Preliminary study on a kinetic energy recovery system for sailing yachts

This paper presents the preliminary theoretical results obtained on a model of a kinetic energy recovery system for sailing yachts, based on the conversion of wave-induced boat oscillations (heave, pitch and roll) into electric energy by means of a linear generator. The recovery system is based on a linear generator, with a mass oscillating along the vertical axis and gaining kinetic energy: the resulting mechanical energy can be extracted (by means of electromagnetic damping) and converted into electricity. The oscillating mass incorporates permanent magnets which, moving in proximity of stator windings, generate electric power due to electromagnetic induction. The device aims at recovering as much kinetic energy as possible from the natural movements of a sailing yacht on the sea, therefore taking the view of a boat as a moving wave energy converter with energy harvesting capability. The boat's motions can be vertical oscillations due to the buoyancy in the presence of sea waves, both when the boat is still or sailing, and rolling and pitching motions originated both by sailing in wavy waters and by the normal boat dynamics due to the sails' propulsion. Linear generators will convert kinetic energy into electrical energy to be used as “green” electricity for any possible application on board. Preliminary calculations show that a properly configured system could be able to recover approximately 100 W under most sea conditions on an almost continuous basis, which can be an extremely attractive result since an electric energy availability of 1–2 kWh on a sailing yacht is of significant interest

Gender Balance in Construction Material Research: The Analysis of Alkali-Activated Materials by a Bibliometric Study Using Scopus Database

Research in alkali-activated materials (AAMs) is an innovative and dynamic material science topic. This is due to the relevant performances in terms of physico-mechanical properties comparable to traditional construction materials (e.g., ordinary Portland cement). The sustainability of AAMs is often highlighted since they can be developed by using many natural or industrial by-products–based precursors. This leads to challenges with the optimization of AAM production due to their different performances, availability, and costs. However, they are flexible and locally adapted materials. The research interest in AAMs has rapidly increased in the early 2000s. In recent years, about 1,000 international articles have been published each year. This study aims at assessing the gender balance of this specific research topic to investigate the relevance of women’s participation. Author lists of the published articles were analyzed throughout the Scopus database, applying “alkali-activated material” and “geopolymers” as keywords in the titles, abstracts, and keywords search. The last 10 years (2009–2019) were taken into account. The gender of the most prolific authors was analyzed, and a focus of European authors on this topic was considered, as more than 25% of the research in AAMs have been carried out in Europe. The analysis of 5,900 publications in the last decade shows that there is currently a shift toward men in the gender balance in this specific research, and female authors only covered 22% of the most productive authors worldwide. Considering European authors, a more equal gender distribution is reached, when the first author is considered, with a concentration of women in the range of 36–56%, recorded over 1,396 articles

Magnetic field computation in a physically large domain with thin metallic shields

A three-dimensional edge element procedure is presented to analyze the magnetic field around thin shields embedded in a physically large domain. The shield region is eliminated from the computational domain and coupled boundary conditions named impedance network boundary conditions are imposed on the new boundary surfaces to take into account the field discontinuity produced by the eliminated shield. An experimental setup is built and the measured magnetic fields are compared to the results obtained by the proposed procedure

Pattern Recognition and Clustering of Transient Pressure Signals for Burst Location

[EN] A large volume of the water produced for public supply is lost in the systems between sources and consumers. An important-in many cases the greatest-fraction of these losses are physical losses, mainly related to leaks and bursts in pipes and in consumer connections. Fast detection and location of bursts plays an important role in the design of operation strategies for water loss control, since this helps reduce the volume lost from the instant the event occurs until its effective repair (run time). The transient pressure signals caused by bursts contain important information about their location and magnitude, and stamp on any of these events a specific "hydraulic signature". The present work proposes and evaluates three methods to disaggregate transient signals, which are used afterwards to train artificial neural networks (ANNs) to identify burst locations and calculate the leaked flow. In addition, a clustering process is also used to group similar signals, and then train specific ANNs for each group, thus improving both the computational efficiency and the location accuracy. The proposed methods are applied to two real distribution networks, and the results show good accuracy in burst location and characterization.Manzi, D.; Brentan, BM.; Meirelles, G.; Izquierdo Sebastián, J.; Luvizotto Jr., E. (2019). Pattern Recognition and Clustering of Transient Pressure Signals for Burst Location. Water. 11(11):1-13. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11112279S1131111Creaco, E., & Walski, T. (2017). Economic Analysis of Pressure Control for Leakage and Pipe Burst Reduction. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 143(12), 04017074. doi:10.1061/(asce)wr.1943-5452.0000846Campisano, A., Creaco, E., & Modica, C. (2010). RTC of Valves for Leakage Reduction in Water Supply Networks. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 136(1), 138-141. doi:10.1061/(asce)0733-9496(2010)136:1(138)Campisano, A., Modica, C., Reitano, S., Ugarelli, R., & Bagherian, S. (2016). Field-Oriented Methodology for Real-Time Pressure Control to Reduce Leakage in Water Distribution Networks. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 142(12), 04016057. doi:10.1061/(asce)wr.1943-5452.0000697Vítkovský, J. P., Simpson, A. R., & Lambert, M. F. (2000). Leak Detection and Calibration Using Transients and Genetic Algorithms. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 126(4), 262-265. doi:10.1061/(asce)0733-9496(2000)126:4(262)Pérez, R., Puig, V., Pascual, J., Quevedo, J., Landeros, E., & Peralta, A. (2011). Methodology for leakage isolation using pressure sensitivity analysis in water distribution networks. Control Engineering Practice, 19(10), 1157-1167. doi:10.1016/j.conengprac.2011.06.004Jung, D., & Kim, J. (2017). Robust Meter Network for Water Distribution Pipe Burst Detection. Water, 9(11), 820. doi:10.3390/w9110820Colombo, A. F., Lee, P., & Karney, B. W. (2009). A selective literature review of transient-based leak detection methods. Journal of Hydro-environment Research, 2(4), 212-227. doi:10.1016/j.jher.2009.02.003Choi, D., Kim, S.-W., Choi, M.-A., & Geem, Z. (2016). Adaptive Kalman Filter Based on Adjustable Sampling Interval in Burst Detection for Water Distribution System. Water, 8(4), 142. doi:10.3390/w8040142Christodoulou, S. E., Kourti, E., & Agathokleous, A. (2016). Waterloss Detection in Water Distribution Networks using Wavelet Change-Point Detection. Water Resources Management, 31(3), 979-994. doi:10.1007/s11269-016-1558-5Guo, X., Yang, K., & Guo, Y. (2012). Leak detection in pipelines by exclusively frequency domain method. Science China Technological Sciences, 55(3), 743-752. doi:10.1007/s11431-011-4707-3Holloway, M. B., & Hanif Chaudhry, M. (1985). Stability and accuracy of waterhammer analysis. Advances in Water Resources, 8(3), 121-128. doi:10.1016/0309-1708(85)90052-1Sanz, G., Pérez, R., Kapelan, Z., & Savic, D. (2016). Leak Detection and Localization through Demand Components Calibration. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 142(2), 04015057. doi:10.1061/(asce)wr.1943-5452.0000592Zhang, Q., Wu, Z. Y., Zhao, M., Qi, J., Huang, Y., & Zhao, H. (2016). Leakage Zone Identification in Large-Scale Water Distribution Systems Using Multiclass Support Vector Machines. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 142(11), 04016042. doi:10.1061/(asce)wr.1943-5452.0000661Mounce, S. R., & Machell, J. (2006). Burst detection using hydraulic data from water distribution systems with artificial neural networks. Urban Water Journal, 3(1), 21-31. doi:10.1080/15730620600578538Covas, D., Ramos, H., & de Almeida, A. B. (2005). Standing Wave Difference Method for Leak Detection in Pipeline Systems. Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, 131(12), 1106-1116. doi:10.1061/(asce)0733-9429(2005)131:12(1106)Liggett, J. A., & Chen, L. (1994). Inverse Transient Analysis in Pipe Networks. Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, 120(8), 934-955. doi:10.1061/(asce)0733-9429(1994)120:8(934)Caputo, A. C., & Pelagagge, P. M. (2002). An inverse approach for piping networks monitoring. Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, 15(6), 497-505. doi:10.1016/s0950-4230(02)00036-0Van Zyl, J. E. (2014). Theoretical Modeling of Pressure and Leakage in Water Distribution Systems. Procedia Engineering, 89, 273-277. doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2014.11.187Izquierdo, J., & Iglesias, P. . (2004). Mathematical modelling of hydraulic transients in complex systems. Mathematical and Computer Modelling, 39(4-5), 529-540. doi:10.1016/s0895-7177(04)90524-9Lin, J., Keogh, E., Wei, L., & Lonardi, S. (2007). Experiencing SAX: a novel symbolic representation of time series. Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, 15(2), 107-144. doi:10.1007/s10618-007-0064-zNavarrete-López, C., Herrera, M., Brentan, B., Luvizotto, E., & Izquierdo, J. (2019). Enhanced Water Demand Analysis via Symbolic Approximation within an Epidemiology-Based Forecasting Framework. Water, 11(2), 246. doi:10.3390/w11020246Meirelles, G., Manzi, D., Brentan, B., Goulart, T., & Luvizotto, E. (2017). Calibration Model for Water Distribution Network Using Pressures Estimated by Artificial Neural Networks. Water Resources Management, 31(13), 4339-4351. doi:10.1007/s11269-017-1750-2Adamowski, J., & Chan, H. F. (2011). A wavelet neural network conjunction model for groundwater level forecasting. Journal of Hydrology, 407(1-4), 28-40. doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2011.06.013Brentan, B., Meirelles, G., Luvizotto, E., & Izquierdo, J. (2018). Hybrid SOM+ k -Means clustering to improve planning, operation and management in water distribution systems. Environmental Modelling & Software, 106, 77-88. doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2018.02.013Calinski, T., & Harabasz, J. (1974). A dendrite method for cluster analysis. Communications in Statistics - Theory and Methods, 3(1), 1-27. doi:10.1080/0361092740882710

Relationship between aerobic fitness and metabolic power metrics in elite male soccer players

The aim was to assess the relationship between aerobic fitness and metabolic power metrics in elite male soccer players, and the possible differences that playing positions might impose during match play over new metabolic power metrics. Sixty-two elite professional male soccer players (13 central backs, 13 side backs, 22 midfielders, and 14 forwards) took part in the study. Players were monitored during eleven months of full training (including pre-season and in-season) and over all official matches (Serie A matches, Italy Cup matches). Aerobic fitness tests were conducted one week after the start of the preseason, and 8, 24 and 36 weeks after the beginning of the Championship. Players' aerobic fitness and metabolic power metrics were considered as the mean of all seasonal testing and of pooling data of 38 championship matches and 3 or 6 Italy Cup matches for all the calculations respectively. The velocity at 4 mmol·L-1 (VL4) was significantly related to metabolic power metrics match variables with correlation ranging from trivial to very large (r = 0.32 to r = 0.89). Receiver-operating-characteristic (ROC) analysis showed that speed at VL4 was sensitive in detecting high metabolic power distance (HMPD) changes in all but central back players as revealed by area under the curve (central back .78, 95%CI .47 to .95; full back .93, 95%CI .64 to 0.99; midfielder .88, 95%CI .67 to 0.98; forward .90, 95%CI .62 to 0.99). This study's findings provide further evidence for the ecological validity of aerobic fitness in elite male soccer players. Players having a HMPD cut-off equal to or higher than > 1450 m for central backs, > 1990 m for full backs, > 2170 m for midfielders and > 1670 m for forwards may be considered as possessing superior aerobic fitness status. In light of this study's findings, the VL4 test may be considered a valid test to evaluate meaningful information for direct generic aerobic training in soccer players

Sexual violence in post-conflict Liberia: survivors and their care.

Using routine data from three clinics offering care to survivors of sexual violence (SV) in Monrovia, Liberia, we describe the characteristics of SV survivors and the pattern of SV and discuss how the current approach could be better adapted to meet survivors' needs. There were 1500 survivors seeking SV care between January 2008 and December 2009. Most survivors were women (98%) and median age was 13 years (Interquartile range: 9-17 years). Sexual aggression occurred during day-to-day activities in 822 (55%) cases and in the survivor's home in 552 (37%) cases. The perpetrator was a known civilian in 1037 (69%) SV events. Only 619 (41%) survivors sought care within 72 h. The current approach could be improved by: effectively addressing the psychosocial needs of child survivors, reaching male survivors, targeting the perpetrators in awareness and advocacy campaigns and reducing delays in seeking care

Prevention of Secondary Injury after Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction: Relationship between Pelvic-Drop and Dynamic Knee Valgus.

Background: Optimal neuromuscular, Lumbo-Pelvic-Hip Complex, and lower extremity control are associated with decreased risk factors for secondary anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury. This study aimed to analyze any asymmetries and malalignments in the Lumbo-Pelvic-Hip Complex and the lower limbs at 6 months after ACL reconstruction (ACLR). (2) Methods: We conducted an exploratory retrospective observational single-center study in patients during the outpatient postoperative rehabilitation program at ICOT (Latina, Italy). From January 2014 to June 2020, 181 patients were recruited, but only 100 patients (86 male 28 ± 0.6 years, 178 ± 0.5 height; 14 female 24 ± 2.0 years, 178 ± 3.0 height) were eligible for the inclusion criteria and studied 6 months after ACL reconstruction surgery. (3) Statistical analysis: Student's t-tests and Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient were used to determine significant differences between affected and non-affected limbs and variables' association. (4) Results: The study shows a decrease in neuromuscular control of the Lumbo-Pelvic-Hip Complex and dynamic adaptive valgus of the knee at 6 months after ACLR (mean difference between pathological and healthy limb of dynamic adaptive valgus was -10.11 ± 8.19° 95% CI -14.84 to -9.34; mean value was 16.3 ± 6.8° 95% CI 14.04 to 18.55 for healthy limb and 4.2 ± 3.1° 95% CI 3.15 to 5.21 for pathological limb, p < 0.0001). The results also showed a relationship between dynamic adaptive valgus and contralateral pelvic drop (r = 0.78, 95% CI 0.62 to 0.88, magnitude of correlation very large). (5) Conclusions: The analysis showed an associative correlation between decreased postural control of the pelvic girdle and dynamic adaptive valgus of the knee in 38% of patients; this study highlights the usefulness of the Single-Leg Squat Test (SLST) as a clinical/functional assessment to evaluate the rehabilitation process and as a preventive tool to reduce the risk of second ACL injuries during the return to sport

The modulation of sirtuins and apoptotic proteins in rats after exhaustive exercise

A large body of evidence shows that a single bout of strenuous exercise induces oxidative stress in circu- lating human lymphocytes leading to lipid peroxide- tion, DNA damage, mitochondrial perturbations, and protein oxidation. In a training experiment, Wistar rats were divided into control group (CG) and exer- cise group (EG). After a running level exercise until exhaustion, we observed an increase in the mRNA content and protein expression of SIRT1 and SIRT7 in the EG compared to the CG. Moreover, such train- ing exercise did not change mRNA transcripts and protein expression of FOXO3A and GADD45. We also observed an increase of pro-apoptotic protein bax and a decrease of the anti-apoptotic protein bcl-2 in the EG. Accordingly, we observed a caspase-3 activation and poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) cleavage only in EG rats. Statistical analysis of the data showed a significant correlation between SIRT1 and SIRT7 expression and apoptotic proteins such as bax, bcl-2 in both tissues. We conclude that, in both muscle, such exercise activates both a damaging apoptotic mecha- nism with bax increase and bcl-2 decrease and a counterbalancing protective mechanism with SIRT1 and SIRT7 increase

Rethinking professional practice: the logic of competition and the crisis of identity in housing practice

The relationship between professionalism, education and housing practice has become increasingly strained following the introduction of austerity measures and welfare reforms across a range of countries. Focusing on the development of UK housing practice, this article considers how notions of professionalism are being reshaped within the context of welfare retrenchment and how emerging tensions have both affected the identity of housing professionals and impacted on the delivery of training and education programmes. The article analyses the changing knowledge and skills valued in contemporary housing practice and considers how the sector has responded to the challenges of austerity. The central argument is that a dominant logic of competition has culminated in a crisis of identity for the sector. Although the focus of the article is on UK housing practice, the processes identified have a wider relevance for the analysis of housing and welfare delivery in developed economies