Experimental investigation of a copper sheet-laminated solar photovoltaic thermal water collector

Different concepts and designs of photovoltaic thermal (PV/T) collectors were developed for the past few decades to improve the electrical and thermal efficiencies. Several of those designs have become successful and are being commercialized along with other solar collectors. This paper discusses the experimental studies on a novel PV/T water-based collector constructed by laminating the PV cells on a copper thermal absorber. This modification reduced the thermal resistance by 9.93 %, thereby enabling better heat transfer from the PV cells to the heat transfer fluid. Water was passed through a single water channel connected to an open reservoir. Experiments were conducted with and without glazing, with two different water mass flow rates and stagnant conditions, and with load and no-load conditions and thermal stress test. Results show that an overall efficiency of 87.52 % was achieved in the presence of glazing at a mass flow rate of 0.1 kg/s. Few conformance tests according to IEC standards are also presented to check the electrical insulation and structural integrity of the PV/T collector.     

Household Activity Pattern Problem with Autonomous Vehicles

Networks and Spatial Economics - The pace of changes in automating cars has sped up in the last few decades. Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) will dramatically change the future of transportation, and...     

Idiosyncratic Drug-Induced Liver Injury: Mechanistic and Clinical Challenges

Idiosyncratic drug-induced liver injury (IDILI) remains a significant problem for patients and drug development. The idiosyncratic nature of IDILI makes mechanistic studies difficult, and little is known of its pathogenesis for certain. Circumstantial evidence suggests that most, but not all, IDILI is caused by reactive metabolites of drugs that are bioactivated by cytochromes P450 and other enzymes in the liver. Additionally, there is overwhelming evidence that most IDILI is mediated by the adaptive immune system; one example being the association of IDILI caused by specific drugs with specific human leukocyte antigen (HLA) haplotypes, and this may in part explain the idiosyncratic nature of these reactions. The T cell receptor repertoire likely also contributes to the idiosyncratic nature. Although most of the liver injury is likely mediated by the adaptive immune system, specifically cytotoxic CD8+ T cells, adaptive immune activation first requires an innate immune response to activate antigen presenting cells and produce cytokines required for T cell proliferation. This innate response is likely caused by either a reactive metabolite or some form of cell stress that is clinically silent but not idiosyncratic. If this is true it would make it possible to study the early steps in the immune response that in some patients can lead to IDILI. Other hypotheses have been proposed, such as mitochondrial injury, inhibition of the bile salt export pump, unfolded protein response, and oxidative stress although, in most cases, it is likely that they are also involved in the initiation of an immune response rather than representing a completely separate mechanism. Using the clinical manifestations of liver injury from a number of examples of IDILI-associated drugs, this review aims to summarize and illustrate these mechanistic hypotheses.     

Determination of atomistic deformation of tricalcium silicate paste with high-volume fly ash

We examined the effect of incorporating high-volume fly ash on the atomic arrangement and interatomic deformation behavior of calcium silicate hydrates in tricalcium silicate paste upon exposure to external forces. The interatomic structural changes and strains under compressive load were assessed using synchrotron in situ high-energy X-ray scattering-based atomic pair distribution function analysis. Three different types of strains, which were (a) macroscopic strains from gauges on the surfaces of specimen, (b) strains in a reciprocal space (Bragg peak shift), and (c) strains in real space (PDF peak shift), were compared to each other. All monitored and calculated strains for tricalcium silicate-fly ash (50 wt% fly ash) paste were compared with the counterparts of the pure tricalcium silicate paste. Pair distribution function analysis in the range of r < 10 Å indicated that the atomic arrangement of tricalcium silicate-fly ash was similar to that of synthetic calcium silicate hydrates followed by that of pure tricalcium silicate paste. Moreover, the pair distribution function refinement results revealed that the calcium silicate hydrate structure in tricalcium silicate-fly ash paste was similar to tobermorite 11 Å, unlike that in pure tricalcium silicate paste. The interatomic strain of tricalcium silicate-fly ash in the real space (r < 20 Å) was smaller than that of tricalcium silicate under compression, which suggested that the incompressibility of calcium silicate hydrates at atomistic scale was enhanced by the incorporation of fly ash into it. This was likely to be caused by the increased silicate polymerization of calcium silicate hydrates, which was attributed to the increase in the amount of silicate in their structure via the addition of fly ash.     

H −/H ∞ sensor fault detection and isolation in linear time-invariant systems

This paper addresses sensor fault detection and isolation problems for continuous- and discrete-time linear time-invariant systems. To that end, we employ a bank consisting of the same number of observers as there are sensors. Both the observer gain and the residual gain are considered. Unlike earlier work, the design conditions with H _?/H _∞ performance are derived in terms of linear, rather than nonlinear, matrix inequalities. An illustrative example is provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.     

Microbial growth,communities and sensory characteristics of vacuum and modified atmosphere packaged lamb shoulders

Packaging fresh lamb in a vacuum (VAC) versus a 100% CO₂ modified atmosphere (MAP) may influence product shelf-life and the bacterial communities. While VAC is a common packing method and 100% CO₂ MAP is used in some countries, there is little information about how these different techniques affect the growth of spoilage bacteria and sensory attributes of lamb. The aim of this study was to assess changes in microbiological and organoleptic properties, and determine differences in microbial communities by terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (TRFLP) and 454 pyrosequencing, in bone-in (BI) and bone-out (BO) MAP- and VAC-packed lamb shoulders stored at −0.3 °C over 12 wk. VAC and MAP lamb shoulders were acceptable in sensory test scores over 12 wk of storage at −0.3 °C, despite total viable count (TVC) and lactic acid bacteria (LAB) levels increasing to 8 log₁₀ CFU/cm² for VAC lamb and 4–6 log₁₀ CFU/cm² for MAP lamb. Similar to the sensory results, there were no significant differences in microbial communities between BI and BO product. However, types of bacteria were different between VAC and MAP packaging. Specifically, while VAC shoulder became dominated by Carnobacterium spp. in the middle of the storage period, the MAP shoulder microbial population remained similar from the start until later storage times.     

Maternal mental health and integrated programs for mothers with substance abuse issues.

To examine the impact of integrated treatment programs (those with substance use treatment and pregnancy-, parenting-, or child-related services) on maternal mental health, we compiled a database of studies of integrated programs published between 1990 and 2007 with outcome data on maternal mental health. There were 18 cohort studies, 3 randomized trials, and 2 quasi-experimental studies. Of the five studies comparing integrated to nonintegrated programs, three studies provided enough information to allow for them to be combined in a meta-analysis. The average effect size was 0.23 (95% CI = 0.15 to 0.31, SE = 0.04), p Q = 5.66, p = .059. This meta-analysis is the first systematic quantitative review of studies evaluating the impact of integrated programs on maternal mental health. Findings suggest that integrated programs may be associated with a small advantage over nonintegrated programs in improving maternal mental health. This review highlights the need for further research with improved methodology, study quality, and reporting to improve our understanding of how best to meet the mental health needs of mothers with substance abuse issues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)