Leading edge erosion of wind turbines: Effect of solid airborne particles and rain on operational wind farms

Leading edge erosion (LEE) affects almost all wind turbines, reducing their annual energy production and lifetime profitability. This study presents results of an investigation into 18 operational wind farms to assess the validity of the current literature consensus surrounding LEE. Much of the historical research focuses on rain erosion, implying that this is the predominant causal factor. However, this study showed that the impact of excessive airborne particles from seawater aerosols or from adverse local environments such as nearby quarries greatly increases the levels of LEE. Current testing of leading edge protection coatings or tapes is based on a rain erosion resistivity test, which does little to prove its ability to withstand solid particle erosion and may drive coating design in the wrong direction. Furthermore, it was shown that there is little correlation between test results and actual field performance. A method of monitoring the expected level of erosion on an operational wind turbine due to rain erosion is also presented. Finally, the energy losses associated with LEE on an operational wind farm are examined, with the average annual energy production dropping by 1.8% due to medium levels of erosion, with the worst affected turbine experiencing losses of 4.9%.     

Identification of Phenylpyrazolone Dimers as a New Class of Anti-Trypanosoma cruzi Agents

Chagas disease is becoming a worldwide problem; it is currently estimated that over six million people are infected. The two drugs in current use, benznidazole and nifurtimox, require long treatment regimens, show limited efficacy in the chronic phase of infection, and are known to cause adverse effects. Phenotypic screening of an in-house library led to the identification of 2,2′-methylenebis(5-(4-bromophenyl)-4,4-dimethyl-2,4-dihydro-3H-pyrazol-3-one), a phenyldihydropyrazolone dimer, which shows an in vitro pIC₅₀ value of 5.4 against Trypanosoma cruzi. Initial optimization was done by varying substituents of the phenyl ring, after which attempts were made to replace the phenyl ring. Finally, the linker between the dimer units was varied, ultimately leading to 2,2′-methylenebis(5-(3-bromo-4-methoxyphenyl)-4,4-dimethyl-2,4-dihydro-3H-pyrazol-3-one (NPD-0228) as the most potent analogue. NPD-0228 has an in vitro pIC₅₀ value of 6.4 against intracellular amastigotes of T. cruzi and no apparent toxicity against the human MRC-5 cell line and murine cardiac cells.     

An Artificial Nocturnal Flower via Humidity‐Gated Photoactuation in Liquid Crystal Networks

Beyond their colorful appearances and versatile geometries, flowers can self‐shape‐morph by adapting to environmental changes. Such responses are often regulated by a delicate interplay between different stimuli such as temperature, light, and humidity, giving rise to the beauty and complexity of the plant kingdom. Nature inspires scientists to realize artificial systems that mimic their natural counterparts in function, flexibility, and adaptation. Yet, many of the artificial systems demonstrated to date fail to mimic the adaptive functions, due to the lack of multi‐responsivity and sophisticated control over deformation directionality. Herein, a new class of liquid‐crystal‐network (LCN) photoactuators whose response is controlled by delicate interplay between light and humidity is presented. Using a novel deformation mechanism in LCNs, humidity‐gated photoactuation, an artificial nocturnal flower is devised that is closed under daylight conditions when the humidity level is low and/or the light level is high, while it opens in the dark when the humidity level is high. The humidity‐gated photoactuators can be fueled with lower light intensities than conventional photothermal LCN actuators. This, combined with facile control over the speed, geometry, and directionality of movements, renders the “nocturnal actuator” promising for smart and adaptive bioinspired microrobotics.     

Simplified Monopalmitoyl Toll-like Receptor 2 Ligand Mini-UPam for Self-Adjuvanting Neoantigen-Based Synthetic Cancer Vaccines

Synthetic vaccines, based on antigenic peptides that comprise MHC−I and MHC-II T-cell epitopes expressed by tumors, show great promise for the immunotherapy of cancer. For optimal immunogenicity, the synthetic peptides (SPs) should be adjuvanted with suitable immunostimulatory additives. Previously, we have shown that improved immunogenicity in vivo is obtained with vaccine modalities in which an SP is covalently connected to an adjuvanting moiety, typically a ligand to Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2). SPs were covalently attached to UPam, which is a derivative of the classic TLR2 ligand Pam₃CysSK₄. A disadvantage of the triply palmitoylated UPam is its high lipophilicity, which precludes universal adoption of this adjuvant for covalent modification of various antigenic peptides as it renders the synthetic vaccine insoluble in several cases. Here, we report a novel conjugatable TLR2 ligand, mini-UPam, which contains only one palmitoyl chain, rather than three, and therefore has less impact on the solubility and other physicochemical properties of a synthetic peptide. In this study, we used SPs that contain the clinically relevant neoepitopes identified in a melanoma patient who completely recovered after T-cell therapy. Homogeneous mini-UPam-SP conjugates have been prepared in good yields by stepwise solid-phase synthesis that employed a mini-UPam building block pre-prepared in solution and the standard set of Fmoc-amino acids. The immunogenicity of the novel mini-UPam-SP conjugates was demonstrated by using the cancer patient's T-cells.     

Water Pipeline Leak Measurement Using Wavelet Packet-based Adaptive ICA

Water Resources Management - The localization of the leaks is estimated using the time difference method in the past decade. Generalized and Basic Cross-correlation techniques are frequently...     

Dichloroacetate Radiosensitizes Hypoxic Breast Cancer Cells

Mitochondrial metabolism is an attractive target for cancer therapy. Reprogramming metabolic pathways can potentially sensitize tumors with limited treatment options, such as triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), to chemo- and/or radiotherapy. Dichloroacetate (DCA) is a specific inhibitor of the pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase (PDK), which leads to enhanced reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. ROS are the primary effector molecules of radiation and an increase hereof will enhance the radioresponse. In this study, we evaluated the effects of DCA and radiotherapy on two TNBC cell lines, namely EMT6 and 4T1, under aerobic and hypoxic conditions. As expected, DCA treatment decreased phosphorylated pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) and lowered both extracellular acidification rate (ECAR) and lactate production. Remarkably, DCA treatment led to a significant increase in ROS production (up to 15-fold) in hypoxic cancer cells but not in aerobic cells. Consistently, DCA radiosensitized hypoxic tumor cells and 3D spheroids while leaving the intrinsic radiosensitivity of the tumor cells unchanged. Our results suggest that although described as an oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS)-promoting drug, DCA can also increase hypoxic radioresponses. This study therefore paves the way for the targeting of mitochondrial metabolism of hypoxic cancer cells, in particular to combat radioresistance.     

多病床非典病房的气流分布研究

到2003年8月7日止，在全球34个国家和地区相继出现了严重急性呼吸系统综合症(SARS或者非典)，其中，共报告有8422例疑似案例，916例死亡案例。2002年11月到2003年6月间的非典流行中，医院医护人员受感染情况最为严重，世界范围内20％的感染群体为医护人员，香港地区22％的确诊案例为医护人员。因此，为减少交叉感染，加强有关工程控制，特别是在非典病房里进行通风设计是非常必要的。本文总结了非典病房气流分布的最新研究。这项研究由非典特工队于2003年4～7月间完成。非典特工队是由香港工程师协会组织，来自7个专家协会的工程师组成的研究小组。在对香港治疗非典医院的现有空调系统进行了解后，非典特工队首先运用计算流体力学模拟确定了在6个床位的病房里减少交叉感染和改善污染物稀释的通风设计；接着，对新设计在香港大学屋宇设备实验室里的全尺寸非典病房里进行了测试。测试表明，新设计方案在这个接近现实的全尺寸非典病房里运行良好。采用床头回风口回风设计可有效地对病人产生的含病毒颗粒进行局部捕获。根据这项研究，作者提出了原则性的设计建议。2003年里，香港政府和医院管理局医院采纳了非典特工队提出的设计基本原理建造了1200多个床位的可用于非典治疗的新病房。另外，气流分布是复杂的紊流过程，送风格栅结构如导流器或散流器的微小改动以及送风参数如风速、温度和风向的微小变化都会引起气流的改变。适当的设计对于减少病人间、病人与医护人员之间的交叉感染以及有效稀释和排除含病菌颗粒都是至关重要的。     

A note on smoke plumes from fires in multi-level shopping malls

It is shown that the experimental data obtained for plume flow in model-scale shopping malls can be correlated using equations similar to those developed by Yokoi. Further analysis is needed to establish the effective source of the plumes and the range of validity of the correlations developed. An alternative method of calculating mass flow above a balcony is suggested for interim use, until further analysis has been carried out.     

Vehicle axle load identification on bridge deck with irregular road surface profile

The vehicular axle load on top of a bridge deck is estimated in this paper including the effect of the road surface roughness which is modeled as a Gaussian random process represented by the Karhunen-Loève expansion. The bridge is modeled as a simply supported planar Euler-Bernoulli beam and the vehicle is modeled by a four degrees-of-freedom mass-spring system. A stochastic force identification algorithm is proposed in which the statistics of the moving interaction forces can be accurately identified from a set of samples of the random responses of the bridge deck. Numerical simulations are conducted in which the Gaussian assumption for the road surface roughness, the response statistics calculation and the stochastic force identification technique for the proposed bridge-vehicle interaction model are verified. Both the effect of the number of samples used and the effect of different road surface profiles on the accuracy of the proposed stochastic force identification algorithm are investigated. Results show that the Gaussian assumption for the road surface roughness is correct and the proposed algorithm is accurate and effective.