Instantaneous, Short-Term and Predictive Long-Term Power Balancing Techniques in Intelligent Distribution Grids

Part 12: Integration of Power Electronics Systems with ICT - IIInternational audienceAn increased number of distributed small generators connected to the power grid allows higher total efficiency and higher stability of electrical power supply by exporting energy to the grid to be achieved during peak demand hours. On the other hand, it poses new challenges in structuring and developing the control approaches for these distributed energy resources. This paper proposes an improved method of real-time power balancing targeted to reaching long-term energy management objectives. The novel long-term energy management technique is proposed, that is based on load categorization and regulation of energy consumption by regulating electricity price function estimated with the proposed mathematical model. The method was evaluated by a LabVIEW model by simulating various types of loads. The price function for the defined energy generation pattern from renewable energy sources was obtained

Utilización de grasas de origen vegetal en raciones de corderos: rendimientos productivos y composición química de la canal

Ponencia presentada a las XI Jornadas de Producción Animal AIDA 2005. Publicada en un Volumen extra de la revista ITEA.Este trabajo ha sido realizado como parte del proyecto VA084/04 financiado por la Junta de Castilla y León.Peer reviewe

Interferometric microscopy study of the surface roughness of Portland cement under the action of different irrigants

Objectives: Some investigations suggested common Portland cement (PC) as a substitute material for MTA for endodontic use; both MTA and PC have a similar composition. The aim of this study was to determine the surface roughness of common PC before and after the exposition to different endodontic irrigating solutions: 10% and 20% citric acid, 17% ethylenediaminetetraacetic (EDTA) and 5% sodium hypochlorite. Study Design: Fifty PC samples in the form of cubes were prepared. PC was mixed with distilled water (powder/ liquid ratio 3:1 by weight). The samples were immersed for one minute in 10% and 20% citric acid, 17% EDTA and 5% sodium hypochlorite. After gold coating, PC samples were examined using the New View 100 Zygo interferometric microscope. It was used to examine and register the surface roughness and the profile of two different areas of each sample. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was carried out, and as the requirements were not met, use was made of the Kruskal-Wallis test for analysis of the results obtained, followed by contrasts using Tukey's contrast tests. Results: Sodium hypochlorite at a concentration of 5% significantly reduced the surface roughness of PC, while 20% citric acid significantly increased surface roughness. The other evaluated citric acid concentration (10%) slightly increased the surface roughness of PC, though statistical significance was not reached. EDTA at a concentration of 17% failed to modify PC surface roughness. Irrigation with 5% sodium hypochlorite and 20% citric acid lowered and raised the roughness values, respectively. Conclusions: The surface texture of PC is modified as the result of treatment with different irrigating solutions commonly used in endodontics, depending on their chemical composition and concentration

The EU in a nutshell. EU Centre in Singapore's Guide to European Integration and Institutions, 2016

What is the difference between a council and a commission, or an institution and an agency? What about the European Council, Council of Ministers and Council of Europe, and what do they do? What’s important and what’s not? Which actor or institution should we focus on when something happens? What degree of power does the European Union (EU) really have in political decisions, and in what areas? The EU has is often described as “sui generis”, an idiosyncratic political union, or an anomaly, which doesn’t do it any favours or help in our understanding of what it is

The Effect of Food Vouchers and an Educational Intervention on Promoting Healthy Eating in Vulnerable Families: A Pilot Study

Cost has been reported as the main barrier to healthy eating in vulnerable groups. We aimed to evaluate the effect of a nutrition education intervention on adherence to Mediterranean Diet and health when providing food vouchers. This pilot study has a randomized control trial design. We included 66 vulnerable users from the Red Cross of Zaragoza (Spain). Intervention and control group individuals received 120 euros/month of food vouchers over 3 months to be spent in supermarkets (60 euros/month if under 12 y) plus a 10-week nutrition education program for the intervention group. Family food purchases were assessed using electronically recorded supermarket-obtained transactions. During and at the end of the intervention the percentage of healthy food was higher in the intervention than in the control group. Once the nutrition education was over, differences between groups dissipated. In the intervention group, health parameters improved, particularly weight-status, lipids, and liver enzymes. Control participants gained weight, although lipid and liver enzymes improved. Blood pressure and HbA1c did not improve in either the intervention or the control group. In conclusion, providing unrestricted food vouchers to vulnerable groups to increase healthy food consumption appears to be insufficient and should be accompanied by medium-long term nutrition education

LipoBots : using liposomal vesicles as protective shell of urease-based nanomotors

Developing self-powered nanomotors made of biocompatible and functional components is of paramount importance in future biomedical applications. Herein, the functional features of LipoBots (LBs) composed of a liposomal carrier containing urease enzymes for propulsion, including their protective properties against acidic conditions and their on-demand triggered activation, are reported. Given the functional nature of liposomes, enzymes can be either encapsulated or coated on the surface of the vesicles. The influence of the location of urease on motion dynamics is first studied, finding that the surface-urease LBs undergo self-propulsion whereas the encapsulated-urease LBs do not. However, adding a percolating agent present in the bile salts to the encapsulated-urease LBs triggers active motion. Moreover, it is found that when both types of nanomotors are exposed to a medium of similar pH found in the stomach, the surface-urease LBs lose activity and motion capabilities, while the encapsulated-urease LBs retain activity and mobility. The results for the protection enzyme activity through encapsulation within liposomes and in situ triggering of the motion of LBs upon exposure to bile salts may open new avenues for the use of liposome-based nanomotors in drug delivery, for example, in the gastrointestinal tract, where bile salts are naturally present in the intestine

Employment Expectations and Gross Flows by Type of Work Contract

There is growing interest in understanding firms’ temporary and permanent employment practices and how institutional changes shape them. Using data on Spanish establishments, we examine: (a) how employers adjust temporary and permanent job and worker flows to prior employment expectations, and (b) how the 1994 and 1997 labour reforms promoting permanent employment affected establishments’ employment practices. Generally, establishments’ prior employment expectations are realized through changes in all job and worker flows. However, establishments uniquely rely on temporary hires as a buffer to confront diminishing long-run employment expectations. None of the reforms significantly affected establishments’ net temporary or permanent employment flows.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40032/3/wp646.pd

Exploiting MeSH indexing in MEDLINE to generate a data set for word sense disambiguation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Evaluation of Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD) methods in the biomedical domain is difficult because the available resources are either too small or too focused on specific types of entities (e.g. diseases or genes). We present a method that can be used to automatically develop a WSD test collection using the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) Metathesaurus and the manual MeSH indexing of MEDLINE. We demonstrate the use of this method by developing such a data set, called MSH WSD.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In our method, the Metathesaurus is first screened to identify ambiguous terms whose possible senses consist of two or more MeSH headings. We then use each ambiguous term and its corresponding MeSH heading to extract MEDLINE citations where the term and only one of the MeSH headings co-occur. The term found in the MEDLINE citation is automatically assigned the UMLS CUI linked to the MeSH heading. Each instance has been assigned a UMLS Concept Unique Identifier (CUI). We compare the characteristics of the MSH WSD data set to the previously existing NLM WSD data set.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The resulting MSH WSD data set consists of 106 ambiguous abbreviations, 88 ambiguous terms and 9 which are a combination of both, for a total of 203 ambiguous entities. For each ambiguous term/abbreviation, the data set contains a maximum of 100 instances per sense obtained from MEDLINE.</p> <p>We evaluated the reliability of the MSH WSD data set using existing knowledge-based methods and compared their performance to that of the results previously obtained by these algorithms on the pre-existing data set, NLM WSD. We show that the knowledge-based methods achieve different results but keep their relative performance except for the Journal Descriptor Indexing (JDI) method, whose performance is below the other methods.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The MSH WSD data set allows the evaluation of WSD algorithms in the biomedical domain. Compared to previously existing data sets, MSH WSD contains a larger number of biomedical terms/abbreviations and covers the largest set of UMLS Semantic Types. Furthermore, the MSH WSD data set has been generated automatically reusing already existing annotations and, therefore, can be regenerated from subsequent UMLS versions.</p

143 PRINCIPAL COMPONENT CLUSTERING OF FRONTAL PLANE KNEE KINEMATICS

Replication forks stall at different DNA obstacles such as those originated by transcription. Fork stalling can lead to DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) that will be preferentially repaired by homologous recombination when the sister chromatid is available. The Rrm3 helicase is a replisome component that promotes replication upon fork stalling, accumulates at highly transcribed regions and prevents not only transcription-induced replication fork stalling but also transcription-associated hyper-recombination. This led us to explore the possible role of Rrm3 in the repair of DSBs when originating at the passage of the replication fork. Using a mini-HO system that induces mainly single-stranded DNA breaks, we show that rrm3Δ cells are defective in DSB repair. The defect is clearly seen in sister chromatid recombination, the major repair pathway of replication-born DSBs. Our results indicate that Rrm3 recruitment to replication-born DSBs is crucial for viability, uncovering a new role for Rrm3 in the repair of broken replication forks.This work was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Innovation (BFU2013-42918), the European Union (FEDER), the European Research Council (ERC2014 AdG669898 TARLOOP), and the Junta de Andalucía (BIO1238). SMG was funded by a predoctoral training fellowship from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and BGG by a postdoctoral grant from the Scientific Foundation of the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC). Funding for open access charge: Grants from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Innovation (BFU2013-42918).Peer Reviewe

Unique features of the mode of action of ET-743

This paper describes the current knowledge of the primary mode of action of a natural product, ecteinascidin 743 (ET-743), derived from the marine tunicate Ecteinascidia turbinata. ET-743 was initially selected for preclinical development because of its potent antitumor activity observed against several human solid tumor types. In vitro, the drug is cytotoxic in the nanomolar range, and in the case of some very sensitive cell lines, in the picomolar range. The large potency differences observed among several solid tumor types indicate that this compound possesses some tumor selectivity, but the molecular basis of these differential effects remains to be elucidated. The present studies were undertaken to evaluate the mechanism of action of ET-743 in this context. The available information on ET-743 binding to DNA and its effects on transcriptional regulation point to a unique behavior of this drug, as it independently affects specific gene transcription in a promoter-dependent way. In addition, ET-743 shows a peculiar pattern of selectivity in cells with different defects in their DNA-repair pathways. These results highlight a unique property of ET-743, possibly explaining why it possesses antitumor activity against tumors that are refractory to standard anticancer drugs, all of which certainly act by mechanisms that are different from that of ET-743