Experimental estimation of the residual fatigue life of in-service wind turbine bolts

This study presents an experimental methodology aimed at estimating the residual fatigue life of in-service wind turbine bolts. The main objective is to assess the residual life of the bolts to plan their replacement and to avoid unexpected breakages of wind turbine blade connections. To develop the methodology, M16 bolts of quality 10.9 with controlled predamage were used, simulating in-service operating conditions. The fatigue tests were carried out taking care to place the nut at the point on the bolt that produces the highest damage at the same point where the predamage was performed. In addition, the influence of a possible angular positioning error on the residual fatigue life has been investigated. The residual fatigue life is estimated from the difference in fatigue life of new bolt tests and the fatigue life of predamaged bolt tests, simulating service conditions. Special care has been taken to guarantee that the most damaged zone of the bolt in service is also in the position that produces the highest damage during tests. An experimental procedure for determining the fatigue life of a new bolt from tests conducted on a bolt under the same operating conditions was developed. The developed methodology has been applied to M20 bolts belonging to real turbines in service

Anaerobic digestion of whole-crop winter wheat silage for renewable energy production

With biogas production expanding across Europe in response to renewable energy incentives, a wider variety of crops need to be considered as feedstock. Maize, the most commonly used crop at present, is not ideal in cooler, wetter regions, where higher energy yields per hectare might be achieved with other cereals. Winter wheat is a possible candidate because, under these conditions, it has a good biomass yield, can be ensiled, and can be used as a whole crop material. The results showed that, when harvested at the medium milk stage, the specific methane yield was 0.32 m3 CH4 kg–1 volatile solids added, equal to 73% of the measured calorific value. Using crop yield values for the north of England, a net energy yield of 146–155 GJ ha–1 year–1 could be achieved after taking into account both direct and indirect energy consumption in cultivation, processing through anaerobic digestion, and spreading digestate back to the land. The process showed some limitations, however: the relatively low density of the substrate made it difficult to mix the digester, and there was a buildup of soluble chemical oxygen demand, which represented a loss in methane potential and may also have led to biofoaming. The high nitrogen content of the wheat initially caused problems, but these could be overcome by acclimatization. A combination of these factors is likely to limit the loading that can be applied to the digester when using winter wheat as a substrat

Nominal Unification of Higher Order Expressions with Recursive Let

A sound and complete algorithm for nominal unification of higher-order expressions with a recursive let is described, and shown to run in non-deterministic polynomial time. We also explore specializations like nominal letrec-matching for plain expressions and for DAGs and determine the complexity of corresponding unification problems.Comment: Pre-proceedings paper presented at the 26th International Symposium on Logic-Based Program Synthesis and Transformation (LOPSTR 2016), Edinburgh, Scotland UK, 6-8 September 2016 (arXiv:1608.02534

Propuesta de plan de manejo ambiental a partir de los indicadores de "GreenMetric ranking" para la Universidad Católica de Colombia

Trabajo de InvestigaciónEn la primera parte de esta investigación, se muestra como en los últimos años la gestión ambiental dentro de las diferentes organizaciones ha adquirido una mayor relevancia; es así como la presente propuesta tuvo como fin estudiar los indicadores desarrollados por el reconocido programa GreenMetric ranking, creado por la Universidad de Indonesia en el año 2010, aplicándolos a un plan de manejo ambiental en la Universidad Católica de Colombia. Teniendo como guía y basados en este programa se pudo diagnosticar, evaluar y crear la propuesta de manejo ambiental dirigida a la Universidad detectando las falencias y debilidades encontradas a lo largo de esta investigación, estudiando los indicadores y criterios de evaluación usados por GreenMetric, que cubren aspectos como infraestructura, energía y cambio climático, agua, residuos, transporte y educación. Se entenderá la importancia que tiene cada uno de estos indicadores especialmente diseñados para evaluar Instituciones de educación superior, y cómo el estar desalineado con ellos implica que la Universidad Católica de Colombia no sea ambientalmente amigable.INTRODUCCIÓN 1. GENERALIDADES 2. DIAGNOSTICO UNIVERSIDAD CATÓLICA DE COLOMBIA 3. EVALUACIÓN GREENMETRIC 4. PROPUESTA PLAN DE MANEJO AMBIENTAL 5. CONCLUSIONES 6. RECOMENDACIONES BIBLIOGRAFÍA ANEXOSPregradoIngeniero Civi

Regulation of c-Jun NH2-terminal Kinase ( Jnk) Gene Expression during T Cell Activation

The c-Jun NH2-terminal kinases (JNKs) are a group of mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinases that participate in signal transduction events mediating specific cellular functions. Activation of JNK is regulated by phosphorylation in response to cellular stress and inflammatory cytokines. Here, we demonstrate that JNK is regulated by a second, novel mechanism. Induction of Jnk gene expression is required in specific tissues before activation of this signaling pathway. The in vivo and in vitro ligation of the T cell receptor (TCR) leads to induction of JNK gene and protein expression. TCR signals are sufficient to induce JNK expression, whereas JNK phosphorylation also requires CD28-mediated costimulatory signals. Therefore, both expression and activation contribute to the regulation of the JNK pathway to ensure proper control during the course of an immune response

A Formalization of the Theorem of Existence of First-Order Most General Unifiers

This work presents a formalization of the theorem of existence of most general unifiers in first-order signatures in the higher-order proof assistant PVS. The distinguishing feature of this formalization is that it remains close to the textbook proofs that are based on proving the correctness of the well-known Robinson's first-order unification algorithm. The formalization was applied inside a PVS development for term rewriting systems that provides a complete formalization of the Knuth-Bendix Critical Pair theorem, among other relevant theorems of the theory of rewriting. In addition, the formalization methodology has been proved of practical use in order to verify the correctness of unification algorithms in the style of the original Robinson's unification algorithm.Comment: In Proceedings LSFA 2011, arXiv:1203.542

Universal conductance enhancement and reduction of the two-orbital Kondo effect

We investigate theoretically the linear and nonlinear conductance through a nanostructure with two-fold degenerate single levels, corresponding to the transport through nanostructures such as a carbon nanotube, or double dot systems with capacitive interaction. It is shown that the presence of the interaction asymmetry between orbits/dots affects significantly the profile of the linear conductance at finite temperature, and, of the nonlinear conductance, particularly around half-filling, where the two-particle Kondo effect occurs. Within the range of experimentally feasible parameters, the SU(4) universal behavior is suggested, and comparison with relevant experiments is made.Comment: 10 pages, 16 figure

Estandarización y aplicación de la técnica de pcr – anidado para la detección de mycoplasma hyopneumoniae

El Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae es el agente causal de la Neumonía enzoótica porcina, una de las enfermedades más importantes en la industria porcina. En la actualidad, el proceso de diagnóstico ante-mortem es una de las principales diicultades, dadas la poca sensibilidad y especiicidad de las técnicas que se utilizan. El propósito de esta investigación fue estandarizar la técnica de Reacción en Cadena de la Polimerasa (PCR) anidada para la detección de Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae, utilizando diferentes métodos de extracción del ADN, tanto comerciales como convencionales. Para determinar la sensibilidad de la técnica se realizaron diluciones seriadas al cultivo de Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae, cepa J, mantenida en medio Friis. También se evaluaron algunas modiicaciones hechas a la mezcla de la reacción de PCR tradicional reportadas en la literatura y, una vez ajustada, la técnica fue aplicada en muestras clínicas como hisopados nasales y lavados traqueobronquiales. Los mejores resultados fueron obtenidos cuando el ADN se extrajo de la bacteria por calor y se trató con proteinasa K para luego ser utilizado en una reacción de PCR - anidado que no contenía estabilizadores de la Taq-polimerasa, como el glicerol o la seroalbúmina bovina. Bajo estas condiciones, se logró detectar M. hyopneumoniae hasta la dilución de 10-5 de un cultivo puro de la cepa J de referencia y también a partir de algunas muestras clínicas

Development of a monitoring system for COVID-19 monitoring in early stages

Covid-19 is considered the most infectious virus today. Likewise, the struggle to mitigate the effects of the variants, the flexibility in some measures such as the use of face masks, the advancement of vaccination and prevention and self-care campaigns continue to be topics of research and of global interest. The world health authorities published that the disease was characterized by presenting the same symptoms as the flu along with a complex picture where in the most serious cases they lead to difficulty breathing due to pneumonia, sepsis and septic shock that can lead to death. Some systems implemented for taking body temperature such as thermographic cameras, digital thermometers, for the description of symptoms in the people they analyze at the time of carrying out the epidemiological fences are not enough, since they handle low precision, are taken in isolation, individually or randomly and is not suitable for characterizing interest groups. Then, establishing risk levels by measuring non-invasive variables can be considered inputs into prevention campaigns and a low-cost way of monitoring the community. This article shows the design of a non-invasive embedded device for the measurement of 5 priority variables for the detection of the risk of covid-19 infection. The proposed device was duly calibrated and synchronized for the acquisition of data from 594 people in the city of Bucaramanga, Colombia, who authorize the monitoring of the symptoms. The people must be in a state of rest to be able to acquire the data with great accuracy, in this way the data is entered into the system in charge of doing the monitoring analysis. Additionally, the implementation of an interface that allows the visualization of results, laying the foundations for the development of automatic learning techniques or models for the risk classification in future work