Microgrids & District Energy: Pathways To Sustainable Urban Development

A microgrid is an energy system specifically designed to meet some of the energy needs of a group of buildings, a campus, or an entire community. It can include local facilities that generate electricity, heating, and/or cooling; store energy; distribute the energy generated; and manage energy consumption intelligently and in real time. Microgrids enable economies of scale that facilitate local production of energy in ways that can advance cost reduction, sustainability, economic development, and resilience goals. As they often involve multiple stakeholders, and may encompass numerous distinct property boundaries, municipal involvement is often a key factor for successful implementation. This report provides an introduction to microgrid concepts, identifies the benefits and most common road blocks to implementation, and discusses proactive steps municipalities can take to advance economically viable and environmentally superior microgrids. It also offers advocacy suggestions for municipal leaders and officials to pursue at the state and regional level. The contents are targeted to municipal government staff but anyone looking for introductory material on microgrids should find it useful

Strabismus in paediatric age (3-16 year): a clinical study

Background: Strabismus is a clinical condition in which the eyes are not aligned with each other properly. The main objective of the study was to study the prevalence, aetiology and the most common type of strabismus in children between 3- 16 years of age.Methods: This was a prospective study conducted from November 2012 to October 2014 at Government regional eye hospital Visakhapatnam. A total of 50 patients included in this study. Children between 3-16 years of age presenting with squint included in this study. All children below 3years and above 16 years excluded from this study. Detailed history regarding the complaint, birth history, developmental history was taken. Patients were thoroughly evaluated for Visual acuity, both distance and near vision with naked eye as well as best corrected visual acuity. Thorough anterior segment evaluation using slit lamp, cycloplegic refraction using atropine (7 years), fundus examination was don.Results: A total of 9678 children attended GREH during the period of the study. Among them total number of children with strabismus was 59.Thus the prevalence of strabismus is 0.6%. Children in the age group of 3-10 years of age are more involved 37 (62.7%).   Exotropia was seen in 34 cases and esotropia in 24 cases. Commitant esotropia was more common, seen in 16 (27.1%) of cases. In exotropia commitant exotropia was more common, seen in 32 cases and incommitant in 2 cases and divergence excess seen in 9 cases.  History of consanguinity present in 22% of cases.Conclusions: Prevalence of squint in children in 3 - 16 years age group was 0.6%. Commitant squint was more common than incommitant squint. Among commitant squint, exotropia was more common than esotropia. More research is needed to validate the role of consanguinity in strabismus.

A critical understanding of Hridroga Nidanas and its present relevance

The global burden of diseases is changing from infectious diseases to non-communicable diseases these days. Among them cardiovascular disease is one which is tremendously increasing in this era. Accounting for 17.3 million deaths per year worldwide. Life style modifications like high caloric intake, alcohol consumption, smoking and stress are the risk factors for cardiovascular disease.  In Ayurveda all those disease come under the heading of “Hridroga”. Acharya Bhela has mentioned   Hridaya as Shirohridaya and Urohridaya. Urohridaya has been accepted in correspondence to circulation of Rasa and Rakta .As for any disease to manifest Nidanas are needed hence understanding   them is important because Nidanaparivarjana is the first line of treatment for any disease. Nidanas such as Vega Dharana, Ushnatikshna Ahara, Chinta and Abhighata leads to manifestation of Hridroga. Along with that Hridaya being mula of Rasavaha and Pranavaha Srotas Mula, Dusthi of those also lead to Hridroga. As there are different sets of Nidanas being explained in classics there is a need for critical understanding hence the present write up is aimed to provide an insight into the concept of Nidanas based on classical references and allied modern literature

Giant omental lipoma: Report of a case with review of the literature

Omental lipoma is an extremely rare abdominal tumor that, despite its large size, often remains asymptomatic. A giant lipoma arising from the greater omentum in a  21-monthold girl is reported. The mass was excised completely and the patient is doing well at the 12-month follow-up, with no recurrence. Nontender lobulated mobile mass, location, and uniformly low attenuation on computed tomography were diagnostic.Keywords: abdominal tumor, giant lipoma, omentu

Conflicting Parameter Pair Optimization for Linear Aperiodic Antenna Array using Chebyshev Taper based Genetic Algorithm

In this study, the peak side lobe level (PSLL) in the radiation pattern of a linear antenna array (LAA) is lowered without affecting its first null beam width (FNBW). Antenna array synthesis is commonly applied to achieve high directivity, low side lobes, high gain and desired null positions in the output radiation pattern. But output parameters like PSLL, null positions and beam width conflict with each other, i.e. as one parameter improves, the other deteriorates. To avoid this problem, a multi-objective optimization algorithm can be implemented, in which both the conflicting parameters can be simultaneously optimized. This work proposes a multi-objective algorithm, which takes advantages of the well-known Chebyshev tapering and genetic algorithm (GA), to lower the PSLL without broadening the beam further. Array elements are fed using Chebyshev tapered excitations while GA is incorporated to optimize the elemental spacing. The results of 28-element LAA are compared with those of multi-objective Cauchy mutated cat swarm optimization (MO-CMCSO) existing in literature, which has also been proven to be superior to multi-objective cat swarm optimization (MO-CSO) and multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MO-PSO). Results indicate that the proposed algorithm performs better by further reducing the PSLL from -21.57 dB (MO-CMCSO) to -28.18 dB, while maintaining the same FNBW of 7.4 degrees

Steam gasification of biomass with subsequent syngas adjustment using shift reaction for syngas production: An Aspen Plus model

AbstractA simulation model of biomass gasification for syngas production with steam as gasifying agent and subsequent syngas adjustment has been developed using Aspen Plus. The developed model is based on Gibbs free energy minimization applying the restricted equilibrium method. The objective is to study the effect of important parameters such as gasification temperature, steam to biomass ratio and shift reaction temperature on hydrogen concentration, CO concentration, CO conversion, CO2 conversion and H2/CO ratio in the syngas. Simulations were performed for different biomass feedstocks to predict their syngas composition. The hydrogen and CO concentrations were altered such that the H2/CO molar ratio in the syngas composition gets adjusted close to a value of 2.15 as required for FT synthesis by the shift reaction. The present model has been validated with experimental data from literature on steam biomass gasification conducted in a research scale fluidized bed gasifier. The product gas obtained from steam gasification of food wastes resulted in a composition with a H2/CO molar ratio close to 2.15 which can be directly fed to a Fischer-Tropsch synthesis plant whereas remaining feedstocks requires a syngas adjustment either by WGS or RWGS reactions to achieve H2/CO molar ratio close to 2.15

Urea and ascorbic acid as ameliorators of cement dust toxicity in Oryza Sativa Var. B.P.T.5204

The present study is an attempt to find out the amelioration of urea and ascorbic acid on the inhibitory effect of cement dust on Oryza Sativa (Var. B.P.T.5204). The observations have shown that rice was quite sensitive to cement dust when applied at 3g/m2 daily from three leaf stage until harvest of the crop. The response was analysed in terms of number of leaves, total height, biomass and panicle characters. Urea and ascorbic acid were observed to be quite potent in reverting the inhibitory effect of cement dust. Urea could bring the maximum recovery in shoot and root biomass. These two substances were very useful in reverting the effect of cement dust in terms of height of the plant. Urea increased seed weight upto 35% while ascorbic acid upto 13.4%

A Generative Adversarial Network Based Approach for Synthesis of Deep Fake Electrocardiograms

Analyzing the data from an electrocardiogram (ECG) can reveal important details about a patient's heart health. A key component of modern medicine is the use of AI and ML-based computer-aided diagnosis tools to aid in making life-or-death decisions. It is common practice to use them in cardiology for the automatic early diagnosis of a variety of potentially fatal illnesses. The machine learning algorithm's need for a large amount of training data to build the learning model is an empirical challenge in the medical domain. To address this challenge, study into methods for creating synthetic patient data has blossomed. There is a higher risk of privacy invasion due to the need for massive amounts of training data for deep learning automated medical diagnostic systems that may help assess the state of the heart from this signal. To combat this issue, researchers have tried to create artificial ECG readings by analyzing only the statistical distributions of the accessible authentic training data.The primary goal of this study is to learn how generative adversarial networks can be used to create artificial ECG signals for use as training data in a classification task. In this study, we used both GAN and WGAN for generation of artificial ECG signals