Maximal oxygen uptake during cycling is reduced in moving environments; consequences for motion-induced fatigue

In previous studies on physical fatigue during simulated ship movements, the apparent exhaustion of subjects after experimentation suggested that the traditional index of physical workload, oxygen consumption expressed as the percentage of peak oxygen consumption (VO2-peak) measured in a separate graded exercise test (GXT), underestimates workload in a moving environment. In these studies, the GXT was carried out in a stationary environment, as is standard practice. To explain the underestimation, it was hypothesized that VO2-peak might have been less if the GXT had been carried out in the moving environment. This paper reports on three experimental tests of this hypothesis, performed with a ship motion simulator and aboard a ship at sea. In all three experiments, VO2-peak was indeed significantly reduced when the GXT was carried out in the moving environment. Theoretical reasons for this phenomenon are discussed and investigated, but a clear explanation is still lacking.     

Distributing the personal digital environment throughout your entertainment environment: handling personal metadata across domains

It is a fact, that we are surrounded by more and more ubiquitous services in entertainment computation. All sorts of devices are more and more connected, and personalization becomes more and more a major issue. We are living in a world with two layers: the real physical layer being our real-world, and its synthetic overlay consisting of location-based services, chatting applications, or Web 2.0 offers. In the real-world, communication between humans is a matter of personality of different persons: exchanging information about each other, finding common interests, or finding common conversation themes. In the synthetic overlay, communication becomes a matter of distribution of personal profiles or automating profile matching. The open-source platform Portable Personality (P2) () faces this challenge, and provides a platform for cross-service interchange of personal context information based on any generic metadata type. P2’s software architecture is designed for mining, enriching, and exchanging personal profiles between arbitrary multimedia services. The long-term vision of P2 is to provide a personality profile rather than a personal context information profile to enable communication between human and device as a matter of personalities, rather than automated matching of profiles. Two different scenarios, the Smart Social Network (SSN), and the personalization of audio-visual data are presented as practical use-case for P2.     

Degradations‐ und Energieverhalten reaktiver Amin‐Lösungen bei der CO2‐Absorption/Desorption

Reactive absorption using aqueous amine solutions is the technically most feasible retrofit option for the separation of CO₂ from flue gases. Frequently discussed issues are the realization of a cost‐effective increase in efficiency in the sophisticated overall absorption process and the minimization of the energy demand for solvent regeneration under operating conditions. However, the influence of degradation phenomena on capacity and energy efficiency during the absorption‐regeneration cycles using blended monoethanolamine solutions has been less considered so far. The decrease in capacity depends in particular on time, temperature, O₂‐ and SO₂ concentration in the flue gas and has to be considered in plant design. Addition of degradation inhibitors decreases the energy requirements.     

Separating invariants

This paper studies separating subsets of an invariant ring or, more generally, of any set consisting of functions. We prove that a subset of a finitely generated algebra always contains a finite separating subset. We also show that a general version of Noether’s degree bound holds for separating invariants, independently of the characteristic. While the general finiteness result is non-constructive, the Noether bound provides an easy algorithm for computing separating invariants of finite groups. The paper also contains a conceptual investigation of the difference between separating and generating subsets.     

Function of gene 49 of bacteriophage T4 III. Isolation of Holliday structures from very fast-sedimenting DNA

Branched DNA molecules were identified in ClaI digests of cytosine containing very fast-sedimenting DNA (VFS-DNACYT) which was isolated from Escherichia coli infected with the multiple mutant 49-GT7 of phage T4. In about 10% of randomly picked ClaI fragments branches with three arms (Y-structures) as well as four arms (Holliday structures) were seen in the electron microscope. Branched structures were absent from ClaI digests after treatment with purified endonuclease VII (gp49) in vitro.     

Feasibility of electrokinetic soil remediation in horizontal Lasagna cells

An integrated soil remediation technology called Lasagna has been developed that combines electrokinetics with treatment zones for use in low permeability soils where the rates of hydraulic and electrokinetic transport are too low to be useful for remediation of contaminants. The technology was developed by two groups, one involving industrial partners and the DOE and another involving US EPA and the University of Cincinnati, who pursued different electrode geometries. The Industry/DOE group has demonstrated the technology using electrodes and treatment zones installed vertically from the soil surface. We have demonstrated the feasibility of installing horizontal electrodes and treatment zones in subsurface soils by hydraulic fracturing, a process that we adapted from petroleum industry practices. When horizontal electrodes were connected to a dc power supply, uniform electrical potential gradients of 10-40 V/m were created in soil between the electrodes, inducing electroosmotic flow that facilitated movement of water and contaminants into treatment zones between the electrodes.     

Application of the COBRA/TRAC best-estimate methodology to the AP600 large-break LOCA analysis

The AP600 is a simplified advanced pressurized water reactor (PWR) design incorporating passive safety systems that perform the same function as the active emergency core cooling systems (ECCSs) on the current reactors. In order to verify the effectiveness of the AP600 design features for mitigation of a postulated large-break loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA), the recently United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC)-approved best-estimate LOCA methodology (BELOCA) was applied to perform the AP600 standard safety analysis report large-break LOCA analysis. The applicability of the COBRA/TRAC code to model the AP600 unique features was validated against cylindrical core test facility (CCTF) and upper plenum test facility (UPTF) downcomer injection tests, the blowdown and reflood cooling heat transfer uncertainties were re-assessed for the AP600 large-break LOCA conditions and a conservative minimum film boiling temperature was applied as a bounded parameter for blowdown cooling. The BELOCA methodology was simplified to quantify the code uncertainties due to local and global models, as well as the statistical approximation methods, with the other uncertainties being bounded by limiting assumptions on the initial and boundary conditions. The final 95th percentile peak cladding temperature (PCT^95%) was 1186 K, which meets the 10CFR50.46 criteria with a considerable margin. It is therefore concluded that the AP600 design is effective in mitigation of a postulated large-break LOCA.