Employing stochastic models for prediction of arc furnace reactive power to improve compensator performance

The time-varying nature of electric arc furnace (EAF) gives rise to voltage fluctuations, which produce the effect known as flicker. the ability of a static var compensator (SVC), a widely used method for flicker reduction, is limited by delays in reactive power measurements and thyristor ignition. to improve the SVC performance in flicker compensation, a technique for the prediction of EAF reactive power for a half cycle ahead is presented. this technique is based on a new procedure for stochastic modelling of EAF reactive power at an SVC bus. this procedure uses huge field data, collected from eight arc furnaces, to determine the most suitable signal among several candidate signals in view of eaf reactive power prediction. in addition, appropriate orders of autoregressive moving average models are found for reactive power time series. for this purpose, various model adequacy checking methods and some other stochastic analysis methods have been applied on data records. the performance of the compensator in the case of employing predicted fundamental reactive power of an EAF is compared with that of the conventional method by using three new indices that have been defined based on concepts of flicker frequencies and the power spectral density.     

Detection of HER2+ Breast Cancer Cells using Bioinspired DNA-Based Signal Amplification

Circulating tumor cells (CTC) are promising biomarkers for metastatic cancer detection and monitoring progression. However, detection of CTCs remains challenging due to their low frequency and heterogeneity. Herein, we report a bioinspired approach to detect individual cancer cells, based on a signal amplification cascade using a programmable DNA hybridization chain reaction (HCR) circuit. We applied this approach to detect HER2⁺ cancer cells using the anti-HER2 antibody (trastuzumab) coupled to initiator DNA eliciting a HCR cascade that leads to a fluorescent signal at the cell surface. At 4 °C, this HCR detection scheme resulted in highly efficient, specific and sensitive signal amplification of the DNA hairpins specifically on the membrane of the HER2⁺ cells in a background of HER2⁻ cells and peripheral blood leukocytes, which remained almost non-fluorescent. The results indicate that this system offers a new strategy that may be further developed toward an in vitro diagnostic platform for the sensitive and efficient detection of CTC.     

Remote monitoring of cardiac activity using a flexible loop antenna

In this paper, a meandered loop antenna, useful for medical cardiac monitoring application, more specifically, for heart beating close scrutiny is designed and experimentally tested. The proposed antenna is operating at the MICS band displays a high flexibility which allowing it to be curved easily around the heart's wall. In both, Simulation and measured results the antenna shows a sensitive nature any change introduced in heart's model size and would certainly bring about a noticeable shift in the antenna's resonant frequency. Linking the frequency variations taking place in concord with the heart movement turns out to stand as an effective key that provides extremely valuable information about the heart's activities. A correspondence between the obtained frequency variation linking with the change in size of the heart. In addition to the frequency response evaluation, the antenna characteristically displays an omni‐directional radiation pattern, which necessarily fits it for in‐body operation.     

Electrochemical,continuous-flow determination of p-benzoquinone on a gold nanoparticles poly(propylene-co-imidazole) modified gold electrode

A novel continuous flow biosensor based on gold nanoparticles and poly(propylene-co-imidazole) was developed for the online determination of p-benzoquinone. The amperometric response was measured as a function of p-benzoquinone concentration at an applied potential of ?50 mV. The hydrogen peroxide concentration was optimized and fixed at 1 mM in samples. The mass transfer resistance of the copolymer film was minimized, and the flow cell was regenerated quickly at 1 mL/min. The resulting device provided good analytical performance based on a linear dynamic range from 5–100 µM, a short response time of 3 s, a detection limit of 3.3 µM, excellent repeatability with a relative standard deviation of 0.82%, long-term stability of 95% after four weeks, and an accuracy of 105%. The gold nanoparticles enhanced the electron transfer rate on the electrode. The apparent Michaelis-Menten constant was 4 mM, showing that the enzyme retained catalytic specificity and provided high activity for p-benzoquinone.     

Repair of post‐tensioned precast beam to column connections

Earthquakes can cause immense damage to precast structures, rendering them inhabitable. After the 1999 Marmara earthquake in Turkey, research by the Turkish Precast Union stated that 24.50% of the precast structures were damaged with some of this damage being observed in the beam‐to‐column connections of the structures. Since it is essential to provide those rendered homeless by the earthquake with safe habitable accommodation, repairing medium and slight levels of damage at the connection parts should be undertaken. In order to prove that a repaired connection was sufficiently strong, a precast beam‐to‐column post‐tensioned connection was tested in three phases. In phase one, middle level damage was observed at 6% drift at these connections. In phase two, 1.2, 2.4 and 4.8% drifts were applied three times to the test specimens. As a result of the extra loads applied, little damage was observed. In the last phase, the four connections tested in the first phase were repaired using epoxy resin and then retested. The results from the tests on the repaired precast and the reference undamaged specimens showed that the repaired specimens were sufficiently strong, thus proving that repair to damaged precast beam‐to‐column post‐tensioned connections can be undertaken. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Building capacity for tobacco control research and policy

The Fogarty International Center (FIC) initiative, "International Tobacco and Health Research Capacity Building Program" represents an important step in US government funding for global tobacco control. Low- and middle-income countries of the world face a rising threat to public health from the rapidly escalating epidemic of tobacco use. Many are now parties to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and capacity development to meet FCTC provisions. One initial grant provided through the FIC was to the Institute for Global Tobacco Control (IGTC) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH) to support capacity building and research programmes in China, Brazil, and Mexico. The initiative's capacity building effort focused on: (1) building the evidence base for tobacco control, (2) expanding the infrastructure of each country to deliver tobacco control, and (3) developing the next generation of leaders as well as encouraging networking throughout the country and with neighbouring countries. This paper describes the approach taken and the research foci, as well some of the main outcomes and some identified challenges posed by the effort. Individual research papers are in progress to provide more in-depth reporting of study results.     

Isophtalic acid terminated graphene oxide modified glassy carbon nanosensor electrode: Cd2+ and Bi3+ analysis in tap water and milk samples

In this study, graphene oxide was derivative with 5-aminoisophtalic acid by amidization reaction. The nanomaterial in suspension was denoted as graphene oxide-isophtalic acid. The graphene oxide-isophtalic acid suspension was covered on the glassy carbon electrode surface under the infrared lamb. The graphene oxide was characterized with transmission electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction. Surface characterization of the glassy carbon/graphene oxide-isophtalic acid was performed with x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, cyclic voltammetry, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The ultrasensitive nanoplatform for the simultaneous electrochemical square-wave anodic stripping voltammetry assay of Bi³⁺ and Cd²⁺ in aqueous solution has been developed on the glassy carbon/graphene oxide-isophtalic acid. The linearity range of Bi³⁺ and Cd²⁺ were 1.0×10^?8 – 1.0×10^?12 M (S/N = 3). The responses of species were practically unaltered with the increase of various species concentration. The detection limits of Cd²⁺ and Bi³⁺ were determined as 8.1×10^?13 M and 1.06×10^?13 M, respectively. The electrode performance was checked with tap water and commercially milk samples.     

Integrating symbolic images into a multimedia database system using classification and abstraction approaches

Symbolic images are composed of a finite set of symbols that have a semantic meaning. Examples of symbolic images include maps (where the semantic meaning of the symbols is given in the legend), engineering drawings, and floor plans. Two approaches for supporting queries on symbolic-image databases that are based on image content are studied. The classification approach preprocesses all symbolic images and attaches a semantic classification and an associated certainty factor to each object that it finds in the image. The abstraction approach describes each object in the symbolic image by using a vector consisting of the values of some of its features (e.g., shape, genus, etc.). The approaches differ in the way in which responses to queries are computed. In the classification approach, images are retrieved on the basis of whether or not they contain objects that have the same classification as the objects in the query. On the other hand, in the abstraction approach, retrieval is on the basis of similarity of feature vector values of these objects. Methods of integrating these two approaches into a relational multimedia database management system so that symbolic images can be stored and retrieved based on their content are described. Schema definitions and indices that support query specifications involving spatial as well as contextual constraints are presented. Spatial constraints may be based on both locational information (e.g., distance) and relational information (e.g., north of). Different strategies for image retrieval for a number of typical queries using these approaches are described. Estimated costs are derived for these strategies. Results are reported of a comparative study of the two approaches in terms of image insertion time, storage space, retrieval accuracy, and retrieval time. Received June 12, 1998 / Accepted October 13, 1998     

On encoding boundaries with quadtrees

The ``line quadtree' data structure hierarchically represents a region and its boundary. Based on the standard quadtree, each node in this structure stores adjacency information as well. While line quadtrees use the same amount of space as standard qaudtrees, they facilitate several region processing algorithms. In particular, we describe efficient algorithms for boundary and superimposing two maps encoded as line quadtrees.