Design of a Feedback-Controlled Wireless Converter for Electric Vehicle Wireless Charging Applications

Electric vehicles (EVs) have played an important role in the modern transporta-tion system in recent years. However, current generations of EVs face unsolved drawbacks such as short driving range, long charging time, and high cost due to expensive battery systems. Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) is a promising technology that is able to mitigate the drawbacks EVs are facing. This paper focuses on investigating and building a complete high-efficiency WPT system that is capable of efficiently charging electric vehicles. The goal is to design and ap-ply two different configurations of compensation networks to the WPT system. In this paper, the two compensation network configurations studied are LLC and LCC. After comparing their operational characteristics and efficiencies, the most suitable configuration is proposed. Moreover, a phase-shifted controller is applied in order to regulate the power transferred through the WPT system

Water reticulation model for Taman Maju, Parit Raja

A numerical model is developed to quantify energy head losses occurred in the water distribution network of Taman Maju, Parit Raja, Johor. A numerical computation has the advantage over a manual computation when analyzing a complex distribution network. The programming language used in this study is the Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0. Hardy-Cross method is selected to calculate the total energy head loss incurred in the looped water distribution network of Taman Maju. The type of pipe used in the water distribution network of Taman Maju is the unplasticised polyvinyl chloride (uPVC) type with the roughness coefficient k = 0.0015 mm. Since Taman Maju consists of terrace houses, the water demand is 1360 litres/unit/day. Three loop networks are considered, namely loop A, B and C for Taman Maju reticulation system. The final flow rate in each pipe has been obtained. This model is helpful in reducing the period of time to calculate the flow rate which is found to be within the piping system design requirement. If comparison is made between the manual calculation, it will definitely shows some difference. The final result will be different because the decimal places fixed are different in manual and mode

Long COVID and cardiovascular disease: a learning health system approach

Cardiovascular disease is both a risk factor and potential outcome of the direct, indirect and long-term effects of COVID-19. A recent analysis in >150,000 survivors of COVID-19 demonstrates an increased 1-year risk of numerous cardiovascular diseases. Preventing and managing this new disease burden presents challenges to health systems and requires a learning health system approach

Investigation of Molecular Functions of Zinc Finger Protein (ZNF71) in Non- Small Cell Lung Cancer

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the first cause of tumor-related death worldwide. Despite the advancement in surgical and medical treatment, the prognosis of the disease remains poor1. To date, there is no available molecular assay to predict the benefit of therapy or tumor recurrence 2. ZNF71 was reported in our previous study, which identified a 7-gene predictive signature for the clinical benefit of chemotherapy and prognosis in NSCLC2. The study concluded that patients who have higher ZNF71 protein expression have better survival. For this reason, we decided to study the molecular function of ZNF71 and how it may affect apoptosis, proliferation, and/or epithelial-mesenchymal transformation (EMT) in NSCLC. The study is restricted by the regulations of COVID-19 social distancing, so many experiments were stopped and recommended for future work. We used a Taxol-resistant cell line H460-R derived from the Taxol-sensitive H460-P NSCLC cell line to compare the level of ZNF71. H460-P cells express a higher level of ZNF71 mRNA, and Taxol induces it slightly. Also, we found that the ZNF71 mRNA level is higher among epithelial NSCLC, and lower in mesenchymal-like-cells. Furthermore, KRAB containing ZNF71 is expressed dominantly in mesenchymal NSCLC, while KRAB-less ZNF71 is expressed in both mesenchymal and epithelial and its level is always higher than KRAB isoform except for in H460-R cells. This suggests that a KRAB to KRAB-less ratio could has a role in the cells\u27 fate and the patients\u27 prognosis, but further studies are required and recommended

Policy challenges and food security in Alqadarif State, Sudan

Food security is under focused issue in Sudan as a whole and AlQadarif State is not apart from that. According to the integrated food security phases classification (IPC) report April (2015), about 60% of the population suffering from food insecurity in the State. This problem needs to be solved by clear and sound policies and strategies.  The main objective of this study is to investigate and evaluate the Food Security and Nutrition (FSN) policies and strategies in the State. To achieve this objective secondary data such as annual reports, policy documents were collected from all key line institutions and primary data were collected by the mean of a questionnaire the main results of this research are that: there were no clear food security and nutrition policy documents for the key line institutions in the State.  Also, there was a gap between the policymakers at the State level and the locality level. 42% of the policymakers at the locality level did not aware of the existence of the FSN body in the State. About 94% of the policymakers in the localities believed that the Chamber of Zakat plays a very important role in helping at FSN situations. About 92% of policymakers in the state said that finance is not sufficient. The majority of the localities policymakers, 94%, do not have any (FSN) database in their localities. Finally, the main recommendation of this study is to build a food security and nutrition policy/strategy putting the conservation of the natural resources in consideration

Real-time Prediction of Cascading Failures in Power Systems

Blackouts in power systems cause major financial and societal losses, which necessitate devising better prediction techniques that are specifically tailored to detecting and preventing them. Since blackouts begin as a cascading failure (CF), an early detection of these CFs gives the operators ample time to stop the cascade from propagating into a large-scale blackout. In this thesis, a real-time load-based prediction model for CFs using phasor measurement units (PMUs) is proposed. The proposed model provides load-based predictions; therefore, it has the advantages of being applicable as a controller input and providing the operators with better information about the affected regions. In addition, it can aid in visualizing the effects of the CF on the grid. To extend the functionality and robustness of the proposed model, prediction intervals are incorporated based on the convergence width criterion (CWC) to allow the model to account for the uncertainties of the network, which was not available in previous works. Although this model addresses many issues in previous works, it has limitations in both scalability and capturing of transient behaviours. Hence, a second model based on recurrent neural network (RNN) long short-term memory (LSTM) ensemble is proposed. The RNN-LSTM is added to better capture the dynamics of the power system while also giving faster responses. To accommodate for the scalability of the model, a novel selection criterion for inputs is introduced to minimize the inputs while maintaining a high information entropy. The criteria include distance between buses as per graph theory, centrality of the buses with respect to fault location, and the information entropy of the bus. These criteria are merged using higher statistical moments to reflect the importance of each bus and generate indices that describe the grid with a smaller set of inputs. The results indicate that this model has the potential to provide more meaningful and accurate results than what is available in the previous literature and can be used as part of the integrated remedial action scheme (RAS) system either as a warning tool or a controller input as the accuracy of detecting affected regions reached 99.9% with a maximum delay of 400 ms. Finally, a validation loop extension is introduced to allow the model to self-update in real-time using importance sampling and case-based reasoning to extend the practicality of the model by allowing it to learn from historical data as time progresses

Laboratory Study of Trail-tube Irrigation

Increasing energy costs, continuing interest in more efficient use of water, and the availability of low-cost plastic tubes initiated the idea of trail tube irrigation. Trail tubes are perforated poly-flex hoses similar to the laterals of a trickle irrigation system. These tubes connected to the main line of a center pivot system can be used to replace sprinklers. The main line of a center pivot system provides the water supply and the mobility. The arrangement of a trail tube irrigation system is similar to a traveling trickle system. Advantages of trail tube irrigation are its low energy consumption and its high-water use efficiency. Trail tube operating pressures can be much lower than the pressure used in the conventional center pivot irrigation system. Such reduction in pressure represents a saving in energy consumption. Trail tubes also distribute water near the ground surface, which minimize water losses due to evaporation and wind effects. Decreasing water losses results in an improvement in water use efficiency. A theoretical analysis of trail-tubes was presented in a paper, Analysis of Irrigation by Trail Tubes , (Chu, 1982). The purpose of this study is to evaluate the theory by laboratory measurements. The objectives of the study were: 1. To determine the roughness coefficient of the poly-flex hoses. 2. To determine the discharge coefficient of the perforations in the tubes. 3. To measure the average jet distance of the perforations. 4. To measure the distributions of flow rate and pressure along the tube. 5. To compare the measured distributions with the theoretical results