SPARC 2017 retrospect & prospects : Salford postgraduate annual research conference book of abstracts

Welcome to the Book of Abstracts for the 2017 SPARC conference. This year we not only celebrate the work of our PGRs but also the 50th anniversary of Salford as a University, which makes this year’s conference extra special. Once again we have received a tremendous contribution from our postgraduate research community; with over 130 presenters, the conference truly showcases a vibrant PGR community at Salford. These abstracts provide a taster of the research strengths of their works, and provide delegates with a reference point for networking and initiating critical debate. With such wide-ranging topics being showcased, we encourage you to exploit this great opportunity to engage with researchers working in different subject areas to your own. To meet global challenges, high impact research inevitably requires interdisciplinary collaboration. This is recognised by all major research funders. Therefore engaging with the work of others and forging collaborations across subject areas is an essential skill for the next generation of researchers

Comparison of Microwave-Assisted and Hydrodistillation Methods for Extraction of Essential Oil from Achillea millefolium

Microwave-assisted hydrodistillation (MAHD) method has been compared with hydrodistillation (HD) conventional technique for extraction of essential oil from Achillea millefolium. Microwave-assisted hydrodistillation were examined at three levels of microwave powers (300, 500, and 700 W). Obtained results show that MAHD offers important advantages over HD in terms of energy savings and extraction time (20 min against 2.5 h). Also, the essential oils were analyzed by GC-MS. The amount of oxygenated compounds and monoterpene, such as 1,8 -Cineole, Lavandulyl acetate,Caryophylla-dien, Aromadendrene were increased in the microwave method. All these results suggest that MAHD represents an excellent alternative method for extraction of essential oils from plant materials

Condition monitoring of wind turbine gearboxes through on-site measurement and vibration analysis techniques

Condition monitoring of gear-based mechanical systems undergoing non-stationary operation conditions is in general very challenging. In particular, this issue is remarkable as regards wind energy technology because most of the modern wind turbines are geared and gearbox damages account for at least the 20% of their unavailability time. In this work, a new method for the diagnosis of gearbox damages is proposed: the main idea is that vibrations are measured at the tower, instead that at the gearbox. This implies that measurements can be performed without impacting on the wind turbine operation, as desirable by the point of view of wind turbine practitioners. A test case study is discussed: it deals with a wind farm owned by Renvico, featuring 6 wind turbines with 2 MW of rated power each. The vibration measurements at a wind turbine suspected to be damaged and at reference wind turbines are processed through a multivariate Novelty Detection algorithm in the feature space. The application of this algorithm is justified by univariate statistical tests on the time-domain features selected and by a visual inspection of the data set via Principal Component Analysis. Finally, a novelty index based on the Mahalanobis distance is used to detect the anomalous conditions at the damaged wind turbine

Maternal hyperthyroidism is associated with a decreased incidence of cold-induced ascites in broiler chickens

peer reviewedA hypothesis was tested that providing the breeder hens with exogenous thyroxine (T(4)) would help their offspring to better survive the ascites-inducing condition during the growing period. In total, 132 broiler breeder hens were randomly assigned to one of 3 treatments: control (CON), hypothyroid [HYPO; 6-N-propyl-2-thiouracil (PTU)-treated], and hyperthyroid (HYPER; T(4)-treated). The hens were artificially inseminated, and the hatching eggs (n = 1,320) were incubated. No eggs in the HYPO group hatched. The 1-d-old male chicks (n = 288) from other groups were reared for 42 d under standard or low ambient temperature to induce ascites. Blood samples were drawn from the hens, embryos, and broilers for determination of T(4) and triiodothyronine (T(3)). The hematocrit was also determined in broilers. The PTU-treated hens had an increased BW along with lower plasma T(3) and T(4) concentrations. Plasma T(4) was higher in the HYPER hens compared with CON hens, but T(3) concentration was not different between these groups. The fertility rate was not affected by either hypo- or hyperthyroidism. The embryos in the HYPO group had lower plasma T(3) and T(4) concentrations at d 18 of embryonic development and internal pipping. Higher plasma T(4) was recorded in the HYPER birds at internal pipping, although plasma T(3) concentration was not affected at this stage. Maternal hyperthyroidism decreased the overall incidence of ascites in the cold-exposed chickens (10.0 vs. 33.4% for HYPER and CON groups, respectively). Although the effect of maternal PTU or T(4) treatment on plasma thyroid hormones and on the right ventricle-to-total ventricular weight ratio in the broilers was not significant, the cold-exposed healthy CON chicks showed higher hematocrit values, compared with the HYPER birds. It was concluded that maternal hyperthyroidism could decrease the incidence of cold-induced ascites in broiler chickens; however, probable causal mechanisms remain to be elucidated