Logic of the image

In this the Centennial Year of Alvar Aalto's birth a plethora of events and writings have emanated from sources independent of his origins. Juhani Pallasmaa has lived and worked in the cultural ambience of a world figure in a small country. In reviewing the inheritance of any architect who in his early career prompted a semi-official meeting of the Finnish Architects' Association to 'stop the daredevil before he could cause irreparable harm to the reputation of the esteemed profession' and now is held in such awe that sober critical evaluation has become seriously compromised, he provides fresh insight into Aalto's 'synthetic and inclusive architecture' as landscape, as typology, as tactile experience, as rational structure, as episodic sequence, as 'haptic experience'.     

Occurrence and destruction of PAHs,PCBs, CIPhs,CIBzs, and PCDD/Fs in ash from gasification of straw

Two experiments were performed with an atmospheric circulating fluidized bed gasifier (ACFBG), the first with pelletized straw and the second with loose straw, to investigate the occurrence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), chlorophenols (CIPhs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polychlorinated benzenes (ClBzs), polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs), and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs) in the bottom ash and fly ash formed during gasification. Only PAHs were present in large amounts, and only in the fly ash, ranging from 300 to 555 mg/kg ash in the tests with pelletized straw and from 73 to 118 mg/kg ash in those with loose straw. These amounts are so high that environmentally safe disposal or reuse of the ash would be difficult, so the development of a technique to handle the problem was included in the project. The method investigated was to burn the fly ash in a circulating fluidized bed (CFB) boiler in order to destroy the PAHs. This worked surprisingly well, eliminating 99% of the PAHs, without any further formation of the other harmful organic compounds analyzed. Thus, this method could actually be useful in practice. Especially the fact that the formation of PCDD/Fs was minimal during gasification and further treatment of the ash in the CFB boiler makes the gasification technique highly competitive relative to conventional combustion methods.     

A Simulation Model for the Control of beta‐Glucanase Activity and beta‐Glucan Degradation During Germination in Malting

A dynamic model was developed that describes the formation of β‐glucanase and the degradation of β‐glucans at different temperatures and grain moistures during the germination of malting barley. The process was analysed by simulations and by solving an optimal control problem for maximising the β‐glucanase activity. The results demonstrate the effects of controlling dynamically the germination process and improve the understanding of cytolysis in germination.     

High levels of equol in organic skimmed Finnish cow milk

The isoflavonoids, equol, formononetin, daidzein, genistein, biochanin A, and O-demethylangolensin (O-DMA), were analyzed from commercial cartons of skimmed Finnish milk by HPLC-diode array detector (DAD)-FL. We found 411 +/- 65 ng/mL of equol and traces of formononetin and daidzein in organic skimmed milk whereas conventionally produced milk contained 62 +/- 16 ng/mL of equol and no formononetin or daidzein.     

Mechanical and physical properties of thermally modified Scots pine wood in high pressure reactor under saturated steam at 120, 150 and 180 °C

Scots pine sapwood and heartwood were thermally modified under saturated steam at 120, 150 and 180 °C in a high pressure reactor. Mechanical properties such as dynamic and static modulus of elasticity (MOE), static modulus of rupture (MOR), Brinell hardness and impact toughness were evaluated. The static MOE for sapwood did not decrease substantially (approximately 1 %), not even with a high mass loss of more than 12 %, when the wood was modified at 180 °C. Static MOE of the wood increased approximately 14 %, when modified at 150 °C. Surprisingly, MOR increased by 15 %, when modified at 150 °C with mass loss of 2.3 %. Whereas impact strength and hardness decreased somewhat, when modified at 180 °C. Moreover, high anti-swelling efficiency values were obtained (60 % for sapwood and 52 % for heartwood) when modified at 180 °C.     

Early loss of mother or father predicts depression in old age

The independent predictive roles of early losses, personality traits, acute losses and long-term stress situations for the occurrence of depression in elderly Finns were described using a longitudinal design. The persons non-depressed in an epidemiological study in 1984-85 were interviewed in 1989-90 (N = 679) and the occurrence of depression was determined according to DSM III-criteria. Logistic regression models were used to assess the independent roles of the hypothesized factors as predictors. An early loss of the mother among men and an early loss of the father among women independently predicted the occurrence of depression in logistic regression models. Older age in men, and a higher number of symptoms, the occurrence of previous depression and not living alone in women were also independent predictors. In men, impaired functional abilities and poor self-perceived health tended to predict depression. In conclusion, the psychological trauma which develops upon the experience of an early parental loss contributes to the development of depression even in old age. The role of stressors in life as independent predictors of depression in old age was also ascertained.     

Object oriented implementation of an architecture for patientmonitoring

The authors present a modular approach to multivariate patient monitoring implemented by object-oriented methods. The modular approach and a common object-oriented programming language, C++, were chosen to make the application portable and easy to develop and extend. A physiological model of the patient was applied for estimating the patient state. The architecture presented has been designed for patient monitoring during anesthesia and intensive care     

Analyses of PACTEL passive safety injection experiments GDE-21 through GDE-25

In advanced light water reactors (ALWR), gravity-driven passive safety injection systems (PSIS) replace pump-driven emergency core cooling systems. PSISs often rely on small density differences and driving forces for natural circulation. In a typical loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA), interactions between different parts of the emergency core cooling system also take place. VTT Energy in Finland, in co-operation with the Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT), performed five experiments in the PACTEL loop to study PSIS performance during SBLOCAs. The purpose of the PSIS, a passive core make-up tank (CMT), was to provide high-pressure safety injection water to the primary circuit. The purpose of these experiments was to produce data to validate the current thermal-hydraulic safety codes, and to study the effects of break size on the PSIS behaviour. In all experiments the CMT ran as planned. No problems with rapid condensation in the CMT, as seen in earlier passive safety injection experiments in PACTEL. The main reason was the new CMT arrangement, with a flow distributor (sparger) installed. The analyses of the test data supported the use of McAdams correlation for calculating the heat transfer from the hot liquid layer to the CMT wall. The use of Nusselt film condensation correlation for condensation at the CMT walls seems correct. The APROS code simulated successfully the overall primary system behaviour in the GDE-24 experiment, such as timing of the core heat-up at the end of the experiment. The code had some problems, in the simulation of thermal stratification in the CMT.     

On the membrane locking of h–p finite elements in a cylindrical shell problem

We study the performance of high-order h–p finite clement schemes in approximating the nearly inexlensional deformation state of a thin cylindrical shell roof with both ends free. Severe locking is demonstrated for both quadratic and cubic elements, and even for higher order if the grid is not aligned with the axis of the cylinder. Carefully designed selective reduced integration is shown to improve the accuracy of the finite element approximation at low and moderately high orders. However, so far this technique seems to work well only on aligned grids.     

Using multicriterion optimization for strength design of composite laminates

Using multicriterion optimization methods for weight minimization of failure strength controlled composite structures is described. A composite lay-up design problem for minimizing the number of layers under strength constraints with respect to multiple loading conditions is formulated. The constrained problem is transferred into a sequence of unconstrained problems and solved with an interactive descent method. A typical design cycle that comprises the finite element mesh generator and solver as well as the laminate analysis and optimization modules is illustrated with a numerical example.