Guidelines and recommendations for indoor use of fuel cells and hydrogen systems

Hydrogen energy applications often require that systems are used indoors (e.g., industrial trucks for materials handling in a warehouse facility, fuel cells located in a room, or hydrogen stored and distributed from a gas cabinet). It may also be necessary or desirable to locate some hydrogen system components/equipment inside indoor or outdoor enclosures for security or safety reasons, to isolate them from the end-user and the public, or from weather conditions.Using of hydrogen in confined environments requires detailed assessments of hazards and associated risks, including potential risk prevention and mitigation features. The release of hydrogen can potentially lead to the accumulation of hydrogen and the formation of a flammable hydrogen-air mixture, or can result in jet-fires. Within Hyindoor European Project, carried out for the EU Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking safety design guidelines and engineering tools have been developed to prevent and mitigate hazardous consequences of hydrogen release in confined environments. Three main areas are considered: Hydrogen release conditions and accumulation, vented deflagrations, jet fires and including under-ventilated flame regimes (e.g., extinguishment or oscillating flames and steady burns). Potential RCS recommendations are also identified.     

Estimation of bitumen emulsion dispersion using a light scattering method

Petroleum bitumen in the emulsified state is widely used as a binder in road and civil construction. Along with traditional quality parameters of bitumen emulsions the particle size is considered to be very important characteristic. The particle size of the dispersed phase affects the setting rate and viscosity of bitumen emulsions. The complete data on the particles size distribution can be obtained using such technical methods as light scattering and microscopy. In the study bitumen emulsions with three types of surfactants (cationic, nonionic, zwitterionic) have been prepared and their viscosity and decay index have been determined. The emulsions also have been studied with a microscope, as well as by the method of dynamic light scattering. The dynamics of particle size changes of the bitumen emulsions has been compared with the dynamics of the change in the basic parameters of the emulsions, such as viscosity and decay index, and the correlation between them has been found. Thus, using a modern laser and optical equipment, it is possible to estimate the quality of emulsions and, if necessary, to correct their composition.     

Empowering cultural heritage professionals with tools for authoring and deploying personalised visitor experiences

User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction - This paper presents an authoring environment, which supports cultural heritage professionals in the process of creating and deploying a wide range of...     

A mixture of experts for classifying sleep apneas

This paper presents a novel approach for classifying sleep apneas into one of the three basic types: obstructive, central and mixed. The goal is to overcome the problems encountered in previous work and improve classification accuracy. The proposed model uses a new classification approach based on the characteristics that each type of apnea presents in different segments of the signal. The model is based on the error correcting output code and it is formed by a combination of artificial neural networks experts where their inputs are the coefficients obtained by a discrete wavelet decomposition applied to the raw samples of the apnea in the thoracic effort signal. The input coefficients received for each network were determined by a feature selection method (support vector machine recursive feature elimination). In order to train and test the systems, 120 events from six different patients were used. The true error rate was estimated using a 10-fold cross validation. The results presented in this work were averaged over 10 different simulations and a multiple comparison procedure was used for model selection. The mean test accuracy obtained was 90.27% ± 0.79, and the values for each class apnea were 94.62% (obstructive), 95.47% (central) and 90.45% (mixed). Up to the authors’ knowledge, the proposed classifier surpasses all previous results.     

Total mercury levels in crustacean species from Italian fishery

This study investigated mercury contamination levels in eight commercially valuable crustacean species caught off the Central Adriatic and Tyrrhenian coasts of Italy. Total mercury levels were measured by Thermal Decomposition-Amalgamation-Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry. Results showed a high variability among species with values ranging from 0.070 to 1.24 (mg kg^?1 wet weight). The lowest mercury levels were detected in caramote prawn (Penaeus kerathurus), warty crab (Eriphia verrucosa) and European spider crab (Maja squinado), decapods living in shallow waters. Levels exceeding the limits established by the European Commission were found in species living in close contact with bottom sediments: deepwater rose shrimp (Parapenaeus longirostris), blue and red shrimp (Aristeus antennatus) and Norway lobster (Nephrops norvegicus). For shrimps, the inter-individual variability observed was mostly related to the body size, indicating the accumulation of mercury with age. An estimation of the human intake of mercury associated to the consumption of the crustaceans sampled and its comparison with the Tolerable Weekly Intake are provided.