The changing energy paradigm, challenges, and new developments

Editorial of the Special Issue of the International Journal of Energy Researc

“Recent Advances in Energy Research”

The worldwide scarcity of fossil fuels regarding primary energy demand together with growing environmental concerns have raised new challenges to the world economy, and led to changes in the energy paradigm. Industry, services, researchers, and the Academy are challenged to envisage new solutions through setting up new conversion processes, designing new power systems, and investigating and developing new energy sources and vectors

Neuroblastoma Perinatal – Um Desafio para o Neonatologista

O neuroblastoma é o tumor maligno mais frequente no período neonatal. O diagnóstico pré-natal tem aumentado devido à qualidade da ecografia obstétrica, que permite a deteção de formações de pequenas dimensões nas glândulas suprarrenais. Apresentam-se os casos clínicos de quatro recém‑nascidos com o diagnóstico de neuroblastoma perinatal. Dois recém-nascidos apresentaram imagens quísticas pré-natais na suprarrenal, estavam assintomáticos ao nascimento e o diagnóstico foi sugerido pela vigilância imagiológica. Outro recém-nascido não apresentava alterações nas ecografias pré-natais mas, ao nascer, era evidente distensão abdominal com massa palpável, cuja avaliação imagiológica sugeriu neuroblastoma. No quarto recém- -nascido, o diagnóstico de neuroblastoma foi evocado na gravidez. Estes últimos dois recém-nascidos faleceram após início de terapêutica imediata cirúrgica e/ou quimioterapia. As imagens quísticas da suprarrenal no período perinatal constituem um desafio diagnóstico, devendo ser sempre considerada a hipótese de neuroblastoma, mesmo quando o recém-nascido está assintomático

Measurement Errors in Investment Equations

We use Monte Carlo simulations and real data to assess the performance of alternative methods that deal with measurement error in investment equations. Our experiments show that individual-fixed effects, error heteroscedasticity, and data skewness severely affect the performance and reliability of methods found in the literature. In particular, estimators that use higher-order moments are shown to return biased coefficients for (both) mismeasured and perfectly-measured regressors. These estimators are also very inefficient. Instrumental variables-type estimators are more robust and efficient, although they require fairly restrictive assumptions. We estimate empirical investment models using alternative methods. Real-world investment data contain firm-fixed effects and heteroscedasticity, causing high-order moments estimators to deliver coefficients that are unstable across different specifications and not economically meaningful. Instrumental variables methods yield estimates that are robust and seem to conform to theoretical priors. Our analysis provides guidance for dealing with the problem of measurement error under circumstances empirical researchers are likely to find in practice.

Long‐Term Survival After Choriocarcinoma Transmitted by Liver Graft: A Successful Report in Pediatric Transplantation

Background: LT is the standard of care for many pediatric liver disorders. Although long-term outcomes have improved, some rare complications such as transmission of occult donor tumors have been reported. Case report: An adolescent diagnosed with tyrosinemia was submitted to LT from a previous healthy donor due to HCC. Almost 8 months after LT, the patient presented a nodular hepatic lesion. Clinically, he had mild weight loss, lower limb edema, and gynecomastia. Thorax CT found lesions in the left lung parenchyma, which showed no increased uptake in PET SCAN. Liver biopsy revealed a carcinoma with desmoplastic stroma. ISS was withdrawn, and palliative chemotherapy was started for presumptive HCC relapse. AFP remained normal, but HCG had reached unexpected values of 1984 IU/L. As we requested detailed information about the other organ recipients from the same donor, we found that one of them passed away due to disseminated tumor. Five months after the beginning of chemotherapy, the patient underwent resection of liver segments V and VI. Histological examination confirmed liver metastatic choriocarcinoma. At the time of writing, with 11 years of follow-up, the patient had sustained remission with no signs of relapse. Discussion: This case reports a diagnostic challenge in an adolescent with a particular unique background and a very rare pattern of tumor transmission. The authors aim to highlight the risk of cancer-bearing organs reveled post-LT and to testimony the experience of the successful outcome after a choriocarcinoma transmitted by liver graft.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Glass furnace technology for reduced emissions based on advanced control and monitoring

This paper reports an advanced furnace viewing sensor for regenerative U-flamed glass furnaces, which is demonstrated in a 40 t /d pull furnace of tableware glass burning thick fuel oil. The system processes digitized images from the combustion Chamber a n d uses information related to the geometric features of the flame for monitoring furnace Performance. The procedure is shown t o be able to reduce NOₓ, levels by u p to 20 %, by means of adequate control of the fuel atomization air

Fractal Subsystem Symmetries, 't Hooft Anomalies, and UV/IR Mixing

In this work, we study unconventional anisotropic topologically ordered phases in 3d that manifest type-II fractonic physics along sub-manifolds. While they behave as usual topological order along a preferred spatial direction, their physics along perpendicular planes is dictated by the presence of fractal subsystem symmetries, completely restricting the mobility of anyonic excitations and their bound states. We consider an explicit lattice model realization of such phases and proceed to study their properties under periodic boundary conditions and, later, in the presence of boundaries. We find that for specific lattice sizes, the system possesses line and fractal membrane symmetries that are mutually anomalous, resulting in a non-trivially gapped ground state space. This amounts to the spontaneous breaking of the fractal symmetries, implying a sub-extensive ground state degeneracy. For the remaining system sizes the fractal symmetries are explicitly broken by the periodic boundary conditions, which is intrinsically related to the uniqueness of the ground state. Despite of that, the system is still topologically ordered since locally created quasi-particles have nontrivial mutual statistics and, in the presence of boundaries, it still presents anomalous edge modes. The intricate symmetry interplay dictated by the lattice size is a wild manifestation of ultraviolet/infrared (UV/IR) mixing.Comment: 7+7 pages, 5+5 figure

Sulfadiazine-selective determination in aquaculture environment: Selective potentiometric transduction by neutral or charged ionophores

Solid-contact sensors for the selective screening of sulfadiazine (SDZ) in aquaculture waters are reported. Sensor surfaces were made from PVC membranes doped with tetraphenylporphyrin-manganese(III) chloride, α-cyclodextrin, β-cyclodextrin, or γ-cyclodextrin ionophores that were dispersed in plasticizer. Some membranes also presented a positive or a negatively charged additive. Phorphyrin-based sensors relied on a charged carrier mechanism. They exhibited a near-Nernstian response with slopes of 52 mV decade−1 and detection limits of 3.91 × 10−5 mol L−1. The addition of cationic lipophilic compounds to the membrane originated Nernstian behaviours, with slopes ranging 59.7–62.0 mV decade−1 and wider linear ranges. Cyclodextrin-based sensors acted as neutral carriers. In general, sensors with positively charged additives showed an improved potentiometric performance when compared to those without additive. Some SDZ selective membranes displayed higher slopes and extended linear concentration ranges with an increasing amount of additive (always <100% ionophore). The sensors were independent from the pH of test solutions within 2–7. The sensors displayed fast response, always <15 s. In general, a good discriminating ability was found in real sample environment. The sensors were successfully applied to the fast screening of SDZ in real waters samples from aquaculture fish farms. The method offered the advantages of simplicity, accuracy, and automation feasibility. The sensing membrane may contribute to the development of small devices allowing in locus measurements of sulfadiazine or parent-drugs