Automated Manufacture of Fertilizing Agglomerates from Burnt Wood Ash

In Sweden, extensive research is conducted to find alternative sources of energy that should partly replace the electric power production from nuclear power. With the ambition to create a sustainable system for producing energy, the use of renewable energy is expected to grow further and biofuels are expected to account for a significant part of this increase. However, when biofuels are burned or gasified, ash appears as a by-product. In order to overcome the problems related to deposition in land fills, the idea is to transform the ashes into a product – agglomerates – that easily could be recycled back to the forest grounds; as a fertilizer, or as a tool to reduce the acidification in the forest soil at the spreading area. This work considers the control of a transformation process, which transforms wood ash produced at a district heating plant into fertilizing agglomerates. A robust machine, built to comply with the industrial requirements for continuous operation, has been developed and is controlled by an industrial control system in order to enable an automated manufacture

Clinical outcomes after anterior cruciate ligament injury: panther symposium ACL injury clinical outcomes consensus group

© 2020, The Author(s). Purpose: A stringent outcome assessment is a key aspect for establishing evidence-based clinical guidelines for anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury treatment. The aim of this consensus statement was to establish what data should be reported when conducting an ACL outcome study, what specific outcome measurements should be used and at what follow-up time those outcomes should be assessed. Methods: To establish a standardized approach to assessment of clinical outcome after ACL treatment, a consensus meeting including a multidisciplinary group of ACL experts was held at the ACL Consensus Meeting Panther Symposium, Pittsburgh, PA; USA, in June 2019. The group reached consensus on nine statements by using a modified Delphi method. Results: In general, outcomes after ACL treatment can be divided into four robust categories—early adverse events, patient-reported outcomes, ACL graft failure/recurrent ligament disruption and clinical measures of knee function and structure. A comprehensive assessment following ACL treatment should aim to provide a complete overview of the treatment result, optimally including the various aspects of outcome categories. For most research questions, a minimum follow-up of 2 years with an optimal follow-up rate of 80% is necessary to achieve a comprehensive assessment. This should include clinical examination, any sustained re-injuries, validated knee-specific PROs and Health-Related Quality of Life questionnaires. In the mid- to long-term follow-up, the presence of osteoarthritis should be evaluated. Conclusion: This consensus paper provides practical guidelines for how the aforementioned entities of outcomes should be reported and suggests the preferred tools for a reliable and valid assessment of outcome after ACL treatment. Level of evidence: V

Growth And The Growth Hormone-Insulin Like Growth Factor 1 Axis In Children With Chronic Inflammation:Current Evidence, Gaps In Knowledge And Future Directions

Growth failure is frequently encountered in children with chronic inflammatory conditions like juvenile idiopathic arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and cystic fibrosis. Delayed puberty and attenuated pubertal growth spurt is often seen during adolescence. The underlying inflammatory state mediated by pro-inflammatory cytokines, prolonged use of glucocorticoid and suboptimal nutrition contribute to growth failure and pubertal abnormalities. These factors can impair growth by their effects on the growth hormone-insulin like growth factor axis and also directly at the level of the growth plate via alterations in chondrogenesis and local growth factor signaling. Recent studies on the impact of cytokines and glucocorticoid on the growth plate studies further advanced our understanding of growth failure in chronic disease and provided a biological rationale of growth promotion. Targeting cytokines using biologic therapy may lead to improvement of growth in some of these children but approximately one third continue to grow slowly. There is increasing evidence that the use of relatively high dose recombinant human growth hormone may lead to partial catch up growth in chronic inflammatory conditions, although long term follow-up data is currently limited. In this review, we comprehensively review the growth abnormalities in children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and cystic fibrosis, systemic abnormalities of the growth hormone-insulin like growth factor axis and growth plate perturbations. We also systematically reviewed all the current published studies of recombinant human growth hormone in these conditions and discuss the role of recombinant human insulin like growth factor-1

Antennas and Propagation from a Signal Processing Perspective

This thesis studies several topics within the area of antennas and propagation from a signal processing perspective. However, theory and methods from electromagnetics and communications have also been used, contributing to an interdisciplinary character of the thesis. Several physical models are derived in the thesis that describes the wireless communications channel and several novel antennas. On the basis of these models, it is investigated how multiple antennas may be employed to increasing the capacity of future wireless communication systems. Furthermore, several aspects of using antenna arrays for finding the directions of arrival of electromagnetic waves, with applications in radar and acoustic sonar, are studied. An often neglected issue when employing several antennas is that the elements affect each other through mutual coupling. By deriving expressions for the mutual coupling, the achievable direction finding performance is analyzed for this case. It is found that if the coupling is known, the effects on direction finding are small and can even increase performance in some cases. Similar results are also obtained when examining the capacity of communication systems employing multiple closely spaced antennas at both the transmitter and receiver. To evaluate the performance of communication systems, a spatio-temporal channel model is proposed that is based on electromagnetic scattering and fundamental physics. By using a dyad notation and concepts from rough surface scattering, a compact formulation of the channel model is obtained. System models are then derived that employs multiple antennas at both the transmitter and receiver, so called Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) systems. The polarization properties of the channel as well as those of the antennas are also included in the model, allowing for studies of different antenna arrangements. Two novel antenna solutions are proposed that can be used as diversity receivers in MIMO systems or when performing high-resolution direction finding. By exciting higher order modes of biconical or microstrip antennas, several directionally dependent radiation patterns are obtained. Different patterns can also be obtained by employing parasitic elements. It is found that these antennas, the multimode and switched parasitic antenna, offer performance comparable to that of an antenna array