Analysis of the Behaviour of Biofuel-Fired Gas Turbine Power Plants

The utilisation of biofuels in gas turbines is a promising alternative to fossil fuels for power generation. It would lead to significant reduction of CO2 emissions using an existing combustion technology, although significant changes seem to be needed and further technological development is necessary. The goal of this work is to perform energy and exergy analyses of the behaviour of gas turbines fired with biogas, ethanol and synthesis gas (bio-syngas), compared with natural gas. The global energy transformation process (i.e. from biomass to electricity) has also been studied. Furthermore, the potential reduction of CO2 emissions attained by the use of biofuels has been determined, considering the restrictions regarding biomass availability. Two different simulation tools have been used to accomplish the aims of this work. The results suggest a high interest and the technical viability of the use of Biomass Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (BIGCC) systems for large scale power generation

Los musgos (bryophyta) de Argentina

The moss flora of Argentina contains 990 species, 5 subspecies and 56 accepted varieties in 264 genera, plus 1 species and 13 varieties which are only tentatively accepted. The checklist includes legitimate accepted taxa with primary references and distributional data for Argentine provinces. All entries to the list are based on literature records. Additionally, the recognized taxonomic and nomenclatural synonyms are given in a separate alphabetical list. An extensive bibliography is given to vouch for occurrence of the plants and a map helps in the location of provincial distributions

Nurse Practitioners: A Call for Implimentation in Manitoba

Nurse practitioners (NPs) are an underutilized resource in Manitoba. The purpose of this literature review was to provide an overview of the current situation of nurse practitioners in Manitoba, and to provide research-based recommendations for the implementation of nurse practitioners in Manitoba. The recommendations are: 1. The current regulating body of Registered Nurses in Manitoba (College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba, or CRNM) must recognize nurse practitioners as expert nurses, in following Benner\u27s (1984) stages of nursing practice. This recognition would require a graduate degree as an entry-level educational requirement. 2. NP licensure must be required in order to provide a standardized professional designation to the public and to provide a means for regulation and disciplinary action (Bennett, 2001). 3. Lastly, legislation must be enacted that allows nurse practitioners to have an autonomous practice within a defined scope of practice, in line with their graduate education (Hall, 2000). Implementation of these research-based recommendations would allow Manitoba residents to have greater access to effective, cost-efficient primary care

Complexity of colouring problems restricted to unichord-free and \{square,unichord\}-free graphs

A \emph{unichord} in a graph is an edge that is the unique chord of a cycle. A \emph{square} is an induced cycle on four vertices. A graph is \emph{unichord-free} if none of its edges is a unichord. We give a slight restatement of a known structure theorem for unichord-free graphs and use it to show that, with the only exception of the complete graph $K_4$, every square-free, unichord-free graph of maximum degree~3 can be total-coloured with four colours. Our proof can be turned into a polynomial time algorithm that actually outputs the colouring. This settles the class of square-free, unichord-free graphs as a class for which edge-colouring is NP-complete but total-colouring is polynomial

Sobre el género Streptopogon (Pottiaceae, Musci) en Argentina subtropical

Four species of Streptopogon are new to Argentina. The Bolivian S. heterophyllus, the only species previously registered is excluded from the Argentinian flora, and a major range extension of the Mexican S. matudianus is presented. Treatment of all four taxa includes descriptions, illustrations and SEM micrographs of sporophytic characters

A new genus and species of Heligmonellidae (Nematoda: Trichostrongylina) parasitic in Delomys dorsalis (Rodentia: Sigmodontinae) from Misiones, Argentina

Alippistrongylus bicaudatus gen. et sp. n. (Nematoda: Heligmonellidae) is described from the striped Atlantic forest rat, Delomys dorsalis (Hensel) (Rodentia: Sigmodontinae), from the province of Misiones in Argentina. The new genus and species is characterised by a synlophe of 21 unequal ridges in both sexes without a gradient in size, with two ridges weakly sclerotised and oriented perpendicularly in the dorsal left quadrant; males with a highly dissymmetrical bursa with a hypertrophied right lobe, and females with a dorsal conical appendage just posterior to the vulva, conferring a two-tailed appearance to the female worms.Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Muse

Development of Protective Clothing against Nanoparticle Based on Electrospun Nanofibers

In this paper, the development of efficient protective clothing against nanoparticulate aerosols is presented. Nanofibrous mats of polyamide 6 (PA6) were deposited onto a nonwoven viscose substrate by electrospinning technique. The influence of electrospinning parameters, including solution concentration, viscosity, and conductivity, was studied for the production of nonwovens with controlled fiber diameter showing a size distribution ranging from 66 to 195 nm. By varying several process parameters, textiles with different thickness of the nanofiber layer and thus air permeability were obtained. A hot-press lamination process using a thermoplastic resin as glue was applied to improve the adhesion of the nanofiber layer onto the textile support. After 1500 cycles of repeated compression and torsion, the nanofiber layer was still firmly attached to the support, while mechanical damage is visible in some areas. The penetration of NaCl particles with diameter ranging from 15 to 300 nm through the electrospun textiles was found to be strongly dependent on nanofiber layer thickness. A really thin nanofiber coating provides up to 80% retention of 20 nm size particles and over 50% retention of 200 nm size nanoparticles. Increasing the thickness of the nanofiber mat, the filtration efficiency was increased to over 99% along the whole nanoparticle range. The results obtained highlight the potential of nanofibers in the development of efficient personal protective equipments against nanoparticles.The financial support of this work was provided by MICINN (Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation) and ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) (ref.: PSE-420000-2008–003), and ACC1´O (Catalan Business Competitiveness Support Agency