The untapped potential of the gaming community: Narrative review.

Background: Video gamers are a population at heightened risk of developing obesity due to the sedentary nature of gaming, increased energy intake, and the disruption caused to their sleep. This increases their risk of developing a number of noncommunicable diseases. To date, research seeking to improve health behaviors has focused on developing novel video games to promote behavior change. Although positive results have emerged from this research, large-scale success has been limited due to the lack of transferability to mainstream games and the focus on children and adolescents. The gaming community has a number of unique aspects, which have received comparatively less attention than the development of new video games. Objective: The purpose of this paper is to highlight under-researched areas that have the potential to encourage positive health behavior among this community. Methods: A narrative review of the lay and academic literature was conducted to provide context and support to our claims that further research could be beneficial in this area. Results: Research has found that advertising can have implicit effects on an individual’s memories, which could influence later decisions. However, the effect of the exponential growth of in-game advertisements and the brand sponsorship of gaming events and professional gamers have not been explored in the gaming community. The possibility of using advertising techniques to encourage positive health behaviors within games or at these events has also not been explored. Research suggests that virtual communities can be effective at disseminating health information, but the efficacy of this needs to be explored using known community influencers within the gaming community. Conclusions: This paper has highlighted a number of potential avenues for the development of interventions within the gaming community. Further research must be conducted alongside game developers to ensure that any in-game developed interventions do not deter gameplay and gamers to ensure that potential approaches are acceptable

IEA SHC Task 42 / ECES Annex 29 WG A1: Engineering and Processing of PCMs, TCMs and Sorption Materials

An overview on the recent results on the engineering and characterization of sorption materials, PCMs and TCMs investigated in the working group WG A1 "Engineering and processing of TES materials" of IEA SHC Task 42 / ECES Annex 29 (Task 4229) entitled "Compact Thermal Energy Storage" is presented

Automatic summarization of voicemail messages using lexical and prosodic features

This article presents trainable methods for extracting principal content words from voicemail messages. The short text summaries generated are suitable for mobile messaging applications. The system uses a set of classifiers to identify the summary words with each word described by a vector of lexical and prosodic features. We use an ROC-based algorithm, Parcel, to select input features (and classifiers). We have performed a series of objective and subjective evaluations using unseen data from two different speech recognition systems as well as human transcriptions of voicemail speech

Оценка надежности высоконадежных систем с учетом ЗИП

Предложены приближенные верхние и нижние оценки коэффициента готовности высоконадежной восстанавливаемой системы со структурной избыточностью. Полученные расчетные соотношения могут использоваться для оценки надежности высоконадежных систем с учетом различных стратегий пополнения ЗИП

Nanoencapsulation of n-alkanes with poly(styrene-co-ethylacrylate) shells for thermal energy storage

In this work, we synthesized a series of four nanocapsules containing n-alkanes (CnH2n+2), namely tetradecane, pentadecane, hexadecane, and heptadecane, in poly(styrene-co-ethylacrylate) using an emulsion copolymerization method. The nanocapsules were characterized according to their geometric profiles, phase transition temperatures, phase transition heats, mean particle sizes, and chemical stabilities by means of scanning electron microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, thermal gravimetric analysis and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Furthermore, we also focused on the effect of the core/shell mass ratio on the phase change properties of the nanocapsules. We found that microcapsules were synthesized successfully and that the best core/shell mass ratio was 3:1 for this study. These results indicate that encapsulated n-alkanes with poly(styrene-co-ethylacrylate) have an excellent potential for energy storage. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.111M614We would like to thank The Scientic & Technical Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) (The Project Code: TUBITAK 111M614 ) for their financial support for this study. And also we would like to thank Mr. Suleyman Konuklu for his technical support for this study. Finally, we would like to extend special thanks to the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions in improving the quality of this paper

Laboratory investigation on the use of thermally enhanced phase change material to improve the performance of borehole heat exchangers for ground source heat pumps

Ground source heat pumps have high efficiency and high capital cost primarily due to borehole drillings. This research investigates the inclusion of high-conductivity phase change material (PCM) in the borehole heat exchanger of a ground source heat pump to reduce the borehole length required and improve its coefficient of performance (COP). In the laboratory model, the borehole heat exchanger was represented by a cylindrical electrical heater having a total power of 9.216 W, operating for 1 hour while resting for 3 hours. Surrounding the heater in the annular region, either soil, PCM, or high-conductivity PCM was used as grouting material. The annular region was surrounded by a large amount of soil enclosed in a large bin as a representation of ground soil. The high-conductivity graphite was impregnated with the commercial PCM “PureTemp29.” Results from the experiments revealed that the PCM is able to decrease the temperature fluctuations in the annular and soil regions, while graphite increases the thermal conductivity of the annular region and hence increases the rate of heat dissipation from the heater to the soil surrounding it. The maximum COP values of a ground source heat pump calculated assuming ideal reversed Carnot cycle for cooling mode showed an increase of approximately 81% with PCM and by 112% with graphite-enhanced PCM. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Microcapsulation and macrocapsulation of phase change materials by emulsion co-polymerization method

In this study, decanoic acid suitable for thermal energy storage applicationswas microencapsulated with poly(styrene-co-ethyl acrylate) by emulsion copolymerizationmethod. Chemical structures, morphological characteristics, andthermal properties of microcapsules and macrocapsules were determined usingFourier Transfer Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), Scanning Electron Microscopy(SEM), and Differential Scanning Calorimeters (DSC) respectively. The microPCMsand macroPCMs were synthesized successfully and the encapsulation ratio wasabout up to 65.5 %. As a result, the as-prepared microcapsules show good potentialsfor thermal energy storage and could be used in many applications. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

Thermal buffering effect of a packaging design with microencapsulated phase change material

Temperature fluctuations during storage and transportation are the most important factors affecting quality and shelf life of food products. Phase change materials (PCM) with their isothermal characteristics are used to control temperature in various thermal operations. In this study, octanoic acid as PCM candidate was used in a packaging material design for thermal control of a food product. The PCM candidate was microencapsulated in different shell materials in our laboratory. Among the synthesized microcapsules, microencapsulated PCM (mPCM) (?Hm = 42.9 J/g) with styrene polymer as the shell material was selected based on its properties of being cost effective and compatibility with human health. Thermal buffering effect of PCM in bulk and microencapsulated forms was tested in a packaging design with special PCM pockets. Results showed that packages with mPCM and bulk PCM provided 8.8 and 6 hours of thermal buffering effect for 160 g of chocolate compared with the package without PCM (reference package). © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.111M614The authors acknowledge the financial support provided by the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) (The Project Code: TUBITAK 111M614)

Microencapsulation of caprylic acid with different wall materials as phase change material for thermal energy storage

In this study, caprylic acid (octanoic acid) suitable for thermal energy storage applications was microencapsulated with different wall materials, including urea-formaldehyde resin, melamine-formaldehyde resin, urea+melamine-formaldehyde resin. Microcapsules were prepared using coacervation method. Hardening process of microencapsulated phase change material (PCM) was done with formaldehyde. The morphology and particle sizes of microencapsulated PCM were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, (SEM). The latent heat storage capacities of caprylic acid and microencapsulated caprylic acid were determined with differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The chemical characterization of microcapsules was determined by Fourier transformed infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. It is concluded that urea-formaldehyde resin was the best capsule wall material for caprylic acid. Based on all results, it can be considered that the microcapsules were synthesized successfully and that, the phase change enthalpies of melting and freezing were about 93.9 J/g and 106.1 J/g, respectively, the particle diameter was 200 nm-1.5 µm. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.111M614 Firat University Scientific Research Projects Management Unit: FEB2011118We would like to thank The Scientific & Technical Research Council of Turkey ( TUBITAK ) (The Project Code: TUBITAK 111M614 ) and Research Projects Unit of Nigde University (The Project code: FEB2011118 ) for their financial support for this study. And also we would like to thank Mr. Suleyman Konuklu for his technical support for this study

Review on using microencapsulated phase change materials (PCM) in building applications

Energy demand for heating and cooling of buildings can be minimized through usage of thermal energy storage (TES) systems in building materials. TES in microencapsulated phase change materials provides a new solution to thermally regulated energy efficient buildings. This study summarizes the investigations and analysis of microencapsulated PCMs for building applications. Microencapsulated phase change materials (MPCMs) can be incorporated with many materials that are commonly used in building construction. This paper provides overview of various encapsulation techniques, test methods for MPCMs as well as applications of MPCMs in buildings. There are several micro-encapsulation methods by which the microcapsules of a wide range of sizes between 0.05 µm and 5000 µm can be produced. The MPCM incorporated with concrete, mortar, plaster and other materials have a significant potential to increase the thermal capacity of the mixture. Several authors reported testing of building materials with MPCM. Though the increase of thermal capacity with addition of MPCM is significant the decrease of mechanical properties, such as compressive strength, is relatively small. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Grantová Agentura Ceské Republiky: 15-19162S Research and DevelopmentThis work was partially supported by the Czech Science Foundation under project No. 15-19162S “Research and development of heat storage media based on the phase change materials for higher energy performance of buildings”