The impacts of a GTL plant on Brazil's oil products supply and refinery expansion

This paper assesses the impacts of a GTL plant on the expansion of Brazil's oil refining segment. The GTL plant (50,000 bpd) was sized to start up operations in 2015, producing diesel and naphtha through the indirect route (FT-synthesis). This plant will consume the non-associated natural gas production from the recent discoveries at the Santos Basin (around 419 Bm³), and the associated gas production from the Campos Basin. Both basins are located in the Southeast of Brazil, the most populated, rich and industrialized region of the country. Two different criteria for refinery expansion were simulated in order to meet oil product demand scenarios. Findings show that depending on the refinery expansion criteria considered GTL will play a fundamental hole to meet the oil product demand forecast to Brazil in the next 10 years.     

新一代意大利建筑师解读兼评阿克雅建筑师事务所的实践

今天,活跃在国际建筑舞台上的建筑师是 50来岁的一代人,与现代主义建筑大师们相比较,这一代建筑师具有更为特殊的位置。因为他们知道如何糅合不同的建筑创作模式,创造出体现设计者独立个性的做法,善于处理历史文化与当前现实的关系,适宜的合作规模和在建筑作品中巧妙地不事张扬。可是,意大利50来岁的建筑师却不知道处理这样一种恰如其分的平衡,例如如何体现设计者建筑语言的肯定性、在合作过程中如何认识自身的位置,以及面对当今复杂的施工要求如何保证建筑作品在实施过程中不失去个性,正是因为这些问题的处理不当,致使在国际建筑舞台上缺少他们的身影。今天,可以肯定的倒是30-40来岁的意大利建筑师,阿克雅建筑师事务所就是其中的一员。他们能够娴熟地运用国际流行的建筑语言,并且不局限在某种作者定式和个人魅力,致力于把纯粹的学术研究与建筑实践结合在一起。这一代意大利建筑师表现出来的特点是把每一次设计作为一次积极展示他们个人特点的机会,表现出强烈的希望设计作品付诸实施的愿望,以及作品中展现出扎实的结构专业能力。     

Radiocaesium in mushrooms from northeast Italy, 1986-2002

Late in the summer of 1986, the Health Physics Departments of Pordenone, Udine and Trieste, entrusted with monitoring radioactivity in the environment and food as a consequence of the Chernobyl accident, started noticing high concentrations of radionuclides--especially radiocaesium--in mushroom samples coming from different areas of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region (northeast Italy). To date, the authors have conducted 14 annual rounds of sampling and gamma spectrometry measurements on mushrooms, generating a total of over 2250 samples belonging to more than 300 species, which were picked in about 30 stations in the region. This surveys the main results from 15 years of macromycetes radiocontamination analysis in the region, the still unsolved problems, and hypotheses for future work.     

Radon survey in schools in north-east Italy

During the year 2000 the Regional Agency for Environmental Protection (ARPA) of Friuli Venezia Giulia together with the Pordenone Province carried out a survey to determine the radon concentration in the schools. About 900 measurements have been carried out in 300 schools located both in the mountainous and in the flat territory. Moreover, geological information was gathered. both on a regional scale and, where possible, on a small detailed scale. The purpose of this study is to consider the possibility of using all the data collected to discover some radon prone areas. The first results of this study seem to locate some radon prone areas where the cover consists of very permeable gravelly deposits.     

DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS TO INVESTIGATE RESIDUAL STRESSES AND FATIGUE LIFE IMPROVEMENT BY A SURFACE TREATMENT

Abstract— The careful design of experiment (DOE) technique has been utilized to analyze the residual stress state and to investigate the fatigue life improvement of a material (nitriding steel) subjected to thermal and mechanical treatment.
Nitriding treatments have been performed on several specimens which have been subsequently shot- peened, varying the main parameters controlling the process. The design of experiment method has been accomplished in order to evaluate the influence of the main shot-peening parameters on the distribution and values of the residual stresses close to the surface, and also in order to estimate the influence of these parameters on fatigue resistance.     

Validation of thermal and electrical model for induction motors using fiber Bragg gratings

This works presents the simulation and validation of the thermal, electrical and mechanical models of a three-phase induction motor (TIM). Fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors are used to measure stator temperature and validate the thermal model. The knowledge of the relationship between losses and temperature variation in the TIM makes a simulation of the motor possible. To determine losses in the TIM an equivalent electrical circuit in arbitrary reference frame is used, which combines a traditional model with the more usual modeling of losses in the stator iron. The thermal study of the motor is performed using an equivalent thermal circuit formed by thermal capacitances and thermal conductivities that are separately considered for the stator and rotor. The losses calculated with the electrical and mechanical models are the input parameters for the thermal model. The simulation of the electrical model produces an error of approximately 4.2% when determining the Joule effect losses in the motor when compared to the experimentally obtained results. The simulation of the mechanical model presents an error of 0.2% for the losses due to friction and ventilation. The stator and rotor temperature, obtained with the thermal model, presented a high correlation with the measured values. The thermal model presents a maximum error of 0.75 °C when one compares them to the average experimental values of temperature in the stator during the temperature transient behavior. When the temperature in the stator reaches steady state, the experimental and simulated results converge to the same values. The use of FBGs to measure temperature in the machine allowed a thermal model to be developed, which also uses the mechanical losses of the machine and is the main contribution of this work.     

Comparison of different procedures for the detoxification of eucalyptus hemicellulosic hydrolysate for use in fermentative processes

Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus grandis) shavings were submitted to an acid hydrolysis process with the aim of obtaining a hemicellulosic hydrolysate rich in fermentable sugars. However, the hydrolysate obtained contained, in addition to sugars, several compounds that are toxic to microorganisms, namely furfural, hydroxymethylfurfural, acetic acid and phenolics. In order to produce a hydrolysate suitable for use in fermentative processes, several procedures were evaluated for hydrolysate detoxification, including concentration by vacuum evaporation and adsorption on activated charcoal, diatomaceous earths, ion‐exchange resin or adsorbent resin. Hydrolysate concentration was especially effective for furfural removal, whereas the adsorbent resin was efficient in removing hydroxymethylfurfural, phenolics and acetic acid. Combination of this resin with activated charcoal was better than with diatomaceous earths for removal of acetic acid and phenolics. The best detoxification procedure evaluated was based on hydrolysate concentration followed by adsorption on activated charcoal and adsorbent resin. By this treatment, removal rates of 82.5, 100, 100 and 94% were attained for acetic acid, furfural, hydroxymethylfurfural and phenolics, respectively. Copyright © 2005 Society of Chemical Industry     

Dielectric properties of thin films of Babassu‐based polymer and polyaniline blends

In the present work, we describe the preparation and subsequent characterization of polymeric blends consisting of a monoglyceride (MG) synthesized from the Babassu's oil and the already commonly employed polyaniline (PAni). By following changes in the complex impedance of capacitor‐like devices we observe that the presence of MG in the PAni/MG blends decreases electrical conductivity and that this decrease is a function of the content of MG in the blend, i.e., the blend with 30% of MG shows Z′ about seven times greater than the one with 10% of MG. Fourier transform infrared measurements prove the formation of MG and the presence of secondary amine groups (N? H bonds) in the blends, which allow for the chemical doping of PAni by protonation, further studies are necessary to access the viability of employing this new material as active layer in electronic organic devices. Atomic force microscopy images show the formation of agglomerates due to the presence of MG. In addition, the polymeric mixture acts only as a blend, providing a physical interaction between different components. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2018 , 135, 46198.     

A novel algorithm for feature selection using Harmony Search and its application for non-technical losses detection

Finding an optimal subset of features that maximizes classification accuracy is still an open problem. In this paper, we exploit the speed of the Harmony Search algorithm and the Optimum-Path Forest classifier in order to propose a new fast and accurate approach for feature selection. Comparisons to some other pattern recognition and feature selection techniques showed that the proposed hybrid algorithm for feature selection outperformed them. The experiments were carried out in the context of identifying non-technical losses in power distribution systems.