Temperature effects of PTFE diffusers

Poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE) is the most commonly used diffuser material in ultraviolet irradiance measurements. The temperature sensitivities of five PTFE diffusers were measured over a broad temperature range. The transmittance change varied from −0.015%/°C to −0.1%/°C. At 19 °C there was an unexpected abrupt change in transmittance ranging from 1% to 3%. This change is due to the change of the crystal structure of PTFE at 19 °C. Temperature sensitivity decreases significantly the accuracy of high precision measurements, especially if the temperature of the diffusers is not stabilized.     

Action of Cyclodextrins on Germinating Seeds and on Micropropagated Plants

Effects of cyclodextrins on germinating barley seeds and on the growth of micropropagated strawberry plants were investigated. Treatment of barley seeds with α- or β-cyclodextrins resulted in a similar delay of germination as reported earlier [1]. The delay of germination occurred with agarose-immobilized as well as with free cyclodextrins. Since penetration of immobilized cyclodextrins into the seeds is limited, it was concluded that the delay resulted from complexation of growth factors. Soluble cyclodextrins caused a growth retardation with micropropagated strawberry plants and certain morphological changes resembling the ones observed when the action of auxins is enhanced in the respect to cytokinins.     

Stability of Parallel Queueing Systems with Coupled Service Rates

This paper considers a parallel system of queues fed by independent arrival streams, where the service rate of each queue depends on the number of customers in all of the queues. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the stability of the system are derived, based on stochastic monotonicity and marginal drift properties of multiclass birth and death processes. These conditions yield a sharp characterization of stability for systems where the service rate of each queue is decreasing in the number of customers in other queues, and has uniform limits as the queue lengths tend to infinity. The results are illustrated with applications where the stability region may be nonconvex.     

Smoothing methodology for predicting regional averages in multi-source forest inventory

The paper examines alternative non-parametric estimation methods or smoothing methods in the context of the Finnish multi-source forest inventory. It uses satellite images in addition to field data to produce forest variable predictions for regions ranging from the single pixel level up to the national level. With the help of the bias-variance decomposition, the influence of the smoothing parameters on prediction accuracy is considered when the smoother's pixel-level predictions are averaged in order to produce predictions for larger areas. A novel variation of cross-validation, called region-wise cross-validation, is proposed for selecting the smoothing parameters. Experimental results are presented using local linear ridge regression (LLRR), which is a variant of the better known local linear regression method.     

Grate-firing of biomass for heat and power production

As a renewable and environmentally friendly energy source, biomass (i.e., any organic non-fossil fuel) and its utilization are gaining an increasingly important role worldwide. Grate-firing is one of the main competing technologies in biomass combustion for heat and power production, because it can fire a wide range of fuels of varying moisture content, and requires less fuel preparation and handling. The basic objective of this paper is to review the state-of-the-art knowledge on grate-fired boilers burning biomass: the key elements in the firing system and the development, the important combustion mechanism, the recent breakthrough in the technology, the most pressing issues, the current research and development activities, and the critical future problems to be resolved. The grate assembly (the most characteristic element in grate-fired boilers), the key combustion mechanism in the fuel bed on the grate, and the advanced secondary air supply (a real breakthrough in this technology) are highlighted for grate-firing systems. Amongst all the issues or problems associated with grate-fired boilers burning biomass, primary pollutant formation and control, deposition formation and corrosion, modelling and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations are discussed in detail. The literature survey and discussions are primarily pertaining to grate-fired boilers burning biomass, though these issues are more or less general. Other technologies (e.g., fluidized bed combustion or suspension combustion) are also mentioned or discussed, to some extent, mainly for comparison and to better illustrate the special characteristics of grate-firing of biomass. Based on these, some critical problems, which may not be sufficiently resolved by the existing efforts and have to be addressed by future research and development, are outlined.     

Identifying predictive multi-dimensional time series motifs: an application to severe weather prediction

We introduce an efficient approach to mining multi-dimensional temporal streams of real-world data for ordered temporal motifs that can be used for prediction. Since many of the dimensions of the data are known or suspected to be irrelevant, our approach first identifies the salient dimensions of the data, then the key temporal motifs within each dimension, and finally the temporal ordering of the motifs necessary for prediction. For the prediction element, the data are assumed to be labeled. We tested the approach on two real-world data sets. To verify the generality of the approach, we validated the application on several subjects from the CMU Motion Capture database. Our main application uses several hundred numerically simulated supercell thunderstorms where the goal is to identify the most important features and feature interrelationships which herald the development of strong rotation in the lowest altitudes of a storm. We identified sets of precursors, in the form of meteorological quantities reaching extreme values in a particular temporal sequence, unique to storms producing strong low-altitude rotation. The eventual goal is to use this knowledge for future severe weather detection and prediction algorithms.     

A Synchronized Wireless Sensor Network for Experimental Modal Analysis in Structural Health Monitoring

Abstract: Structural health monitoring aims to provide an accurate diagnosis of the condition of civil infrastructures during their life span using data acquired by sensors. Wireless sensor networks represent a suitable monitoring technology to collect reliable information about the structure's condition, replacing visual inspections, and reducing installation and maintenance time and costs. This article introduces a time synchronized and configurable wireless sensor network for structural health monitoring enabling a highly accurate identification of the modal properties of the monitored structure. The wireless sensor nodes forming the network are equipped with a 3‐axis digital accelerometer and a temperature and humidity sensor. The implemented Medium Access Control layer time synchronization protocol (μ‐Sync) ensures a highly accurate synchronicity among the samples collected by the nodes, the absolute error being constantly below 10 μs, also when high sampling frequency (up to 1 kHz) and extended sampling periods (up to 10 minutes) are applied. The experimental results obtained on a wooden model bridge, compared with those derived from acceleration signals acquired by high‐quality wired sensors, show that the so synchronized wireless sensor nodes allow a precise identification of the natural frequencies of vibration of the monitored structure (1% maximum relative difference).     

The kinetics of the Cu/Cu redox couple in deep eutectic solvents

Kinetics of electron transfer of the Cu(I)/Cu(II) redox couple at a platinum electrode has been studied with chronoamperometry, cyclic voltammetry and impedance spectroscopy in a deep eutectic solvent consisting of choline chloride and ethylene glycol. At 25 °C, the reaction was found to be quasi-reversible with a relatively high rate constant k⁰ of 9.5 ± 2 × 10⁻⁴ cm s⁻¹, and a charge transfer coefficient α of 0.25 ± 0.05. Diffusion coefficients for the Cu(I) and Cu(II) complexes were determined to be 2.7 ± 0.1 × 10⁻⁷ and 1.5 ± 0.1 × 10⁻⁷ cm² s⁻¹, respectively. The viscosity of the electrolyte was 41 ± 3 mPa s. The temperature dependency was also investigated. The activation energy of mass transfer was found to be 27.7 ± 1 kJ mol⁻¹ and that of electron transfer 39 ± 7 kJ mol⁻¹. Speciation of the Cu(I) and Cu(II) complexes was determined using UV–VIS spectroscopy, and the prevailing Cu(I) complex was found to be [CuCl₃]²⁻ and that of Cu(II) [CuCl₄]²⁻.     

Determination of the fibre orientation distribution of a mineral wool network and prediction of its transverse stiffness using X-ray tomography

A method to determine the orientation and diameter distributions of mineral wool fibre networks using X-ray tomography and image analysis is presented. The method is applied to two different types of mineral wool: glass wool and stone wool. The orientation information is obtained from the computation of the structure tensor, and the diameter is estimated by applying a greyscale granulometry. The results of the image analysis indicate the two types of fibres are distributed in a 2D planar arrangement with the glass wool fibres showing a higher degree of planarity than the stone wool fibres. The orientation information is included in an analytical model based on a Euler–Bernoulli beam approximation. The model enables prediction of the transverse stiffness. It is indicated that the glass wool transverse stiffness is lower than the stone wool transverse stiffness. Comparison with experimental results confirms the assumption that the underlying deformation mechanism of mineral wool is the bending of fibre segments between bonds.