Simulation of the VVER-1000 pump start-up experiment of the OECD V1000CT benchmark with CATHARE and TRAC-PF1

In the framework of joint effort between the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) of OECD, the United States Department of Energy (US DOE), and the Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique (CEA), France a coupled three-dimensional (3D) thermal-hydraulics/neutron kinetics benchmark for VVER-1000 was defined. The benchmark consists of calculation of a pump start-up experiment labelled V1000CT-1 (Phase 1), as well as a vessel mixing experiment and main steam line break (MSLB) transient labelled V1000CT-2 (Phase 2), respectively. The reference nuclear plant is Kozloduy-6 in Bulgaria. The overall objective is to assess computer codes used in the analysis of VVER-1000 reactivity transients. A specific objective is to assess the vessel mixing models used in system codes. Plant data are available for code validation consisting of one experiment of pump start-up (V1000CT-1) and one experiment of steam generator isolation (V1000CT-2). The validated codes can be used to calculate asymmetric MSLB transients involving similar mixing patterns. This paper summarizes a comparison of CATHARE and TRAC-PF1 system code results for V1000CT-1, Exercise 1, which is a full plant point kinetics simulation of a reactor coolant system (RCS) pump start-up experiment. The reference plant data include integral and sector average parameters. The comparison is made from the point of view of vessel mixing and full system simulation. CATHARE used a six-sector multiple 1D vessel thermal-hydraulic model with cross flows and TRAC used a six-sector, 18-channel coarse-mesh 3D vessel model. Good agreement in terms of integral parameters and inter-loop mixing is observed.     

Improvement of a Direct Method for Outer Solution of Linear Parametric Systems

Recently, a direct method for outer solution of linear parametric systems has been suggested for the general case where the elements of the system are nonlinear functions of independent interval parameters. In this paper, an improvement of the method is introduced which may lead to a narrower outer solution.     

Effect of enzymatic degradation of chitosan in polyhydroxybutyrate/chitosan/calcium phosphate composites on in vitro osteoblast response

Polyhydroxybutyrate/chitosan/calcium phosphate composites are interesting biomaterials for utilization in regenerative medicine and they may by applied in reconstruction of deeper subchondral defects. Insufficient informations were found in recent papers about the influence of lysozyme degradation of chitosan in calcium phosphate/chitosan based composites on in vitro cytotoxicity and proliferation activity of osteoblasts. The effect of enzymatic chitosan degradation on osteoblasts proliferation was studied on composite films in which the porosity of origin 3D scaffolds was eliminated and the surface texture was modified. The significantly enhanced proliferation activity with faster population growth of osteoblasts were found on enzymatically degraded biopolymer composite films with α-tricalcium phosphate and nanohydroxyapatite. No cytotoxicity of composite films prepared from lysozyme degraded scaffolds containing a large fraction of low molecular weight chitosans (LMWC), was revealed after 10 days of cultivation. Contrary to above in the higher cytotoxicity origin untreated nanohydroxyapatite films and porous composite scaffolds. The results showed that the synergistic effect of surface distribution, morphology of nanohydroxyapatite particles, microtopography and the presence of LMWC due to chitosan degradation in composite films were responsible for compensation of the cytotoxicity of nanohydroxyapatite composite films or porous composite scaffolds.     

A New Method for Global Solution of Systems of Non-Linear Equations

In this paper the problem of finding the set of all real solutions to a system of n non-linear equations contained in a given n-dimensional box (the global solution problem) is considered. A new method for solving the global solution problem is suggested. It is based on a transformation of the original system into a larger system of separable form. The global solution of the latter system is then found in a most efficient manner by a new interval method which exploits the separabily property. Numerical examples illustrating the efficiency of the method suggested are provided.     

Multigrid methods with space–time concurrency

Computing and Visualization in Science - We consider the comparison of multigrid methods for parabolic partial differential equations that allow space–time concurrency. With current trends in...     

Comprehensive Performance Analysis of ZigBee Technology Based on Real Measurements

Although the ZigBee technology is massively deployed the performance question still remains unanswered. There is a lack of serious performance evaluations and thus this paper provides a comprehensive and unbiased study of the ZigBee PRO technology. An extensive real measurement was conducted to accomplish this task. We found out a big performance gap among ZigBee implementations even though they are compliant with the ZigBee standard. The presented results and analysis could be beneficial for many wireless sensor network developers.     

Structure–Activity Relationships of JMV4463, a Vectorized Cathepsin D Inhibitor with Antiproliferative Properties: The Unique Role of the AMPA‐Based Vector

Cathepsin D (CathD) is overexpressed and secreted by several solid tumors and stimulates their growth, the mechanism of which is still not understood. In this context, the pepstatin bioconjugate JMV4463 [Ac‐arg‐O₂Oc‐(Val)₃‐Sta‐Ala‐Sta‐(AMPA)₄‐NH₂; O₂Oc=8‐amino‐3,6‐dioxaoctanoyl, Sta=statine, AMPA=ortho‐aminomethylphenylacetyl], containing a new kind of cell‐penetrating vector, was previously shown to exhibit potent antiproliferative effects in vitro and to delay the onset of tumors in vivo. In this study, we performed a structure–activity relationship analysis to evaluate the significance of the inhibitor and vector moieties of JMV4463. By modifying both statine residues of pepstatin we found that the antiproliferative activity is correlated with CathD inhibition, supporting a major role of the catalytic activity of intracellular CathD in cancer cell proliferation. Replacing the vector composed of four AMPA units with other vectors was found to abolish cytotoxicity, although all of the conjugates enabled pepstatin transport into cells. In addition, the AMPA₄ vector must be localized at the C terminus of the bioconjugate. The unexpected importance of the vector structure and position for cytotoxic action suggests that AMPA₄ enables pepstatin to inhibit the proteolysis of critical CathD substrates involved in cell proliferation via a unique mechanism of action.     

Magnetic Properties of Nanosized Ba2Mg2Fe12O22 Powders Obtained by Auto-combustion

We studied the magnetic properties of nanosized Ba₂Mg₂Fe₁₂O₂₂ powder obtained by citrate auto-combustion synthesis. The powder consists of agglomerates with mean crystallite size of 100?nm. The magnetic properties of the powder were investigated at 4.2?K and at room temperature. The values measured of the magnetization M at a magnetic field of 60?kOe are 22.78?emu/g and 30.47?emu/g at room temperature and 4.2?K, respectively. The magnetic phase transition at 183 K is related to the ferromagnetic-to-spiral spin order and is a precondition for this material??s exhibiting multiferroic properties.     

Determining the Positive Definiteness Margin of Interval Matrices

A method for determining the positive definiteness margin of interval matrices is suggested. It is based on the use of outer interval bounds on the solution set of an interval eigenvalue problem. Three algorithms of the method are developed. It is shown that their numerical complexity is polynomial. Numerical examples illustrating the applicability of the method suggested are provided.     

Solutions to a class of non-standard non-linear H infinity control problems

This paper presents new solutions to certain non-standard non-linear H infinity control problems. We consider non-linear affine plants whose measurement output is of dimension larger than the dimension of the external input. This problem is, under proper assumptions, transformed to the problem of stabilization by means of output injection and solution of a Hamilton-Jacobi partial differential inequality arising in singular H infinity state-feedback control. General sufficient solvability conditions are given. Explicit solutions are available in the local and semilocal cases. The former concerns a certain neighbourhood of the origin in the closed loop state-space, whereas the latter assumes that the trajectories are restricted to a neighbourhood of an invariant manifold. The issue of the controller order is addressed and a reducedorder controller is obtained in the local case. A new generalization of the chain-scattering formalism provides a very useful framework for solving this problem.