Effects of Temperature and Mobile Phase Condition on Chiral Recognition of Poly(l-phenylalanine) Chiral Stationary Phase

Characteristics of the chiral stationary phase with poly(l-phenylalanine) peptide selector, which was in α-helical state, was reported. Since environmental factors affect peptide conformation, the changes in enantioselectivity were examined depending on column temperature and mobile phase conditions (ionic strength, pH, mobile phase composition). Column temperature and pH drastically affected the enantioselectivity. Based on these changes, the relation between chiral recognition and secondary structure of the peptide selector was discussed. The column stability during sequential analysis under different separation conditions was also evaluated

A Multiscale Model Evaluates Screening for Neoplasia in Barrett's Esophagus

National Cancer Institute grants U01 CA152926 (CISNET) (to EGL, JJ, and WDH) and U01 CA182940 (BG-U01) (to EGL and WDH). National Science Foundation (www.nsf.gov) under grant no. DGE-0718124 (to KC

COPD management as a model for all chronic respiratory conditions : report of the 4th Consensus Conference in Respiratory Medicine

Background: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) kill 40 million people each year. The management of chronic respiratory NCDs such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is particularly critical in Italy, where they are widespread and represent a heavy burden on healthcare resources. It is thus important to redefine the role and responsibility of respiratory specialists and their scientific societies, together with that of the whole healthcare system, in order to create a sustainable management of COPD, which could become a model for other chronic respiratory conditions. Methods: These issues were divided into four main topics (Training, Organization, Responsibilities, and Sustainability) and discussed at a Consensus Conference promoted by the Research Center of the Italian Respiratory Society held in Rome, Italy, 3-4 November 2016. Results and conclusions: Regarding training, important inadequacies emerged regarding specialist training - both the duration of practical training courses and teaching about chronic diseases like COPD. A better integration between university and teaching hospitals would improve the quality of specialization. A better organizational integration between hospital and specialists/general practitioners (GPs) in the local community is essential to improve the diagnostic and therapeutic pathways for chronic respiratory patients. Improving the care pathways is the joint responsibility of respiratory specialists, GPs, patients and their caregivers, and the healthcare system. The sustainability of the entire system depends on a better organization of the diagnostic-therapeutic pathways, in which also other stakeholders such as pharmacists and pharmaceutical companies can play an important role

Current management of the gastrointestinal complications of systemic sclerosis.

Systemic sclerosis is a multisystem autoimmune disorder that involves the gastrointestinal tract in more than 90% of patients. This involvement can extend from the mouth to the anus, with the oesophagus and anorectum most frequently affected. Gut complications result in a plethora of presentations that impair oral intake and faecal continence and, consequently, have an adverse effect on patient quality of life, resulting in referral to gastroenterologists. The cornerstones of gastrointestinal symptom management are to optimize symptom relief and monitor for complications, in particular anaemia and malabsorption. Early intervention in patients who develop these complications is critical to minimize disease progression and improve prognosis. In the future, enhanced therapeutic strategies should be developed, based on an ever-improving understanding of the intestinal pathophysiology of systemic sclerosis. This Review describes the most commonly occurring clinical scenarios of gastrointestinal involvement in patients with systemic sclerosis as they present to the gastroenterologist, with recommendations for the suggested assessment protocol and therapy in each situation

A comparison among reactive power compensation strategies in wind farm power plant

Squirrel cage induction generators are consolidated technologies for wind energy. Nevertheless, they do not perform voltage regulation and absorb reactive power from the utility grid. In this paper a comparison among three different reactive power compensation strategies is presented: centralized, fully decentralized and partially decentralized. The last is the proposal developed in the paper where an optimization problem is solved to individualize optimal sizing and location of reactive power centres. The problem is tested by a case study on a real test grid and encouraging results are presented

A Day-ahead Wind Speed Prediction based on Meteorological Data and the Seasonality of Weather Fronts

A reliable and accurate forecasting model is one of the most effective solutions to deal with the problem of renewable energy sources integration. In this paper, a model for the medium-long-term wind speed prediction, based on spatiotemporal evolution of weather fronts and Multi-Layer Perceptron Neural Network (MLP NN) data mining model, is developed. The model inputs are the historical and current meteorological data, such as pressure, temperature and wind intensity. These data describe the evolution of the weather fronts in a wide area around the point of interest, which goes beyond the local bounds. The model, trained and tested using real weather data, predicts the 24-h ahead wind speed. Forecasted results are compared with real data registered in the test site. This comparison demonstrates the efficiency and the effectiveness of the proposed strategy

Optimal Decentralized Voltage Control for Distribution Systems With Inverter-Based Distributed Generators

The increasing penetration of distributed generation (DG) power plants into distribution networks (DNs) causes various issues concerning, e.g., stability, protection equipment, and voltage regulation. Thus, the necessity to develop proper control techniques to allow power delivery to customers in compliance with power quality and reliability standards (PQR) has become a relevant issue in recent years. This paper proposes an optimized distributed control approach based on DN sensitivity analysis and on decentralized reactive/active power regulation capable of maintaining voltage levels within regulatory limits and to offer ancillary services to the DN, such as voltage regulation. At the same time, it tries to minimize DN active power losses and the reactive power exchanged with the DN by the DG units. The validation of the proposed control technique has been conducted through a several number of simulations on a real MV Italian distribution system

Active management of renewable energy sources for maximizing power production

The continuous increasing penetration of Distributed Generation systems (DGs) into Distribution Networks (DNs) puts in evidence the necessity to develop innovative control strategies capable to maximize DGs active power production. This paper focuses the attention upon this problem, developing an innovative decentralized voltage control approach aimed to allow DGs active power production maximization and to avoid DGs disconnection due to voltage limit infringements as much as possible. In particular, the work presents a local reactive/active power management control strategy based on Neural Networks (NNs), able to regulate voltage profiles at buses where DGs are connected, taking into account their capability curve constraints. The Neural Network controller is based on the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm incorporated in the back-propagation learning algorithm used to train the NN. Simulations run on a real Medium Voltage (MV) Italian radial DN have been carried out to validate the proposed approach. The results prove the advantages that the flexibility of the proposed control strategy can have on voltage control performances, generation hosting capacity of the network and energy losses reduction