Anthropocentrism and Speciesism in the Context of Environmental Studies. A Synoptic Introduction

Anthropocentrism and Speciesism in the Context of Environmental Studies. A Synoptic Introductio

A cascade approach to complex-type classification

The work detailed in this paper describes a 2-step cascade approach for the classification of complex-type nominals. We describe an experiment that demonstrates how a cascade approach performs when the task consists in distinguishing nominals from a given complex-type from any other noun in the language. Overall, our classifier successfully identifies very specific and not highly frequent lexical items such as complex-types with high accuracy, and distinguishes them from those instances that are not complex types by using lexico-syntactic patterns indicative of the semantic classes corresponding to each of the individual sense components of the complex type. Although there is still room for improvement with regard to the coverage of the classifiers developed, the cascade approach increases the precision of classification of the complex-type nouns that are covered in the experiment presented.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

When a Dollar Makes a BWT

TheBurrows-Wheeler-Transform(BWT)isareversiblestring transformation which plays a central role in text compression and is fun- damental in many modern bioinformatics applications. The BWT is a permutation of the characters, which is in general better compressible and allows to answer several different query types more efficiently than the original string. It is easy to see that not every string is a BWT image, and exact charac- terizations of BWT images are known. We investigate a related combi- natorial question. In many applications, a sentinel character $is added to mark the end of the string, and thus the BWT of a string ending with$ contains exactly one $character. We ask, given a string w, in which positions, if any, can the$-character be inserted to turn w into the BWT image of a word ending with the sentinel character. We show that this depends only on the standard permutation of w and give a combinatorial characterization of such positions via this permutation. We then develop an O(n log n)-time algorithm for identifying all such positions, improving on the naive quadratic time algorithm

Thermal Energy Storage in Concentrating Solar Power Plants: A Review of European and North American R&D Projects

Thermal energy storage (TES) is the most suitable solution found to improve the concentrating solar power (CSP) plant’s dispatchability. Molten salts used as sensible heat storage (SHS) are the most widespread TES medium. However, novel and promising TES materials can be implemented into CSP plants within different configurations, minimizing the TES costs and increasing the working temperature to improve the thermal performance of the associated power block. The first objective of this review is to provide an overview of the most widespread CSP technologies, TES technologies and TES-CSP configurations within the currently operational facilities. Once this information has been compiled, the second aim is to collect and present the existing European and North American TES-CSP Research and Development (R&D) projects within the last decade (2011–2021). Data related to these projects such as TES-CSP configuration path, TES and CSP technologies applied, storage capacity, power block associated and the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) of the commercial up-scaling project are presented. In addition, project information such as location, research period, project leader and budget granted are also extracted. A timeline of the R&D projects launched from 2011 is built, showing the technology readiness level (TRL) achieved by the end of the project

Design and operational performance maps of calcium looping thermochemical energy storage for concentrating solar power plants

Calcium-looping thermochemical energy storage associated to concentrating solar plants appears as promising technology given its potential to increase the storage period and energy density of the stored material. Up to now, research efforts focused on the global efficiency of the TCES associated to different power cycles under fixed modes of operation: day or night. However, TCES will never operate under a stationary situation but will experience different operation points to adapt to solar availability and energy demand from the power cycle. The aim is to analyse the influence of those variables which define the operation points, under energy storage and release modes, in the design of the heat exchangers network, storage tanks and reactors involved in the TCES system. The equipment in the conceptual plant have been modelled accounting variable storage/discharge fractions in the mass balances. The results show a suitable capture efficiency, quantifies the stored power and define the size and performance of the heat exchangers required to operate the system. The behaviour of each heat exchanger and their relevance in heat integration with a power plant is derived. The novelty relies in the analysis of potential situations arising from different combinations of charge/discharge fractions of storage tanks

Modelling calcium looping at industrial scale for energy storage in concentrating solar power plants

Ca-Looping represents one of the most promising technologies for thermochemical energy storage. This process based on the carbonation-calcination cycle of CaO offers a high potential to be coupled with solar power plants for its long-term storage capacity and high temperatures. Previous studies analyzed different configurations of CaL integrated into power cycles aiming to improve efficiency. However, most of these assessments based on lumped models did not account for scale effect in the most critical reactor. In this work, a detailed 1D-model of a large-scale carbonator is included in the comprehensive model of the integrated facility. The results obtained served to assess the available heat, the minimum technical part load of this equipment, the required size of the storage tanks and the overall efficiency of the plant. The main issue in the operation of large-size carbonator is the heat removal, thus a multi-tube internally cooled reactor is proposed. The designed carbonator provides 80 MWth at nominal operation and 40 MWth at minimum part load operation. The sizing of storage tanks depends on the operation management, ranging between 5,700-11,400 m3 for 15 hours. Different efficiencies of the system were defined and presented through operating maps, as a function of the reactor loads

Bortezomib promotes KHSV and EBV lytic cycle by activating JNK and autophagy

KSHV and EBV are gammaherpesviruses strictly linked to human cancers. Even if the majority of cancer cells harbor a latent infection, the few cells that undergo viral replication may contribute to the pathogenesis and maintenance of the virus-associated malignancies. Cytotoxic drugs used for the therapies of cancers harboring virus-infection often have, as side effect, the activation of viral lytic cycle. Therefore it is important to investigate whether they affect viral reactivation and understand the underlying mechanisms involved. In this study, we found that proteasome inhibitor bortezomib, a cytotoxic drug that efficiently target gammaherpesvirus-associated B cell lymphomas, triggered KSHV or EBV viral lytic cycle by activating JNK, in the course of ER stress, and inducing autophagy. These results suggest that the manipulation of these pathways could limit viral spread and improve the outcome of bortezomib treatment in patients affected by gammaherpesvirus-associated lymphomas