The role of technology transfer for the development of a local wind component industry in Chile

This paper contributes to the debate about climate change technology transfer by analysing barriers and enablers for a Chilean company starting up the production of wind blades. Literature on the role of technology transfer for the development and deployment of local renewable energy technologies in developing countries often refers to success stories in Brazil, India and China. Instead, this case study highlights the different challenges faced by smaller emerging economies. The paper argues that successful technology transfer in a smaller economy like Chile requires: a minimum internal demand and access to regional markets to attract foreign knowledge providers; a focus in the types of technologies where the recipient country or company have a competitive advantage; and active learning processes by the recipient company. Lessons are drawn for improving the design and implementation of technology-push and market-pull policies in small or medium emerging economies.     

NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF THE EFFECTS OF BUOYANCY FORCES AND FLOW CONTROL DEVICES ON FLUID FLOW AND HEAT TRANSFER PHENOMENA OF LIQUID STEEL IN A TUNDISH

Fluid flow and heat transfer of liquid steel in a tundish of a continuous slab caster was numerically simulated. The importance of natural flow convection was established through a dimensionless number given by the ratio Gr/Re². Buoyancy forces proved to be as important as inertial ones, especially in the extremes of the tundish far from the entering liquid jet. The usual flow control devices like weirs and dams were not as effective as turbulence inhibitors, a kind of impact pad with lips, interior squared angles, and a square cross section. The simulations indicated that this device helps to decrease fluid turbulence in the zone of the entering liquid jet and has damping effects of step inputs of cold or hot steel, allowing for better control of the casting temperature.     

Hydrogeographical Regionalisation: An Approach for Evaluating the Effects of Land Cover Change in Watersheds. A Case Study in the Cuitzeo Lake Watershed, Central Mexico

Efficient natural resources management, including continental water at watershed level, requires understanding the arrangement of landscape attributes in a region. The geographical analysis of landscape attributes is a useful approach to delineate relatively homogeneous watersheds or regions. This research was carried out in order to evaluate the effect of land cover through time on regionalisation modelling in the poorly-gauged Cuitzeo Lake Watershed, and to develop models to create two hydrogeographical regionalisations for the years 1975 and 2000. The inputs required by the regionalisation methodology were integrated in a GIS and validated before carrying out statistical regionalisation procedures (cluster analysis and PCA). GIS operations were done in Arc View 3.2 and statistical analyses in PC-ORD. Median Euclidean distances with mean distance linkage methods were used. A 75% of similarity was chosen as the threshold to generate regions. Importance rankings of regions were obtained using multicriteria evaluation methods. Based on the analysis, 38 of the 52 subwatersheds belonging to the Cuitzeo Lake Watershed were clustered; eight groups were defined in 1975 and nine in 2000. According to PCA, the strongest positive variables are associated to morphometric, geologic, land cover and soil attributes. Fourteen subwatersheds were never clustered. Four subwatersheds changed of cluster between 1975 and 2000. This change is explained because of rainfed agricultural parcel abandonment, and subsequent shrubland growth. This means that the hydrogeographical regionalisation is sensitive to land cover change processes. The methodological approach applied in this research is a low-cost and fast alternative for evaluating the impact of land cover and land use change on hydrogeographical regionalisation; in consequence, data and information generated during the analysis were made available to local authorities so that they can improve both water resources planning and their informational baseline for decision making and for development of environmental policies in the Cuitzeo Lake Watershed.     

Fluid Dynamics of Vortex Formation in Tundish Operations: Mathematical Modelling

A mathematical model was developed to study the significance of the fluid dynamics of vortex formation in tundish operations. The aim is to contribute to the fundamental understanding of vortex formation and related phenomena. For this purpose a typical slab tundish was employed; the mathematical model was solved using FLUENT® commercial software capable to simulate highly turbulent flows. The well known k‐? turbulence model was applied to compute this effect in the process. The mathematical simulations confirmed the results from a water analogue model. The vortex formation is directly related to the highly turbulent flows present in the reactor. Great changes in velocity fields during short times and large distances between the upper edge of the dam and the free surface of the bath enhance the formation of vortex flows.     

Performance tradeoffs among low‐complexity detection algorithms for MIMO‐LTE receivers

The upcoming Third‐Generation Partnership Project—Long‐Term Evolution (3GPP‐LTE) cellular standard will employ spatial multiplexing to significantly increase the data rates. Detection of the spatially multiplexed signals is an essential issue in the design of an LTE receiver. In this paper, we evaluate the performance–complexity tradeoffs for a set of low‐complexity multiple input multiple output (MIMO) detection algorithms in a realistic LTE downlink system. Specifically, antenna correlation and channel estimation errors have been considered for a practical MIMO‐LTE receiver. An LTE downlink model has been implemented in order to evaluate three types of detectors: linear, unsorted successive interference cancellation (SIC), and ordered SIC. Our simulation results show that the unsorted SIC detectors present a very poor performance–complexity tradeoff. Besides, linear detectors are shown to be the best candidates as the performance improvement for the ordered SIC detectors is not significant in a realistic scenario. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

HIV training and perceived competence among doctoral students in psychology.

A training-needs assessment was conducted at California School of Professional Psychology, Berkeley/Alameda, on students' beliefs about clinical competence, past training in HIV issues, and future training needs at the school. They perceived themselves to be somewhat competent in providing clinical services to HIV patients and members of groups at high risk for HIV. A modest correlation was found between the students' total HIV training and perceived competence, but none was found between the multicultural emphasis in HIV education and their perceived competence. These findings suggest an ethical dilemma surrounding inadequately trained psychologists providing services to multicultural populations. Ethical issues concerning training standards and criteria for clinical competency are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Kinetic parameters during the tempering of low-alloy steel through the non-isothermal dilatometry

The kinetic study of the tempering reactions of a low-alloy steel (AISI 1050) was carried out through non-isothermal dilatometry. The kinetic parameters of the first and third stages on tempering (here referred to as processes I and II) are calculated by procedures which assume that the nucleation and growth reactions obey a Kolmogorov–Johnson–Mehl–Avrami (KJMA) kinetic model. The recipes to obtain the kinetic parameters (E, K ₀, n) of the reactions on tempering are presented. The first stage of tempering is characterized by the growth of the transition carbide nuclei formed during the quenching, n = 1 (site saturation situation). This stage is controlled by the pipe diffusion of the iron atoms. The third stage of tempering is characterized by the cementite nucleation on dislocations due to the gradual dissolution of the transition carbide, n = 0.66. The cementite growth is controlled by diffusion of the iron atoms through dislocations and in the matrix.     

一所大学建筑中用高效率的照明合理使用电能

0 引言 为了在用能效率上作出工程努力,Cortagena技术大学去年4月已决定实施一项雄心勃勃的计划,要在此后的4年中削减用电费用。为了证实不同政策的可行性和成本效益,应用于原海军医院(工业工程高等技术学校总部)的许多展示活动将在最近期内完成。当然,在此建筑中合理用电的对象将集中在两个主要的电气末端即:电