Lowering electricity prices through deregulation

A wave of regulatory reform is now transforming the U.S. electricity industry. As state and federal authorities allow independent power producers to compete with utilities in supplying electricity, consumers are paying close attention to the effects of this change on their energy bills. Although deregulation poses significant structural challenges, the introduction of competitive pressures should ultimately lead to efficiency gains for the industry and cost savings for households and businesses.Electric utilities ; Prices

Optimized Design of Shale Gas Processing and NGL Recovery Plant under Uncertain Feed Conditions

Shale gas is an increasingly booming resource and it has been predicted to increase from 1% in 2000 to 40% in 2035 of the total US domestic gas produced. Since shale gas is both industrially economical and environmentally clean compared to oil or coal as a resource, many studies are focused on developing technologies to monetize shale gas. However, one of the key challenges in utilizing shale gas is its fluctuating flow rate and compositional behavior. The flow rate of a shale gas well dwindles over a period of time and the composition of shale gas differs from well to well in the same shale play. This provides a challenge in designing a plant of optimum size for a shale gas processing and NGL recovery plant. In this study, this uncertainty in shale gas feed flow rate and composition is addressed while designing a shale gas processing and NGL recovery plant. First, different shale gas flow rates are chosen over a period of shale gas well life based on the average shale gas rate declination curve of a shale play. Second, two different process flow sheets are developed (i) using conventional technology and (ii) using novel technology. In the novel technology, the NGL recovery section of the conventional technology is modified to accommodate novel changes such as using a divided wall column or pre-fractionated sequence to separate methane, ethane, and propane. Later, these process flow sheets are simulated in Aspen plus for comparing the economics of different plant sizes. Furthermore, heat integration and optimization of individual units of the process flow sheets are carried out using pinch and sensitivity analyses, respectively. Lastly, the economic analysis of a plant of optimum size with constant feed flow rate over its plant life is evaluated. In this case, shale gas from different wells is collected in a header and adjusted such that the shale gas flow rate is constant to the plant. Environmental impact of the process is also observed. From the economic analysis of various cases for conventional and novel technology, it is observed that case-3 provides the optimum plant design with highest ROI percentage compared to other cases and for case-3, novel technology ROI is 4.17% more compared to conventional technology. Finally, constant production rate case, at the flow rate of case-3, the ROI percentage is observed to be more than minimum requirement implying that this processing plant is economically viable to implement

A prospective study of treatment of distal femur fractures with locking condylar plate

Background: Multiple implants are available to treat distal femoral fractures. The recent addition is the locking plate contoured to the distal femur with combiholes in the proximal portion. Though it is established that locking plates offer higher stability than the previous implants like dynamic compression screw or condylar buttress plate, some studies showed higher incidence of delayed union. We evaluated 30 type A and type C distal femoral fractures treated with locking condylar plate in our institutes.Methods: We conducted a prospective study on 30 consecutive patients with fractures of distal femur operated with locking condylar plate from December, 2015 to February, 2017. Patients were regularly followed up with x-rays and clinical examination. At the end of one year follow-up, patients were evaluated with Pritchett score.Results: Fracture union was seen in all patients. Union was faster in type A fractures than in type C intra articular fractures. 67% of patients achieved excellent to good grading according to Pritchett rating system. Conclusions: Locking condylar plate is effective in treating distal femoral fractures with minimal complications

Reinforcing optimization enabled interactive approach for liver tumor extraction in computed tomography images

Detecting liver abnormalities is a difficult task in radiation planning and treatment. The modern development integrates medical imaging into computer techniques. This advancement has monumental effect on how medical images are interpreted and analyzed. In many circumstances, manual segmentation of liver from computerized tomography (CT) imaging is imperative, and cannot provide satisfactory results. However, there are some difficulties in segmenting the liver due to its uneven shape, fuzzy boundary and complicated structure. This leads to necessity of enabling optimization in interactive segmentation approach. The main objective of reinforcing optimization is to search the optimal threshold and reduce the chance of falling into local optimum with survival of the fittest (SOF) technique. The proposed methodology makes use of pre-processing stage and reinforcing meta heuristics optimization based fuzzy c-means (FCM) for obtaining detailed information about the image. This information gives the optimal threshold value that is used for segmenting the region of interest with minimum user input. Suspicious areas are recognized from the segmented output. Both public and simulated dataset have been taken for experimental purposes. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy, performance criteria such as dice coefficient, mode and user interaction level are taken and compared with state-of-the-art algorithms

Optimized Design of Shale Gas Processing and NGL Recovery Plant under Uncertain Feed Conditions

Shale gas is an increasingly booming resource and it has been predicted to increase from 1% in 2000 to 40% in 2035 of the total US domestic gas produced. Since shale gas is both industrially economical and environmentally clean compared to oil or coal as a resource, many studies are focused on developing technologies to monetize shale gas. However, one of the key challenges in utilizing shale gas is its fluctuating flow rate and compositional behavior. The flow rate of a shale gas well dwindles over a period of time and the composition of shale gas differs from well to well in the same shale play. This provides a challenge in designing a plant of optimum size for a shale gas processing and NGL recovery plant. In this study, this uncertainty in shale gas feed flow rate and composition is addressed while designing a shale gas processing and NGL recovery plant. First, different shale gas flow rates are chosen over a period of shale gas well life based on the average shale gas rate declination curve of a shale play. Second, two different process flow sheets are developed (i) using conventional technology and (ii) using novel technology. In the novel technology, the NGL recovery section of the conventional technology is modified to accommodate novel changes such as using a divided wall column or pre-fractionated sequence to separate methane, ethane, and propane. Later, these process flow sheets are simulated in Aspen plus for comparing the economics of different plant sizes. Furthermore, heat integration and optimization of individual units of the process flow sheets are carried out using pinch and sensitivity analyses, respectively. Lastly, the economic analysis of a plant of optimum size with constant feed flow rate over its plant life is evaluated. In this case, shale gas from different wells is collected in a header and adjusted such that the shale gas flow rate is constant to the plant. Environmental impact of the process is also observed. From the economic analysis of various cases for conventional and novel technology, it is observed that case-3 provides the optimum plant design with highest ROI percentage compared to other cases and for case-3, novel technology ROI is 4.17% more compared to conventional technology. Finally, constant production rate case, at the flow rate of case-3, the ROI percentage is observed to be more than minimum requirement implying that this processing plant is economically viable to implement

Triple Band Textile Array Antenna with Enhanced Gain and Low SAR for Off Body Communication Applications

A triple band wearable microstrip patch antenna array has been designed and analyzed in this work. The designed antenna can be operated in ISM, LAES and X-Band with moderate average gain of 4.2 dB. The antenna gain has been improved by constructing array structure of 1X2 and 1X4 with good impedance feeding by quarter wave transformer. The proposed array antennas are providing moderate gain of 5.7 dB (1X2) and 8.3 dB (1X4) with efficiency more than 90% in the operating bands. The antenna model and the array has been constructed on wearable substrate with conductive textile as radiating element in the design for off body wearable communication applications. SAR analysis also providing acceptable values below 1.6 w/kg at triple operating bands with body placement experimentation. &nbsp

Monitoring of nickel(II) in biological samples using 4-(2-hydroxy-phenylethamino)benzene-1,3-diol by extractive differential pulse polarography

A novel analytical reagent, 4-(2-hydroxyphenylethamino)benzene-1,3-diol was synthesized for determination of nickel(II) in biological samples and plant materials by extractive differential pulse polarography. The analysis of nickel(II) was carried out by extracting the nickel(II)-(4-(2-hydroxyphenylethamino)benzene-1,3-diol) complex from chloroform prior to injecting into the instrument. The electrochemical behavior of nickel(II) complex was studied under optimum parameters like effect of pH, pulse amplitude, scan rate and choice of solvent. The calibration curve was constructed in the concentration range of 0.05-42 μg mL-1 at pH 4.0 (acetate buffer) with a correlation coefficient of 0.992, respectively. Interference of diverse ions was also investigated during the analysis of nickel(II) to optimize the conditions. The accuracy and validity of the proposed method were checked by the analysis of Certified Reference Materials which is distributed by the National Institute of Standard Technology

Gender preferences among antenatal women: a cross-sectional study from coastal South India

Background: A balanced sex ratio is essential for a stable society.Objective: The main objective of the present research was to study the perceptions of women attending the antenatal care (ANC) facility regarding their gender preferences and family composition.Method: In this cross-sectional study 132 antenatal women were interviewed in their preferred language using a predesigned semi-structured questionnaire. The collected information was analyzed using SPSS version 11.5.Results: The mean age of the study participants was 27.2 ± 4.1 years. The majority of the antenatal women (60.6%, n=80) did not have any gender preferences. Among those who had a gender preference (39.4%, n=52), male and female preference was reported by 55.7% (n=29) and 44.3% (n=23) of the participants respectively. The overall son preference index was observed to be 1.3. No consistent relationship could be established between the socio-demographic factors and the preference for gender. The mean preferred family size in our study was 1.85±0.531 and more than half of the participants had a balanced gender preference. The majority of the participants were aware that the adverse sex ratio can lead to fall in the number of brides and that it would bring about a social imbalance.Conclusion: As a developed society we need to ensure that both the genders get equal respect and are free from any sort of preferences and prejudices. To achieve this, more and more people need to be made aware of the consequences of gender imbalance and adverse sex ratio in a society.Keywords: Gender preferences; family composition; antenatal women; coastal South Indi

CLINICAL PROFILE, PRESCRIPTION PATTERNS, AND ADVERSE DRUG REACTIONS IN PATIENTS WITH VITILIGO: A PROSPECTIVE STUDY

Objectives: The objectives of the study were to assess clinical profile (age of onset, age of presentation, gender, site of involvement, severity (stage), type of vitiligo, triggering factors, and associated diseases), prescription patterns (monotherapy, combination therapy, oral, topical, and therapeutic categories of drugs prescribed) and to monitor and report adverse drug reactions (based on World Health Organization [WHO] causality assessment scale) in vitiligo patients. Methods: A hospital-based prospective observational study was carried out by evaluating and assessing the clinical profile and prescription patterns of 85 patients who attended dermatology venereology and leprosy (DVL) outpatient department at Sri Padmavathi Medical College for Women, SVIMS, Tirupati, over a period of 6 months from June 2019 to December 2019. Results: In our study, forty four (51.77%) patients were female, vitiligo vulgaris is the most common morphological type observed in twenty seven (31.76%) patients. 31–50 years was the predominant age group. The mean age of onset and presentation was 38.35 (standard deviation of 18.37) and 43.27 (standard deviation of 17.96) years, respectively. Forty-one (48.23%) patients were having Stage 1 vitiligo. Fifty (58.85%) patients were having vitiligo at more than 1 site. Twelve (14.11%) patients were having a positive family history of vitiligo. Thirty-seven (43.53%) patients had triggering factors. Associated diseases were found in thirty (35%) patients. Combination therapy was given to sixty one (71.77%) patients. Topical medications were given to fifty two (61.18%) patients. During the study, we did not have a single patient complaining of any adverse drug reaction. Conclusion: Longer the time after appearance of vitiligo, lesser the number of patients attending follow-up. If vitiligo is diagnosed at the earliest stage, more are the chances for complete repigmentation. Patients with a poor economic background are less bothered about their skin condition and are not using medications properly