Chemical-looping combustion of synthetic biomass-volatiles with manganese-ore oxygen carriers

Carbon capture and storage of CO2 from combustion of biomass, i.e., bio-energy carbon capture and storage (BECCS), makes it possible to obtain so-called negative emissions – the atmosphere is cleansed from carbon dioxide. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the suitability of different manganese ores as oxygen carriers in chemical-looping combustion of biomass fuels. For this screening study, a laboratory-scale, circulating fluidized-bed CLC system with a nominal fuel input of 300 Wth was used. The primary focus was to investigate the reactivity of these oxygen carriers towards biomass fuels, and find a reactive oxygen carrier with sufficient mechanical stability that could be suitable for large-scale chemical-looping combustion of biomass. A synthetic “biomass volatiles” gas was used to study how the different gas components react with the oxygen-carrier particles. Additional experiments were conducted with methane and a syngas. Parameter studies concerning temperature and specific fuel-reactor bed mass (bed mass per fuel thermal power in kg/MWth) were carried out. With the synthetic biomass volatiles, conversion of fuel carbon to CO2 as high as 97.6% was achieved. For a majority of the investigated ores, essentially all C2 and C3 hydrocarbons were converted, as well as a very high fraction of the CO. Reactivity towards CH4 was generally lower, but improved at higher temperatures. The resistance of the oxygen carriers towards mechanical degradation was measured in a jet-cup attrition test rig. The measured attrition was estimated as “intermediate” for four of the five tested materials, while one of the ores displayed high attrition

Recommended reading list of early publications on atomic layer deposition-Outcome of the "Virtual Project on the History of ALD"

Atomic layer deposition (ALD), a gas-phase thin film deposition technique based on repeated, self-terminating gas-solid reactions, has become the method of choice in semiconductor manufacturing and many other technological areas for depositing thin conformal inorganic material layers for various applications. ALD has been discovered and developed independently, at least twice, under different names: atomic layer epitaxy (ALE) and molecular layering. ALE, dating back to 1974 in Finland, has been commonly known as the origin of ALD, while work done since the 1960s in the Soviet Union under the name "molecular layering" (and sometimes other names) has remained much less known. The virtual project on the history of ALD (VPHA) is a volunteer-based effort with open participation, set up to make the early days of ALD more transparent. In VPHA, started in July 2013, the target is to list, read and comment on all early ALD academic and patent literature up to 1986. VPHA has resulted in two essays and several presentations at international conferences. This paper, based on a poster presentation at the 16th International Conference on Atomic Layer Deposition in Dublin, Ireland, 2016, presents a recommended reading list of early ALD publications, created collectively by the VPHA participants through voting. The list contains 22 publications from Finland, Japan, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and United States. Up to now, a balanced overview regarding the early history of ALD has been missing; the current list is an attempt to remedy this deficiency. (C) 2016 Author(s).Peer reviewe

Long-term outcomes for neoadjuvant versus adjuvant chemotherapy in early breast cancer: meta-analysis of individual patient data from ten randomised trials

Background Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) for early breast cancer can make breast-conserving surgery more feasible and might be more likely to eradicate micrometastatic disease than might the same chemotherapy given after surgery. We investigated the long-term benefits and risks of NACT and the influence of tumour characteristics on outcome with a collaborative meta-analysis of individual patient data from relevant randomised trials. Methods We obtained information about prerandomisation tumour characteristics, clinical tumour response, surgery, recurrence, and mortality for 4756 women in ten randomised trials in early breast cancer that began before 2005 and compared NACT with the same chemotherapy given postoperatively. Primary outcomes were tumour response, extent of local therapy, local and distant recurrence, breast cancer death, and overall mortality. Analyses by intention-to-treat used standard regression (for response and frequency of breast-conserving therapy) and log-rank methods (for recurrence and mortality). Findings Patients entered the trials from 1983 to 2002 and median follow-up was 9 years (IQR 5–14), with the last follow-up in 2013. Most chemotherapy was anthracycline based (3838 [81%] of 4756 women). More than two thirds (1349 [69%] of 1947) of women allocated NACT had a complete or partial clinical response. Patients allocated NACT had an increased frequency of breast-conserving therapy (1504 [65%] of 2320 treated with NACT vs 1135 [49%] of 2318 treated with adjuvant chemotherapy). NACT was associated with more frequent local recurrence than was adjuvant chemotherapy: the 15 year local recurrence was 21·4% for NACT versus 15·9% for adjuvant chemotherapy (5·5% increase [95% CI 2·4–8·6]; rate ratio 1·37 [95% CI 1·17–1·61]; p=0·0001). No significant difference between NACT and adjuvant chemotherapy was noted for distant recurrence (15 year risk 38·2% for NACT vs 38·0% for adjuvant chemotherapy; rate ratio 1·02 [95% CI 0·92–1·14]; p=0·66), breast cancer mortality (34·4% vs 33·7%; 1·06 [0·95–1·18]; p=0·31), or death from any cause (40·9% vs 41·2%; 1·04 [0·94–1·15]; p=0·45). Interpretation Tumours downsized by NACT might have higher local recurrence after breast-conserving therapy than might tumours of the same dimensions in women who have not received NACT. Strategies to mitigate the increased local recurrence after breast-conserving therapy in tumours downsized by NACT should be considered—eg, careful tumour localisation, detailed pathological assessment, and appropriate radiotherapy

Dynamisk FEM modellering av pålning inom schakt med spont : Utvärdering av deformations- och portrycksbeteende

Since the society get more and more urban the cities get denser. New buildings have to fight for their space with older buildings. The space is limited and therefore supporting constructions and foundation improvement methods are used to enable the construction. Since our cities are often located near water, the buildings are founded on sediments of great thickness. The foundation is usually performed with driven concrete piles. Impact pile driving exposes the surrounding areas with vibrations. These vibrations are a threat to the older buildings and could damage them.On behalf of Tyréns AB, a project of such nature is studied using computer by a FE-analysis in the program PLAXIS 2D. This is done to see if these vibrations and their related deformations are possible to predict. This simulation has continuously been calibrated against measured field data from the reference project. The reference project is the construction of a brand new culture center in Umeå, Kulturväven. Tyréns AB has provided the author with data from the pre-investigations as well as field measurements regarding settlement and pore pressure. With these input data a computation model has been generated with both obtained and assumed material parameters. The finite element model has subsequently been subjected to a simulated vibration that has been created to match the vibrations in the real case.The study has shown that prediction of vibration generating works is partly possible. The long calculation time for the analysis makes the execution of the prediction more suitable for cases similar to the reference project. The computer simulation is performed in a two dimensional environment and if a three dimensional environment would have been used the result perhaps would have been more suitable. In cases where a dynamic analysis may be necessary, the pre-investigations should be designed in a way that suitable soil parameters could be evaluated for calculation of the supporting constructions and for simulation in the dynamic analysis.Validerat; 20140107 (global_studentproject_submitter

Maskininlärningsbaserad diagnostik och observerbarhet i mobila nätverk

To meet the high-performance and reliability demands of 5G, the Radio Access Network (RAN) is moving to a cloud-native architecture. The new microservice architecture promises increased operational efficiency and a shorter time-to-market, but it also comes with a price. The new distributed and virtualized architecture is far more complex than ever before, and with the increasing number of features it brings, troubleshooting becomes more difficult. So far, RAN troubleshooters have relied on their expertise to analyze systems manually, but the ever-growing data and increased complexity make it challenging to grasp system behavior. This thesis contributes threefold, where the proposed machine learning and statistical methods help RAN troubleshooters find deviations in system logs, identify the root cause of these deviations, and improve the system's observability. These methods learn the application's behavior from the system logs events and can identify behavior deviations from many different aspects. The thesis also demonstrates how observability can be improved by using a new software instrumentation guideline. The guideline enables the tracking of systemized procedures and enhances system understanding. The purpose of the guideline is to make RAN developers aware that machine learning can utilize debug information and help their troubleshooting process. To familiarize the reader with the research area, the challenges, and methods that can be used to detect anomalies, perform root cause analysis and observe RAN system behavior. The proposed research methods are integrated and tested in an advanced 5G test bed to evaluate the methods' accuracy, speed, system impact, and implementation cost. The results demonstrate the advantage of using machine learning and statistical methods when troubleshooting the behavior of RAN. Machine learning methods, similar to those presented in this thesis, may help those who troubleshoot RAN and accelerate the development of 5G. The thesis ends with presenting potential research areas where this research could be further developed and applied, both in RAN and other systems.För att möta de höga kraven på prestanda och tillförlitlighet i det nya mobila 5G nätet sker nu en övergång till en molnbaserad arkitektur i radioaccessnätverket (RAN). Den nya mikrotjänstarkitekturen är tänkt att öka skalbarheten, prestandan och korta ner ledtiderna för produktleveranserna. Den distribuerade och virtuella arkitekturen är däremot mer komplicerad än tidigare och medför att det blir svårare att felsöka. Hittills har de som felsökt RAN förlitat sig på sin expertis för att manuellt analysera systemet. Men den ständigt växande datamängden och den ökade komplexiteten gör det svårt att förstå systemets beteende. Denna avhandling bidrar med kunskap inom tre närliggande områden, där de föreslagna maskininlärnings- och statistiska metoderna hjälper de som felsöker RAN att hitta avvikelser i systemloggar, hjälper till att identifiera grundorsaken till dessa avvikelser och förbättrar systemets observerbarhet. Dessa metoder lär sig RANs beteende utifrån händelser i systemloggar och kan identifiera ett antal beteendeavvikelser. Avhandlingen visar också på hur observerbarheten kan förbättras genom att använda en ny riktlinje för mjukvaruinstrumentering. Riktlinjen gör det möjligt att följa hur RANs applikationer påverkar varandra vilket i sin tur förbättrar systemförståelsen. Syftet med riktlinjerna är att göra dem som arbetar med RAN medvetna om hur maskininlärning kan hjälpa till i deras felsökningsprocess. För att bekanta läsaren med forskningsområdet diskuteras först utmaningarna och metoderna som kan användas för att upptäcka avvikelser i RAN data, orsaken till avvikelserna samt hur observerbarheten av systemet kan förbättras. För att utvärdera de föreslagna metodernas noggrannhet, hastighet, systempåverkan och implementeringskostnad, integrerar och testas metoderna i en avancerad 5G-testbädd. Resultatet visar på de stora fördelarna med att använda maskininlärning och statistiska metoder vid felsökning av beteendet hos RAN. Maskininlärningsmetoder, liknande de som presenteras i denna avhandling, kan komma att hjälpa dem som felsöker RAN och påskynda utvecklingen av 5G. Avhandlingen avslutas med en presentation av potentiella forskningsområden där forskningen i denna avhandling skulle kunna vidareutvecklas och tillämpas, både i RAN men även i andra system

Maskininlärningsbaserad diagnostik och observerbarhet i mobila nätverk

To meet the high-performance and reliability demands of 5G, the Radio Access Network (RAN) is moving to a cloud-native architecture. The new microservice architecture promises increased operational efficiency and a shorter time-to-market, but it also comes with a price. The new distributed and virtualized architecture is far more complex than ever before, and with the increasing number of features it brings, troubleshooting becomes more difficult. So far, RAN troubleshooters have relied on their expertise to analyze systems manually, but the ever-growing data and increased complexity make it challenging to grasp system behavior. This thesis contributes threefold, where the proposed machine learning and statistical methods help RAN troubleshooters find deviations in system logs, identify the root cause of these deviations, and improve the system's observability. These methods learn the application's behavior from the system logs events and can identify behavior deviations from many different aspects. The thesis also demonstrates how observability can be improved by using a new software instrumentation guideline. The guideline enables the tracking of systemized procedures and enhances system understanding. The purpose of the guideline is to make RAN developers aware that machine learning can utilize debug information and help their troubleshooting process. To familiarize the reader with the research area, the challenges, and methods that can be used to detect anomalies, perform root cause analysis and observe RAN system behavior. The proposed research methods are integrated and tested in an advanced 5G test bed to evaluate the methods' accuracy, speed, system impact, and implementation cost. The results demonstrate the advantage of using machine learning and statistical methods when troubleshooting the behavior of RAN. Machine learning methods, similar to those presented in this thesis, may help those who troubleshoot RAN and accelerate the development of 5G. The thesis ends with presenting potential research areas where this research could be further developed and applied, both in RAN and other systems.För att möta de höga kraven på prestanda och tillförlitlighet i det nya mobila 5G nätet sker nu en övergång till en molnbaserad arkitektur i radioaccessnätverket (RAN). Den nya mikrotjänstarkitekturen är tänkt att öka skalbarheten, prestandan och korta ner ledtiderna för produktleveranserna. Den distribuerade och virtuella arkitekturen är däremot mer komplicerad än tidigare och medför att det blir svårare att felsöka. Hittills har de som felsökt RAN förlitat sig på sin expertis för att manuellt analysera systemet. Men den ständigt växande datamängden och den ökade komplexiteten gör det svårt att förstå systemets beteende. Denna avhandling bidrar med kunskap inom tre närliggande områden, där de föreslagna maskininlärnings- och statistiska metoderna hjälper de som felsöker RAN att hitta avvikelser i systemloggar, hjälper till att identifiera grundorsaken till dessa avvikelser och förbättrar systemets observerbarhet. Dessa metoder lär sig RANs beteende utifrån händelser i systemloggar och kan identifiera ett antal beteendeavvikelser. Avhandlingen visar också på hur observerbarheten kan förbättras genom att använda en ny riktlinje för mjukvaruinstrumentering. Riktlinjen gör det möjligt att följa hur RANs applikationer påverkar varandra vilket i sin tur förbättrar systemförståelsen. Syftet med riktlinjerna är att göra dem som arbetar med RAN medvetna om hur maskininlärning kan hjälpa till i deras felsökningsprocess. För att bekanta läsaren med forskningsområdet diskuteras först utmaningarna och metoderna som kan användas för att upptäcka avvikelser i RAN data, orsaken till avvikelserna samt hur observerbarheten av systemet kan förbättras. För att utvärdera de föreslagna metodernas noggrannhet, hastighet, systempåverkan och implementeringskostnad, integrerar och testas metoderna i en avancerad 5G-testbädd. Resultatet visar på de stora fördelarna med att använda maskininlärning och statistiska metoder vid felsökning av beteendet hos RAN. Maskininlärningsmetoder, liknande de som presenteras i denna avhandling, kan komma att hjälpa dem som felsöker RAN och påskynda utvecklingen av 5G. Avhandlingen avslutas med en presentation av potentiella forskningsområden där forskningen i denna avhandling skulle kunna vidareutvecklas och tillämpas, både i RAN men även i andra system

Measuring and modelling of humidity penetration in an electronic control unit

Real world modeling has become a very useful tool when new designs and applications are tested before they are introduced on the market. A field that recently has discovered the possible use of modeling is reliability prediction. The reliability and lifetime of a component has until recently been based on months and years of testing. In order to shorten the test time it is possible to simulate the environmental effect on the components. Another advantage of modeling is that changes of large systems where many different components work together can easily be studied. Without modeling the reliability has to be tested over and over again if the system is redesigned since it is impossible to know how the new change will affect the reliability. Since electronic circuits are being made smaller and smaller with the increasing demand of faster technology the circuits are very vulnerable to corrosion. A trend in the automotive industry is also to move the electronic devices from the benign environment in the cab to the hash environment on the driveline or the chassi. The most common way to protect the electronics from the hash environment is to put it into a protective covering, also called Electronic Control Unit (ECU). Even though the ECU is sealed, water can still enter the ECU in several ways and cause serious damages by corrosion. The corrosion rate of a component is among others depending of the environmental humidity and temperature. Knowing the humidity and temperature are therefore very important to be able to eliminate corrosion problems. In order to achieve a better understanding of the physics behind the failure and to improve the reliability of the ECU a model of the temperature and humidity penetration is built in this thesis. There are several components in the ECU which all responds differently to water vapour. By measuring the humidity penetration in the ECU while components were added one by one, the physical properties of the components could be determined. Some properties were also determined through additional solubility measurements. The humidity penetration of the ECU is then predicted by inserting these properties into mathematical models in SimulinkÓ. The conclusion is that it is possible to model the humidity penetration and the temperature changes in the ECU. After the physical properties of the components were determined, the diffusion model agreed well with measurements. The numerical method used in this thesis has been found to be fast and stable. The length of the time-steps has been varied from a couple of minutes to more than an hour in the numerical model. A few physical properties has to be examined more in detailed and the model is then going to be a good foundation on which corrosion and other damaging processes can be modelled

Utvärdering av solcellsanläggningar i Västerås : Jämförelse av verkligt systemutbyte mot teoretisk simulerad

Solar cells is one of the cleanest and most environmentally friendly ways to produce electricity. Västerås city has invested in a number of solar systems in public buildings as a step to solve the energy issues of the future and contribute to a sustainable environment. The purpose of this project is to compare the real system yield from Västerås city´s solar plants with simulations. Produces the solar plants as expected or not, and if not, what might be the cause. Data were collected about the solar cell installations, by Mälarenergi Elnät and Västerås city. The real system yield was calculated and then the solar plants were simulated in PVGIS (Photovoltaic Geographical Information System) to obtain the theoretical yield. This project shows that most of Västerås city´s solar plants have a yield that is as expected according to the simulations or higher. However, there are some solar plants with a low or very low yield compared to the simulations. The yield varies considerably during the year. For those plants where the yield has been studied monthly, the real yield is higher in the second half of the year compared with the first half. The self-consumption varies greatly between the different solar plants, but generally it is high. Some solar plants have a very high self-consumption of 100 % and some have a very low of 30-40 %. Some solar plants have a higher yield than expected and it may depends to the fact that the installed power is a few percent higher than what the manufacturer states. The simulations might be unsure, because losses, solar radiation and weather may vary. The solar plants that have a low yield compared to the simulations may have a broken or disconnected component, shading and dirt may also affect. To have as high self-consumption as possible is an economically advantage, as long as the plant is not under-dimensioned because the goal is to produce electricity. There is no clear pattern showing which of the four PVGIS simulations is best matched to reality

Development in Responsive Web Design

Responsive Web Design (RWD) har på kort tid gått från ett koncept till en av de största trenderna inomwebbutveckling. Det är nästan underförstått idag att nya webbsidor ska vara i RWD. Trots det är inte RWD detsjälvklara alternativet som löser alla problem dagens utvecklare står inför när det gäller den stora floran av surfandeenheter. I examensarbetet djupdyker vi i tekniken, både praktiskt och teoretiskt, för att kunna dra slutsatser om RWDs styrkoroch svagheter. Detta åstadkoms genom att ta fram en applikationsplattform och en första applikation(semesterplanering) åt konsultföretaget Sigma AB, där ett av grundkraven var att det vi utvecklade skulle kunnaanvändas varsomhelst. Utifrån våra resultat lämnas rekommendationer på när RWD är alternativet att satsa på och när det behöverkompletteras av andra tekniker, så som Native- eller HTML5 applikationer.Responsive Web Design (RWD) has quickly moved from a concept to one of the biggest trends within WebDevelopment. Today it is close to implied that new Websites should use the technique RWD. Even so the techniquedo not cover all problems the developers are facing today when it comes to the flora of mobile devices. Within this thesis we are digging deeper into the technique, both in practice and theory, in order to make conclusionson its advantages and disadvantages. This we fulfilled by creating both an application platform and a first application(to handle vacation requests) for the company Sigma AB, there one of basic requirements were that everythingdeveloped could be used anywhere. From our results we are giving recommendations for when you should use RWD and when you should considerother techniques like Native- or HTML5 applications

Development in Responsive Web Design

Responsive Web Design (RWD) har på kort tid gått från ett koncept till en av de största trenderna inomwebbutveckling. Det är nästan underförstått idag att nya webbsidor ska vara i RWD. Trots det är inte RWD detsjälvklara alternativet som löser alla problem dagens utvecklare står inför när det gäller den stora floran av surfandeenheter. I examensarbetet djupdyker vi i tekniken, både praktiskt och teoretiskt, för att kunna dra slutsatser om RWDs styrkoroch svagheter. Detta åstadkoms genom att ta fram en applikationsplattform och en första applikation(semesterplanering) åt konsultföretaget Sigma AB, där ett av grundkraven var att det vi utvecklade skulle kunnaanvändas varsomhelst. Utifrån våra resultat lämnas rekommendationer på när RWD är alternativet att satsa på och när det behöverkompletteras av andra tekniker, så som Native- eller HTML5 applikationer.Responsive Web Design (RWD) has quickly moved from a concept to one of the biggest trends within WebDevelopment. Today it is close to implied that new Websites should use the technique RWD. Even so the techniquedo not cover all problems the developers are facing today when it comes to the flora of mobile devices. Within this thesis we are digging deeper into the technique, both in practice and theory, in order to make conclusionson its advantages and disadvantages. This we fulfilled by creating both an application platform and a first application(to handle vacation requests) for the company Sigma AB, there one of basic requirements were that everythingdeveloped could be used anywhere. From our results we are giving recommendations for when you should use RWD and when you should considerother techniques like Native- or HTML5 applications