State and parameter estimation approach to monitoring AGR nuclear core

This work concerns with the problem of monitoring an Advanced Gas-cooled Nuclear Reactor (AGR) core. This plant (figure 1) makes use of the heat given by the nuclear efficient reaction to produce electricity by means of steam turbines. These are driven by steam, which is heated, from the AGR gas using a heat exchanger. One of the advantages of a gas cooled reactor is the high temperature that the gas can achieve so that when it is used in conjunction with the heat exchanger and steamed turbine the thermal efficiency is very high

The Jurassic pleurotomarioidean gastropod Laevitomaria and its palaeobiogeographical history

The genus Laevitomaria is reviewed and its palaeobiogeographical history is reconstructed based on the re-examination of its type species L. problematica, the study of material stored at the National Natural History Museum of Luxembourg, and an extensive review of the literature. The systematic study allows ascribing to Laevitomaria a number of Jurassic species from the western European region formerly included in other pleurotomariid genera. The following new combinations are proposed: Laevitomaria allionta, Laevitomaria amyntas, Laevitomaria angulba, Laevitomaria asurai, Laevitomaria daityai, Laevitomaria fasciata, Laevitomaria gyroplata, Laevitomaria isarensis, Laevitomaria joannis, Laevitomaria repeliniana, Laevitomaria stoddarti, Laevitomaria subplatyspira, and Laevitomaria zonata. The genus, which was once considered as endemic of the central part of the western Tethys, shows an evolutionary and palaeogeographical history considerably more complex than previously assumed. It first appeared in the Late Sinemurian in the northern belt of the central western Tethys involved in the Neotethyan rifting, where it experienced a first radiation followed by an abrupt decline of diversity in the Toarcian. Species diversity increased again during Toarcian\u2013Aalenian times in the southernmost part of western European shelf and a major radiation occurred during the Middle Aalenian to Early Bajocian in the northern Paris Basin and southern England. After a latest Bajocian collapse of diversity, Laevitomaria disappeared from both the central part of western Tethys and the European shelf. In the Bathonian, the genus appeared in the south-eastern margin of the Tethys where it lasted until the Oxfordian

Constraining the Milky Way potential using the dynamical kinematic substructures

We present a method to constrain the potential of the non-axisymmetric components of the Galaxy using the kinematics of stars in the solar neighborhood. The basic premise is that dynamical substructures in phase-space (i.e. due to the bar and/or spiral arms) are associated with families of periodic or irregular orbits, which may be easily identified in orbital frequency space. We use the "observed" positions and velocities of stars as initial conditions for orbital integrations in a variety of gravitational potentials. We then compute their characteristic frequencies, and study the structure present in the frequency maps. We find that the distribution of dynamical substructures in velocity- and frequency-space is best preserved when the integrations are performed in the "true" gravitational potential.Comment: 2 pages, 4 figures, to appear in the proceedings of "Assembling the Puzzle of the Milky Way", Le Grand Bornand (Apr. 17-22, 2011

Condition monitoring of an advanced gas-cooled nuclear reactor core

A critical component of an advanced gas-cooled reactor station is the graphite core. As a station ages, the graphite bricks that comprise the core can distort and may eventually crack. Since the core cannot be replaced, the core integrity ultimately determines the station life. Monitoring these distortions is usually restricted to the routine outages, which occur every few years, as this is the only time that the reactor core can be accessed by external sensing equipment. This paper presents a monitoring module based on model-based techniques using measurements obtained during the refuelling process. A fault detection and isolation filter based on unknown input observer techniques is developed. The role of this filter is to estimate the friction force produced by the interaction between the wall of the fuel channel and the fuel assembly supporting brushes. This allows an estimate to be made of the shape of the graphite bricks that comprise the core and, therefore, to monitor any distortion on them

Ethnobotanical Review and Dataset Compiling on Wild and Cultivated Plants Traditionally Used as Medicinal Remedies in Italy

Over the centuries, wild plants have constituted the main food ingredients and traditional medicine in rural communities. In the last decades, thousands of ethnobotanical studies have been conducted, with the aim of documenting the traditional knowledge on wild and cultivated plants both for food and therapeutic purposes. In the present work, 75 published papers related to Italian ethnobotanical knowledge on wild and cultivated plants traditionally used for medical purposes were analyzed and data on 1117 different species organized in the first dataset to target medicinal applications only. For each plant species, the Italian region of use, plant organs, mode of preparation, specific pathological group of application, citation index, and use index were listed. The different therapeutic applications were subdivided into nine main pathological groups according to the targeted human apparatus. Overall, the cited species with highest number of uses were related to the treatment of the digestive system and skin-ears-eyes-hair diseases, followed by diseases of the genito-urinary and respiratory systems. The 13 most relevant species were identified on the basis of their citation and use indexes. The present review on Italian medicinal flora aims to provide valuable information on wild and cultivated species, which are potential sources of plant-based therapeutic remedies, to preserve and reevaluate endangered traditional folk knowledge

Spiral and bar driven peculiar velocities in Milky Way sized galaxy simulations

We investigate the kinematic signatures induced by spiral and bar structure in a set of simulations of Milky Way-sized spiral disc galaxies. The set includes test particle simulations that follow a quasi-stationary density wave-like scenario with rigidly rotating spiral arms, and $N$-body simulations that host a bar and transient, co-rotating spiral arms. From a location similar to that of the Sun, we calculate the radial, tangential and line-of-sight peculiar velocity fields of a patch of the disc and quantify the fluctuations by computing the power spectrum from a two-dimensional Fourier transform. We find that the peculiar velocity power spectrum of the simulation with a bar and transient, co-rotating spiral arms fits very well to that of APOGEE red clump star data, while the quasi-stationary density wave spiral model without a bar does not. We determine that the power spectrum is sensitive to the number of spiral arms, spiral arm pitch angle and position with respect to the spiral arm. However, it is necessary to go beyond the line of sight velocity field in order to distinguish fully between the various spiral models with this method. We compute the power spectrum for different regions of the spiral discs, and discuss the application of this analysis technique to external galaxies.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures. Improved and MNRAS Accepte

The imprints of the Galactic Bar on the Thick Disk with RAVE

We study the kinematics of a local sample of stars, located within a cylinder of 500 pc radius centered on the Sun, in the RAVE data set. We find clear asymmetries in the v R v∞ velocity distributions of thin and thick disk stars: there are more stars moving radially outward for low azimuthal velocities and more radially inward for high azimuthal velocities. Such asymmetries have been previously reported for the thin disk as being due to the Galactic bar, but this is the first time that the same type of structures are seen in the thick disk. Our findings imply that the velocities of thick-disk stars should no longer be described by Schwarzschilds, multivariate Gaussian or purely axisymmetric distributions. Furthermore, the nature of previously reported substructures in the thick disk needs to be revisited as these could be associated with dynamical resonances rather than to accretion events. It is clear that dynamical models of the Galaxy must fit the 3D velocity distributions of the disks, rather than the projected 1D, if we are to understand the Galaxy fully

Gastropods from the Jurassic neptunian sills of Rocca Busambra (north-western Sicily, Italy): Patellogastropoda, Pleurotomarioidea, Scissurelloidea, Fissurelloidea and Eucycloidea

The gastropods from Jurassic neptunian sills of Rocca Busambra (Sicily, Italy) represent an extraordinary assemblage for richness and extremely high degree of novelty, consisting of about 250 species (two-thirds of which are new) of 20 superfamilies. A total of 38 species and 18 genera of Lottioidea, Pleurotomarioidea, Scissurelloidea, Fissurelloidea and Eucycloidea are described. Of these, 30 species and 9 genera are new, namely Ramusatomaria nuda gen. et sp. nov., Trapanimaria gattoi gen. et sp. nov., Trapanimaria nicolosiensis gen. et sp. nov., Trapanimaria? pallinii gen. et sp. nov., Trochotomaria conoidea sp. nov., Trochotomaria polymorpha sp. nov., Laevitomaria babalusciae sp. nov., Pyrgotrochus vorosi sp. nov., Auritoma lenticula gen. et sp. nov., Busambrella fasciata gen. et sp. nov., Emarginula (Emarginula) burgioi sp. nov., Emarginula (Tauschia) acutidens sp. nov., Propeucyclus sicanus gen. et sp. nov., Propeucyclus obesus gen. et sp. nov., Propeucyclus? semireticulatus gen. et sp. nov., Eucyclomphalus? marenostrum sp. nov., Toronyella lineata gen. et sp. nov., Toronyella margaritata gen. et sp. nov., Zarnglaffia polygonalis sp. nov., Zarnglaffia palermitana sp. nov., Ambercyclus cratisculptus sp. nov., Elymicyclus alternatus gen. et sp. nov., Elymicyclus ietumensis gen. et sp. nov., Elymicyclus martae gen. et sp. nov., Elymicyclus garibaldii gen. et sp. nov., Jurassiscala sturanii gen. et sp. nov., Jurassiscala? tenuiretis gen. et sp. nov., Fischeriella sicula sp. nov., Retimusina poseidoni gen. et sp. nov. and Retimusina? tritoni sp. nov. The new scissurelloidean family Auritomidae fam. nov. is erected. A palaeobiogeographical analysis indicates close relationships with coeval faunas from condensed pelagic carbonates of the central region of western Tethys

Full-Configuration-Interaction Study of the Metal-Insulator Transition in Model Systems: Li_N Linear Chains (N=2,4,6,8)

International audienceThe precursor of the metal-insulator transition is studied at ab initio level in linear chains of equally spaced lithium atoms. In particular, full configuration interaction calculations (up to 1×109 determinants) are performed, in order to take into account the different nature of the wave function at different internuclear distances. Several indicators of the Metal-Insulator transition (minimum of the energy gap, maximum of the localization tensor or of the polarizability) are considered and discussed. It is shown that the different indicators give concordant results, showing a rapid change in the nature of the wave function at an internuclear distance of about 7bohrs

Anti-Phospholipase A2 Receptor Antibodies in Membranous Nephropathy : from Bench to the Patient

Membranous Nephropathy (MN) is the leading cause of nephrotic syndrome in adults. Primary or idiopathic Membranous Nephropathy (iMN) has been considered as an organ-specific autoimmune disease with an unknown aetiology. By contrast, secondary membranous nephropathy has been described as the expression of a systemic autoimmune response to malignancy or bacterial/viral infections. In the majority of iMN cases, glomerular lesions are determined by autoantibodies against a podocyte membrane protein, the M-type of phospholipase A2 receptor 1 (PLA2R1). Several studies have suggested that the detection of anti-PLA2R1 in patients sera with nephrotic syndrome may be pathognomonic of iMN, thus obviating the need for a diagnostic renal biopsy and an extensive workup for underlying causes. Many authors inferred that the measurement of anti-PLA2R1 may change the diagnostic algorithm in patients with nephrotic syndrome and guide treatment decisions in patients with iMN. Measurement of anti-PLA2R1 antibodies is now possible through an easy to use, commercially available assay. The aim of this review is to describe the clinical relevance of anti-PLA2R1 assessment in patients with MN, and to extensively discuss the biotechnological methods available to measure them