Fault Detection and Diagnosis in Air Conditioners and Refrigerators

A fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) method was used to detect and diagnose faults on both a refrigerator and an air conditioner during normal cycling operation. The objective of the method is to identify a set of sensors that can detect faults reliably before they severely hinder system performance. Unlike other methods, this one depends on the accuracy of a number of small, on-line linear models, each of which is valid over a limited range of operating conditions. To detect N faults, N sensors are needed. Using M>N sensors can further reduce the risk of false positives. For both the refrigerator and air conditioner systems, about 1000 combinations of candidate sensor locations were examined. Through inspection of matrix condition numbers and each sensor's contribution to fault detection calculation, the highest quality sets of sensors were identified. The issue of detecting simultaneous multiple faults was also addressed, with varying success. Fault detection was verified using both model simulations and experimental data. The results were similar, although in practice only one of the two would probably be used. Both load-type faults (such as door gasket leaks) and system faults were simulated on the refrigerator. It was found that system faults were generally more easily detectable than load faults. Refrigerator experiments were performed on a typical household refrigerator because it was readily available in a laboratory, but the results of this project may be more immediately useful on larger commercial, industrial or transport refrigeration systems. Air conditioner experiments were performed on a 3-ton split system. Again, the economic benefits of this type of fault detection scheme may also be more feasible for larger field-assembled systems.Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Project 8

Flow-Induced Noise in Heat Exchangers

Flow-induced tonal noise and acoustic resonance problems are found in a variety of applications that range from nuclear power plant heat exchangers to automobile air conditioning evaporators. Flow-induced noise in heat exchangers is a very complex phenomenon. The complexities are caused by several factors that affect the noise generation and attenuation mechanisms of sound sources inside ducts, and by fluid-acoustic-structural coupling effects. To predict the noise from bluff bodies inside a duct, one needs to account for the sound source???s strength and directionality, the damping and sound attenuation mechanisms inside the duct, and the effects produced by the coupling between the acoustic field and the vortex generation process. Flow-induced tonal noise generated in plate heat exchangers has unusual features that have not been previously explored. Measurements of the flow-induced noise produced by plate heat exchangers, arrays of cylinders, cylinders in tandem, side by side cylinders, single cylinders of constant diameter and ???hourglass??? shaped cylinders inside a rectangular duct have been made. The acoustic field in parts of the duct in which traveling hydrodynamic pressure fluctuations produced by vortex shedding do not contaminate the results was investigated by measuring sound pressure levels. Many of the results are believed to be unique. The measurements were then used to infer noise source strength and system damping using an acoustic model. The acoustic model was based on the inhomogeneous convected Helmholtz equation with a point dipole source term, volumetric damping and damping at the duct walls. The acoustic model was able to closely match the measured sound pressure field and the phase relationships between measurement points for sound generated by flow over short aspect ratio single cylinders inside a duct. The acoustic model based technique was also applied to investigate some of the flow-induced noise behavior and trends of side by side cylinders, cylinders in tandem and a staggered cylinder array with many cylinders

Structure of the complete, membrane-assembled COPII coat reveals a complex interaction network

COPII mediates Endoplasmic Reticulum to Golgi trafficking of thousands of cargoes. Five essential proteins assemble into a two-layer architecture, with the inner layer thought to regulate coat assembly and cargo recruitment, and the outer coat forming cages assumed to scaffold membrane curvature. Here we visualise the complete, membrane-assembled COPII coat by cryo-electron tomography and subtomogram averaging, revealing the full network of interactions within and between coat layers. We demonstrate the physiological importance of these interactions using genetic and biochemical approaches. Mutagenesis reveals that the inner coat alone can provide membrane remodelling function, with organisational input from the outer coat. These functional roles for the inner and outer coats significantly move away from the current paradigm, which posits membrane curvature derives primarily from the outer coat. We suggest these interactions collectively contribute to coat organisation and membrane curvature, providing a structural framework to understand regulatory mechanisms of COPII trafficking and secretion

Current Status of Simulations

As the title suggests, the purpose of this chapter is to review the current status of numerical simulations of black hole accretion disks. This chapter focuses exclusively on global simulations of the accretion process within a few tens of gravitational radii of the black hole. Most of the simulations discussed are performed using general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) schemes, although some mention is made of Newtonian radiation MHD simulations and smoothed particle hydrodynamics. The goal is to convey some of the exciting work that has been going on in the past few years and provide some speculation on future directions.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the ISSI-Bern workshop on "The Physics of Accretion onto Black Holes" (8-12 October 2012

An error tolerant memory aid for reduced cognitive load in number copying tasks

Number copying tasks are still common despite increased digitalization of services. Number copying tasks are cognitively and visually demanding, errors are easily introduced and the process is often perceived as laborious. This study proposes an alternative scheme based on dictionary coding that reduces the cognitive load on the user by a factor of five. The strategy has several levels of error detection and error correction characteristics and is easy to implemen

A Quantitative Model of Energy Release and Heating by Time-dependent, Localized Reconnection in a Flare with a Thermal Loop-top X-ray Source

We present a quantitative model of the magnetic energy stored and then released through magnetic reconnection for a flare on 26 Feb 2004. This flare, well observed by RHESSI and TRACE, shows evidence of non-thermal electrons only for a brief, early phase. Throughout the main period of energy release there is a super-hot (T>30 MK) plasma emitting thermal bremsstrahlung atop the flare loops. Our model describes the heating and compression of such a source by localized, transient magnetic reconnection. It is a three-dimensional generalization of the Petschek model whereby Alfven-speed retraction following reconnection drives supersonic inflows parallel to the field lines, which form shocks heating, compressing, and confining a loop-top plasma plug. The confining inflows provide longer life than a freely-expanding or conductively-cooling plasma of similar size and temperature. Superposition of successive transient episodes of localized reconnection across a current sheet produces an apparently persistent, localized source of high-temperature emission. The temperature of the source decreases smoothly on a time scale consistent with observations, far longer than the cooling time of a single plug. Built from a disordered collection of small plugs, the source need not have the coherent jet-like structure predicted by steady-state reconnection models. This new model predicts temperatures and emission measure consistent with the observations of 26 Feb 2004. Furthermore, the total energy released by the flare is found to be roughly consistent with that predicted by the model. Only a small fraction of the energy released appears in the super-hot source at any one time, but roughly a quarter of the flare energy is thermalized by the reconnection shocks over the course of the flare. All energy is presumed to ultimately appear in the lower-temperature T<20 MK, post-flare loops

Late Winter Biogeochemical Conditions Under Sea Ice in the Canadian High Arctic

With the Arctic summer sea-ice extent in decline, questions are arising as to how changes in sea-ice dynamics might affect biogeochemical cycling and phenomena such as carbon dioxide (CO2) uptake and ocean acidification. Recent field research in these areas has concentrated on biogeochemical and CO2 measurements during spring, summer or autumn, but there are few data for the winter or winter–spring transition, particularly in the High Arctic. Here, we present carbon and nutrient data within and under sea ice measured during the Catlin Arctic Survey, over 40 days in March and April 2010, off Ellef Ringnes Island (78° 43.11′ N, 104° 47.44′ W) in the Canadian High Arctic. Results show relatively low surface water (1–10 m) nitrate (<1.3 µM) and total inorganic carbon concentrations (mean±SD=2015±5.83 µmol kg−1), total alkalinity (mean±SD=2134±11.09 µmol kg−1) and under-ice pCO2sw (mean±SD=286±17 µatm). These surprisingly low wintertime carbon and nutrient conditions suggest that the outer Canadian Arctic Archipelago region is nitrate-limited on account of sluggish mixing among the multi-year ice regions of the High Arctic, which could temper the potential of widespread under-ice and open-water phytoplankton blooms later in the season

Criterion A of the AMPD in HiTOP

The categorical model of personality disorder classification in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed. [DSM-5]; American Psychiatric Association, 2013) is highly and fundamentally problematic. Proposed for DSM-5 and provided within Section III (for Emerging Measures and Models) was the Alternative Model of Personality Disorder (AMPD) classification, consisting of Criterion A (self-interpersonal deficits) and Criterion B (maladaptive personality traits). A proposed alternative to the DSM-5 more generally is an empirically based dimensional organization of psychopathology identified as the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP; Kotov etal., 2017). HiTOP currently includes, at the highest level, a general factor of psychopathology. Further down are the five domains of detachment, antagonistic externalizing, disinhibited externalizing, thought disorder, and internalizing (along with a provisional sixth somatoform dimension) that align with Criterion B. The purpose of this article is to discuss the potential inclusion and placement of the self-interpersonal deficits of the DSM-5 Section III Criterion A within HiTOP

Epigenome-wide association of PTSD from heterogeneous cohorts with a common multi-site analysis pipeline

Compelling evidence suggests that epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation play a role in stress regulation and in the etiologic basis of stress related disorders such as Post traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Here we describe the purpose and methods of an international consortium that was developed to study the role of epigenetics in PTSD. Inspired by the approach used in the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, we brought together investigators representing seven cohorts with a collective sample size of N = 1147 that included detailed information on trauma exposure, PTSD symptoms, and genome-wide DNA methylation data. The objective of this consortium is to increase the analytical sample size by pooling data and combining expertise so that DNA methylation patterns associated with PTSD can be identified. Several quality control and analytical pipelines were evaluated for their control of genomic inflation and technical artifacts with a joint analysis procedure established to derive comparable data over the cohorts for meta-analysis. We propose methods to deal with ancestry population stratification and type I error inflation and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of applying robust error estimates. To evaluate our pipeline, we report results from an epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of age, which is a well-characterized phenotype with known epigenetic associations. Overall, while EWAS are highly complex and subject to similar challenges as genome-wide association studies (GWAS), we demonstrate that an epigenetic meta-analysis with a relatively modest sample size can be well-powered to identify epigenetic associations. Our pipeline can be used as a framework for consortium efforts for EWAS