Advancement in remote sensing of wind energy

In modern applications, wind turbines are gaining in height and becoming larger in size, as well as being installed in complex, mountainous, and hilly terrain to produce large amounts of energy for neighboring populations and industries. However, one must keep in mind that the efficiency of a wind farm is greatly affected by inaccurate wind resource assessment. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate wind resource potential to estimate how much energy is available at the site and how much power the wind turbine can produce, because the power output of a wind turbine scales cubically with the available wind speed. In this case, to achieve the highest possible efficiency from a wind farm and to install modern machines of even larger heights, it becomes necessary to study and precisely estimate wind resource potential and its economic feasibility. The investigation of wind resource at larger heights and at complex wind farms requires a more physical volume-based measurement. Ground-based remote-sensing techniques such as light detection and ranging and sound detection and ranging are becoming increasingly useful and popular in the wind energy sector for resource assessment as they help in reducing complexity, uncertainty, and technicality in modern wind farm development, because they provide volume measurement and measure the entire rotor field from top to bottom at each height, particularly at higher hub height, which is difficult to do using conventional techniques, traditional techniques, or meteorological mast techniques. The meteorological mast consists of a cup anemometer and other measuring instruments to measure wind speed and wind direction. Using meteorological mast is not a representative idea as it gives point and fixed measurements, and empirical equations such as power law and log law are used to convert wind speed measured at 10 m or 30 m to larger heights of 100 m, 120 m, or more. This chapter is focused on increasing confidence in the result of remote-sensing measurement. Most importantly, there is economic merit in determining the total amount of cash flowing on wind resource assessment using advance different techniques

The effect of ethanol-methanol-diesel-microalgae blends on performance, combustion and emissions of a direct injection diesel engine

To explore the effect of hybrid fuels containing microalgae, ethanol, methanol and diesel fuel (base fuel) were blends on combustion, performance and emission characteristics and compare with base fuel. The hybrid fuels were calculated using a single-cylinder, four-stroke, naturally aspirated engine, water-cooled, direct injection, diesel engine was used for the experiments under 20%, 50%, 75%, 100% load and simulated by using a thermodynamic engine simulation tool software. The results show that engine brake torque (EBT) of hybrid fuel (ethanol) emulsions were found to be high and exhaust gas temperature to be low compared with that of base fuel. Hybrid fuel (methanol) emulsions helps to increase the cylinder pressure. With the hybrid fuels blend, the ignition delay period and combustion duration of hybrid fuel blends is increased. With the addition of spirulina microalgae, the ignition delay period of spirulina microalgae-diesel blend fuel is shortened. Engine emission results indicated that spirulina microalgae emulsions fuel reduces the specific particulate matter (PM), soot and smoke emissions except nitrogen oxides (NOX) emissions but carbon dioxide (CO2) emission to be higher compared with base fuel

Oral Bioavailability Enhancement of Exemestane from Self-Microemulsifying Drug Delivery System (SMEDDS)

Limited aqueous solubility of exemestane leads to high variability in absorption after oral administration. To improve the solubility and bioavailability of exemestane, the self-microemulsifying drug delivery system (SMEDDS) was developed. SMEDDS comprises of isotropic mixture of natural or synthetic oil, surfactant, and cosurfactant, which, upon dilution with aqueous media, spontaneously form fine o/w microemulsion with less than 100 nm in droplet size. Solubility of exemestane were determined in various vehicles. Ternary phase diagrams were plotted to identify the efficient self-emulsification region. Dilution studies, droplet size, and zeta potential of the formulations were investigated. The release of exemestane from SMEDDS capsules was studied using USP dissolution apparatus in different dissolution media and compared the release of exemestane from a conventional tablet. Oral pharmacokinetic study was performed in female Wistar rats (n = 8) at the dose of 30 mg kg−1. The absorption of exemestane from SMEDDS form resulted in about 2.9-fold increase in bioavailability compared with the suspension. Our studies illustrated the potential use of SMEDDS for the delivery of hydrophobic compounds, such as exemestane by the oral route

Deep sequencing of HIV-1 reverse transcripts reveals the multifaceted antiviral functions of APOBEC3G

Following cell entry, the RNA genome of HIV-1 is reverse transcribed into double-stranded DNA that ultimately integrates into the host-cell genome to establish the provirus. These early phases of infection are notably vulnerable to suppression by a collection of cellular antiviral effectors, called restriction or resistance factors. The host antiviral protein APOBEC3G (A3G) antagonizes the early steps of HIV-1 infection through the combined effects of inhibiting viral cDNA production and cytidine-to-uridine-driven hypermutation of this cDNA. In seeking to address the underlying molecular mechanism for inhibited cDNA synthesis, we developed a deep sequencing strategy to characterize nascent reverse transcription products and their precise 3′-termini in HIV-1 infected T cells. Our results demonstrate site- and sequence-independent interference with reverse transcription, which requires the specific interaction of A3G with reverse transcriptase itself. This approach also established, contrary to current ideas, that cellular uracil base excision repair (UBER) enzymes target and cleave A3G-edited uridine-containing viral cDNA. Together, these findings yield further insights into the regulatory interplay between reverse transcriptase, A3G and cellular DNA repair machinery, and identify the suppression of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase by a directly interacting host protein as a new cell-mediated antiviral mechanism.</p