Power sector development in India with CO2 emission targets: Effects of regional grid integration and the role of clean technologies

The power sector in India at present comprises of five separate regional electricity grids having practically no integrated operation in between them. This study analyses the utility planning, environmental and economical effects of integrated power sector development at the national level in which the regional electric grids are developed and operated as one integrated system. It also examines the effects of selected CO₂ emission reduction targets in the power sector and the role of renewable power generation technologies in India. The study shows that the integrated development and operation of the power system at the national level would reduce the total cost including fuel cost by 4912 million $, total capacity addition by 2784 MW, while the emission of CO₂, SO₂ and NO_x would be reduced by 231.6 (1.9%), 0.8 (0.9%), 0.4 (1.2%) million tons, respectively, during the planning horizon. Furthermore, the study shows that the expected unserved energy, one of the indices of generation system reliability, would decrease to 26 GWh under integrated national power system from 5158 GWh. As different levels of CO₂ emission reduction targets were imposed, there is a switching of generation from conventional coal plants to gas fired plants, clean coal technologies and nuclear based plants. As a result the capacity expansion cost has increased. It was found that wind power plant is most attractive and economical in the Indian perspective among the renewable options considered (Solar, wind and biomass). Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The influence of raw material characteristics on the industrial pelletizing process and pellet quality

Industrial pelletizing of sawdust was carried out as a designed experiment in the factors: sawdust moisture content, fractions of fresh pine, stored pine and spruce. The process parameters and response variables were energy consumption, pellet flow rate, pellet bulk density, durability and moisture content. The final data consisted of twelve industrial scale runs. Because of the many response variables, data evaluation was by principal component analysis of a 12 × 9 data matrix. The two principal component model showed a clustering of samples, with a good reproducibility of the center points. It also showed a positive correlation of energy consumption, bulk density and durability all negatively correlated to flow rate and moisture content. The stored pine was more related to high durability and bulk density. The role of the spruce fraction was unclear. The design matrix, augmented with the process parameters was a 12 × 6 matrix. Partial least squares regression showed excellent results for pellet moisture content and bulk density. The model for durability was promising. A 12 × 21 data matrix of fatty- and resin acid concentrations measured by GC–MS showed the differences between fresh and stored pine very clearly. The influence of the spruce fraction was less clear. However, the influence of the fatty- and resin acids on the pelletizing process could not be confirmed, indicating that other differences between fresh and stored pine sawdust have to be investigated. This work shows that it is possible to design the pelletizing process for moderate energy consumption and high pellet quality.     

To treat or not to treat: comparison of different criteria used to determine whether weight loss is to be recommended

Background  

Excess body fat is a major risk factor for disease primarily due to its endocrine activity. In recent years several criteria have been introduced to evaluate this factor. Nevertheless, treatment need is currently assessed only on the basis of an individual's Body Mass Index (BMI), calculated as body weight (in kg) divided by height in m². The aim of our study was to determine whether application of the BMI, compared to adiposity-based criteria, results in underestimation of the number of subjects needing lifestyle intervention.     

The relationship between bioelectrical impedance phase angle and subjective global assessment in advanced colorectal cancer

Background  

Bioelectrical Impedance (BIA) derived phase angle is increasingly being used as an objective indicator of nutritional status in advanced cancer. Subjective Global Assessment (SGA) is a subjective method of nutritional status. The objective of this study was to investigate the association between BIA derived phase angle and SGA in advanced colorectal cancer.     

Joint Measurements on Qubits and Cloning of Observables

Cloning of observables, unlike standard cloning of states, aims at copying the information encoded in the statistics of a class of observables rather then on quantum states themselves. In such a process the emphasis is on the quantum operation (evolution plus measurement) necessary to retrieve the original information. We analyze, for qubit systems, the cloning of a class generated by two noncommuting observables, elucidating the relationship between such a process and joint measurements. This helps in establishing an optimality criterion for cloning of observables. We see that, even if the cloning machine is designed to act on the whole class generated by two noncommuting observables, the same optimal performances of a joint measurement can be attained. Finally, the connection with state dependent cloning is enlightened.     

Semantische Informationsextraktion in medizinischen Informationssystemen

Zusammenfassung Dieser Artikel beschreibt einige Erfahrungen und typische Problemstellungen mit Textmining in der Medizin und gibt einen Einblick in aktuelle und zukünftige Herausforderungen in Forschung & Entwicklung. Interessant ist n?mlich, dass auch im ,,Multimedia-Zeitalter“ die meiste Information immer noch als ,,Text“ vorliegt. Mithilfe von statistischen und linguistischen Verfahren wird mit sogenannter ,,Textmining-Software“ versucht, aus Freitexten Information ,,heraus zu schürfen“ (deshalb ,,Textmining“). Allerdings ist es damit noch nicht genug. Der n?chste Schritt besteht darin, die Information sowohl nutzbar als auch brauchbar zu machen. Die jeweiligen End-Benutzerinnen und End-Benutzer müssen in die Lage versetzt werden, auf der Basis der gewonnenen Information deren Wissen zu erweitern. In unserem konkreten Fall sollen damit Entscheidungen im Rahmen ?rztlichen Handelns unterstützt werden. Probleml?sungen in diesem Bereich erfordern eine holistische Sicht- und Herangehensweise. Daher wird es immer wichtiger, Erkenntnisse aus Informatik und Psychologie zusammenflie?en zu lassen und auf systemischer Ebene technologisch umzusetzen.     

Relationships between urbanization and the oak resource of the Minneapolis/St. Paul Metropolitan area from 1991 to 1998

Urbanization was associated with loss and transformation of the oak forest in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul) metropolitan area (TCMA) over a recent 7-year interval. Between 1991 and 1998, urbanization increased based on several indicators: population density, area of developed land, and area of impervious surface—total impervious area and area within three classes of increasing degree of imperviousness (protected, affected, and degraded). We quantified relationships between changes in urbanization and changes in several parameters describing the oak forest at the scale of ecological subsection. Increased total and affected impervious area were strongly correlated with decreased area of oak forest when changes of the urbanization indicators and oak were expressed as percentages of the subsection area. Relationships were reversed when changes were expressed as percentages of the 1991 values. Increased population density was strongly correlated with increased loss in numbers and increased isolation of oak patches, but weakly correlated with loss of oak forest area. This is the first study to quantify relationships between changes in urbanization and changes in a specific forest cover type. Our results demonstrate complexities of urbanization impacts on a metropolitan forest resource, and highlight the importance of selected variables, spatial and temporal scales, and expressions of change when quantifying these relationships.     

Synthesis and Characterizations of Triphenylamine End-Functionalized Polymers via Reversible Addition-Fragmentation Chain Transfer Polymerization

A novel reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) reagent bearing triphenylamine (TPA) group, 4-diphenylamino-dithiobenzoic acid benzyl ester (DDABE), was designed and synthesized. It was used in the RAFT polymerizations of styrene (St) and methyl acrylate (MA) to prepare end-functionalized polymers. The results of the polymerization showed that the RAFT polymerizations could be well controlled using DDABE as the RAFT agent. Number-average molecular weight (M_n,GPC) increased linearly with monomer conversion, and molecular weight distributions were relatively narrow (PDI< 1.50). The results of chain-extension reaction, ¹H NMR spectra and UV/Vis spectra confirmed that most of the polymers chains were end-capped by the functional triphenylamine (TPA) groups. The effect of feed molar ratios of St/DDABE/AIBN on polymerization was investigated.     

Efficient allylation of cellulose in dimethyl sulfoxide/tetrabutylammonium fluoride trihydrate

The cellulose solvent dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO)/tetrabutylammonium fluoride trihydrate (TBAF) was successfully applied as reaction medium for the synthesis of allyl cellulose by conversion of the polymer with allyl chloride in the presence of solid NaOH. Samples with degree of substitution from 0.50 to 2.98 were accessible by varying the molar ratio anhydroglucose unit:allyl chloride:NaOH and reaction time. DMSO/TBAF was found to be an efficient reaction medium for the preparation of highly functionalized samples from spruce sulfite pulp with degree of polymerization of about 500 even in a scale of 50 g. The allyl cellulose samples were characterized by means of FTIR- and NMR spectroscopy. Size exclusion chromatography revealed negligible polymer degradation during synthesis and purification of the samples.     

Molecular weight effect on the obtainment of parallel and perpendicular orientation in thermotropic poly(diethylene glycol <Emphasis Type="Italic">p,p′</Emphasis>-bibenzoate)

Summary The effect of molecular weight on the uniaxial orientation process has been analyzed in two samples of thermotropic poly(diethylene glycol p,p′-bibenzoate), evaluating the influence of that parameter on the type of orientation obtained. Several strain rates and deformation temperatures have been tested in order to map out the conditions for obtaining the two different kinds of orientation. The results show that in the lower molecular weight PDEB sample (M_w=31200) it is rather easy to get exclusively perpendicular “anomalous” orientation, with the molecular axes aligned transversely to the stretching direction. However, it is extremely difficult to obtain 100% parallel “normal” orientation. On the contrary, either type of orientation or a mixture of them can be easily developed for the higher molecular weight PDEB sample (M_w=102900).