Study of fluid flow by charged particles

Analytical and experimental effort explores possibility of using charged particles as diagnostic tool in study of fluid flows. Test program involved right circular cylinder and airfoil located in large wind tunnel; ions were injected into flow and resulting currents at surfaces were monitored

MEE-DBD Plasma Actuator Effect on Aerodynamics of a NACA0015 Aerofoil: Separation and 3D Wake

© 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma actuators have received considerable attention by many researchers for various flow control applications. Having no moving parts, being light-weight, easily manufacturable, and their ability to respond almost instantly are amongst the advantages which has made them a popular flow control device especially for application on aircraft wings. The new configuration of DBDs which uses multiple encapsulated electrodes (MEE) has been shown to produce a superior and more desirable performance over the standard actuator design. The objective of the current study is to examine the effect of this new actuator configuration on the aerodynamic performance of an aerofoil under leading edge separation and wake interaction conditions. The plasma actuator is placed at the leading edge of a symmetric NACA 0015 aerofoil which corresponds to the location of the leading edge slat. The aerofoil is operated in a chord Reynolds number of 0.2×106. Surface pressure measurements along with the mean velocity profile of the wake using pitot measurements are used to determine the lift and drag coefficients, respectively. Particle image velocimetry (PIV) is also utilised to visualise and quantify the induced flow field. The results show improvement in aerodynamic performances of aerofoil under leading edge separation and also facing the wake region

Prescribing indicators at primary health care centers within the WHO African region: a systematic analysis (1995-2015)

Abstract Background Rational medicine use is essential to optimize quality of healthcare delivery and resource utilization. We aim to conduct a systematic review of changes in prescribing patterns in the WHO African region and comparison with WHO indicators in two time periods 1995–2005 and 2006–2015. Methods Systematic searches were conducted in PubMed, Scopus, Web of science, Africa-Wide Nipad, Africa Journals Online (AJOL), Google scholar and International Network for Rational Use of Drugs (INRUD) Bibliography databases to identify primary studies reporting prescribing indicators at primary healthcare centres (PHCs) in Africa. This was supplemented by a manual search of retrieved references. We assessed the quality of studies using a 14-point scoring system modified from the Downs and Black checklist with inclusions of recommendations in the WHO guidelines. Results Forty-three studies conducted in 11 African countries were included in the overall analysis. These studies presented prescribing indicators based on a total 141,323 patient encounters across 572 primary care facilities. The results of prescribing indicators were determined as follows; average number of medicines prescribed per patient encounter = 3.1 (IQR 2.3–4.8), percentage of medicines prescribed by generic name =68.0 % (IQR 55.4–80.3), Percentage of encounters with antibiotic prescribed =46.8 % (IQR 33.7–62.8), percentage of encounters with injection prescribed =25.0 % (IQR 18.7–39.5) and the percentage of medicines prescribed from essential medicines list =88.0 % (IQR 76.3–94.1). Prescribing indicators were generally worse in private compared with public facilities. Analysis of prescribing across two time points 1995–2005 and 2006–2015 showed no consistent trends. Conclusions Prescribing indicators for the African region deviate significantly from the WHO reference targets. Increased collaborative efforts are urgently needed to improve medicine prescribing practices in Africa with the aim of enhancing the optimal utilization of scarce resources and averting negative health consequences

A Study of the Measurement of Oawitation Inception Using an Electrostatic Technique

A new concept for detecting cavitation inception has been studied experimentally. In this exploratory study, cavitation is generated by varying the flow velocity and pressure around a circular cylinder. Cavitation inception has been detected by sensing the natural charges and electrification generated during cavitation. The agreement between visual determination and detection using electrostatic probes was quite good. The background and possible mechanisms are reviewed and discussed