Integration of a Photovoltaic Panel with an Electric City Car

Abstract—Autonomy of light electric vehicles with limited mobility can be improved by assisting onboard energy sources, such as battery and ultra-capacitors, by solar energy. This article discusses the integration of a photovoltaic panel with an electric city car. The Photovoltaic Geographical Information Systems of Joint Research Center, Europe, is used for estimating the solar irradiance. Based on the estimations, a DC-to-DC boost converter topology is considered to interface the panel with the DC bus of the electric car. Experimental evaluation of the performance is carried out under a real climatic situation. An analytical loss model is used to comment on the associated losses and to explain the measured changes in gain and efficiency under varying irradiance. Acceptable extension in the autonomy of the electric city car is predicted from the results.     

Biogenic amines in dry sausages during shelf-life storage

 Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) with subsequent HPLC analysis was performed in order to determine the amount of capsaicinoids in paprika and chillie powder samples. The extraction yields obtained by SFE were compared to those obtained by organic solvent extraction and were found to be comparable or slightly lower. The advantages of SFE are shorter extraction times, less sample preparation needed prior to HPLC analysis and fewer interfering peaks in the chromatograms. In addition, the SFE method developed (extraction temperature=80 ^°C, density= 0.75 g/ml, modifier=20 μl water) was shown to be suitable for analysis of capsaicinoids (capsaicin, dihydrocapsaicin, nordihydrocapsaicin) that are present over a wide range of concentrations (10–1400 μg/g) in the samples. Received: 12 July 1996/Revised version: 26 August 1996     

Waste fly ash–ZnO as a novel sunlight-responsive photocatalyst for dye discoloration

Treating waste with a waste material using freely available solar energy is the most effective way towards sustainable future. In this study, a novel photocatalyst, partly derived from waste material from the coal industry, was developed. Fly ash hybridized with ZnO (FA—Zn) was synthesized as a potential photocatalyst for dye discoloration. The synthesized photocatalyst was characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and ultraviolet—visible/near infra-red spectroscopy. The photocatalytic activity was examined with the discoloration of methylene blue used as synthetic dye wastewater. All the experiments were performed in direct sunlight. The photocatalytic performance of FA—Zn was found to be better than that of ZnO and the conventionally popular TiO₂. The Langmuire—Hinshelwood model rate constant values of ZnO, TiO₂, and FA—Zn were found to be 0.016 min^-1, 0.017 min^-1, and 0.020 min^-1, respectively. There were two reasons for this: (1) FA—Zn was able to utilize both ultraviolet and visible parts of the solar spectrum, and (2) its Brunauere—Emmette—Teller surface area and porosity were significantly enhanced. This led to increased photon absorption and dye adsorption, thus exhibiting an energy-efficient performance. Therefore, FA—Zn, partly derived from waste, can serve as a suitable material for environmental remediation and practical solar energy applications.     

Variational autoencoder for prosody-based speaker recognition

This paper describes a novel end-to-end deep generative model-based speaker recognition system using prosodic features. The usefulness of variational autoencoders (VAE) in learning the speaker-specific prosody representations for the speaker recognition task is examined herein for the first time. The speech signal is first automatically segmented into syllable-like units using vowel onset points (VOP) and energy valleys. Prosodic features, such as the dynamics of duration, energy, and fundamental frequency ( $F_0$), are then extracted at the syllable level and used to train/adapt a speaker-dependent VAE from a universal VAE. The initial comparative studies on VAEs and traditional autoencoders (AE) suggest that the former can efficiently learn speaker representations. Investigations on the impact of gender information in speaker recognition also point out that gender-dependent impostor banks lead to higher accuracies. Finally, the evaluation on the NIST SRE 2010 dataset demonstrates the usefulness of the proposed approach for speaker recognition.     

Nano-Theranostic Modality for Visualization of the Placenta and Photo-Hyperthermia for Potential Management of Ectopic Pregnancy

Ectopic pregnancy (EP) is the leading cause of maternity-related death in the first trimester of pregnancy. Approximately 98% of ectopic implantations occur in the fallopian tube, and expedient management is crucial for preventing hemorrhage and maternal death in the event of tubal rupture. Current ultrasound strategies misdiagnose EP in up to 40% of cases, and the failure rate of methotrexate treatment for confirmed EP exceeds 10%. Here the first theranostic strategy for potential management of EP is reported using a near-infrared naphthalocyanine dye encapsulated within polymeric nanoparticles. These nanoparticles preferentially accumulate in the developing murine placenta within 24 h following systemic administration, and enable visualization of implantation sites at various gestational stages via fluorescence and photoacoustic imaging. These nanoparticles do not traverse the placental barrier to the fetus or impact fetal development. However, excitation of nanoparticles localized in specific placentas with focused NIR light generates heat (>43 °C) sufficient for disruption of placental function, resulting in the demise of targeted fetuses with no effect on adjacent fetuses. This novel approach would enable diagnostic confirmation of EP when current imaging strategies are unsuccessful, and elimination of EP could subsequently be achieved using the same nano-agent to generate localized hyperthermia resulting in targeted placental impairment.