Utilization of waste heat in trucks for increased fuel economy

Improvements in fuel economy for a broad spectrum of truck engines and waste heat utilization concepts are evaluated and compared. The engines considered are the diesel, spark ignition, gas turbine, and Stirling. The waste heat utilization concepts include preheating, regeneration, turbocharging, turbocompounding, and Rankine engine compounding. Predictions were based on fuel-air cycle analyses, computer simulation, and engine test data. The results reveal that diesel driving cycle performance can be increased by 20% through increased turbocharging, turbocompounding, and Rankine engine compounding. The Rankine engine compounding provides about three times as much improvement as turbocompounding but also costs about three times as much. Performance for either is approximately doubled if applied to an adiabatic diesel

Utilization of waste heat in trucks for increased fuel economy

The waste heat utilization concepts include preheating, regeneration, turbocharging, turbocompounding, and Rankine engine compounding. Predictions are based on fuel-air cycle analyses, computer simulation, and engine test data. All options are evaluated in terms of maximum theoretical improvements, but the Diesel and adiabatic Diesel are also compared on the basis of maximum expected improvement and expected improvement over a driving cycle. The study indicates that Diesels should be turbocharged and aftercooled to the maximum possible level. The results reveal that Diesel driving cycle performance can be increased by 20% through increased turbocharging, turbocompounding, and Rankine engine compounding. The Rankine engine compounding provides about three times as much improvement as turbocompounding but also costs about three times as much. Performance for either can be approximately doubled if applied to an adiabatic Diesel

Comparative analysis of greenhouse gas emission inventory for Pakistan: Part I energy and industrial processes and product use

In order to further improve the accuracy and reliability and reduce uncertainties in the national GHG inventories for Pakistan, this study call for using 2006 IPCC Guidelines, to help to identify the national targets for GHG mitigation with respect to the nationally determined contributions (NDCs). GHG (CO2, CH4, and N2O) inventories for Pakistan have been developed by conducting a detailed sectoral assessment of IPCC source sectors, energy, industrial processes and product use (IPPU), agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU), and the waste sector. Further, sector wise comparative analysis of GHG inventories (1994–2017) based on the 2006 and 1996 IPCC Guidelines have also been presented. Results indicated an average relative difference of 4% in total GHG emissions (CO2 equivalent) from energy sector between 2006 and 1996 IPCC Guidelines. With 3.6% average annual growth rate based on 2006 IPCC Guidelines, CO2 from energy sector remained the most abundant GHG emitted, followed by CH4 and N2O. While the average absolute difference in emissions of CH4 and N2O from the energy sector is notable, the total estimated GHG emissions by 2006 IPCC Guidelines duplicate those by 1996 IPCC Guidelines. In the mineral industry with 2006 IPCC Guidelines, an average annual growth rate of 6.7% is observed, contributing 64% of total IPPU sector CO2 emissions. Nevertheless, the relative difference between the two Guidelines in overall IPPU sector emissions remained negligible. There might be a need for switching to 2006 IPCC Guidelines to consider more parameters such as additional source sectors and new default emission factors that fit into national circumstances

Role of oestradiol-17β in the regulation of synthesis and secretion of human chorionic gonadotrophin by first trimester human placenta

Inhibition of aromatase, a key enzyme in the biosynthesis of oestradiol-17β , by the addition of 1,4,6-androstatrien-3,17-dione resulted in a significant increase in the levels of immunoreactive human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) in the medium and tissue. This increase was partially reversed by the simultaneous addition of oestradiol-17β . These effects on the levels of immunoreactive hCG were also reflected by the increased levels of mRNA specific for the α and β subunits of hCG following the addition of the aromatase inhibitor. However, addition of tamoxifen resulted in a drastic decrease in the levels of both the messages. Based on these results, it is suggested that the synthesis of hCG is negatively modulated by oestradiol-17β in the human placenta

Evolution of Conversations in the Age of Email Overload

Email is a ubiquitous communications tool in the workplace and plays an important role in social interactions. Previous studies of email were largely based on surveys and limited to relatively small populations of email users within organizations. In this paper, we report results of a large-scale study of more than 2 million users exchanging 16 billion emails over several months. We quantitatively characterize the replying behavior in conversations within pairs of users. In particular, we study the time it takes the user to reply to a received message and the length of the reply sent. We consider a variety of factors that affect the reply time and length, such as the stage of the conversation, user demographics, and use of portable devices. In addition, we study how increasing load affects emailing behavior. We find that as users receive more email messages in a day, they reply to a smaller fraction of them, using shorter replies. However, their responsiveness remains intact, and they may even reply to emails faster. Finally, we predict the time to reply, length of reply, and whether the reply ends a conversation. We demonstrate considerable improvement over the baseline in all three prediction tasks, showing the significant role that the factors that we uncover play, in determining replying behavior. We rank these factors based on their predictive power. Our findings have important implications for understanding human behavior and designing better email management applications for tasks like ranking unread emails.Comment: 11 page, 24th International World Wide Web Conferenc

Recasting Food: An Ethnographic Study on How Caste and Resource Inequality Perpetuate Social Disadvantage in India

Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) is the principal programme operating in India to address issues around child development, malnutrition and pre-school education. A package of services – including the Supplementary Nutrition Programme (SNP), pre-school education, immunization, health check-ups, referral services, and nutrition and health education – are provided through an Anganwadi Centre (AWC) with an Anganwadi Worker (AWW) and an Anganwadi Helper (AWH) for roughly every one thousand people. From the mid-1990s, there have been successive efforts on the part of the Government of India to universalize ICDS, and there has been a multi-fold increase in funds allocated to this programme between the 8th Five-Year Plan (1992–93 to 1996–97) and the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012–17) (1-2). However, the utilization of all services under ICDS continues to be grossly low. Close to 75 percent of children aged 0–71 months in the areas covered by AWCs did not receive any supplementary food from the centres, and less than 12 percent of children received supplementary food ‘almost daily’. For children aged 36–71 months this figure is 15.5 percent. More than 80 percent of children were not weighed at all. It has been reported that children belonging to economically backward and socially marginalised families, including Dalit, tribal, and religious minorities, are excluded from utilising these services through unfavourable institutional rules and structural factors. Equally, members of well-off families do not use services provided by AWCs – especially the SNP – for under-6 children. A multi-sited ethnographic study was conducted in four villages in Gujarat in order to identify the reasons behind poor utilisation of AWCs, especially the SNP services. The study aimed to understand everyday experience of households around the SNP in rural settings and an opportunity to study AWCs as institutions embedded in the context of village cultural life. The authors hypothesise that a study focusing on AWCs could serve as an illustrative case to highlight challenges in implementing other entitlement-based programmes

Molecular Mechanisms of Proteinuria in Minimal Change Disease

Minimal change disease (MCD) is the most common type of idiopathic nephrotic syndrome in childhood and represents about 15% cases in adults. It is characterized by massive proteinuria, edema, hypoalbuminemia, and podocyte foot process effacement on electron microscopy. Clinical and experimental studies have shown an association between MCD and immune dysregulation. Given the lack of inflammatory changes or immunocomplex deposits in the kidney tissue, MCD has been traditionally thought to be mediated by an unknown circulating factor(s), probably released by T cells that directly target podocytes leading to podocyte ultrastructural changes and proteinuria. Not surprisingly, research efforts have focused on the role of T cells and podocytes in the disease process. Nevertheless, the pathogenesis of the disease remains a mystery. More recently, B cells have been postulated as an important player in the disease either by activating T cells or by releasing circulating autoantibodies against podocyte targets. There are also few reports of endothelial injury in MCD, but whether glomerular endothelial cells play a role in the disease remains unexplored. Genome-wide association studies are providing insights into the genetic susceptibility to develop the disease and found a link between MCD and certain human haplotype antigen variants. Altogether, these findings emphasize the complex interplay between the immune system, glomerular cells, and the genome, raising the possibility of distinct underlying triggers and/or mechanisms of proteinuria among patients with MCD. The heterogeneity of the disease and the lack of good animal models of MCD remain major obstacles in the understanding of MCD. In this study, we will review the most relevant candidate mediators and mechanisms of proteinuria involved in MCD and the current models of MCD-like injury

Kerosene subsidies for household lighting in India: what are the impacts?

Kerosene subsidy reform is a key policy concern in India and other developing countries. As kerosene is widely used for lighting in India, any price change will likely have considerable public welfare impacts on the large fraction of the poor who do not have access to reliable electricity supply for lighting. In this study, we assess historic kerosene use for residential lighting across population groups separated by urban/rural, expenditure, and electricity service levels using data from India. Consumption trends are used to inform a service demand model and evaluate how changes in fuel price, electricity connection, and supply reliability influence environmental, health and economic outcomes. We find that users relying on kerosene for supplemental lighting—in combination ('stacked') with electricity—accounted for 64% of residential kerosene consumed for lighting in 2005. Tested scenarios that addressed service needs of supplemental users had the greatest welfare benefits, especially in the future. Scenarios reducing PM2.5 emissions from kerosene lighting can avert between 50 and 300 thousand disability adjusted life years relative to a baseline scenario in 2030. Lighting kerosene is highly price sensitive, resulting in a drop in demand of 97% in a scenario in which current subsidies are phased out by 2030. Deadweight loss of the subsidy in 2005 is estimated at $200–950 million, with three quarters attributable to supplemental kerosene lighting. Support for cleaner lighting technologies not reliant on fossil fuel subsidies would appear to be 'no regrets' or 'co-benefits' options for India, and could be implemented in parallel with subsidy removal

EAIMS: Emergency Analysis Identification and Management System

Social media has great potential as a means to enable civil protection and law enforcement agencies to more effectively tackle disasters and emergencies. However, there is currently a lack of tools that enable civil protection agencies to easily make use of social media. The Emergency Analysis Identification and Management System (EAIMS) is a prototype service that provides real-time detection of emergency events, related information finding and credibility analysis tools for use over social media during emergencies. This system exploits machine learning over data gathered from past emergencies and disasters to build effective models for identifying new events as they occur, tracking developments within those events and analyzing those developments for the purposes of enhancing the decision making processes of emergency response agencies

Toxicopathological changes on Wistar rat after multiple exposures to acetamiprid

Abstract Aim: To see the toxicopathological changes after multiple exposure to acetamiprid (ACP) and also to obtain more information regarding the manner in which ACP acts at cellular level. Materials and Methods: A subacute toxicity study of ACP was undertaken in 72 female Wistar rats in four groups (18 each). Three different concentrations of ACP (25, 100 and 200 mg/kg of body weight) were administered orally to rats. Untreated rats served as control. Different plasma enzyme and analytes were measured. Gross and histopathological observations were noted in this experiment. Result: There was a significant increase in the plasma enzymes tested in this experiment. There was a significant decrease in plasma glucose, cholesterol and low-density lipid. Necrotic and degenerative changes were observed in vital organs. Conclusion: It is observed that ACP has the toxic potential (on liver, kidney, heart, ovary and brain) at sub lethal doses