Experimental and numerical analysis of the influence of cable tray arrangements on the resulting mass loss rate and fire spreading

In the context of industrial buildings and power plants, electrical installations and cable trays represent a main fuel load and a potential initial fire source due to possible short circuits or comparable malfunction. Furthermore, a fire can spread from one tray to additional trays mounted above and/or horizontally on one tray. Because of the high significance of cable fires, several research projects have been carried out, investigating the fire behaviour of cables from small‐scale tests, eg, the cone calorimeter, up to large‐scale tests, analysing complete cable tray constructions. The goal of the work presented in this paper is the extension of the knowledge regarding the influence of geometrical parameters like the packing density and tray distance on the burning behaviour and fire spread of cable tray installations. The results are considered, together with test results from the literature, to quantify the main physical parameters describing the burning behaviour. In a next step, the general applicability of these parameters as input data for the parametrization of the source term of numerical simulations is shown. The test results show that the burning behaviour and the fire spreading highly depend on the cable arrangement of the cables on the cable tray, in combination with other boundary conditions. By applying the results as input for a fire simulation, the mass loss rate is considered appropriately.     

Capacity Efficiency and Restorability of Path Protection and Rerouting in WDM Networks Subject to Dual Failures

Resilient optical networks are predominately designed to protect against single failures of fiber links. But in larger networks, operators also see dual failures. As the capacity was planned for single failures, disconnections can occur by dual failures even if enough topological connectivity is provided. In our approach the design of the network minimizes the average loss caused by dual failures, while single failures are still fully survived. High dual failure restorability is the primary aim, capacity is optimized in a second step. For WDM networks with full wavelength conversion, we formulate mixed integer linear programming models for dedicated path protection, shared (backup) path protection, and path rerouting with and without stub-release. For larger problem instances in path rerouting, we propose two heuristics. Computational results indicate that the connectivity is of much more importance for high restorability values than the overall protection capacity. Shared protection has similar restorability levels as dedicated protection while the capacity is comparable to rerouting. Rerouting surpasses the protection mechanisms in restorability and comes close to 100% dual failure survivability. Compared to single failure planning, both shared path protection and rerouting need significantly more capacity in dual failure planning.     

Nursing home food services linked with risk of malnutrition.

PURPOSE: Links between food service characteristics and residents' risk of malnutrition were examined. METHODS: Cognitively intact residents meeting inclusion criteria and living in one of 38 participating nursing homes were randomly sampled. The final sample consisted of 132 residents, who were screened for risk of malnutrition and completed a face-to-face interview questionnaire about dining experiences. Additional data came from participants' medical charts, and each institution's food service manager completed a written questionnaire. Frequencies and logistic regressions were used to describe the sample and to examine relationships between risk of malnutrition and food service characteristics. RESULTS: Overall, 37.4% of participants were at risk of malnutrition. Food service factors, including food packages, lids, and dishes that were difficult to manipulate (b=0.285, p=0.009), bulk food-delivery systems (b=1.329, p=0.036), overall food satisfaction (b=0.253, p=0.044), menu cycle length (b=-2.162, p=0.003), and porcelain dishes (b=-0.345, p=0.052), all were significantly associated with risk of malnutrition. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings clearly show a need for nursing homes to modify certain aspects of food service that may increase the risk of malnutrition among cognitively intact residents.     

Adsorption and decomposition of H2S on Pd(1 1 1) surface: a first-principles study

Gradient-corrected density functional theory was used to investigate the adsorption of H₂S on Pd(1 1 1) surface. Molecular adsorption was found to be stable with H₂S binding preferentially at top sites. In addition, the adsorption of other S moieties (SH and S) was investigated. SH and S were found to be preferentially bind at the bridge and fcc sites, respectively. The reaction pathways and energy profiles for H₂S decomposition giving rise to adsorbed S and H were determined. Both H₂S_(ad) → SH_(ad) + H_(ad) and SH_(ad) → S_(ad) + H_(ad) reactions were found to have low barriers and high exothermicities. This reveals that the decomposition of H₂S on Pd(1 1 1) surface is a facile process.     

Clinical trial of retrograde warm blood reperfusion versus standard cold topical irrigation of transplanted hearts

BACKGROUND: A prospective, randomized clinical study involving 34 patients undergoing heart transplantation compared myocardial preservation of donor hearts maintained with continuous reperfusion with retrograde warm blood cardioplegia during surgical implantation versus the standard cold topical irrigation. METHODS: Hearts in both groups were arrested with a standard crystalloid solution and maintained in a cold saline solution during transportation. In the retrograde group, cardioplegia was administered through a catheter in the coronary sinus during surgical implantation. An average of 471 +/- 30 mL of hyperkalemic crystalloid solution diluted 1:4 in warm blood from the oxygenator was infused. In the standard group, the heart was kept cold by topical irrigation of cold saline solution and was reperfused only when the ascending aorta was unclamped. RESULTS: Preoperative characteristics of donors and recipients were similar in the two cohorts. Ischemic time average 139 +/- 12 minutes in the retrograde group compared with 130 +/- 11 minutes in the standard group (p = 0.57). Cardiopulmonary bypass time averaged 89 +/- 4 minutes in the retrograde group and 110 +/- 12 minutes in the standard group (p = 0.12). Defibrillation at reperfusion was performed in 4 patients (4/17, 24%) in the retrograde group and 12 patients (12/18, 67%) in the standard group (p = 0.01). There were no deaths in the retrograde group (0/17), whereas in the standard group, 3 patients (3/17) died of early graft failure (p = 0.11). Four early graft failures occurred in the standard group (p = 0.06). Two patients (2/17, 12%) were weaned from bypass with ventricular assist devices in the standard group. The number of subendocardial necrotic cells in the first two weekly endomyocardial biopsy specimens averaged 2.7 +/- 0.8 cells/mm2 in the retrograde group and 5.9 +/- 2.4 cells/mm2 in the standard group (p = 0.12). CONCLUSIONS: Retrograde warm blood reperfusion appears to improve the initial recovery of transplanted hearts. The technique is easy to use and may be a useful approach to graft protection during surgical implantation.     

Wavelet based speech presence probability estimator for speech enhancement

A reliable speech presence probability (SPP) estimator is important to many frequency domain speech enhancement algorithms. It is known that a good estimate of SPP can be obtained by having a smooth a-posteriori signal to noise ratio (SNR) function, which can be achieved by reducing the noise variance when estimating the speech power spectrum. Recently, the wavelet denoising with multitaper spectrum (MTS) estimation technique was suggested for such purpose. However, traditional approaches directly make use of the wavelet shrinkage denoiser which has not been fully optimized for denoising the MTS of noisy speech signals. In this paper, we firstly propose a two-stage wavelet denoising algorithm for estimating the speech power spectrum. First, we apply the wavelet transform to the periodogram of a noisy speech signal. Using the resulting wavelet coefficients, an oracle is developed to indicate the approximate locations of the noise floor in the periodogram. Second, we make use of the oracle developed in stage 1 to selectively remove the wavelet coefficients of the noise floor in the log MTS of the noisy speech. The wavelet coefficients that remained are then used to reconstruct a denoised MTS and in turn generate a smooth a-posteriori SNR function. To adapt to the enhanced a-posteriori SNR function, we further propose a new method to estimate the generalized likelihood ratio (GLR), which is an essential parameter for SPP estimation. Simulation results show that the new SPP estimator outperforms the traditional approaches and enables an improvement in both the quality and intelligibility of the enhanced speeches.     

Fast point spread function computation from aperture functions in high-resolution positron emission tomography

The problem of extracting point spread functions from detector aperture functions in high-resolution PET is addressed. In the limit of very small size detectors relative to the ring dimensions, assumptions are made that lead to a fast and simple computation model yielding point spread functions with negligible errors due to the reconstruction algorithm. The methods allows one to assess accurately the intrinsic performance of a PET tomograph, and it appears to be adequate to relate the imaging capabilities in every point of the camera reconstruction field to the geometric and physical characteristics of the detection system. The method was developed as an investigation tool to help design the next generation of very-high-resolution PET tomographs.     

Biflavonoid-Induced Disruption of Hydrogen Bonds Leads to Amyloid-β Disaggregation

Deposition of amyloid β (Aβ) fibrils in the brain is a key pathologic hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. A class of polyphenolic biflavonoids is known to have anti-amyloidogenic effects by inhibiting aggregation of Aβ and promoting disaggregation of Aβ fibrils. In the present study, we further sought to investigate the structural basis of the Aβ disaggregating activity of biflavonoids and their interactions at the atomic level. A thioflavin T (ThT) fluorescence assay revealed that amentoflavone-type biflavonoids promote disaggregation of Aβ fibrils with varying potency due to specific structural differences. The computational analysis herein provides the first atomistic details for the mechanism of Aβ disaggregation by biflavonoids. Molecular docking analysis showed that biflavonoids preferentially bind to the aromatic-rich, partially ordered N-termini of Aβ fibril via the π–π interactions. Moreover, docking scores correlate well with the ThT EC₅₀ values. Molecular dynamic simulations revealed that biflavonoids decrease the content of β-sheet in Aβ fibril in a structure-dependent manner. Hydrogen bond analysis further supported that the substitution of hydroxyl groups capable of hydrogen bond formation at two positions on the biflavonoid scaffold leads to significantly disaggregation of Aβ fibrils. Taken together, our data indicate that biflavonoids promote disaggregation of Aβ fibrils due to their ability to disrupt the fibril structure, suggesting biflavonoids as a lead class of compounds to develop a therapeutic agent for Alzheimer’s disease.