Influence of Advancements in Gas Turbine Control Systems on Gas Turbine and Combined-Cycle Performance Test Correction Curves

Many modern power plants feature gas turbines with advanced control systems that allow a greater level of performance enhancements, over a broader range of the combined-cycle plant’s operating environment, compared to conventional systems. Control system advancements tend to outpace a plant’s construction and commissioning timescale. Often, the control algorithms and settings in place at the final guarantee performance test will differ significantly from those envisioned during the contract agreement phase. As such, the gas turbine’s actual performance response to changes in boundary conditions, such as air temperature and air humidity, will be considerably different than the response illustrated on the initial correction curves. For the sake of technical accuracy, the performance correction curves should be updated to reflect the as-built, as-left behavior of the plant. By providing the most technically accurate curves, the needs of the new plant performance test are satisfied. Also, plant operators receive an accurate means to trend performance over time. The performance correction curves are intended to provide the most technically accurate assurance that the corrected test results are independent of boundary conditions that persist during the performance test. Therefore, after the gas turbine control algorithms and/or settings have been adjusted, the performance correction curves — whether specific to gas turbines or overall combined-cycle plants — should be updated to reflect any change in turbine response. This best practice maintains the highest level of technical accuracy. Failure to employ the available advanced gas turbine control system upgrades can limit the plant performance over the ambient operating regime. Failure to make a corresponding update to the correction curves can cause additional inaccuracy in the performance test’s corrected results. This paper presents a high-level discussion of GE’s recent gas turbine control system advancements, and emphasizes the need to update performance correction curves based on their impact.</jats:p

Crystallographic Studies on the Ribosome, a Large Macromolecular Assembly Exhibiting Severe Nonisomorphism, Extreme Beam Sensitivity and No Internal Symmetry

Crystals, diffracting best to around 3 Å, have been grown from intact large and small ribosomal subunits. The bright synchrotron radiation necessary for the collection of the higher-resolution X-ray diffraction data introduces significant decay even at cryo temperatures. Nevertheless, owing to the reasonable isomorphism of the recently improved crystals of the small ribosomal subunits, reliable phases have been extracted at medium resolution (5-6 Å) and an interpretable five-derivative MIR map has been constructed. For the crystals of the large subunits, however, the situation is more complicated because at higher resolution (2.7-7 Å) they suffer from substantial radiation sensitivity, a low level of isomorphism, instability of the longest unit-cell axis and nonisotropic mosaicity. The 8 Å MIR map, constructed to gain insight into this unusual system, may provide feasible reasoning for the odd combination of the properties of these crystals as well as hints for future improvement. Parallel efforts, in which electron-microscopy-reconstructed images are being exploited for molecular-replacement studies, are also discussed

Crystallographic Studies on the Ribosome, a Large Macromolecular Assembly Exhibiting Severe Nonisomorphism, Extreme Beam Sensitivity and No Internal Symmetry

Crystals, diffracting best to around 3 Å, have been grown from intact large and small ribosomal subunits. The bright synchrotron radiation necessary for the collection of the higher-resolution X-ray diffraction data introduces significant decay even at cryo temperatures. Nevertheless, owing to the reasonable isomorphism of the recently improved crystals of the small ribosomal subunits, reliable phases have been extracted at medium resolution (5-6 Å) and an interpretable five-derivative MIR map has been constructed. For the crystals of the large subunits, however, the situation is more complicated because at higher resolution (2.7-7 Å) they suffer from substantial radiation sensitivity, a low level of isomorphism, instability of the longest unit-cell axis and nonisotropic mosaicity. The 8 Å MIR map, constructed to gain insight into this unusual system, may provide feasible reasoning for the odd combination of the properties of these crystals as well as hints for future improvement. Parallel efforts, in which electron-microscopy-reconstructed images are being exploited for molecular-replacement studies, are also discussed

The unexpected landscape of in vivo somatic mutation in a human epithelial cell lineage

Few data exist on somatic mutation in the epithelial cell lineages that play a central role in human biology and disease. To delineate the “landscape” of somatic mutation in a human epithelial cell lineage, we determined the frequency and molecular nature of somatic mutations occurring in vivo in the X-linked HPRT gene of kidney tubular epithelial cells. Kidney epithelial mutants were frequent (range 0.5 to 4.2 × 10(−4)) and contained a high proportion of unreported HPRT base substitutions, −1-bp deletions and multiple mutations. This spectrum of somatic mutation differed from HPRT mutations identified in human peripheral blood T lymphocytes and from germ-line HPRT mutations identified in Lesch–Nyhan syndrome or hyperuricemia patients. Our results indicate that DNA damage and mutagenesis may have unusual or mechanistically interesting features in kidney tubular epithelium, and that somatic mutation may play a more important role in human kidney disease than has been previously appreciated