Vanadium trichloride thermochemical solar energy storage system analysis.

As annual energy consumption grows, developing renewable solar energy conversion systems, storage systems, and high density electrical energy production systems is growing increasingly important. The proposed system utilizes vanadium trichloride thermal decomposition to produce chlorine gas and vanadium dichloride. A second reaction combines gaseous hydrogen chloride and the product vanadium dichloride to reform vanadium trichloride and produce hydrogen gas. Hydrogen gas and chlorine gas can be stored indefinitely and electrical energy is obtained from the chemicals by a non-humidified dry membrane hydrogen – chlorine fuel cell. The fuel cell produces the gaseous hydrogen chloride needed to reform vanadium trichloride. The cycle operates in a closed loop where vanadium trichloride is recycled. Chemical equations and reaction kinetics are discussed for vanadium trichloride decomposition and synthesis. TRNSYS 16 software was used to evaluate the efficiency of the solar collection cycle with an SES parabolic dish Stirling collector in Louisville, KY and Phoenix, AZ. Thermodynamic calculations for the chemical reactions were performed. A dry membrane hydrogen – chlorine fuel cell model was developed from both theoretical calculations and experimental data (Liu, Zhou et al. 2013). The system efficiency was evaluated for two fuel cell current densities of 0.039 A/cm2 and 0.085 A/cm2. The potential efficiency of the vanadium trichloride cycle was compared to efficiency values for thermal energy storage (TES), compressed air energy storage systems (CAES), vanadium flow battery (Battery), pumped hydro electrical storage (PHES), and thermochemical ammonia storage (NH3), evaluated by Shakeri, et al. (2014). All systems, with the exception of the vanadium trichloride system, used a Stirling engine for electric energy production. Short – term storage system efficiency, cumulative system efficiency, and long – term energy storage system efficiency were compared for each storage system. The analysis found that the vanadium trichloride cycle offers a significant advantage over other storage systems. The highest efficiency obtained was 39.3%, which was significantly higher than TES systems at 22.8% and the NH3 system at 19.3%. Despite the difference in climate, system efficiency was decreased by only 1.3% in Louisville, KY when compared to Phoenix, AZ. The efficiency difference was due to a lower collector and receiver efficiency in Louisville than in Phoenix. In addition, the vanadium trichloride system had a lower efficiency of energy to storage than both the TES and NH3 cycles. Energy production from the vanadium trichloride system remained more efficient due to the high efficiency of the hydrogen – chlorine fuel cell, giving the vanadium trichloride system the overall advantage. A comparison of the long – term energy storage efficiency of the systems showed that the vanadium trichloride system had a significant advantage over other storage and energy production systems. After seven months of continuous energy storage, the TES system efficiency reduced to 0.58%, the NH3 system efficiency reduced to 18.7%, and the vanadium trichloride system efficiency reduced to 38.1%. The ability to store energy for long periods of time with low losses gives the vanadium trichloride system a significant advantage

Recruitment and Essential Habitat of Juvenile Sand Seatrout (Cynoscion arenarius) in Four Estuaries Along the West Coast of Florida

The sand seatrout (Cynoscion arenarius) is an ecologically and economically important species common to estuarine and nearshore waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Currently, comprehensive information on the essential habitat of juvenile sand seatrout is limited. We analyzed data from a long-term fisheries-independent monitoring program to assess the spatial and temporal distributions of juvenile sand seatrout relative to various habitat parameters in four estuaries (Apalachicola Bay, the Suwannee River estuary, Tampa Bay, and Charlotte Harbor) along the gulf coast of Florida. A total of 25,668 sand seatrout (≤100 mm SL) were collected during monthly stratified-random sampling from Jan. 1996 through Dec. 1997 and Jan. 2001 through Dec. 2003. Specimens were collected with 21.3-m bag seines and 6.1-m otter trawls; the majority of specimens were captured in trawls from water ≥ 1.8 m deep. Juvenile sand seatrout primarily recruited into the estuaries from May through Oct., although recruitment began 1 mo earlier in Tampa Bay. Juveniles were most abundant over unvegetated mud bottoms, in mesohaline salinities, and near salt marsh vegetation. Highest abundances also occurred in small rivers, tidal creeks, and areas adjacent to the mouths of large rivers. Juveniles between 30 mm SL and 70 mm SL primarily occupied mesohaline salinities before shifting toward higher salinities as they approached 100 mm SL

Measuring "a hair's breadth" : determining John Wesley's closeness to Calvinism by a comparison to Jonathan Edwards

John Wesley is recognized as one of the most powerful voices of the 18th century. His work sparked a revival which spread around the world, becoming the basis for multiple Christian denominations which are still present today. He was famously fond of Arminian theology, though he did admit that he believed the truth of the gospel to be so close to Calvinism as to be only a “hair’s breadth away.” This particular turn of phrase is one which is often cited by Wesleyan scholars and then immediately forgotten as they go on to emphasize the more Arminian elements of his theology. I argue in this thesis that Wesley’s theological super- system was far more Reformed Orthodox in nature than is typically thought. This is shown by comparing Wesley to his contemporary across the sea, Jonathan Edwards, particularly along the topics of theological anthropology and federal theology

Libraries of the Future

Libraries have been the source of innovation throughout human history. People today do not understand the importance of libraries and the resources they can provide to a community or society. This causes libraries to not receive the appropriate funding to support both their programs and new literary materials. The inspiration for libraries of the future is derived from the trends that will attract the citizens of tomorrow. Libraries will be more involved in the community and provide the public with accessible technology. Our ideas to improve libraries will gain the public’s interest and keep the fire of knowledge alive. Some of these ideas include creating a more relaxed area to draw in a larger audience, bringing in new and developing technologies that the public can access, and providing new educational opportunities that widen the purpose of libraries

Polarization studies of Rotating Radio Transients

We study the polarization properties of 22 known rotating radio transients (RRATs) with the 64-m Parkes radio telescope and present the Faraday rotation measures (RMs) for the 17 with linearly polarized flux exceeding the off-pulse noise by 3$\sigma$. Each RM was estimated using a brute-force search over trial RMs that spanned the maximum measurable range $\pm1.18 \times 10^5 \, \mathrm{rad \, m^2}$ (in steps of 1 $\mathrm{rad \, m^2}$), followed by an iterative refinement algorithm. The measured RRAT RMs are in the range |RM| $\sim 1$ to $\sim 950$ rad m$^{-2}$ with an average linear polarization fraction of $\sim 40$ per cent. Individual single pulses are observed to be up to 100 per cent linearly polarized. The RMs of the RRATs and the corresponding inferred average magnetic fields (parallel to the line-of-sight and weighted by the free electron density) are observed to be consistent with the Galactic plane pulsar population. Faraday rotation analyses are typically performed on accumulated pulsar data, for which hundreds to thousands of pulses have been integrated, rather than on individual pulses. Therefore, we verified the iterative refinement algorithm by performing Monte Carlo simulations of artificial single pulses over a wide range of S/N and RM. At and above a S/N of 17 in linearly polarized flux, the iterative refinement recovers the simulated RM value 100 per cent of the time with a typical mean uncertainty of $\sim5$ rad m$^{-2}$. The method described and validated here has also been successfully used to determine reliable RMs of several fast radio bursts (FRBs) discovered at Parkes.Comment: Submitted to MNRAS, 10 pages, 6 figure

A genetic variation map for chicken with 2.8 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms

We describe a genetic variation map for the chicken genome containing 2.8 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms ( SNPs). This map is based on a comparison of the sequences of three domestic chicken breeds ( a broiler, a layer and a Chinese silkie) with that of their wild ancestor, red jungle fowl. Subsequent experiments indicate that at least 90% of the variant sites are true SNPs, and at least 70% are common SNPs that segregate in many domestic breeds. Mean nucleotide diversity is about five SNPs per kilobase for almost every possible comparison between red jungle fowl and domestic lines, between two different domestic lines, and within domestic lines - in contrast to the notion that domestic animals are highly inbred relative to their wild ancestors. In fact, most of the SNPs originated before domestication, and there is little evidence of selective sweeps for adaptive alleles on length scales greater than 100 kilobases

Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on 18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016