On the reliability of electrical drives for safety-critical applications

The aim of this work is to present some issues related to fault tolerant electric drives,which are able to overcome different types of faults occurring in the sensors, in thepower converter and in the electrical machine, without compromising the overallfunctionality of the system. These features are of utmost importance in safety-criticalapplications. In this paper, the reliability of both commercial and innovative driveconfigurations, which use redundant hardware and suitable control algorithms, will beinvestigated for the most common types of fault: besides standard three phase motordrives, also multiphase topologies, open-end winding solutions, multi-machineconfigurations will be analyzed, applied to various electric motor technologies. Thecomplexity of hardware and control strategies will also be compared in this paper, sincethis has a tremendous impact on the investment costs

Estimating hidden fishing activity hotspots from vessel transmitted data

Monitoring fishery activity is essential for resource planning and guaranteeing fisheries sustainability. Large fishing vessels constantly and continuously communicate their positions via Automatic Identification System (AIS) or Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMSs). These systems can use radio or Global Positioning System (GPS) devices to transmit data. Processing and integrating these big data with other fisheries data allows for exploring the relations between socio-economic and ecosystem assets in marine areas, which is fundamental in fishery monitoring. In this context, estimating actual fishing activity from time series of AIS and VMS data would enhance the correct identification of fishing activity patterns and help assess regulations' effectiveness. However, these data might contain gaps because of technical issues such as limited coverage of the terrestrial receivers or saturated transmission bands. Other sources of data gaps are adverse meteorological conditions and voluntary switch-offs. Gaps may also include hidden (unreported) fishing activity whose quantification would improve actual fishing activity estimation. This paper presents a workflow for AIS/VMS big-data analysis that estimates potential unreported fishing activity hotspots in a marine area. The workflow uses a statistical spatial analysis over vessel speeds and coordinates and a multi-source data integration approach that can work on multiple areas and multiple analysis scales. Specifically, it (i) estimates fishing activity locations and rebuilds data gaps, (ii) estimates the potential unreported fishing hour distribution and the unreported-over-total ratio of fishing hours at a 0.01 degrees spatial resolution, (iii) identifies potential unreported fishing activity hotspots, (iv) extracts the stocks involved in these hotspots (using global-scale repositories of stock and species observation data) and raises an alert about their possible endangered, threatened, and protected (ETP) status. The workflow is also a free-to-use Web Service running on an open science-compliant cloud computing platform with a Web Processing Service (WPS) standard interface, allowing efficient big data processing. As a study case, we focussed on the Adriatic Sea. We reconstructed the monthly reported and potential unreported trawling activity in 2019, using terrestrial AIS data with a 5-min sampling period, containing similar to 50 million records transmitted by similar to 1,600 vessels. The results highlight that the unreported fishing activity hotspots especially impacted Italian coasts and some forbidden and protected areas. The potential unreported activity involved 33 stocks, four of which were ETP species in the basin. The extracted information agreed with expert studies, and the estimated trawling patterns agreed with those produced by the Global Fishing Watch

Decapod crustaceans associated with an artificial reef (Adriatic Sea)

The aim of this study is to increase the knowledge on the distribution of decapod crustaceans associated with an artificial reef positioned on sandy-mud bottoms in the central Adriatic Sea. The reef is constituted of concrete modules assembled in pyramids and concrete poles. Hard and soft bottom samples were collected from 2001, just after reef construction, to 2005 (4 surveys per year). Regarding the soft seabed, three sites close to a pyramid, three inside the reef area at a distance of 10-15 m from the structures, and three 200 m outside the reef (control sites) were randomly sampled during each survey. At the same time, three pyramids (vertical and horizontal walls) and three poles were also investigated. After taxonomical analysis, decapod crustaceans were analysed using abundance and species richness. Sites and years were compared using a balanced, fixed effect, 2-way ANOVA and PERMANOVA. In addition, SIMPER analysis was performed to identify those species typifying each community inhabiting both the soft bottom and the artificial substrates. The results showed that the artificial reef induced an increase in both abundance and diversity of the decapods of the natural habitat. In fact, man-made substrates may offer new available space for biological colonization and allow the settlement of new species usually living on hard bottoms, thus increasing the complexity of the original benthic communities

Raja asterias population assessment in FAO GFCM GSA17 area

Population structure and distribution of the starry ray, Raja asterias, were described based on data collected during yearly rapido trawl surveys (SoleMon), between 2005 and 2014 in the Northern and Central Adriatic Sea. A total of 306 individuals were caught, sex ratio was 1.04:1 in favor of males and length-weight relationships were obtained for the whole sample. Following the MEDITS scale, maturity was estimated, observing a higher number of immature individuals. Relative abundance significantly increased during the recent period with the highest values recorded at 5-30 m depths. Such increase could be related to the response of R. asterias to climatic change or to the decrease  in fishing pressure in the area. Clear spatial segregation of individuals depending on their life stage was observed, with immature individuals inhabiting the coastal areas and adults more abundant at depths greater than 40 m. The comparison of the result of the present study with MEDITS survey outcomes in terms of  distribution patterns, persistence areas of adults and juveniles and abundances indices, evidences that SoleMon survey seems to be more suitable in defining such features of the stock, likely due to the greater catchability of the rapido trawl in respect to the MEDITS trawl net. However, further investigations are needed to identify factors affecting the increasing abundance of this species, and develop an action plan for spatial management of fishing activities

Development of a continuous-flow anaerobic co-digestion process of olive mill wastewater and municipal sewage sludge

BACKGROUND: Olive mill wastewater (OMW) represents an environmental problem due to its high organic load and relevant concentration of phenolic compounds (PCs). OMW treatment and disposal represents a relevant challenge and cost for olive mills and multi-utilities in charge of waste management in Mediterranean countries. The goal of this study was to develop an anaerobic co-digestion (co-AD) process of OMW and sewage sludge (SwS) from municipal wastewater treatment. RESULTS: Different volumetric OMW:SwS ratios up to 100% OMW were fed in continuous 1.7-L bioreactors. The reactors fed with raw OMW (rOMW) performed better than those fed with OMW dephenolized by adsorption (dOMW). At a 23-day hydraulic retention time, the best performances were obtained in the reactor fed with 25% rOMW, with a 105% increase in methane yield in comparison to the 100% SwS test. At a 40-day hydraulic retention time, the reactor fed with 40% rOMW attained a 268 NLCH4/kgvolatile solids methane yield. The conversion of phenolic compoundsreached 70% when the hydraulic retention time was increased from 23 to 40 days. A cost\u2013benefit analysis indicated that both rOMW co-AD in existing digesters and phenolic compounds recovery from OMW followed by co-AD of dOMW can lead to relevant additional revenues for the multi-utilities in charge of wastewater management. CONCLUSION: This work proves that, using the existing network of SwS anaerobic digesters, it is feasible to co-digest the entire OMW production in regions characterized by intense olive oil production, thus attaining a relevant increase in methane production yield (a 144% increase in comparison to 100% SwS)

An extremely low-noise heralded single-photon source: a breakthrough for quantum technologies

Low noise single-photon sources are a critical element for quantum technologies. We present a heralded single-photon source with an extremely low level of residual background photons, by implementing low-jitter detectors and electronics and a fast custom-made pulse generator controlling an optical shutter (a LiNbO3 waveguide optical switch) on the output of the source. This source has a second-order autocorrelation g^{(2)}(0)=0.005(7), and an "Output Noise Factor" (defined as the ratio of the number of noise photons to total photons at the source output channel) of 0.25(1)%. These are the best performance characteristics reported to date

COVID-19 lockdowns reveal the resilience of Adriatic Sea fisheries to forced fishing effort reduction

The COVID-19 pandemic provides a major opportunity to study fishing effort dynamics and to assess the response of the industry to standard and remedial actions. Knowing a fishing fleet’s capacity to compensate for effort reduction (i.e., its resilience) allows differentiating governmental regulations by fleet, i.e., imposing stronger restrictions on the more resilient and weaker restrictions on the less resilient. In the present research, the response of the main fishing fleets of the Adriatic Sea to fishing hour reduction from 2015 to 2020 was measured. Fleet activity per gear type was inferred from monthly Automatic Identification System data. Pattern recognition techniques were applied to study the fishing effort trends and barycentres by gear. The beneficial effects of the lockdowns on Adriatic endangered, threatened and protected (ETP) species were also estimated. Finally, fleet effort series were examined through a stock assessment model to demonstrate that every Adriatic fishing fleet generally behaves like a stock subject to significant stress, which was particularly highlighted by the pandemic. Our findings lend support to the notion that the Adriatic fleets can be compared to predators with medium-high resilience and a generally strong impact on ETP species

Extended antenatal antiretroviral use correlates with improved infant outcomes throughout the first year of life

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effect of extended antenatal triple antiretroviral therapy (ART) on infant outcomes. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study using pooled data from health clinics in Malawi and Mozambique from July 2005 to December 2009. METHODS: Computerized records of 3273 HIV-infected pregnant women accessing Drug Resource Enhancement Against AIDS and Malnutrition centers were reviewed. ART regimens consisted of nevirapine-based HAART as of 14-25 weeks gestation until 6 months postpartum. Infant infection was determined at 1, 6 and 12 months of age by branched DNA. RESULTS: A total of 3071 pregnancies resulted in 3148 live births. Lost to follow-up, infant deaths and HIV-1 infection rates at 1 and 12 months were 1.3 and 11.5, 0.8 and 6.7 and 0.8 and 2.0, respectively. Infant HIV-1-free survival at 12 months was 92.5%. Mother-to-child transmission and/or infant deaths correlated with length of maternal antenatal ART by multivariate analysis at 1, 6 and 12 months: 14% in women with more than 30 days of triple antenatal ART and 6.9% in mothers receiving at least 90 days of antenatal ART, P = 0.001. Fifty percent of 54 episodes of transmission occurred in women with higher CD4 cell counts (>350 cells/μl). Infant mortality was 67/1000, lower than background rates (78-100/1000). Growth failure (weight-for-age Z score <-2) was present in 8% of infants around birth, 6% at 6 months, 23% at 12 months (lower than country-specific rates). CONCLUSION: Extended antenatal ART is protective against adverse infant outcomes up to 12 months of age even in children born to mothers with higher CD4 cell counts. PMID: 2088528

Reduction of Maternal Mortality with Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy in a Large Cohort of HIV-Infected Pregnant Women in Malawi and Mozambique

Background: HIV infection is a major contributor to maternal mortality in resource-limited settings. The Drug Resource Enhancement Against AIDS and Malnutrition Programme has been promoting HAART use during pregnancy and postpartum for Prevention-of-mother-to-child-HIV transmission (PMTCT) irrespective of maternal CD4 cell counts since 2002. Methods: Records for all HIV+ pregnancies followed in Mozambique and Malawi from 6/2002 to 6/2010 were reviewed. The cohort was comprised by pregnancies where women were referred for PMTCT and started HAART during prenatal care (n = 8172, group 1) and pregnancies where women were referred on established HAART (n = 1978, group 2). Results: 10,150 pregnancies were followed. Median (IQR) baseline values were age 26 years (IQR:23-30), CD4 count 392 cells/mm(3) (IQR:258-563), Viral Load log(10) 3.9 (IQR:3.2-4.4), BMI 23.4 (IQR:21.5-25.7), Hemoglobin 10.0 (IQR:9.0-11.0). 101 maternal deaths (0.99%) occurred during pregnancy to 6 weeks postpartum: 87 (1.1%) in group 1 and 14 (0.7%) in group 2. Mortality was 1.3% in women with <than 350 CD4 cells/mm(3) and 0.7% in women with greater than 350 CD4s cells/mm(3) [OR = 1.9 (CL 1.3-2.9) p = 0.001]. Mortality was higher in patients with shorter antenatal HAART: 22/991 (2.2%) if less than 30 days and 79/9159 (0.9%) if 31 days or greater [OR = 2.6 (CL 1.6-4.2) p<0.001]. By multivariate analysis, shorter antenatal HAART (p, 0.001), baseline values for CD4 cell count (p = 0.012), hemoglobin (p = 0.02), and BMI (p<0.001) were associated with mortality. Four years later, survival was 92% for women with shorter antenatal HAART and 98% for women on established therapy prior to pregnancy, p = 0.001. Conclusions: Antiretrovirals for PMTCT purposes have significant impact on maternal mortality as do CD4 counts and nutritional status. In resource-limited settings, PMTCT programs should provide universal HAART to all HIV+ pregnant women given its impact in prevention of maternal death