implementation of amine unit in industries with low energy penalty.

A hybrid metaheuristic for the time-dependent vehicle routing problem with hard time windows

This article paper presents a hybrid metaheuristic algorithm to solve the time-dependent vehicle routing problem with hard time windows. Time-dependent travel times are influenced by different congestion levels experienced throughout the day. Vehicle scheduling without consideration of congestion might lead to underestimation of travel times and consequently missed deliveries. The algorithm presented in this paper makes use of Large Neighbourhood Search approaches and Variable Neighbourhood Search techniques to guide the search. A first stage is specifically designed to reduce the number of vehicles required in a search space by the reduction of penalties generated by time-window violations with Large Neighbourhood Search procedures. A second stage minimises the travel distance and travel time in an ‘always feasible’ search space. Comparison of results with available test instances shows that the proposed algorithm is capable of obtaining a reduction in the number of vehicles (4.15%), travel distance (10.88%) and travel time (12.00%) compared to previous implementations in reasonable time

Heat integration of alternative Ca-looping configurations for CO2 capture

The best option to overcome the energy penalty in Ca-looping is to take advantage of the surplus heat by external integration to produce additional power and increase net efficiency. As calciner represents the main energy consumption, another possibility is to internally use the surplus heat to preheat the solids entering this reactor. The objective of internal integration is to reduce the energy demand per captured tonne of CO2. It represents a reduction of the coal and oxygen needs and also a total decrease in the CO2 generation regarding the ordinary configuration. However, the amount of available heat for extra power generation by external integration, essential for the viability of this technology, is also reduced. This is the case of the configurations including a cyclonic preheater or a mixing seal valve. This study assess the energy penalty minimization that may be reached by external integration of these internal energy integration configurations. A methodological process has been applied to obtain a reduction of the energy penalty with respect to the ordinary configuration. This energy saving combined with the lower size of equipment and reduced capital cost would make the cyclonic preheater the most suitable configuration to improve the viability of this technology.

ISO 14001 certification process and reduction of environmental penalties in organizations in Sao Paulo State, Brazil

The aim of this study is to evaluate the certification process of the ISO 14001 Standard for organizations in São Paulo State, Brazil, regarding the reduction of environmental penalties imposed by the São Paulo State Environmental Agency (Companhia Ambiental do Estado de São Paulo – CETESB). The specific objectives of this study are to conduct a survey of companies certified by the ISO 14001 and penalties imposed by CETESB in these companies and to establish a correlation between the penalties and certification regarding the implementation date. It also aims to develop and apply a Penalty Reduction Indicator (PRI) to quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness of Environmental Management Systems (EMS) concerning penalty reductions. The collection of penalties imposed by CETESB covered the period from January 2001 to June 2015. As purposeful sampling criteria, companies that received more than five penalties during the period were considered, thus forming a group of fourteen companies. As a result, it was observed that in ten companies simply certifying an EMS according to the ISO 14001 did not prevent them from receiving CETESB penalties after the ISO 14001 certification, but there was a benefit of the reduction in penalties over time. In two companies, benefits related to the reduction in penalties were not observed. In two other companies, in which it was not possible to make a comparison between the periods before and after certification, the benefits were seen only over time. The Penalty Reduction Indicator (PRI) was possible for eleven out of the selected companies. The PRI calculated by the methodology showed that seven out of the eleven companies (63.6%) had an index with an acceptable score (“EXCELLENT” and “GOOD”) and four out of these eleven companies (36.4%) had a “FAIR” and “BAD” score, showing that for them, the Environmental Management System is not yet consolidated, and improvements are needed. Thus, it was concluded that implementing and certifying an EMS according to the ISO 14001 brought benefits to these companies. The reasons were implementing a preventive culture, developing methodologies and procedures to deal with important environmental aspects and impacts, actions and responses to emergencies and document control, which are all items of the ISO 14001 and may have led to less penalties imposed by the CETESB.

Role of R292K mutation in influenza H7N9 neuraminidase toward oseltamivir susceptibility: MD and MM/PB(GB)SA study.

The H7N9 avian influenza virus is a novel re-assortment from at least four different strains of virus. Neuraminidase, which is a glycoprotein on the surface membrane, has been the target for drug treatment. However, some H7N9 strains that have been isolated from patient after drug treatment have a R292K mutation in neuraminidase. This substitution was found to facilitate drug resistance using protein- and virus- assays, in particular it gave a high resistance to the most commonly used drug, oseltamivir. The aim of this research is to understand the source of oseltamivir resistance using MD simulations and the MM/PB(GB)SA binding free energy approaches. Both methods can predict the reduced susceptibility of oseltamivir in good agreement to the IC 50 binding energy, although MM/GBSA underestimates this prediction compared to the MM/PBSA calculation. Electrostatic interaction is the main contribution for oseltamivir binding in terms of both interaction and solvation. We found that the source of the drug resistance is a decrease in the binding interaction combined with the reduction of the dehydration penalty. The smaller K292 mutated residue has a larger binding pocket cavity compared to the wild-type resulting in the loss of drug carboxylate-K292 hydrogen bonding and an increased accessibility for water molecules around the K292 mutated residue. In addition, oseltamivir does not bind well to the R292K mutant complex as shown by the high degree of fluctuation in ligand RMSD during the simulation and the change in angular distribution of bulky side chain groups.

Modulating hydrogen-bond basicity within the context of protein-ligand binding: A case study with thrombin inhibitors that reveals a dominating role for desolvation

Understanding subtle aspects of hydrogen bonding is a challenging but crucial task to improve our ability to design ligands with high affinity for protein hosts. To gain a deeper understanding of these aspects, we investigated a series of thrombin inhibitors in which the basicity of the ligand's group that accepts an H-bond from Gly216 was modulated via bioisosterism; e.g., a C=O acceptor was made electron deficient or rich via bioisosteric replacements of the adjacent moiety. Although the ligand's binding affinity was anticipated to improve when the H-bond basicity is increased (due to stronger H-bonding with the protein), we herein present data that unexpectedly revealed an opposite trend. This trend was attributed to a dominating role played by desolvation in determining the relative binding affinity. For example, a decrease in the H-bond basicity reduces the desolvation penalty and, as experimentally observed, improves the binding affinity, given that the reduction in the desolvation penalty dominates the change in the net contribution of the ligand's interactions with the protein. The current study, therefore, reveals that desolvation can be a major underlying cause for the apparently counterintuitive structure-activity relationship (SAR) outcomes, and indicates that understanding this factor can improve our ability to predict binding affinity and to design more potent ligands.

Optimization of energy consumption response parameters for turning operation using Taguchi method

The environmental performance of machining operations can significantly be improved by reducing energy consumption of machine tools. The present research work focuses on the optimization of foremost energy consumption response parameters viz. energy efficiency (EE), active energy consumed by the machine (AECM) and power factor (PF). The consideration of PF as an important energy consumption response parameter becomes essential as the electricity boards/suppliers put penalties on the manufacturing units, if the PF is low. The optimization of PF can also reduce the cost of installation of PF correction equipment besides reduction in penalties. An experimental analysis is carried out for the CNC rough turning of EN 353 alloy steel with multi-layer coated tungsten carbide insert. The effect of important input process variables viz. cutting speed, feed rate, depth of cut and nose radius along with their interactions has been studied on these energy consumption response parameters. The Taguchi's L27 orthogonal array is used for design of experiments and to optimize the response parameters using MINITAB 16 software. The results reveal that optimum turning conditions for the PF and EE are same and occur at 248.69 m/min. cutting speed, 0.3 mm/rev. feed rate, 1.8 mm depth of cut and 0.8 mm nose radius. The optimized control factors setting for AECM are 248.69 m/min. cutting speed, 0.3 mm/rev. feed rate, 1 mm depth of cut and nose radius 1.2 mm. Results of ANOVA, have shown that the depth of cut is the most dominant input process parameter for PF and EE, and feed rate be the dominating vital parameter for reduction of the AECM. The nose radius does not contribute too much for energy consumption response parameters. The interactions between most of input variables are also not significant for energy consumption response parameters. At optimum turning conditions for each significant energy consumption response parameter viz. EE, AECM and PF achieved in the present study, there is an improvement of 61.776%, 57.025% and 7.49%, respectively compared to turning conditions in common use for rough turning.

Ekoinnowacje w gospodarce wodnej

W artykule omówiona jest definicja i podział ekoinnowacji oraz pokazany przykład ekoinnowacji w gospodarce wodnej w Polsce. Jest to pojęcie nowe i trudne do zdefiniowania, wciąż trwają dyskusje, w jakim stopniu definicja innowacji może być zastosowana do ekoinnowacji. Skutkiem proekologicznych działań jest nie tylko poprawa jakości środowiska, ale równoczesne obniżenie kosztów funkcjonowania przedsiębiorstwa. Na podstawie danych uzyskanych z badań ankietowych oceniono rodzaj wpływu różnych barier na wprowadzenie ekoinnowacji produktowych, procesowych i organizacyjnych.

Climate Control Load Reduction Strategies for Electric Drive Vehicles in Cold Weather

When operated, the climate control system is the largest auxiliary load on a vehicle. This load has significant impact on fuel economy for conventional and hybrid vehicles, and it drastically reduces the driving range of all electric vehicles (EVs). Heating is even more detrimental to EV range than cooling because no engine waste heat is available. Reducing the thermal loads on the heating, ventilating, and air conditioning system will extend driving range and increase the market penetration of EVs. Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have evaluated strategies for vehicle climate control load reduction with special attention toward grid connected electric vehicles. Outdoor vehicle thermal testing and computational modeling were used to assess potential strategies for improved thermal management and to evaluate the effectiveness of thermal load reduction technologies. A human physiology model was also used to evaluate the impact on occupant thermal comfort. Experimental evaluations of zonal heating strategies demonstrated a 5.5% to 28.5% reduction in cabin heating energy over a 20-minute warm-up. Vehicle simulations over various drive cycles show a 6.9% to 18.7% improvement in EV range over baseline heating using the most promising zonal heating strategy investigated. A national-level analysis was conducted to determine the overallmore » national impact. If all vehicles used the best zonal strategy, the range would be improved by 7.1% over the baseline heating range. This is a 33% reduction in the range penalty for heating.« less

Calcium looping with supercritical CO2 cycle for decarbonisation of coal-fired power plant

State-of-the-art integration scenarios of calcium looping (CaL), which is an emerging CO2 capture technology, assume that excess heat is used to raise steam for the steam cycle and result in a net efficiency penalty of 6.0–8.0% points. In this study, a concept using the supercritical CO2 cycle (s-CO2) instead of the conventional steam cycle is proposed. Retrofit of CaL with recompression s-CO2 cycle to the 580 MWel coal-fired power plant was found to result in a net efficiency penalty of 6.9%HHV points. This is 1%HHV point lower than that for the same system linked with the steam cycle having the same turbine inlet conditions (593.3 °C/242.3 bar). A further reduction of the net efficiency penalty to 5.8%HHV points was achieved through considering a pump instead of a first CO2 compression stage and increasing the turbine inlet temperature to 620 °C and pressure to 300 bar. As the s-CO2 cycle's specific capital cost is up to 27% lower than that of the equivalent steam cycle, CaL with s-CO2 cycle is a viable option for the coal-fired power plant decarbonisation. Moreover, it can be expected that this cycle can be successfully implemented in other high-temperature looping cycles, such as chemical looping combustion.

Industrial Power Penalty Reduction by Engaging APFC Unit

Industrial Power Penalty Reduction by Engaging APFC Unit

Operational flexibility options in power plants with integrated post-combustion capture

Flexibility in power plants with amine based carbon dioxide (CO2) capture is widely recognised as a way of improving power plant revenues. Despite the prior art, its value as a way to improve power plant revenues is still unclear. Most studies are based on simplifying assumptions about the capabilities of power plants to operate at part load and to regenerate additional solvent after interim storage of solvent. This work addresses this gap by examining the operational flexibility of supercritical coal power plants with amine based CO2 capture, using a rigorous fully integrated model. The part-load performance with capture and with additional solvent regeneration, of two coal-fired supercritical power plant configurations designed for base load operation with capture, and with the ability to fully bypass capture, is reported. With advanced integration options configuration, including boiler sliding pressure control, uncontrolled steam extraction with a floating crossover pressure, constant stripper pressure operation and compressor inlet guide vanes, a significant reduction of the electricity output penalty at part load is observed. For instance at 50% fuel input and 90% capture, the electricity output penalty reduces from 458kWh/tCO2 (with conventional integration options) to 345kWh/tCO2 (with advanced integration options), compared to a reduction from 361kWh/tCO2 to 342kWh/tCO2 at 100% fuel input and 90% capture. However, advanced integration options allow for additional solvent regeneration to a lower magnitude than conventional integration options. The latter can maintain CO2 flow export within 10% of maximum flow across 30–78% of MCR (maximum continuous rating). For this configuration, one hour of interim solvent storage at 100% MCR is evaluated to be optimally regenerated in 4h at 55% MCR, and 3h at 30% MCR, providing rigorously validated useful guidelines for the increasing number of techno-economic studies on power plant flexibility, and CO2 flow profiles for further studies on integrated CO2 networks.