Patients and caregivers experience and perceptions of living with Hepatitis C in Karachi, Pakistan

This study presents the details of a descriptive exploratory study conducted in Karachi, on patients and caregivers experiences of living with hepatitis C. The study sample consisted of 10 patients and eight caregivers who were recruited through snow ball sampling. Data were collected by taking semi structured interviews from the participants. The findings revealed that hepatitis C impacted not only the individual patients but also their family members. Three main categories of data i.e. perceptions and misperceptions of the patients and caregivers about hepatitis C, their challenges and sufferings, and the blessings with shortcomings experienced in their trajectory were identified which were reflective of one key theme that is, \u27deadly, dangerous, and devastating\u27. The study findings indicated that misperceptions among participants about hepatitis C and the disease itself influence the physical, financial, emotional and social domains of patients and the caregivers. In addition, the analysis revealed that caregivers seemed to fulfill a major component of care. A detailed analysis of the data revealed although family members and health care professionals were supportive, some shortcoming in their envisaged roles were also noted. This study has implications for the health care professionals and the overall society. It calls for the implementation of hepatitis C related health education sessions and availability of social support which may lessen the patients and the caregivers suffering in hepatitis C

The need for energy storage - methods of storage and applications

166 σ.Στο σύγχρονο κόσμο, υπάρχει μια συνεχής παγκόσμια ανάγκη για περισσότερη ενέργεια, η οποία ταυτόχρονα πρέπει να είναι «καθαρότερη» από την ενέργεια που παράγεται από τις συμβατικές μονάδες ηλεκτροπαραγωγής. Η ανάγκη αυτή διευκόλυνε την αυξανόμενη διείσδυση των Ανανεώσιμων Πηγών Ενέργειας (ΑΠΕ), η εκτεταμένη χρήση των οποίων στα σημερινά ηλεκτρικά δίκτυα μπορεί αδιαμφισβήτητα να ελαχιστοποιήσει την απειλή του φαινομένου του θερμοκηπίου και της κλιματικής αλλαγής. Παρόλα αυτά, η ποσότητα της ισχύος που παράγεται από τις διατάξεις τέτοιων πηγών δεν προσαρμόζεται εύκολα στις διακυμάνσεις της ζήτησης, δημιουργώντας την ανάγκη για ενεργειακή αποθήκευση. Αντικείμενο της παρούσας διπλωματικής εργασίας είναι η ανάλυση των σημαντικότερων διατάξεων ενεργειακής αποθήκευσης για εφαρμογές ηλεκτροπαραγωγής, που είτε είναι εμπορικά διαθέσιμες είτε βρίσκονται ακόμα υπό εντατική έρευνα και ανάπτυξη. Ανάλογα με την εφαρμογή τους, οι διατάξεις αποθήκευσης ενέργειας μπορούν να κατηγοριοποιηθούν σε διατάξεις βραχυπρόθεσμης και μακροπρόθεσμης αποθήκευσης. Τεχνολογίες με υψηλή πυκνότητα ισχύος και ικανότητα ανταπόκρισης στα αιτήματα σε μικρά χρονικά πλαίσια, όπως οι σφόνδυλοι, οι υπερ-πυκνωτές και τα υπεραγώγιμα μαγνητικά πηνία ανήκουν στην πρώτη κατηγορία. Διατάξεις ενεργειακής αποθήκευσης με ικανότητα να απορροφούν και να αποδεσμεύουν την ηλεκτρική ενέργεια για περιόδους μακράς διάρκειας, όπως οι μπαταρίες, τα συστήματα αντλησιοταμίευσης, τα συστήματα ενεργειακής αποθήκευσης συμπιεσμένου αέρα και οι τεχνολογίες ενεργειακής αποθήκευσης υδρογόνου εντάσσονται στη δεύτερη κατηγορία. Επιπρόσθετα, μια σύγκριση των διαφόρων τεχνολογιών κάθε κατηγορίας αποθήκευσης παρουσιάζεται υπό το πρίσμα των σημαντικότερων τεχνικών και οικονομικών χαρακτηριστικών της κάθε τεχνολογίας, όπως είναι για παράδειγμα η πυκνότητα ισχύος και ενέργειας, η ενεργειακή απόδοση, η διάρκεια ζωής και τα κόστη. Η σύγκριση δείχνει ότι προκειμένου να επιτύχουμε βέλτιστα αποτελέσματα, τα τεχνικά και οικονομικά χαρακτηριστικά των τεχνολογιών αποθήκευσης πρέπει να μελετηθούν λεπτομερώς, πριν ληφθεί μια απόφαση για την επιλογή της καταλληλότερης τεχνολογίας αποθήκευσης.In today’s world, there is a continuous global need for more energy which, at the same time, has to be cleaner than the energy produced from the traditional generation units. This need has facilitated the increasing penetration of Renewable Energy Sources (RES), the extensive use of which in today’s electricity networks can indisputably minimize the threat of global warming and climate change. However, the quantity of power produced by such sources doesn’t adjust easily to changing demand cycles, creating the need for energy storage. Subject of this diploma thesis is the analysis of the most significant energy storage devices for electric power applications, which are either commercial available or they are still under intensive research and development. Depending on their application, energy storage devices can be classified into short and long term storage. Technologies with high power density and with the ability to respond to the requests in short time fractions like flywheels, supercapacitors or superconducting magnetic coils belong to the first category. Energy storage devices with the capability to absorb and supply electrical energy for long periods of time like batteries, pumping hydro, compressed air energy storage systems and technologies of hydrogen energy storage place among the second category. In addition, a comparison between the various storage technologies of each storage category is presented in terms of the most important technical and economical characteristics of each technology, as it is for example power and energy density, energy efficiency, lifetime and costs. The comparison shows that in order to achieve optimum results, the technical and economical characteristics of energy storage devices have to be studied thoroughly, before a decision for the most suitable storage technology to be selected is taken.Αγγελική Ν. Σαγάν

Life cycle GHG emission reduction of hydrotreated vegetable oil integration in an industrial petroleum refinery

The purpose of this paper is to perform a comprehensive Life Cycle Assessment to evaluate the environmental performance, in terms of GHG emissions, of co-processing Used Cooking Oil (UCO) with fossil light gas oil into a current diesel hydrotreater unit at an industrial refinery, located in Northern Greece. Two scenarios have been defined and compared, considering: (i) the hydrodesulphurization process of light gas oil for the production of conventional ultralow sulphur diesel fuel (reference scenario), and (ii) the integration of pre-treated UCO along with conventional fossil feed at 5/95% volume ratio, for the production of Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) (retrofit scenario). The results of the LCA analysis show that the net life cycle GHG emissions associated with fossil diesel production amount to 103.41 gCO2eq/MJ, while the relevant ones related to the HVO/blended diesel production are 95.42 gCO2eq/MJ. A considerable GHG emissions reduction (about 7.7%) will be incurred by the substitution of conventional fossil diesel fuel with the HVO blended diesel one. A newbuild refining facility using exclusively used cooking oil as feedstock could further increase the GHG emission savings up to 93%, indicating that additional research is required regarding the environmental performance of sustainable fuel production processes. Furthermore, alternative sources of biomass feedstock need to be investigated, because of the maximum cap on used cooking oil set in the Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) legislation

Application of fuzzy modelling and Particle Swarm Optimization to enhance lipid extraction from microalgae

Lipid extraction from microalgae is maximized by defining the optimal operating conditions of the microwave pretreatment method. Using the experimental data, a robust model that describes the lipid extraction is generated using fuzzy logic. Then, the optimal extraction conditions of the lipid are determined using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm. Three different operating parameters influence on the recovered lipid from Microalgae. These parameters are power (W), heating time (min), and extraction time (h). Accordingly, during the optimization process, these parameters are used as a decision variables for PSO optimizer in order to maximize the recovered lipid that used as a cost function. The resulting plots demonstrated a well-fitting between the fuzzy model and the experimental data. Based on the built model, the optimization process achieved a significant increase in the lipid extraction by 22% compared to that obtained experimentally and using the ANOVA