Improving Wind Turbine Gearbox Reliability: Preprint

This paper describes a new research and development initiative to improve gearbox reliability in wind turbines begun at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, USA

“I think it fits in”: Using Process Drama to Promote Agentic Writing with Primary School Children

Set against the backdrop of children being “alienated” from their writing (Lambirth 2016), this paper is taken from a UKLA sponsored project where primary school teachers were trained to use process drama in order to give children more agency in their writing across the curriculum. Here we use discourse analysis (Gee 2010) to think about the children’s historical creative writing in relation to the drama lessons which are differently framed (Bernstein 2000) by the teachers. Building upon a theoretical model of drama as “blended space” (Duffy 2014) and writing as problem-solving (Bereiter and Scardamalia 1986), a case is made that process drama can lead to what we term ‘agentic writing’. Agentic writing, we demonstrate, involves children actively translating their embodied experience of the blended space into writing by making a range of intertextual borrowings. These borrowing serve both to capture and transform their embodied experience as the children gain agency by “standing outside language” to achieve “double voicedness” (Bakthin 1986). Seeing the relationship between process drama and writing in this light, we argue, provides a means of reconnecting children to the act of writing

Mechanistic investigations of matrix metalloproteinase-8 inhibition by metal abstraction peptide

The mechanism of matrix metalloproteinase-8 (MMP-8) inhibition was investigated using ellipsometric measurements of the interaction of MMP-8 with a surface bound peptide inhibitor, tether-metal abstraction peptide (MAP), bound to self-assembled monolayer films. MMP-8 is a collagenase whose activity and dysregulation have been implicated in a number of disease states, including cancer metastasis, diabetic neuropathy, and degradation of biomedical reconstructions, including dental restorations. Regulation of activity of MMP-8 and other matrix metalloproteinases is thus a significant, but challenging, therapeutic target. Strong inhibition of MMP-8 activity has recently been achieved via the small metal binding peptide tether-MAP. Here, the authors elucidate the mechanism of this inhibition and demonstrate that it occurs through the direct interaction of the MAP Tag and the Zn2+ binding site in the MMP-8 active site. This enhanced understanding of the mechanism of inhibition will allow the design of more potent inhibitors as well as assays important for monitoring critical MMP levels in disease states

Gearbox Reliability Collaborative Phase 3 Gearbox 2 Test Plan

Gearboxes in wind turbines have not been achieving their expected design life even though they commonly meet or exceed the design criteria specified in current design standards. One of the basic premises of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Gearbox Reliability Collaborative (GRC) is that the low gearbox reliability results from the absence of critical elements in the design process or insufficient design tools. Key goals of the GRC are to improve design approaches and analysis tools and to recommend practices and test methods resulting in improved design standards for wind turbine gearboxes that lower the cost of energy (COE) through improved reliability. The GRC uses a combined gearbox testing, modeling and analysis approach, along with a database of information from gearbox failures collected from overhauls and investigation of gearbox condition monitoring techniques to improve wind turbine operations and maintenance practices. Testing of Gearbox 2 (GB2) using the two-speed turbine controller that has been used in prior testing. This test series will investigate non-torque loads, high-speed shaft misalignment, and reproduction of field conditions in the dynamometer. This test series will also include vibration testing using an eddy-current brake on the gearbox's high speed shaft

NREL Gearbox Reliability Collaborative: Comparing In-Field Gearbox Response to Different Dynamometer Test Conditions: Preprint

This paper presents the results of NREL's Gearbox Reliability Collaborative comparison of dynamometer tests conducted on a 750-kW gearbox to field testing

Nonlinear waves in hyperbolic metamaterials: focus on solitons and rogues

The investigation of hyperbolic metamaterials, shows that metal layers that are part of graphene structures, and also types I and II layered systems, are readily controlled. Since graphene is a nicely conducting sheet it can be easily managed. The literature only eveals a, limited, systematic, approach to the onset of nonlinearity, especially for the methodology based around the famous nonlinear Schrödinger equation [NLSE]. This presentation reveals nonlinear outcomes involving solitons sustained by the popular, and more straightforward to fabricate, type II hyperbolic metamaterials. The NLSE for type II metatamaterials is developed and nonlinear, non-stationary diffraction and dispersion in such important, and active, planar hyperbolic metamaterials is developed. For rogue waves in metamaterials only a few recent numerical studies exist. The basic model assumes a uniform background to which is added a time-evolving perturbation in order to witness the growth of nonlinear waves out of nowhere. This is discussed here using a new NLSE appropriate to hyperbolic metamaterials that would normally produce temporal solitons. The main conclusion is that new pathways for rogue waves can emerge in the form of Peregrine solitons (and near-Peregrines) within a nonlinear hyperbolic metamaterial, based upon double negative guidelines, and where, potentially, magnetooptic control could be practically exerted

The potential of painting: unlocking Disenfranchised Grief for people living with dementia

As part of the “Creative Well” programme at Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board (BCUHN) North Wales, artist/researchers Megan Wyatt and Susan Liggett qualitatively investigated how painting can access a means of communication for people living with Dementia. In a workshop setting within a gallery environment at Ruthin Crafts Centre, participants living with dementia were facilitated on a one to one basis the opportunity to paint alongside the artist/researchers. The participants were from a wellestablished art group called “Lost in Art” that is managed by Denbighshire Arts Service. During the workshops, a number of experiences were articulated. These included experiences of illness, crisis and loss. They were captured through observations, interviews, visual art and video to contribute to new understandings and models of engagement through art for people living with dementia and their carers. Focusing on theory and practice in arts based research and the social sciences, this paper investigates the potential of painting to unlock experiences such as disenfranchised grief for people living with dementia. The conclusions do not measure how and if participants felt disenfranchised grief but rather provide an alternative to augment the body of knowledge surrounding how people living with dementia can communicate feelings of disenfranchised grief through painting. Objective: In this presentation I aim to outline the main findings from the above paper that is to be published in an academic journal later in the year on Illness Crisis and Loss published by Sage

Collaboration between academics and teachers : a complex relationship

Collaboration between academics and teachers has become increasingly prevalent over recent years. Whether its aim is joint research or continuing professional development for teachers, collaboration seems to offer a realistic opportunity for reducing the perceived gap between theory and practice. However, collaboration is not merely academics and teachers working together on a common project. It is complex in nature and involves a range of requirements that must be satisfied in order to maximise the potential of the relationship. In this paper we will theorise on the nature of academics and teachers working together and suggest that a working relationship between academic researchers and teachers can be one of three models: client–supplier, a coercive relationship or a collaborative relationship. We identify and unpack specific factors that underpin collaboration and suggest a number of concrete actions to establish collaboration between academics and teachers. We draw heavily from existing literature and our own reflections on two collaborative projects with which we have recently been involved. We use data from these projects to provide a number of anecdotes from the teachers who participated to support our own reflections. Finally, we suggest that further research should investigate the different ways attempts to collaborate fail, to build a more complete sense of the problems and potential of this special relationship. Keywords: collaboration; continuing professional development; action research; science teacher

The Maine Annex, vol. 1, no. 13

The Maine Annex, published by the students of the University of Maine at the Brunswick Campus, was launched January 10, 1947. Editors introduced the publication as the product of a group of progressive students attending the Brunswick Campus. The goal of the publication, according to editors, was to tell the story of our life on this campus. The four-page, tabloid-sized paper included display advertising from area businesses. Amid the coverage in this issue is a retrospective piece discussing the Brunswick Annex campus at Brunswick Naval Air Base

The Maine Annex, vol. 1, no. 12

The Maine Annex, published by the students of the University of Maine at the Brunswick Campus, was launched January 10, 1947. Editors introduced the publication as the product of a group of progressive students attending the Brunswick Campus. The goal of the publication, according to editors, was to tell the story of our life on this campus. The four-page, tabloid-sized paper included display advertising from area businesses. This issue contains an editorial lamenting the presence of State Police Officers at the Victory Dance the previous weekend. In addition to approximately 250 women bussed in from surrounding communities, blue uniformed proponents of the law were thicker than ants at a picnic