1,162 research outputs found

    Optimization of cogging torque in interior permanent magnet synchronous motor using optimum magnet v-angle

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    Introduction. At present, the most important requirement in the field of electrical engineering is the better utilization of electrical power, due to its increasing demand and not-so-increasing availability. A permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) is increasingly gaining popularity in various household and industrial applications because of its superior performance compared to conventional electrical motors. Purpose. PMSM is designed based on the selection of various design variables and optimized to fulfill the same. Being superiorly advantageous over other motors, PMSM has the major disadvantage of higher cogging torque. Higher cogging torque generates torque ripple in the PMSM motor leading to various problems like vibration, rotor stress, and noisy operation during starting and steady state. The designer should aim to reduce the cogging torque at the design stage itself for overall better performance. Methods. An interior rotor v-shaped web-type PMSM is designed and its performance analysis is carried out using finite element analysis (FEA). Magnet v-angle is optimized with the objective of cogging torque reduction. Performance comparison is carried out between the optimized motor and the initially designed motor with FEA. Novelty. Magnet v-angle analysis is performed on the same keeping all other parameters constant, to obtain minimum cogging torque. The proposed method is practically viable as it does not incur extra costs and manufacturing complexity. Practical value. It is observed that the magnet v-angle is an effective technique in the reduction of cogging torque. Cogging torque is reduced from 0.554 N×m to 0.452 N×m with the application of the magnet v-angle optimization technique.Вступ. В даний час найважливішою вимогою в галузі електротехніки є найкраще використання електроенергії через зростаючу потребу в ній і не настільки зростаючу доступність. Синхронний двигун з постійними магнітами (СДПМ) набуває все більшої популярності в різних побутових та промислових застосуваннях завдяки своїм чудовим характеристикам у порівнянні зі звичайними електродвигунами. Мета. СДПМ, спроєктований на основі вибору різних конструктивних змінних та оптимізований для їх виконання. Будучи чудовим у порівнянні з іншими двигунами, СДПМ має головний недолік: вищий крутний момент. Вищий крутний момент викликає пульсації крутного моменту в двигуні з постійними магнітами, що призводить до різних проблем, таких як вібрація, напруга ротора і шумна робота під час запуску і режиму. Проєктувальник повинен прагнути зменшити крутний момент зубчастого колеса на стадії проєктування для підвищення загальної продуктивності. Методи. Розроблено СДПМ з внутрішнім ротором v-подібної форми та стрижневого типу, та аналіз його характеристик виконаний з використанням аналізу методом скінченних елементів (FEA). Кут v-подібного магніту оптимізовано з метою зниження зубчастого моменту. Порівняння продуктивності здійснюється між оптимізованим двигуном та двигуном, спочатку спроєктованим за допомогою FEA. Новизна. Аналіз кута v-подібного магніту виконується таким же чином, зберігаючи решту всіх параметрів постійними, щоб отримати мінімальний зубчастий крутний момент. Запропонований спосіб практично життєздатний, оскільки не вимагає додаткових витрат та складності виготовлення. Практична цінність. Помічено, що v-подібний кут магніту є ефективним способом зниження зубчастого моменту. Зубчастий крутний момент зменшений з 0,554 Н×м до 0,452 Н×м за рахунок застосування методу оптимізації v-подібного кута магніту

    Atomic relocation processes in impurity-free disordered p-GaAs epilayers studied by deep level transient spectroscopy

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    We have used capacitance–voltage and deep level transient spectroscopy techniques to study the relocation of impurities, such as Zn and Cu, in impurity-free disordered (IFD) p-type GaAs. A four-fold increase in the doping concentration is observed after annealing at 925 °C. Two electrically active defects HA (EV+0.39 eV) and HB2 (EV+0.54 eV), which we have attributed to Cu- and Asi/AsGa-related levels, respectively, are observed in the disordered p-GaAs layers. The injection of galliumvacancies causes segregation of Zndopant atoms and Cu towards the surface of IFD samples. The atomic relocation process is critically assessed in terms of the application of IFD to the band gap engineering of doped GaAs-based heterostructures.Two of the authors ~P.N.K.D. and H.H.T.! acknowledge the financial support of the Australian Research Counci

    Recasting Food: An Ethnographic Study on How Caste and Resource Inequality Perpetuate Social Disadvantage in India

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    Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) is the principal programme operating in India to address issues around child development, malnutrition and pre-school education. A package of services – including the Supplementary Nutrition Programme (SNP), pre-school education, immunization, health check-ups, referral services, and nutrition and health education – are provided through an Anganwadi Centre (AWC) with an Anganwadi Worker (AWW) and an Anganwadi Helper (AWH) for roughly every one thousand people. From the mid-1990s, there have been successive efforts on the part of the Government of India to universalize ICDS, and there has been a multi-fold increase in funds allocated to this programme between the 8th Five-Year Plan (1992–93 to 1996–97) and the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012–17) (1-2). However, the utilization of all services under ICDS continues to be grossly low. Close to 75 percent of children aged 0–71 months in the areas covered by AWCs did not receive any supplementary food from the centres, and less than 12 percent of children received supplementary food ‘almost daily’. For children aged 36–71 months this figure is 15.5 percent. More than 80 percent of children were not weighed at all. It has been reported that children belonging to economically backward and socially marginalised families, including Dalit, tribal, and religious minorities, are excluded from utilising these services through unfavourable institutional rules and structural factors. Equally, members of well-off families do not use services provided by AWCs – especially the SNP – for under-6 children. A multi-sited ethnographic study was conducted in four villages in Gujarat in order to identify the reasons behind poor utilisation of AWCs, especially the SNP services. The study aimed to understand everyday experience of households around the SNP in rural settings and an opportunity to study AWCs as institutions embedded in the context of village cultural life. The authors hypothesise that a study focusing on AWCs could serve as an illustrative case to highlight challenges in implementing other entitlement-based programmes

    Can bounded and self-interested agents be teammates? Application to planning in ad hoc teams

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    Planning for ad hoc teamwork is challenging because it involves agents collaborating without any prior coordination or communication. The focus is on principled methods for a single agent to cooperate with others. This motivates investigating the ad hoc teamwork problem in the context of self-interested decision-making frameworks. Agents engaged in individual decision making in multiagent settings face the task of having to reason about other agents’ actions, which may in turn involve reasoning about others. An established approximation that operationalizes this approach is to bound the infinite nesting from below by introducing level 0 models. For the purposes of this study, individual, self-interested decision making in multiagent settings is modeled using interactive dynamic influence diagrams (I-DID). These are graphical models with the benefit that they naturally offer a factored representation of the problem, allowing agents to ascribe dynamic models to others and reason about them. We demonstrate that an implication of bounded, finitely-nested reasoning by a self-interested agent is that we may not obtain optimal team solutions in cooperative settings, if it is part of a team. We address this limitation by including models at level 0 whose solutions involve reinforcement learning. We show how the learning is integrated into planning in the context of I-DIDs. This facilitates optimal teammate behavior, and we demonstrate its applicability to ad hoc teamwork on several problem domains and configurations

    Palladium nanoparticles by electrospinning from poly(acrylonitrile-co-acrylic acid)-PdCl2 solutions. Relations between preparation conditions, particle size, and catalytic activity

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    Catalytic palladium (Pd) nanoparticles on electrospun copolymers of acrylonitrile and acrylic acid (PAN-AA) mats were produced via reduction of PdCl2 with hydrazine. Fiber mats were electrospun from homogeneous solutions of PAN-AA and PdCl2 in dimethylformamide (DMF). Pd cations were reduced to Pd metals when fiber mats were treated in an aqueous hydrazine solution at room temperature. Pd atoms nucleate and form small crystallites whose sizes were estimated from the peak broadening of X-ray diffraction peaks. Two to four crystallites adhere together and form agglomerates. Agglomerate sizes and fiber diameters were determined by scanning and transmission electron microscopy. Spherical Pd nanoparticles were dispersed homogeneously on the electrospun nanofibers. The effects of copolymer composition and amount of PdCl2 on particle size were investigated. Pd particle size mainly depends on the amount of acrylic acid functional groups and PdCl2 concentration in the spinning solution. Increasing acrylic acid concentration on polymer chains leads to larger Pd nanoparticles. In addition, Pd particle size becomes larger with increasing PdCl2 concentration in the spinning solution. Hence, it is possible to tune the number density and the size of metal nanoparticles. The catalytic activity of the Pd nanoparticles in electrospun mats was determined by selective hydrogenation of dehydrolinalool (3,7-dimethyloct-6- ene-1-yne-3-ol, DHL) in toluene at 90 °C. Electrospun fibers with Pd particles have 4.5 times higher catalytic activity than the current Pd/Al2O3 catalyst

    Investigating and dealing with publication bias and other reporting biases in meta-analyses:a review

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    A P value, or the magnitude or direction of results can influence decisions about whether, when, and how research findings are disseminated. Regardless of whether an entire study or a particular study result is unavailable because investigators considered the results to be unfavourable, bias in a meta-analysis may occur when available results differ systematically from missing results. In this paper, we summarize the empirical evidence for various reporting biases that lead to study results being unavailable for inclusion in systematic reviews, with a focus on health research. These biases include publication bias and selective nonreporting bias. We describe processes that systematic reviewers can use to minimize the risk of bias due to missing results in meta-analyses of health research, such as comprehensive searches and prospective approaches to meta-analysis. We also outline methods that have been designed for assessing risk of bias due to missing results in meta-analyses of health research, including using tools to assess selective nonreporting of results, ascertaining qualitative signals that suggest not all studies were identified, and generating funnel plots to identify small-study effects, one cause of which is reporting bias. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

    Thyroglossal duct cyst carcinoma with concurrent thyroid carcinoma: a case report

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    <p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Thyroglossal duct carcinoma is a very rare finding and its presentation is similar to that of a benign cyst, which is a relatively common developmental abnormality that may manifest as a midline, neck mass. In general the diagnosis of thyroglossal duct carcinoma is based on the pathologic examination of the mass, but needle aspiration cytology, ultrasound and computed tomography play a role in the differential diagnosis of malignancy.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A further case of thyroglossal duct carcinoma and concurrent thyroid carcinoma with locoregional lymph node metastases affecting a 40-year-old woman followed up for 4 years is presented and discussed.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Sistrunk's surgical technique must always be the initial treatment, but in case of carcinoma further surgery, that is, thyroidectomy with or without lymph node dissection, and treatment with radioactive iodine have to be considered according to the microscopic and clinical findings. Accurate pre-operative clinical and radiological evaluation should be performed in order to plan surgical strategy.</p

    Daratumumab displays in vitro and in vivo anti-tumor activity in models of B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma and improves responses to standard chemo-immunotherapy regimens

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    Altres ajuts: This work was carried out at the Esther Koplowitz Center, Barcelona. Genmab and Janssen pharmaceuticals funded this research. Additional grants that contributed to this work included: [...], and CIBERONC (CB16/12/00334 and CB16/12/00225).CD38 is expressed in several types of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and constitutes a promising target for antibody-based therapy. Daratumumab (Darzalex) is a first-in-class anti-CD38 antibody approved for the treatment of relapsed/refractory (R/R) multiple myeloma (MM). It has also demonstrated clinical activity in Waldenström macroglobulinaemia and amyloidosis. Here, we have evaluated the activity and mechanism of action of daratumumab in preclinical in vitro and in vivo models of mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), follicular lymphoma (FL) and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), as monotherapy or in combination with standard chemo-immunotherapy. In vitro, daratumumab engages Fc-mediated cytotoxicity by antibody-dependent cell cytotoxicity and antibody-dependent cell phagocytosis in all lymphoma subtypes. In the presence of human serum, complement-dependent cell cytotoxicity was marginally engaged. We demonstrated by Selective Plane Illumination Microscopy that daratumumab fully penetrated a three-dimensional (3D) lymphoma organoid and decreased organoid volume. In vivo, daratumumab completely prevents tumor outgrowth in models of MCL and FL, and shows comparable activity to rituximab in a disseminated in vivo model of blastic MCL. Moreover, daratumumab improves overall survival (OS) in a mouse model of transformed CD20 FL, where rituximab showed limited activity. Daratumumab potentiates the antitumor activity of CHOP and R-CHOP in MCL and FL xenografts. Furthermore, in a patient-derived DLBCL xenograft model, daratumumab anti-tumor activity was comparable to R-CHOP and the addition of daratumumab to either CHOP or R-CHOP led to full tumor regression. In summary, daratumumab constitutes a novel therapeutic opportunity in certain scenarios and these results warrant further clinical development

    Macrophages Recognize Size and Shape of Their Targets

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    Recognition by macrophages is a key process in generating immune response against invading pathogens. Previous studies have focused on recognition of pathogens through surface receptors present on the macrophage's surface. Here, using polymeric particles of different geometries that represent the size and shape range of a variety of bacteria, the importance of target geometry in recognition was investigated. The studies reported here reveal that attachment of particles of different geometries to macrophages exhibits a strong dependence on size and shape. For all sizes and shapes studied, particles possessing the longest dimension in the range of 2–3 µm exhibited highest attachment. This also happens to be the size range of most commonly found bacteria in nature. The surface features of macrophages, in particular the membrane ruffles, might play an important role in this geometry-based target recognition by macrophages. These findings have significant implications in understanding the pathogenicity of bacteria and in designing drug delivery carriers

    GAMER MRI: Gated-attention mechanism ranking of multi-contrast MRI in brain pathology.

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    During the last decade, a multitude of novel quantitative and semiquantitative MRI techniques have provided new information about the pathophysiology of neurological diseases. Yet, selection of the most relevant contrasts for a given pathology remains challenging. In this work, we developed and validated a method, Gated-Attention MEchanism Ranking of multi-contrast MRI in brain pathology (GAMER MRI), to rank the relative importance of MR measures in the classification of well understood ischemic stroke lesions. Subsequently, we applied this method to the classification of multiple sclerosis (MS) lesions, where the relative importance of MR measures is less understood. GAMER MRI was developed based on the gated attention mechanism, which computes attention weights (AWs) as proxies of importance of hidden features in the classification. In the first two experiments, we used Trace-weighted (Trace), apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), Fluid-Attenuated Inversion Recovery (FLAIR), and T1-weighted (T1w) images acquired in 904 acute/subacute ischemic stroke patients and in 6,230 healthy controls and patients with other brain pathologies to assess if GAMER MRI could produce clinically meaningful importance orders in two different classification scenarios. In the first experiment, GAMER MRI with a pretrained convolutional neural network (CNN) was used in conjunction with Trace, ADC, and FLAIR to distinguish patients with ischemic stroke from those with other pathologies and healthy controls. In the second experiment, GAMER MRI with a patch-based CNN used Trace, ADC and T1w to differentiate acute ischemic stroke lesions from healthy tissue. The last experiment explored the performance of patch-based CNN with GAMER MRI in ranking the importance of quantitative MRI measures to distinguish two groups of lesions with different pathological characteristics and unknown quantitative MR features. Specifically, GAMER MRI was applied to assess the relative importance of the myelin water fraction (MWF), quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM), T1 relaxometry map (qT1), and neurite density index (NDI) in distinguishing 750 juxtacortical lesions from 242 periventricular lesions in 47 MS patients. Pair-wise permutation t-tests were used to evaluate the differences between the AWs obtained for each quantitative measure. In the first experiment, we achieved a mean test AUC of 0.881 and the obtained AWs of FLAIR and the sum of AWs of Trace and ADC were 0.11 and 0.89, respectively, as expected based on previous knowledge. In the second experiment, we achieved a mean test F1 score of 0.895 and a mean AW of Trace = 0.49, of ADC = 0.28, and of T1w = 0.23, thereby confirming the findings of the first experiment. In the third experiment, MS lesion classification achieved test balanced accuracy = 0.777, sensitivity = 0.739, and specificity = 0.814. The mean AWs of T1map, MWF, NDI, and QSM were 0.29, 0.26, 0.24, and 0.22 (p &lt; 0.001), respectively. This work demonstrates that the proposed GAMER MRI might be a useful method to assess the relative importance of MRI measures in neurological diseases with focal pathology. Moreover, the obtained AWs may in fact help to choose the best combination of MR contrasts for a specific classification problem
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