Thermal conductivity distributed from a Thermal Response Test (TRT) in a borehole heat exchanger (BHE)

The Thermal Response Test (TRT) is the most versatile tool to determine the thermal propriety of the underground for designing and sizing of the borehole heat exchangers (BHE). The TRT permits to get the average thermal conductivity (λ) across the whole stratigraphy, the thermal resistance (Rb) of the borehole / grout / rocks and the undisturbed temperature of the soil (Tg). The ground temperature is influenced by climate, topographical, geological and hydrological factors. Vertical temperature changes allows to get the relationships with the lithology and especially with the groundwater. Vertical temperature log, acquired during and after the TRT, permits to calculate the distributed thermal conductivity over each stratigraphic interval. This method permits to verify how the different lithologies and the groundwater contribute to the heat exchange in the borehole/ground system, so called geoexchange. The experimental site test indicates that the marls and clayed-marls levels show a higher thermal inertia than the sandstone ones and then lower values of thermal conducivity. The sandstones have a higher thermal conductivity with a rapid cooling and they provide the main contribution to the ground heat exchange. The distributed thermal conductivity is an useful tool for designing the BHE with the best performance, a better economic return and with low environmental impacts

Statistical characterization of residual noise in the low-rank approximation filter framework, general theory and application to hyperpolarized tracer spectroscopy

The use of low-rank approximation filters in the field of NMR is increasing due to their flexibility and effectiveness. Despite their ability to reduce the Mean Square Error between the processed signal and the true signal is well known, the statistical distribution of the residual noise is still undescribed. In this article, we show that low-rank approximation filters are equivalent to linear filters, and we calculate the mean and the covariance matrix of the processed data. We also show how to use this knowledge to build a maximum likelihood estimator, and we test the estimator's performance with a Montecarlo simulation of a 13C pyruvate metabolic tracer. While the article focuses on NMR spectroscopy experiment with hyperpolarized tracer, we also show that the results can be applied to tensorial data (e.g. using HOSVD) or 1D data (e.g. Cadzow filter).Comment: 26 pages, 7 figure

Effect of Size, Shape and Surface Functionalization on the Antibacterial Activity of Silver Nanoparticles

Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are the most investigated antibacterial agents against multidrug resistant (MDR) pathogens. They can lead to cellular death by means of different mechanisms, damaging several cell compartments, from the external membrane, to enzymes, DNA and proteins; this simultaneous attack amplifies the toxic effect on bacteria with respect to traditional antibiotics. The effectiveness of AgNPs against MDR bacteria is strongly correlated with their chemical and morphological properties, which influence the pathways involved in cellular damage. In this review, AgNPs’ size, shape and modification by functional groups or other materials are reported, both to investigate the different synthetic pathways correlated with nanoparticles’ modifications and to evaluate the related effect on their antibacterial activity. Indeed, understanding the synthetic conditions for obtaining performing antibacterial AgNPs could help to tailor new and improved silver-based agents to combat multidrug resistance

Omomorfismi di fibrati con fibra strutturata.

Bunders-Aelen, J.G.F. [Promotor]Regeer, B.J. [Copromotor