Prospection of Neighborhood Megawatthours Scale Closed Loop Pumped Hydro Storage Potential

Energy is at the center of the global socio-economical, geopolitical, and climate crisis. For this reason, countries are looking to boost their energy independence through the integration of distributed green electricity. However, the bottleneck of intermittent renewable energy as an alternative to fossil fuel energy remains the high cost of large-scale energy storage. The study explored the existence of megawatt-hours scale closed-loop pumped hydro-storage reservoirs near communities. A MATLAB algorithm has been developed to detect 1, 4, 9 hectares reservoirs with a separation distance less than 1000 meters, and a head over 100 meters, corresponding to an energy capacity of 20 to 400 megawatt-hours per pairs. For the cities studied (Banfora, Syracuse, Manisa), the results revealed the existence of more than 10.000 megawatt-hours storage capacity in each city, which exceed the need of the communities. In the 4 hectares sites category, all cities have over 80 pairs of reservoirs ideal for distributed storage system implementation. Therefore, a 100% renewable energy power grid that is resilient, reliable, can be achieved faster by adopting distributed closed-loop pumped hydro-storage, which has limited environmental impact and is likely to attract a large number of smaller investors

Single shot echo planar imaging (ssEPI) vs single shot turbo spin echo (ssTSE) DWI of the orbit in patients with ocular melanoma.

OBJECTIVES: Diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) has become important for orbital imaging. However, the echoplanar imaging (EPI) DWI has inherent obstacles due to susceptibility to magnetic field inhomogeneities. We conducted a comparative study assessing the image quality of orbits in a patient cohort with uveal melanoma (UM). We hypothesized that single shot turbo spin echo (ssTSE) DWI would have better image quality in terms of less distortion and artifacts and yield better tissue evaluation compared to ssEPI-DWI. METHODS: ssEPI-DWI and ssTSE-DWI of orbits were obtained from 50 patients with uveal melanoma who were prospectively enrolled in the study. Distortion ratio (DR), signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), diffusion signal properties, and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values were collected and compared between ssEPI-DWI and ssTSE-DWI. Two reviewers evaluated and compared the geometric distortion, susceptibility and ghosting artifacts, resolution, demarcation of ocular mass, and overall quality. RESULTS: A higher DR was found in ssEPI-DWI compared to ssTSE-DWI (p < 0.001). SNR and CNR were lower for the temporal lobe cortex (p ≤ 0.004), but higher for melanoma in ssEPI-DWI than ssTSE-DWI (p ≤ 0.037). Geometric distortion and artifacts were more common in ssEPI-DWI (p < 0.001). Resolution (p ≤ 0.013) and overall quality (p < 0.001) were better in ssTSE-DWI. Ocular masses were demarcated better on ssEPI-DWI (p ≤ 0.002). Significant negative correlations between T1 and T2 signal intensities (r = -0.369, p ≤ 0.008) and positive correlations between T2 and both DWI signal intensities (r = 0.686 and p < 0.001 for ssEPI-DWI, r = 0.747 and p < 0.001 for ssTSE-DWI) were revealed. CONCLUSION: With less geometric distortion and susceptibility artifacts, better resolution, and overall quality, ssTSE-DWI can serve as an alternative to ssEPI-DWI for orbital DWI. ADVANCES IN KNOWLEDGE: ssTSE-DWI can be a better alternative of diffusion imaging of orbits with less susceptibility artifact and geometric distortion compared to ssEPI-DWI

Proof of concept study using DSRC, IMU and map fusion for vehicle localization in GNSS-denied environments

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

TW-TOA BASED COOPERATIVE SENSOR NETWORK LOCALIZATION WITH UNKNOWN TURN-AROUND TIME

This work aims to estimate multiple node positions in the presence of unknown turn-around times within the context of cooperative sensor network localization. In the adopted scheme, each target can communicate with a set of anchors (probably not in sufficient numbers) and a set of other targets. Two-Way Times-of-Arrival between them are measured, which includes unknown processing delays at both channel endpoints. Since finding the Maximum Likelihood Estimates (MLE) of the positions and turn-around times given those measurements poses a difficult nonconvex optimization problem, it is approximated by a Nonlinear Least Squares problem. Then, the positions and turn-around times of multipletargets are estimated jointly by solving an Euclidean Distance Matrix completion problem. Simulations show that the localization accuracy of the proposed method is good, providing an initial point that subsequently enables MLE to attain the Cram\ub4er-Rao Lower Bound for all considered scenarios

TW-TOA BASED COOPERATIVE SENSOR NETWORK LOCALIZATION WITH UNKNOWN TURN-AROUND TIME

This work aims to estimate multiple node positions in the presence of unknown turn-around times within the context of cooperative sensor network localization. In the adopted scheme, each target can communicate with a set of anchors (probably not in sufficient numbers) and a set of other targets. Two-Way Times-of-Arrival between them are measured, which includes unknown processing delays at both channel endpoints. Since finding the Maximum Likelihood Estimates (MLE) of the positions and turn-around times given those measurements poses a difficult nonconvex optimization problem, it is approximated by a Nonlinear Least Squares problem. Then, the positions and turn-around times of multipletargets are estimated jointly by solving an Euclidean Distance Matrix completion problem. Simulations show that the localization accuracy of the proposed method is good, providing an initial point that subsequently enables MLE to attain the Cram\ub4er-Rao Lower Bound for all considered scenarios

Synthetic MRI in children with tuberous sclerosis complex.

OBJECTIVE: The generation of numerous sequences and quantitative data in a short scanning time is the most potential advantage of Synthetic MRI (SyMRI). We aimed to test detection of the tubers and to determine underlying tissue characteristics, and morphometric alterations in the brain of pediatric tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) patients, using SyMRI. METHODS: Conventional brain MRI (cMRI) and SyMRI were prospectively obtained from 10 TSC patients and 18 healthy control subjects (HCs). Two neuroradiologists independently evaluated tubers on both scans. Additionally, automatically segmented volume calculation and myelin quantification, including the subcortical part of the tubers and normal-appearing brain parenchyma (NABP) of patients, were carried out using SyMRI. RESULTS: The cMRI and SyMRI comparison showed a very good correlation on the detection of the tubers (k = 0.82-0.94). Automatic segmentation of Non-gray matter/white matter/cerebrospinal fluid (Non), %Non/brain parenchymal volume, and %Non/intracranial volume was significantly higher; however, %Myelin/intracranial volume and %Myelin/brain parenchymal volume were significantly lower in the TSC patients (p < 0.05). The proton density values were significantly increased, and myelin fraction volume and myelin-correlated compound values were significantly decreased in the NABP in TSC patients on myelin maps (p < 0.05). The white-matter volume, myelin and white-matter fractional volume, longitudinal relaxation rate, transverse relaxation rate, and myelin-correlated compound values were significantly decreased in the subcortical part of tubers on quantification maps (p < 0.001) in TSC patients. CONCLUSION: SyMRI enables the detection of cortical tubers and is a developing tool in the quantification of morphometric and tissue alterations in pediatric TSC patients with a rational scanning time

Reduced myelin in patients with isolated hippocampal sclerosis as assessed by SyMRI.

PURPOSE: Synthetic MRI (SyMRI) enables to quantify brain tissue and morphometry. We aimed to investigate the WM and myelin alterations in patients with unilateral hippocampal sclerosis (HS) with SyMRI. METHODS: Adult patients with isolated unilateral HS and age-matched control subjects (CSs) were included in this study. The SyMRI sequence QRAPMASTER in the coronal plane perpendicular to the hippocampi was obtained from the whole brain. Automatic segmentation of the whole brain was processed by SyMRI Diagnostic software (Version 11.2). Two neuroradiologists also performed quantitative analyses independently from symmetrical 14 ROIs placed in temporal and extratemporal WM, hippocampi, and amygdalae in both hemispheres. RESULTS: Sixteen patients (F/M = 6/10, mean age = 32.5 ± 11.3 years; right/left HS: 8/8) and 10 CSs (F/M = 5/5, mean age = 30.7 ± 7 years) were included. Left HS patients had significantly lower myelin and WM volumes than CSs (p < .05). Myelin was reduced significantly in the ipsilateral temporal lobe of patients than CSs, greater in left HS (p < .05). Histopathological examination including luxol fast blue stain also revealed myelin pallor in all of 6 patients who were operated. Ipsilateral temporal pole and sub-insular WM had significantly reduced myelin than the corresponding contralateral regions in patients (p < .05). No significant difference was found in WM values. GM values were significantly lower in hippocampi in patients than CSs (p < .05). CONCLUSION: SyMRI revealed myelin reduction in the ipsilateral temporal lobe and sub-insular WM of patients with HS. Whether this finding correlates with electrophysiological features and SyMRI could serve as lateralization of temporal lobe epilepsy need to be investigated