Damage of bearings caused by electrical discharge currents at large drives derived from latest field research results

Bearing currents are not all the same. Under certain circumstances and special use cases classic bearing insulations are not sufficient anymore to prevent bearing currents due to the operation of frequency converters. Additional corrective measures have to be implemented to reduce the source of bearing currents the common mode current. The usage of nanocrystalline tape wound cores shows high effectiveness. As part of a big field study with more than 50 large drive trains in the primary industry, the damaging mechanics of bearing currents are examined under real conditions. Of exceptional high interest is the influence of disturbances which can hardly be simulated in the laboratory. Additional to the shielded motor cable parallel installed functional potential equalization cables applied multiple times have almost no effect in regard to reducing the bearing current. With an optimal installed functional potential equalization system more than 95 percent of the common mode current can flow back through the motor cable shield to the converter. The disturbance impact in the field can influence the voltage over the bearing that breakthroughs are favored but also reduced

Algae Biorefinery – Material and energy use of algae

Algae offer as much as 30 times greater biomass productivity than terrestrial plants, and are able to fix carbon and convert it into a number of interesting products. The numerous challenges in algae production and use extend across the entire process chain. They include the selection of suitable algal phyla, cultivation (which takes place either in open ponds or in closed systems), extraction of the biomass from the suspension, through to optimal use of the obtained biomass. The basic suitability of aquatic biomass for material use and energy supply has been demonstrated in a large number of studies. Numerous research projects are concerned with identifying the optimal processes to enable its widespread implementation. [... aus der Einleitung

The Process-Outcome Mindfulness Effects in Trainees (PrOMET) study: protocol of a pragmatic randomized controlled trial

Background: Mindfulness has its origins in an Eastern Buddhist tradition that is over 2500 years old and can be defined as a specific form of attention that is non-judgmental, purposeful, and focused on the present moment. It has been well established in cognitive-behavior therapy in the last decades, while it has been investigated in manualized group settings such as mindfulness-based stress reduction and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. However, there is scarce research evidence on the effects of mindfulness as a treatment element in individual therapy. Consequently, the demand to investigate mindfulness under effectiveness conditions in trainee therapists has been highlighted. Methods/Design: To fill in this research gap, we designed the PrOMET Study. In our study, we will investigate the effects of brief, audiotape-presented, session-introducing interventions with mindfulness elements conducted by trainee therapists and their patients at the beginning of individual therapy sessions in a prospective, randomized, controlled design under naturalistic conditions with a total of 30 trainee therapists and 150 patients with depression and anxiety disorders in a large outpatient training center. We hypothesize that the primary outcomes of the session-introducing intervention with mindfulness elements will be positive effects on therapeutic alliance (Working Alliance Inventory) and general clinical symptomatology (Brief Symptom Checklist) in contrast to the session-introducing progressive muscle relaxation and treatment-as-usual control conditions. Treatment duration is 25 therapy sessions. Therapeutic alliance will be assessed on a session-to-session basis. Clinical symptomatology will be assessed at baseline, session 5, 15 and 25. We will conduct multilevel modeling to address the nested data structure. The secondary outcome measures include depression, anxiety, interpersonal functioning, mindful awareness, and mindfulness during the sessions. Discussion: The study results could provide important practical implications because they could inform ideas on how to improve the clinical training of psychotherapists that could be implemented very easily; this is because there is no need for complex infrastructures or additional time concerning these brief session-introducing interventions with mindfulness elements that are directly implemented in the treatment sessions. Trial registration: From ClinicalTrials.gov, Identifier: NCT02270073 (registered October 6, 2014

Autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplantation for multiple sclerosis: a position paper and registry outline

Background: While substantial progress has been made in the development of disease-modifying medications for multiple sclerosis (MS), a high percentage of treated patients still show progression and persistent inflammatory activity. Autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (AHSCT) aims at eliminating a pathogenic immune repertoire through intense short-term immunosuppression that enables subsequent regeneration of a new and healthy immune system to re-establish immune tolerance for a long period of time. A number of mostly open-label, uncontrolled studies conducted over the past 20 years collected about 4000 cases. They uniformly reported high efficacy of AHSCT in controlling MS inflammatory disease activity, more markedly beneficial in relapsing-remitting MS. Immunological studies provided evidence for qualitative immune resetting following AHSCT. These data and improved safety profiles of transplantation procedures spurred interest in using AHSCT as a treatment option for MS. Objective: To develop expert consensus recommendations on AHSCT in Germany and outline a registry study project. Methods: An open call among MS neurologists as well as among experts in stem cell transplantation in Germany started in December 2021 to join a series of virtual meetings. Results: We provide a consensus-based opinion paper authored by 25 experts on the up-to-date optimal use of AHSCT in managing MS based on the Swiss criteria. Current data indicate that patients who are most likely to benefit from AHSCT have relapsing-remitting MS and are young, ambulatory and have high disease activity. Treatment data with AHSCT will be collected within the German REgistry Cohort of autologous haematopoietic stem CeLl trAnsplantation In MS (RECLAIM). Conclusion: Further clinical trials, including registry-based analyses, are urgently needed to better define the patient characteristics, efficacy and safety profile of AHSCT compared with other high-efficacy therapies and to optimally position it as a treatment option in different MS disease stages. Keywords: Autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (AHSCT), multiple sclerosis, registry study, treatment recommendation

A Review of the Tools Used for Marine Monitoring in the UK: Combining Historic and Contemporary Methods with Modeling and Socioeconomics to Fulfill Legislative Needs and Scientific Ambitions

Marine environmental monitoring is undertaken to provide evidence that environmental management targets are being met. Moreover, monitoring also provides context to marine science and over the last century has allowed development of a critical scientific understanding of the marine environment and the impacts that humans are having on it. The seas around the UK are currently monitored by targeted, impact-driven, programmes (e.g., fishery or pollution based monitoring) often using traditional techniques, many of which have not changed significantly since the early 1900s. The advent of a new wave of automated technology, in combination with changing political and economic circumstances, means that there is currently a strong drive to move toward a more refined, efficient, and effective way of monitoring. We describe the policy and scientific rationale for monitoring our seas, alongside a comprehensive description of the types of equipment and methodology currently used and the technologies that are likely to be used in the future. We contextualize the way new technologies and methodologies may impact monitoring and discuss how whole ecosystems models can give an integrated, comprehensive approach to impact assessment. Furthermore, we discuss how an understanding of the value of each data point is crucial to assess the true costs and benefits to society of a marine monitoring programme

Data Handling and Preservation for the TanDEM-X Satellite Mission

The main purpose of TanDEM-X – a German SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) interferometric satellite mission – is to produce a world-wide consistent and reliable digital elevation model (DEM) with accuracy to the HRTI-3 (High-Resolution Terrain Information) specifications. To reach this goal, the existing TerraSAR-X Mission will be extended by a second radar satellite, which is almost similar to the already flying one. A world-wide network of receiving stations is necessary to downlink the acquired SAR-data with a volume of 350 TB in two and a half year. In addition, also the Payload Ground Segment must be updated to manage the new workflows and the high amount of data up to 2000 TB to produce the global DEM with a volume of approximately 15 TB

The Operating Tool – a Framework for Monitoring and Control of Heterogeneous Data and Workflows

The Operating Tool (OT) is a graphical user interface to monitor and control heterogeneous data and workflows in distributed services. It has been designed as a configurable framework with a flexible set of re-usable views, which can be instantiated to communicate with the remote services over a wide range of protocols as CORBA, CIP, SOAP, LDAP, HTTP, and the file system. The implementation profits from an architecture using parameterised building blocks, based on the Model-View-Controller paradigm, that are assembled using a very simple but powerful XML configuration file syntax. Displaying and having access to the interfaces of several services within one tool enables the user to track the stages in the production process and monitor the status across service boundaries. In case of an error, the operator can interact with the process at the location that caused the problem

Damage of bearings caused by electrical discharge currents at large drives derived from latest field research results

Bearing currents are not all the same. Under certain circumstances and special use cases classic bearing insulations are not sufficient anymore to prevent bearing currents due to the operation of frequency converters. Additional corrective measures have to be implemented to reduce the source of bearing currents the common mode current. The usage of nanocrystalline tape wound cores shows high effectiveness. As part of a big field study with more than 50 large drive trains in the primary industry, the damaging mechanics of bearing currents are examined under real conditions. Of exceptional high interest is the influence of disturbances which can hardly be simulated in the laboratory. Additional to the shielded motor cable parallel installed functional potential equalization cables applied multiple times have almost no effect in regard to reducing the bearing current. With an optimal installed functional potential equalization system more than 95 percent of the common mode current can flow back through the motor cable shield to the converter. The disturbance impact in the field can influence the voltage over the bearing that breakthroughs are favored but also reduced

Damage of bearings caused by electrical discharge currents at large drives derived from latest field research results

Bearing currents are not all the same. Under certain circumstances and special use cases classic bearing insulations are not sufficient anymore to prevent bearing currents due to the operation of frequency converters. Additional corrective measures have to be implemented to reduce the source of bearing currents the common mode current. The usage of nanocrystalline tape wound cores shows high effectiveness. As part of a big field study with more than 50 large drive trains in the primary industry, the damaging mechanics of bearing currents are examined under real conditions. Of exceptional high interest is the influence of disturbances which can hardly be simulated in the laboratory. Additional to the shielded motor cable parallel installed functional potential equalization cables applied multiple times have almost no effect in regard to reducing the bearing current. With an optimal installed functional potential equalization system more than 95 percent of the common mode current can flow back through the motor cable shield to the converter. The disturbance impact in the field can influence the voltage over the bearing that breakthroughs are favored but also reduced

GS Verification Report - Volume 02: TanDEM-X Ordering / Acquisition Request Interfaces (AS-02001)

This report contains the ground segment verification test for the TanDEM-X acquisition ordering and status feedback scenario. All three TanDEM-X segments (IOCS, MOS and PGS) are involved