2,524 research outputs found
Biomass–Coal Hybrid Fuel: A Route to Net-Zero Iron Ore Sintering
The global steel industry uses fossil fuels to produce millions of tonnes of iron ore sinter each year. Sintering is an energy-intensive process that fuses iron ore and flux to produce material that balances a high mechanical strength at a sufficient particle size to ensure a macroporous burden in the blast furnace to enable rapid gas flow. As significant CO2 greenhouse emissions are emitted, the defossilisation of these CO2 emissions is vital to net-zero carbon targets. Two iterations of a new biomass–coal hybrid fuel (ecoke®(A) and ecoke®(B)) were compared with coke breeze and an anthracite coal using oxygen bomb calorimetry, simultaneous thermal analysis (STA) combining thermogravimetry and differential scanning calorimetry, and isoconversional kinetic modelling and pyrolysis–GCMS to study the volatile matter. The calorific values of both ecoke®(A) and (B) were marginally higher than that of the coke breeze: 27.9 MJ/kg and 27.8 MJ/kg, respectively, compared with 26.5 MJ/kg for the coke breeze. A proximate analysis revealed both ecoke® samples to have higher volatile matter contents (ca. 12–13%) than the coke breeze (7.4%), but less than the anthracite coal (ca. 14%). The thermogravimetric analysis of the burnout kinetics of the fuels heated up to 1000 °C, at heating rates from 5 to 25 °C/min, showed that that the coke breeze and anthracite coal had higher ignition and burnout temperatures than the ecoke® samples. Kinetic analysis using the Freidman and Ozawa methods found that the ecoke® samples showed comparable maximum mass loss rates to the coke breeze but lower activation energies. From these results, both ecoke® samples have the potential to replace some of the coke breeze in the sintering process or EAF processes to help achieve net zero by offsetting up to 30% of the CO2 emissions
ESBies: safety in the tranches
It is well known that rational bubbles can be sustained in balanced growth path of a deterministic economy when the return to capital r is equal to the growth rate g. When there is a lack of stores of value, bubbles can implement an e¢ cient allocation. This paper considers a world where r áuctuates over time due to shocks to the marginal productivity of capital. Then, bubbles further e¢ ciency, though they cannot implement Örst best. While bubbles can only be sustained when r = g in a deterministic economy, r > g "on average" in a stochastic economy. Fiscal policy improves welfare by adding an extra asset. Where only the elderly contribute to shifting resources between investment and consumption in a bubbly economy, Öscal policy allows part of that burden to be shifted to the young. Contrary to common wisdom, trade in bubbly assets implements intergenerational transfers, while Öscal policy implements intragenerational transfers. Hence, while bubbles and Öscal policy are perfect substitutes in the deterministic economy, Öscal policy dominates bubbles in a stochastic economy. For plausible parameter values, a higher degree of dynamic ine¢ ciency should lead to a higher sovereign debt
Air Therapy Workbook
The Air Therapy manual and workbook are designed to assist mental health clinicians to work effectively with young people in both an online and/or an in-person setting.https://ro.uow.edu.au/uowbooks/1035/thumbnail.jp
Artificial reefs built by 3D printing: systematisation in the design, material selection and fabrication
The recovery of degraded marine coasts and the improvement of natural habitats are current issues of vital importance for the development of life, both marine and terrestrial. In this sense, the immersion of artificial reefs (ARs) in the marine environment is a way to stimulate the recovery of these damaged ecosystems. But it is necessary to have a multidisciplinary approach that analyses the materials, designs and construction process of artificial reefs in order to understand their true impact on the environment. For this reason, this paper presents the manufacture of artificial reefs by 3D printing, proposing designs with a combination of prismatic and random shapes, with different external overhangs as well as inner holes. For the definition of the artificial reef designs, criteria provided by marine biologists and the results obtained from a numerical simulation with ANSYS were taken into account, with which the stability of the artificial reefs on the seabed was analysed. Three dosages of cement mortars and three dosages of geopolymer mortars were studied as impression materials. The studies included determination of the rheological properties of the mortars, to define the printability, determination of the cost of the materials used, and determination of the mechanical strength and biological receptivity in prismatic specimens that were immersed in the sea for 3 months. To evaluate the environmental impact of the materials used in the production of the mortars, a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was carried out. In order to choose the mortars that encompassed the best properties studied, Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) was applied and the two best mortars were used for the manufacture of the artificial reefs. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of the 3D printing process used were analysed. The results of the studies carried out in this research show that cement mortars have better characteristics for artificial reef applications using 3D printing, and that the technique applied for the manufacture of the artificial reefs allowed the digital models to be faithfully reproduced.This work has been co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the Interreg Atlantic Area Programme, under the project “Artificial Reef 3D Printing for Atlantic Area - 3DPARE” (EAPA_174/2016). Besides, the authors want to thank the following companies for their contribution: Solvay, for supplying the fly ash and sodium hydroxide; BASF, for providing the additives used in the research; Abonomar S.L., for providing the seashells sand; FCC ámbito, for providing the crushed recycled glass and Grupo Cementos Portland Valderribas (Mataporquera plant) for providing the cement
Towards a More Resilient Euro Area. Ideas from the 'Future Europe' Forum. CEPS Paperback, 18 June 2018
Much progress has been made in improving resilience of the single currency since the beginning of the crisis. But many important issues remain to be tackled. The leaders of euro-area member states are expected to use the European Union Summit on 28-29 June 2018 to take preliminary decisions about which additional reforms to pursue. The run-up to this meeting saw a lively debate involving economists and policymakers, albeit against a backdrop of rising Euroscepticism among and waning trust between European partners.
ESMT and the German Council of Economic Experts (GCEE) initiated the ‘Future Europe’ forum in the summer of 2017, aiming to bring together a high-level group of economists to discuss economically sensible, legally sound, and politically feasible concepts that deserved to be taken forward. By offering a forum for discussion, we hoped to foster constructive dialogue.
They chose an innovative video-conference format to bring experts together face to face without them having to leave their desks (or living rooms). Some 30 economists took part in a dozen such virtual meetings, and their contributions culminated in a publication, brought out jointly by the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), ESMT and the GCEE.
The ebookTowards a More Resilient Euro Area: Ideas from the ‘Future Europe’ forum gathers summaries of these economists’ proposals and the discussions they sparked. The main aim was not to produce a variant of the jointly-authored academic paper, but to foster a lively debate between economists who – as one participant put it – “agree somewhat, but not too much”. The publication as a result combines essays outlining an individual author’s thoughts with summaries of the informed, impassioned, and always respectful discussions during each forum. While each contribution can only be attributed to the respective author, each idea and thought is a valuable input that deserves to be considered by European governments as they set about the next euro-area reforms
Using GIS to create synthetic disease outbreaks
BACKGROUND: The ability to detect disease outbreaks in their early stages is a key component of efficient disease control and prevention. With the increased availability of electronic health-care data and spatio-temporal analysis techniques, there is great potential to develop algorithms to enable more effective disease surveillance. However, to ensure that the algorithms are effective they need to be evaluated. The objective of this research was to develop a transparent user-friendly method to simulate spatial-temporal disease outbreak data for outbreak detection algorithm evaluation. A state-transition model which simulates disease outbreaks in daily time steps using specified disease-specific parameters was developed to model the spread of infectious diseases transmitted by person-to-person contact. The software was developed using the MapBasic programming language for the MapInfo Professional geographic information system environment. RESULTS: The simulation model developed is a generalised and flexible model which utilises the underlying distribution of the population and incorporates patterns of disease spread that can be customised to represent a range of infectious diseases and geographic locations. This model provides a means to explore the ability of outbreak detection algorithms to detect a variety of events across a large number of stochastic replications where the influence of uncertainty can be controlled. The software also allows historical data which is free from known outbreaks to be combined with simulated outbreak data to produce files for algorithm performance assessment. CONCLUSION: This simulation model provides a flexible method to generate data which may be useful for the evaluation and comparison of outbreak detection algorithm performance
Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context
Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts
Pan-cancer Alterations of the MYC Oncogene and Its Proximal Network across the Cancer Genome Atlas
Although theMYConcogene has been implicated incancer, a systematic assessment of alterations ofMYC, related transcription factors, and co-regulatoryproteins, forming the proximal MYC network (PMN),across human cancers is lacking. Using computa-tional approaches, we define genomic and proteo-mic features associated with MYC and the PMNacross the 33 cancers of The Cancer Genome Atlas.Pan-cancer, 28% of all samples had at least one ofthe MYC paralogs amplified. In contrast, the MYCantagonists MGA and MNT were the most frequentlymutated or deleted members, proposing a roleas tumor suppressors.MYCalterations were mutu-ally exclusive withPIK3CA,PTEN,APC,orBRAFalterations, suggesting that MYC is a distinct onco-genic driver. Expression analysis revealed MYC-associated pathways in tumor subtypes, such asimmune response and growth factor signaling; chro-matin, translation, and DNA replication/repair wereconserved pan-cancer. This analysis reveals insightsinto MYC biology and is a reference for biomarkersand therapeutics for cancers with alterations ofMYC or the PMN
Genomic, Pathway Network, and Immunologic Features Distinguishing Squamous Carcinomas
This integrated, multiplatform PanCancer Atlas study co-mapped and identified distinguishing
molecular features of squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) from five sites associated with smokin
Spatial Organization and Molecular Correlation of Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes Using Deep Learning on Pathology Images
Beyond sample curation and basic pathologic characterization, the digitized H&E-stained images
of TCGA samples remain underutilized. To highlight this resource, we present mappings of tumorinfiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) based on H&E images from 13 TCGA tumor types. These TIL
maps are derived through computational staining using a convolutional neural network trained to
classify patches of images. Affinity propagation revealed local spatial structure in TIL patterns and
correlation with overall survival. TIL map structural patterns were grouped using standard
histopathological parameters. These patterns are enriched in particular T cell subpopulations
derived from molecular measures. TIL densities and spatial structure were differentially enriched
among tumor types, immune subtypes, and tumor molecular subtypes, implying that spatial
infiltrate state could reflect particular tumor cell aberration states. Obtaining spatial lymphocytic
patterns linked to the rich genomic characterization of TCGA samples demonstrates one use for
the TCGA image archives with insights into the tumor-immune microenvironment
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