Comparison of Pulsed Electroacoustic Measurements and AF-NUMIT3 Modeling of Polymers Irradiated With Monoenergetic Electrons

Successful spacecraft design and charging mitigation techniques require precise and accurate knowledge of charge deposition profiles. This paper compares models of charge deposition and transport using a venerable deep dielectric charging code, AF-NUMIT3, with direct measurements of charge profiles via pulsed electroacoustic (PEA) measurements. Eight different simulations were performed for comparison to PEA experiments of samples irradiated by 50 or 80 keV monoenergetic electrons in vacuum and at room temperature. Two materials, polyether-ether ketone (PEEK) and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), were chosen for their very low conductivities so that minimal charge migration would occur between irradiation and PEA measurements. PEEK was found to have low acoustic attenuation, while PTFE has high acoustic attenuation through the sample thicknesses of 125 and 250 μm for each material. The measurements were directly compared to AF-NUMIT3 simulations to validate aspects of the code and to investigate the importance of various simulation options, as well as to characterize the PEA instrumentation, measurement methods, and signal processing used. The measurement and simulation values for magnitude of charge deposition, penetration depth, and charge deposition spatial profiles are largely in agreement, though spatial and temporal distributions in incident electron flux and effects of radiation-induced conductivity (RIC) and delayed RIC during the deposition process complicate the process. This work provides an experimental validation of the AF-NUMIT3 deep dielectric charging code and insight into the accuracy and precision of the PEA method

The Frequency Dependence of Critical-velocity Behavior in Oscillatory Flow of Superfluid Helium-4 Through a 2-micrometer by 2-micrometer Aperture in a Thin Foil

The critical-velocity behavior of oscillatory superfluid Helium-4 flow through a 2-micrometer by 2-micrometer aperture in a 0.1-micrometer-thick foil has been studied from 0.36 K to 2.10 K at frequencies from less than 50 Hz up to above 1880 Hz. The pressure remained less than 0.5 bar. In early runs during which the frequency remained below 400 Hz, the critical velocity was a nearly-linearly decreasing function of increasing temperature throughout the region of temperature studied. In runs at the lowest frequencies, isolated 2 Pi phase slips could be observed at the onset of dissipation. In runs with frequencies higher than 400 Hz, downward curvature was observed in the decrease of critical velocity with increasing temperature. In addition, above 500 Hz an alteration in supercritical behavior was seen at the lower temperatures, involving the appearance of large energy-loss events. These irregular events typically lasted a few tens of half-cycles of oscillation and could involve hundreds of times more energy loss than would have occurred in a single complete 2 Pi phase slip at maximum flow. The temperatures at which this altered behavior was observed rose with frequency, from ~ 0.6 K and below, at 500 Hz, to ~ 1.0 K and below, at 1880 Hz.Comment: 35 pages, 13 figures, prequel to cond-mat/050203

Fixed remote surveillance of fuel sulfur content in ships from fixed sites in the Göteborg ship channel and Öresund bridge

In 2015 new rules from the IMO and legislation from EU (Sulfur directive) and the US requires ships to run with maximum fuel sulfur content (FSC) of 0.1 % m/m in northern European and North American waters. In order to promote a level playing field within the shipping sector, there is a need for measurement systems that can make effective compliance control and this is the main objective of the CompMon project, funded through the European CEF program (Connecting Europe Facility). As part of this project, an automatic sniffer sensor system has been applied in the Göteborg ship channel at the Älvsborg island during 3 years (2014- 2016) and at the Öresund Bridge during two months at the end of 2016. The typical distances from the ships here varied between 500 -1000 m. The sniffer system is based on several extractive instruments measuring concentrations of SO2 and CO2 and others species, such as NOx, in the ship emission plumes that drift over the measurement station. In addition to fixed stations, the system can also be used from mobile platforms such as harbor patrol vessels and aircraft. From the data above, together with information about the ships from AIS (Automatic Identification System) and wind data, the FSC is automatically calculated and the ship is identi- fied. This is done using software developed as part of this project (Single Emitter identification Tool).The measurement precision (1σ) of the sniffer system is approx. 0.04 % m/m for ships using a FSC of 0.1 % m/m. The sniffer system also has a negative bias in the measured FSC, varying between 0.04 % to 0.08 % m/m and this is accounted for when calculating the threshold for non-compliance. Based on the above, it is possible to identify ships with FSC above 0.18 % m/m with 95% confidence limit, if the bias is corrected for statistically. For the measurements at the Älvsborg island site in 2014 and 2015, the corresponding limit is higher, 0.29 % m/m, due to a measurement artifact that was eliminated in 2016. On board measurements in 2015 and 2016 by the Swedish port state control authority shows that most non-compliant ships had FSCs be- tween 0.1 % to 0.2 % m/m when controlled at berth and this is generally below the 95% confidence limit threshold of the sniffer. Therefore many non-compliant ships will not be detected when using the sniffer close to harbors and a more precise sensor is therefore preferred.The measurements at the Älvsborg island were carried out during a time period when the allowed FSC limit changed significantly. The data for 2014, corresponding to more than 4000 measurements of 500 individual ships, shows that 99 % of the ships were using compliant fuel below the FSC limit of 1 % m/m. In 2015 the FSC limit changed to 0.1 % m/m. The measurements in 2015 and 2016, corresponding to the same amount of ships as in 2014, showed that 91.5 % and 98 %, respectively, were using compliant fuel with respect to FSC. The lower compliance rate in 2015 compared to 2016 is potentially influenced by measurement artifacts that were later eliminated in 2016. At the Öresund Bridge. 58 ships were measured as part of the CompMon pro- ject. The measurements continued another month with support from the interreg project Envisum, with anoth- er 62 ships measured. The compliance level at the Öresund Bridge corresponds to 98 %. This is actually com- parable to the corresponding measurements elsewhere and at the Älvsborg island site during the same time period

Certification of an aircraft and airborne surveillance of fuel sulfur content in ships at the SECA border

In 2015 new rules from the IMO and legislation from EU (Sulfur directive) and the US requires ships to run with maximum fuel sulfur content (FSC) of 0.1 % m/m in northern European and North American waters. In order to promote a level playing field within the shipping sector, there is a need for measurement systems that can make effective compliance control and this is the main objective of the CompMon project, funded through the European CEF program (Connecting Europe Facility). As part of this project, a sensor system has been certified for ship surveillance measurements in a Piper Navajo aircraft and it has been demonstrated for airborne measurements of FSC in individual ships on the English Channel. The measurement system consists of an optical module which measures total emissions of SO2 and NO2 in g/s and a sniffer system by which FSC is retrieved from extractive measurements of SO2 and CO2. It can be used from fixed sites, patrol vessels and from aircraft. The advantage with airborne surveillance is the capability to check ships that are operating in the main shipping lanes, up to 200 nautical miles from shore. The precision of the estimated FSC from the sniffer system is 0.05 % m/m and hence at the 95 % confidence limit, ships above a FSC of 0.2 % m/m can be checked. The sniffer system also has a negative bias in the FSC of approx- imately 0.04 % m/m which is accounted for in the FSC calculations. The optical system has larger measurement uncertainties than the sniffer but it is intended mostly for guid- ance of other controls. As part of the CompMon project, a measurements campaign with the Navajo Piper aircraft was carried out at the SECA (Sulfur Emission Control Area) border in the English Channel at longitude 5 W. Six flight missions with duration of 4 to 5 hours were carried out from September 2 to 10, 2016, flying from Brest airport. In this manner it was possible to cover the longitude range 2o - 6o W. During the campaign, 114 ships were measured with the sniffer system, corresponding to 71 ships inside the SECA and 42 ships outside. The level of compli- ance inside the SECA was here 87 % and this is considerably lower than measurements carried out elsewhere within CompMon in other parts of the SECA (95-99 %). Two thirds of the non-complying vessels were leav- ing the SECA. With the optical system 110 individual ships were measured, 42 outside and 68 inside the SE- CA. The measurements show a similar pattern as the sniffer data but with a few false values. Nevertheless it is shown that both low and high FSC ships will be classified correctly with about 80-90 % probability with the optical system and this system is hence very promising as a tool to guide further compliance controls

Surveillance of Sulfur Emissions from Ships in Danish Waters

In 2015 new rules from the IMO and legislation from EU (Sulfur directive) requires ships to run with maximum fuel sulfur content (FSC) of 0.1 % m/m in northern European waters. In order to promote a level playing field within the shipping sector, there is a need for measurement systems that can make effective compliance control. This report describes the results from ship emission measurements on the waters surrounding Denmark from June 2015 to July 2017 on behalf of the Danish Environmental Protection Agency. The overall aim was to carry out operational surveillance of ships with respect to the EU sulfur directive and particularly the sulfur limits for marine fuel in the European Sulfur Emission Control Area (0.10 %), which entered into force on January 1st 2015, as well as to guide further port state control of ships at the destination harbors of the ships, both in Denmark and other ports. During the project the FSC of individual ships was estimated by perform- ing spot checks of exhaust plumes of individual ships. This was conducted by automatic gas sniffer measurements at the Great Belt Bridge and airborne surveillance measurements using sniffer and optical sensors. The data from the fixed system were transmitted in real time to a web database and alarms were triggered for high FSC ships in the form of emails. The report describes the technical systems and their performance and the general compliance levels of the measured ships. The measurement systems have been developed by Chalmers University of Technology through Swedish national funding and the EU project CompMon. The airborne dataset corresponds to approx. 900 individual ships, measured by sniffer or/and optical sensor over 245 flight hours. The optical sensor has low precision and is therefore used as a first alert system to identify ships running on high sulfur fuel. The precision of the airborne FSC meas- urements by the sniffer system is better and it is estimated as \ub1 0.05 % m/m (1σ) with a systematic bias of - 0.045 % m/m. Therefore only ships running with FSC of 0.2 % m/m or higher can be de- tected as non-compliant ships with good confidence limit (95 %) by the airborne sniffer system. The airborne measurements during 2015 and 2016 on Danish waters show that 94 % of the ships complied with the EU Sulphur directive, at the 95 % confidence limit. The compliance rate was lower, 92 %, during the 2nd half of 2016. In the period June 2015 to May 2017, 8426 sniffer measurements of individual ships were carried out at the Great Belt Bridge. However, there were technical problems in the first part of the project and the sniffer therefore had reduced sensitivity the first year and only high sulfur ships (> 1 % FSC) could be detected as non-complying vessels with appropriate statistical confidence. The precision in the estimated FSC by the fixed sniffer system is estimated as \ub1 0.04 % m/m (1σ) with a systematic bias of - 0.055 % m/m. Therefore only ships running with FSC of 0.18 % or higher can be detected as non-compliant ships with good confidence limit (95 %) by the fixed sniffer system. The data for the period June 2016 to October 2016 show a compliance rate of 94.6 % which increased to 97.4 % in the period January 2017 to May 2017. The compliance level during different time periods and platforms varied between 92-97 %. Here 1 - 2 % of the ships were in gross non-compliance with the EU sulfur directive with FSC values above 0.5 % m/m. There were differences over time, with the highest values in the summer of 2016. The compliance level was close to the values (95 %) measured by port state control authorities in Sweden and Denmark 2015 and 2016. When comparing ships measured by port state and the ones in this project it can be deduced that the efficiency of finding non-compliant vessels could be increased by at least a factor of 4, if the port state controls were guided by measurements. Most of the non-compliant ships (90 %) were measured high only once. But there were cases with individual ships and ship operators that were more abundant in the non-compliance statistics. The non- compliant ships that were seldom in the area around Denmark had higher emissions of SO2 than the non-compliant ones that operated their more frequently. On several occasions during this study we encountered ships equipped with scrubbers that were non-compliant with respect to the EU sulfur directive

Simulations of Vortex Evolution and Phase Slip in Oscillatory Potential Flow of the Superfluid Component of Helium-4 Through an Aperture

The evolution of semicircular quantum vortex loops in oscillating potential flow emerging from an aperture is simulated in some highly symmetrical cases. As the frequency of potential flow oscillation increases, vortex loops that are evolving so as eventually to cross all of the streamlines of potential flow are drawn back toward the aperture when the flow reverses. As a result, the escape size of the vortex loops, and hence the net energy transferred from potential flow to vortex flow in such 2 Pi phase-slip events, decreases as the oscillation frequency increases. Above some aperture-dependent and flow-dependent threshold frequency, vortex loops are drawn back into the aperture. Simulations are preformed using both radial potential flow and oblate-spheroidal potential flow.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures, sequel to cond-mat/050203

Field test of available methods to measure remotely SOx and NOx emissions from ships

Methods for the determination of ship fuel sulphur content and NOx emission factors based on remote measurements have been compared in the harbour of Rotterdam and compared to direct stack emission measurements on the ferry Stena Hollandica. The methods were selected based on a review of the available literature on ship emission measurements. They were either optical (LIDAR, Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (DOAS), UV camera), combined with model-based estimates of fuel consumption, or based on the so called "sniffer" principle, where SO2 or NOx emission factors are determined from simultaneous measurement of the increase of CO2 and SO2 or NOx concentrations in the plume of the ship compared to the background. The measurements were performed from stations at land, from a boat and from a helicopter. Mobile measurement platforms were found to have important advantages compared to the land-based ones because they allow optimizing the sampling conditions and sampling from ships on the open sea. Although optical methods can provide reliable results it was found that at the state of the art level, the "sniffer" approach is the most convenient technique for determining both SO2 and NOx emission factors remotely. The average random error on the determination of SO2 emission factors comparing two identical instrumental set-ups was 6 %. However, it was found that apparently minor differences in the instrumental characteristics, such as response time, could cause significant differences between the emission factors determined. Direct stack measurements showed that about 14% of the fuel sulphur content was not emitted as SO2. This was supported by the remote measurements and is in agreement with the results of other field studies. S, 1984, Notes on Heavy Fuel Oi

Field test of available methods to measure remotely SO2 and NOx emissions from ships

Methods for the determination of ship fuel sulphur content and NOx emission factors based on remote measurements have been compared in the harbour of Rotterdam and compared to direct stack emission measurements on the ferry Stena Hollandica. The methods were selected based on a review of the available literature on ship emission measurements. They were either optical (LIDAR, DOAS, UV camera), combined with model based estimates of fuel consumption, or based on the so called ‘sniffer’ principle, where SO2 or NOx emission factors are determined from simultaneous measurement of the increase of CO2 and SO2 or NOx concentrations in the plume of the ship compared to the background. The measurements were performed from stations at land, from a boat and from a helicopter. Mobile measurement platforms were found to have important advantages compared to the landbased ones because they allow to optimize the sampling conditions and to sample from ships on the open sea. Although optical methods can provide reliable results it was found that at the state of the art, the “sniffer” approach is the most convenient technique for determining both SO2 and NOx emission factors remotely. The average random error on the determination of SO2 emission factors comparing two identical instrumental set-ups was 6%. However, it was found that apparently minor differences in the instrumental characteristics, such as response time, could cause significant differences between the emission factors determined. Direct stack measurements showed that about 14% of the fuel sulphur content was not emitted as SO2. This was supported by the remote measurements and is in agreement with the results of other field studies.JRC.H.2-Air and Climat

Vasohibin inhibits angiogenic sprouting in vitro and supports vascular maturation processes in vivo

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The murine homologue of human vasohibin (mVASH1), a putative antiangiogenic protein, was investigated for its effects on <it>in vitro </it>and <it>in vivo </it>angiogenesis.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Cell growth and migration were analyzed in murine fibroblasts, smooth muscle cells and endothelial cells. Angiogenic sprouting was studied in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) in the spheroid sprouting assay. <it>In vivo </it>effects on blood vessel formation were investigated in the chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) assay and in the C57BL/6 melanoma xenograft model.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Purified murine and human VASH1 protein induced apoptosis of murine fibroblasts <it>in vitro</it>, but not of vascular aortic smooth muscle cells (AoSMC) or endothelial cells. Adenoviral overexpression of murine and human VASH1 inhibited capillary sprouting of HUVECs in the spheroid assay. Administration of recombinant murine and human VASH1 inhibited growth of large vessels in the CAM assay and promoted the formation of a dense, fine vascular network. Murine VASH1-overexpressing B16F10 melanomas displayed a reduction in large vessels and vascular area. Moreover, tumors showed more microvessels that stained positive for the mural cell markers α-smooth muscle cell actin (ASMA) and proteoglycan (NG2).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our data imply that murine VASH1 causes angiogenic remodelling by inhibiting angiogenic sprouting and large vessel growth, thereby supporting the formation of a vascular bed consisting predominantly of mature microvessels.</p

Angiogenesis in urinary bladder carcinoma as defined by microvessel density (MVD) after immunohistochemical staining for Factor VIII and CD31

Background: Among the patients with bladder cancer, a group is still at risk of disease recurrence, progression, and death from their cancer after curative treatment. Angiogenesis is a crucial pathogenic mechanism for this type of urothelial carcinoma and is a potential therapeutic target. Objectives: To quantify tumor angiogenesis in bladder cancer and determine whether it correlates with tumor stage and grade. Patients and methods: A series of 42 archival samples from carcinomas of the urinary bladder were graded, staged, and analyzed for microvessel density (MVD) by a double immunohistochemical technique using Factor VIII (FVIII) and CD31 antibodies. The correlation between MVD and histopathological grade and tumor stage was evaluated. Results: FVIII and CD31 immunoreactivity was observed in 100% of cases and more intensely with CD31. Significantly higher MVD was determined in invasive tumors than in superficial tumors (p&#60;0.05). MVD increased with tumor grade and stage (p&#60;0.05); MVD was not affected by age or sex of the patients. Conclusion: These data demonstrate that MVD in bladder carcinoma correlates with the tumor grade and stage. Quantification of tumor angiogenesis may allow selection of the type of treatment for bladder cancer patients