Similar Output Research Articles

Cycling Performance in Short-term Efforts: Laboratory and Field-Based Data in XCO Athletes.

Mountain bike cross-country Olympic has an intermittent performance profile, underlining the importance of short-term but high cycling power output. Previous findings indicate that power output during sprint tests differs between laboratory and field-based conditions and that cycling cadence rises with increasing workload. The aim was therefore to examine power output and cadence in short-term efforts under laboratory and field conditions. Twenty-three competitive athletes (17.9±3.7 years) performed a laboratory power profile test and a simulated race within one week. Power output and cadence during the power profile test were compared to corresponding short-term efforts during the race over durations of 10–300s (TT 10–300 ). Differences were TT 10 +8%, TT 30 +7%, TT 60 –15% and TT 300 –12% for power output and+10%,+8%,+19%,+21% for cadence respectively. Compared to the race, we found higher power output during the power profile test for the shorter efforts but lower for TT 60 and TT 300 . Confirming previous results, cadence was higher during the power profile test compared to the respective intervals of the race and increased with increasing workload or shorter time trial duration. Future research should take into account that compared to the field, a higher cadence is used in laboratory settings to produce similar power output.

Auxiliary power through marine waste heat recovery using a CO2-organic cascading cycle

An appreciable part of primary energy input to a marine diesel engine is rejected as waste heat. Thus, through marine diesel engine waste heat recovery significant amount of secondary energy can be produced to satisfy the auxiliary power requirement of the marine ship. In present study, a CO2-organic fluid cascading cycle is considered for the utilization of the waste heat released by the marine diesel engine. R290, R600 and R1233zd (E) are considered as the working fluids of the bottoming cycle for their lower global warming potentials. The analysis revealed that power output of the cascading cycle is comparable to that of the baseline transcritical CO2 power cycle. However, for similar power output, operating pressure in the flue gas-CO2 heat recovery unit of the transcritical CO2 power cycle is significantly higher compared to that of the cascading cycle. Thus, possible leakage due to very high operating pressure of a conventional CO2 power cycle can be addressed by using the cascading system. Bare module costs per unit power output of cascading cycles are also significantly smaller. It is also apparent from the study that the marine diesel engine waste heat recovery through the CO2-organic cascading cycle would lead to 8–9.5% annual fuel saving. Reduced fuel consumption will also result in lesser CO2 emission from the marine ship.

Off-Design Performances of an Organic Rankine Cycle for Waste Heat Recovery from Gas Turbines

This paper presents an off-design analysis of a gas turbine Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) combined cycle. Combustion turbine performances are significantly affected by fluctuations in ambient conditions, leading to relevant variations in the exhaust gases’ mass flow rate and temperature. The effects of the variation of ambient air temperature have been considered in the simulation of the topper cycle and of the condenser in the bottomer one. Analyses have been performed for different working fluids (toluene, benzene and cyclopentane) and control systems have been introduced on critical parameters, such as oil temperature and air mass flow rate at the condenser fan. Results have highlighted similar power outputs for cycles based on benzene and toluene, while differences as high as 34% have been found for cyclopentane. The power output trend with ambient temperature has been found to be influenced by slope discontinuities in gas turbine exhaust mass flow rate and temperature and by the upper limit imposed on the air mass flow rate at the condenser as well, suggesting the importance of a correct sizing of the component in the design phase. Overall, benzene-based cycle power output has been found to vary between 4518 kW and 3346 kW in the ambient air temperature range considered.

Design of a 10 kW level diode laser optical stack with a line shape beam spot.

We designed and simulated a diode laser with output power of more than 10 kW and a line shape beam spot of approximately ${14 - 58}\;{\rm mm} \times {1.6}\;{\rm mm}$14-58mm×1.6mm (${{\rm 1/e}^2}$1/e2 width). The diode laser was assembled with high fill factor diode laser bars that can be cooled with filtered tap water. The diode laser bar was beam shaped with a tilted cylindrical lens array to twist the slow axis of individual emitters by 90 deg, and then the slow axis was collimated with a single cylindrical lens. From the simulation, 20 laser diode bars with the same wavelength formed a diode laser optical stack with an output power of more than 3.5 kW, a beam spot of ${31}\;{\rm mm} \times {12}\;{\rm mm}$31mm×12mm size, and full divergence angles of around 6 mrad in both the horizontal and vertical directions. Then, three laser diode optical stacks with different wavelengths were wavelength-multiplexed to obtain an output power of more than 10 kW. Finally, the diode laser optical stack was transformed by simple cylindrical lenses to form a line shape spot with a working distance longer than 250 mm. Our diode laser design is much simpler than previous devices with similar output power and can find various applications such as high-speed laser cladding.

Joint Label-Specific Features and Correlation Information for Multi-Label Learning

Multi-label learning deals with the problem where each instance is associated with a set of class labels. In multi-label learning, different labels may have their own inherent characteristics for distinguishing each other, and the correlation information has shown promising strength in improving multi-label learning. In this study, we propose a novel multi-label learning method by simultaneously taking into account both the learning of label-specific features and the correlation information during the learning process. Firstly, we learn a sparse weight parameter vector for each label based on the linear regression model, and the label-specific features can be extracted according to the corresponding weight parameters. Secondly, we constrain label correlations directly on the output of labels, not on the corresponding parameter vectors which conflicts with the label-specific feature learning. Specifically, for any two related labels, their corresponding models should have similar outputs rather than similar parameter vectors. Thirdly, we also exploit the sample correlations through sparse reconstruction. The experimental results on 12 benchmark datasets show that the proposed method performs better than the existing methods. The proposed method ranks in the 1st place at 66.7% case and achieves optimal average rank in terms of all evaluation measures.

The Influence of Different Forest Characteristics on Non-point Source Pollution: A Case Study at Chaohu Basin, China.

Forestland is a key land use/land cover (LULC) type that affects nonpoint source (NPS) pollution, and has great impacts on the spatiotemporal features of watershed NPS pollution. In this study, the forestland characteristics of the Chaohu Basin, China, were quantitatively represented using forestland types (FLTs), watershed forest coverage (WFC) and forest distance from the river (DFR). To clarify the impact of forests on NPS pollution, the relationship between forestland characteristics and watershed nutrient outputs (TN and TP) was explored on a monthly scale using SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) and the period simulation was 2008–2016. The results showed that: (1) the TN and TP showed similar output characteristics and the rainy season was the peak period of nitrogen and phosphorus output. (2) Among the forestland characteristics of forestland types, watershed forest coverage and forest distance from the river, watershed forest coverage and forest distance from the river had greater effects than forestland types on the control of watershed nutrient outputs (TN and TP). (3) In different forestland types, the watershed nutrient outputs intensity remained at the lowest level when the FLTs was mixed forest, with a TN output of 1244.73kg/km2 and TP output of 341.39 kg/km2. (4) The watershed nutrient outputs and watershed forest coverage were negatively correlated, with the highest watershed forest coverage (over 75%) reducing the TN outputs by 56.69% and the TP outputs by 53.46% compared to the lowest watershed forest coverage (below 25%), it showed that in areas with high forest land coverage, the non-point source pollution load in the watershed is smaller than in other areas. (5) forest distance from the river had an uncertain effect on the TN and TP output of the basin, the forestland itself is a source of pollution, but it also has the function of intercepting pollution movement; the forest distance from the river in the range of 500–1000 m had the lowest NPS pollution. Considering the different forest characteristics and topographical factors, an optimal allocation mode of differentiated forest land was proposed, these suggestions will provide a scheme for surface source pollution prevention and control in the basin. This research gap is the basis of real forestland optimization. We may optimize the forestland layout for NPS pollution prevention and control by clarifying the internal mechanism.

Alternatively Constructed Estrogen Receptor Alpha-Driven Super-Enhancers Result in Similar Gene Expression in Breast and Endometrial Cell Lines.

Super-enhancers (SEs) are clusters of highly active enhancers, regulating cell type-specific and disease-related genes, including oncogenes. The individual regulatory regions within SEs might be simultaneously bound by different transcription factors (TFs) and co-regulators, which together establish a chromatin environment conducting to effective transcription. While cells with distinct TF profiles can have different functions, how different cells control overlapping genetic programs remains a question. In this paper, we show that the construction of estrogen receptor alpha-driven SEs is tissue-specific, both collaborating TFs and the active SE components greatly differ between human breast cancer-derived MCF-7 and endometrial cancer-derived Ishikawa cells; nonetheless, SEs common to both cell lines have similar transcriptional outputs. These results delineate that despite the existence of a combinatorial code allowing alternative SE construction, a single master regulator might be able to determine the overall activity of SEs.

Children With Unilateral Cerebral Palsy Utilize More Cortical Resources for Similar Motor Output During Treadmill Gait.

Children with unilateral cerebral palsy (CP) walk independently although with an asymmetrical, more poorly coordinated pattern compared to their peers. While gait biomechanics in unilateral CP and their alteration from those without CP have been well documented, cortical mechanisms underlying gait remain inadequately understood. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study utilizing electroencephalography (EEG) during treadmill gait in older children with and without CP. Lower limb surface electromyographic (EMG) data were collected and muscle synergy analyses performed to quantify motor output. Our primary goal was to evaluate the relationships between cortical and muscle activation within and across groups and hemispheres to provide novel insights into neural control of gait and how it may be disrupted by an early unilateral brain injury. Participants included 9 children with unilateral CP, mean age 16.0 ± 2.7 years, and 12 with typical development (TD), mean age 14.8 ± 3.0 years. EEG data were collected during a standing baseline and treadmill walking at self-selected speed. EMG of 16 lower limb muscles were also collected bilaterally and synchronized with EEG. No significant group differences were found in synergy number or structure across groups. Six cortical clusters were identified as having gait-related activation and all contained participants from both CP and TD groups; however, the percent of individuals per group appearing in different clusters varied. Notably, the cluster least represented in CP was the non-dominant motor region. Both groups showed mu-band ERD in the motor clusters during gait although sustained beta-band ERD was not evident in TD. The CP group showed greater cortical activation than TD during walking as measured by mu- and beta-ERD in the dominant and non-dominant motor and parietal regions and elevated low gamma-activity in the frontal and parietal areas, a unique finding in CP. CP showed greater bilateral motor EEG-EMG coherence in the gamma-band with the hallucis longus compared to TD. In summary, individuals with CP display increased cortical activation during gait possibly relating to differences in distal motor control of the more affected side. Strategies that iteratively reduce cortical activation while improving selective motor control are needed in CP.

Optimal output coupler grating reflectivity for Er/Yb fiber lasers

We measure the output power of an Er/Yb fiber laser with twelve different SMF-28 narrowband output couplers and demonstrate experimentally that the optimal reflectivity is ~1%. The fiber laser efficiency with the optimal output coupler is ~38% at ~1546 nm. In addition, we successfully inscribe a similar output coupler in situ during laser operation with 800 nm femtosecond pulses and the phase mask technique. An output power very close to the optimal was obtained with the in situ inscribed output coupler. With a flat cleaved broadband output coupler, the efficiency is ~42%, which is the highest reported efficiency of an Er/Yb fully integrated fiber laser.

Validity of an Inexpensive Hanging Scale During Isometric Shoulder Movements.

Strength assessment is essential to prescribe exercise in sports and rehabilitation. Low-cost valid equipment may allow continuous monitoring of training. To examine the validity of a very low-cost hanging scale by comparing differences in the measures of peak force to a laboratory grade load cell during shoulder abduction, flexion, extension, and internal and external rotations. Analytical study. Thirty-two healthy subjects (18 women, age 26 [10]y, height 172 [8]cm, mass 69 [13]kg, body mass index 23 [4]kg/m2). The dependent variable was the maximal peak force (in kilogram-force). The independent variable was the instrument (laboratory grade load cell and hanging scale). No differences were observed while comparing the results. The intraclass correlation coefficients1,1 ranged from .96 to .99, showing excellent results. The Cronbach alpha test also returned >.99 for all comparisons. The SEM ranged from 0.02 to 0.04kgf, with an averaged SD from 0.24 to 0.38kgf. The correlation was classified as high for all tested movements (r > .99; P < .001), with excellent adjusted coefficients of determination (.96 < r2 < .99). Bland-Altman results showed high levels of agreement with bias ranging from 0.27 to 0.48. Hanging scale provides valid measures of isometric strength with similar output measures as laboratory grade load cell.

Colonial Origins, Property Rights, and the Organization of Agricultural Production: The Us Midwest and Argentine Pampas Compared

We examine the origins, persistence, and economic consequences of institutional structures of agricultural production. We compare farms in the Argentine Pampas and US Midwest, regions of similar potential input and output mixes. The focus is on 1910-1914, during the international grain trade boom and when census data are available. The Midwest was characterized by small farms and family labor. Land was a commercial asset and traded routinely. The Pampas was characterized by large landholdings and use of external labor. Land was a source of status and held across generations. Status attributes could not be easily monetized for trade, reducing market exchange, limiting entry, and hindering farm restructuring. Differing land property rights followed from English and Spanish colonial and post-independence policies. Geo-climatic factors cannot explain dissimilarities in farm sizes, tenancy, and output mixes, suggesting institutional constraints. Midwest farmers also were more responsive to exogenous signals. There is evidence of moral hazard on Pampas farms. Conjectures on long-term development are provided.

"Controlled Slip" Energy Harvesting While Walking.

Rapid development in wearable electronics and systems continues to impose challenges on portable energy storage sustained over time, and thus human energy harvesting is a potentially attractive means of sustainable, long-term energy. We introduce a novel 'controlled slip' energy harvesting approach for capturing energy during human locomotion. While slip is normally considered undesirable, controlled slip holds potential to enable a significant amount of energy harvesting during each step of human gait. Custom-designed 'controlled slip' energy harvesting shoes were fabricated by mounting a sliding plate and a generator with a one-way bearing to the sole of standard walking shoes, which induces controlled forward slip during early stance while energy is harvested. Fourteen healthy subjects performed treadmill walking trials with the 'controlled slip' energy harvesting shoes which generated average electrical power of 1.15-1.44 W at walking speeds of 2.9-4.3 km/h. Interestingly, without prompting, subjects chose to walk with the 'controlled slip' energy harvesting shoes in either one of two distinct ways: landing with the heel first (heel strikers) or landing with the toe first (toe strikers). While heel strikers and toe strikers exhibited similar electrical power output and hip flexion angle at initial foot contact, heel strikers had higher peak ankle power and lower knee flexion angle at initial foot contact than toe strikers. 'Controlled slip' energy harvesting could potentially generate electrical power for a broad spectrum of wearable devices.

The implication of spatial interpolated climate data on biophysical modelling in agricultural systems

AbstractSpatial modelling of agricultural production has been more frequently analysed to assist with regional and long‐term planning. Typically, point‐scale crop models are used to construct these analyses with researchers using various sources of input data, including observed and interpolated gridded climate data. Understanding the implication of data choice on production estimates is crucial to appreciate the consequences of selecting methodological approaches for agricultural model outputs. In this study, we compared site observed climate data and gridded data sets interpolated from site observations that are commonly used the Australian climate data set. We assessed the consequences of the differences in climate variables (biases) to the modelled outputs. Our results showed that the major differences between gridded and observed climate data sets were for rainfall variables. Interpolated gridded data tended to have larger rainfall frequency and smaller rainfall intensity, leading to lower surface runoff and higher soil evaporation that caused less plant water uses and less nitrogen uptake, and ultimately resulted in biases in simulated crop biomass and yield. In addition, the results indicated that agricultural models implemented with gridded data could produce similar overall model outputs as those driven by observed climate data, but can result in more uncertainties in simulated spatial outputs. This is particularly evident in regions with high rainfall. Our results showed that applying agricultural models with observed data and then interpolating these results spatially might be the optimal approach to minimize the biases in production modelling outputs and reduce computing time and storage.

Coacting enhancers can have complementary functions within gene regulatory networks and promote canalization.

Developmental genes are often regulated by multiple enhancers exhibiting similar spatiotemporal outputs, which are generally considered redundantly acting though few have been studied functionally. Using CRISPR-Cas9, we created deletions of two enhancers, brk5’ and brk3’, that drive similar but not identical expression of the gene brinker (brk) in early Drosophila embryos. Utilizing both in situ hybridization and quantitative mRNA analysis, we investigated the changes in the gene network state caused by the removal of one or both of the early acting enhancers. brk5’ deletion generally phenocopied the gene mutant, including expansion of the BMP ligand decapentaplegic (dpp) as well as inducing variability in amnioserosa tissue cell number suggesting a loss of canalization. In contrast, brk3’ deletion presented unique phenotypes including dorsal expansion of several ventrally expressed genes and a decrease in amnioserosa cell number. Similarly, deletions were made for two enhancers associated with the gene short-gastrulation (sog), sog.int and sog.dist, demonstrating that they also exhibit distinct patterning phenotypes and affect canalization. In summary, this study shows that similar gene expression driven by coacting enhancers can support distinct, and sometimes complementary, functions within gene regulatory networks and, moreover, that phenotypes associated with individual enhancer deletion mutants can provide insight into new gene functions.

Esmolol for cardioprotection during resuscitation with adrenaline in an ischaemic porcine cardiac arrest model

BackgroundThe effectiveness of adrenaline during resuscitation continues to be debated despite being recommended in international guidelines. There is evidence that the β-adrenergic receptor (AR) effects of adrenaline are harmful due to increased myocardial oxygen consumption, post-defibrillation ventricular arrhythmias and increased severity of post-arrest myocardial dysfunction. Esmolol may counteract these unfavourable β-AR effects and thus preserve post-arrest myocardial function. We evaluated whether a single dose of esmolol administered prior to adrenaline preserves post-arrest cardiac output among successfully resuscitated animals in a novel, ischaemic cardiac arrest porcine model.MethodsMyocardial infarction was induced in 20 anaesthetized pigs by inflating a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) balloon in the circumflex artery 15 min prior to induction of ventricular fibrillation. After 10 min of untreated VF, resuscitation with veno-arterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VA-ECMO) was initiated and the animals were randomized to receive an injection of either 1 mg/kg esmolol or 9 mg/ml NaCl, prior to adrenaline. Investigators were blinded to allocation. Successful defibrillation was followed by a 1-h high-flow VA-ECMO before weaning and an additional 1-h stabilization period. The PCI-balloon was deflated 40 min after inflation. Cardiac function pre- and post-arrest (including cardiac output) was assessed by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and invasive pressure measurements. Myocardial injury was estimated with MRI, triphenyl tetrazolium chloride (TTC) staining and serum concentrations of cardiac troponin T.ResultsOnly seven esmolol and five placebo-treated pigs were successfully resuscitated and available for post-arrest measurements (p = 0.7). MRI revealed severe but similar reductions in post-arrest cardiac function with cardiac output 3.5 (3.3, 3.7) and 3.3 (3.2, 3.9) l/min for esmolol and control (placebo) groups, respectively (p = 0.7). The control group had larger left ventricular end-systolic and end-diastolic ventricular volumes compared to the esmolol group (75 (65, 100) vs. 62 (53, 70) ml, p = 0.03 and 103 (86, 124) vs. 87 (72, 91) ml, p = 0.03 for control and esmolol groups, respectively). There were no other significant differences in MRI characteristics, myocardial infarct size or other haemodynamic measurements between the two groups.ConclusionsWe observed similar post-arrest cardiac output with and without a single dose of esmolol prior to adrenaline administration during low-flow VA-ECMO in an ischaemic cardiac arrest pig model.

Domain Adaption for Fine-Grained Urban Village Extraction From Satellite Images

Urban villages (UVs) are distinctive products formed in the process of rapid urbanization. The fine-grained mapping of UVs from satellite images has always been a considerable challenge because of the complex urban structures and the insufficiency of labeled samples. In this letter, we propose using the domain adaptation strategy to tackle the domain shift problem by employing adversarial learning to tune the semantic segmentation network so as to adaptively obtain similar outputs for input images from different domains. The proposed method was coupled with several segmentation networks, including U-Net, RefineNet, and DeepLab v3+, and the results show that domain adaptation can significantly improve the pixel-level mapping of UVs.

Inverse problem instabilities in large-scale modeling of matter in extreme conditions

Our understanding of physical systems often depends on our ability to match complex computational modeling with the measured experimental outcomes. However, simulations with large parameter spaces suffer from inverse problem instabilities, where similar simulated outputs can map back to very different sets of input parameters. While of fundamental importance, such instabilities are seldom resolved due to the intractably large number of simulations required to comprehensively explore parameter space. Here, we show how Bayesian inference can be used to address inverse problem instabilities in the interpretation of x-ray emission spectroscopy and inelastic x-ray scattering diagnostics. We find that the extraction of information from measurements on the basis of agreement with simulations alone is unreliable and leads to a significant underestimation of uncertainties. We describe how to statistically quantify the effect of unstable inverse models and describe an approach to experimental design that mitigates its impact.

Acoustic characterisation of a small high-speed centrifugal compressor with casing treatment: An experimental study

With the advancements in manufacturing, materials and computational methods, turbomachinery designs have become more efficient providing higher specific power and reliability with lower weight and cost. The rotational speed of turbomachines has increased while the overall machine size has decreased for a similar power output leading to the pervasive presence of small, high-speed turbomachines, specifically centrifugal compressors in helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), auxiliary power units (APUs), turbochargers and micro gas turbines. In addition to superior aerodynamic performance over a wide range, increased operating speeds have made the acoustic emissions of small centrifugal compressors a critical aspect of design. Therefore, this work presents an experimental campaign to characterise the acoustic behaviour of a compressor with an intent to quantify the dominant features of the flow-induced noise for design and near surge operating conditions. Furthermore, the campaign is extended to establish the impact of the ported shroud casing treatment and operating speed on the acoustic emission of the compressor. The in-duct noise measurement method is used in this work to quantify the noise generated in the compressor by measuring pressure fluctuations near the inducer and diffuser while the propagation of the generated noise to the ducts is computed from an array of piezoelectric sensors. Spectra at the design operating point are dominated by tonal noise while broadband noise content is the dominant feature of spectra for near surge operation. Although the ported shroud cavity does not significantly alter the overall noise levels of the compressor operating at design condition, it does seem to propagate tonal noise. For near surge operation, the casing treatment positively impacts the acoustic emission with a reduction of approximately 10 dB in the range up to the blade pass frequency. Furthermore, various broadband features are also observed to be alleviated by the casing treatment.

Effect of re-acetylation on the acid hydrolysis of chitosan under an induced electric field

This study explored the impact of re-acetylation on induced electric field (IEF)-assisted hydrolysis of chitosan. Chitosan with different degree of deacetylation (DD) exhibited different charge content but similar electrical conductivity and output voltage of the electrolyte system, thus theoretically resulting in equivalent electro-processing efficiency. However, molecular and rheological measurements suggested that the hydrolysis rate decreased with an increase of DD. Re-acetylation had no significant effect on the molecular weight and viscosity of chitosan but damaged its granular and crystal structure, making chitosan chains more susceptible to the acid. The IEF-assisted hydrolysis of dissolved chitosan confirmed that the structural compactness of chitosan played a more important role on the hydrolysis than the charge content. This study extended current knowledge regarding the effect of charge content and structural compactness on IEF-assisted hydrolysis process, which contributed to the applications of IEF in biopolymer modification.

Organic Vegetable Crops Managed with Agro-Ecological Practices: Environmental Sustainability Assessment by DEXi-met Decision Support System

In the last decade, there has been an increasing interest in sustainable agricultural techniques and the environmental evaluation of the effects of agricultural practices. In the present study, we evaluated both the production capacity of organic horticultural systems, and the ex-post sustainability through a new multi-attribute decision model named “DEXi-met”. This qualitative model is able to estimate the environmental sustainability of cropping systems managed with different agro-ecological approaches. In particular, we compared the following three horticultural systems: (i) ECO, an organic system with full implementation of agro-ecological strategies (agro-ecological services crops (ASC), strip cultivation, and organic amendment); (ii) GM, an organic system with the introduction of the ASC; (iii) NO ASC, an organic system without ASC. The treatments with ASC presence (ECO and GM) showed similar total energy outputs (substantially higher than the NO ASC), indicating the positive effect of this agro-ecological practice. The findings pointed out that the ECO system, which followed the principles of natural ecosystems, can contribute to building up more complex agro-ecosystems, increasing both resilience and biodiversity. This management strategy reached a good compromise between the production of vegetable cropping systems and environmental sustainability achievement. Then, it is possible to optimize the use of natural resources, support climate adaptation, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.