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{"references": ["T Gopinathan, K P Arul Shri: Simulation of Recharging Battery of the\nPacemaker using Piezoelectric Crystal from the Pulse in Aorta, Thesis,\nDec 2011.", "H.W. Ko: US Patent 3456134A: Piezoelectric Energy Converter for\nElectronic Implants, 1969.", "A. Badel: R\u00e9cup\u00e9ration d'Energie et Contr\u00f4le Vibratoire par El\u00e9ments\nPi\u00e9zo\u00e9lectriques Suivant une Approche Non Lin\u00e9aire, Ph.D. Thesis,\nUniversit\u00e9 de Savoie, 2008.", "M. Deterre: Toward an Energy Harvester for Leadless Pacemakers,\nPh.D. Thesis, Paris-Sud Univ. 2013.", "N. Andrew: Redington,CardiacDept, Brompton Hospital, Fulham Road,\nLondon SW3 6HP, in press.", "R. White, G. Savage, M. Zdeblick: US Patent 7729768 B2: Implantable\nCardiac Motion Powered Piezoelectric Energy Source.", "S. Priya, D.J. Inman: Energy Harvesting Technologies.", "N. Bassiri-Gharb : Piezoelectric Mems: Materials and Devices,\nPiezoelectric and Acoustic Materials for Transducer Applications, A.\nSafari, E.K. Akdogan, eds., Springer US, 2008, pp. 413\u2013430.", "W. Clark, C. Mo : Energy Harvesting Technologies, Ch.16, pp.405-430,\nS. Priya, D.J. Inman eds., Springer, 2009.\n[10] M. Deterre, E. Lefeuvre, E. Dufour-Gergam : An Active Piezoelectric\nEnergy Extraction Method for Pressure Energy Harvesting, Smart\nMaterials and Structures, Vol.21(8), 085004, 2012.\n[11] M.A. Karami, D.J. Inman: Powering Pacemakers from Heartbeat\nVibrations Using Linear and Nonlinear Energy Harvesters, Appl. Phys.\nLett. 100, 042901 (2012), in press.\n[12] S.R Anton, H.A Sodano : A Review of Power Harvesting Using\nPiezoelectric Materials (2003\u20132006), Smart Materials and Structures,\nVol.16(3), R1, 2007."]} Present project consists in a study and a development of piezoelectric devices for supplying power to new generation pacemakers. They are miniaturized leadless implants without battery placed directly in right ventricle. Amongst different acceptable energy sources in cardiac environment, we choose the solution of a device based on conversion of the energy produced by pressure variation inside the heart into electrical energy. The proposed energy harvesters can meet the power requirements of pacemakers, and can be a good solution to solve the problem of regular surgical operation. With further development, proposed device should provide enough energy to allow pacemakers autonomy, and could be good candidate for next pacemaker generation.

Common reed (Phragmites australis, hereafter referred to as reed) is one of the most widely distributed plant species on Earth. Among vascular plants, reed is a dominant plant in European land-water ecotones. Combustion of dried reeds has been investigated, for instance, in Sweden and Austria. Though naturally dried reed could be burnt in boiler without any additional drying, a disadvantage is that reed is very bulky and unsuitable for small-scale boilers without pelletizing. This work presents our initial results of combustion tests with reed pellets in a 80 kW wood pellet boiler with moving grate furnace. Reed pellets from Finland were used and two tests were performed. The aim of this study is to determine combustion characteristics of reed pellets and to observe how the reed pellets behave in the furnace designed for burning of wood pellets. It was found that the wood pellets fired furnace with a moving grate is generally suitable for burning of some type of reed pellets with modifications in control parameters (adjusting of the air-fuel rate and the interval of grate moving, a device for pressing burnt fuel heap etc.). However, the drawback lies in the decrease in load and modifications in furnace/grate design are needed to increase residence time for complete combustion. Proceedings of the 23rd European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 1-4 June 2015, Vienna, Austria, pp. 697-701

This paper presents experimental results derived from test runs performed with a laboratory-scale updraft fixed-bed gasifier coupled to a combustion chamber to produce data for the investigation of the release behaviour and the conversion of fuel-bound nitrogen during gasification and subsequent staged combustion of the producer gas using softwood pellets. The concentrations of relevant nitrogenous gas species including tars have been measured in the producer gas and at different positions in the combustion chamber. Based on the experimental measurements and results derived from the test runs, the pathway of the fuel-bound nitrogen could be described. Results show that during updraft fixed-bed gasification the fuel-bound nitrogen is mainly released as N bound in tars from the packed bed and is then subsequently released as HCN, NO, NH3 and N2 as a result of tar cracking during combustion. This strong N-fixation in the tars was not expected. It is of great relevance for the understanding of the behaviour of the fuel-bound nitrogen as a basis for a low-NOx combustion of the producer gas. Proceedings of the 19th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 6-10 June 2011, Berlin, Germany, pp. 996-1001

Nowadays, much attention is payed to the development of renewable energy resources. Wind energy plays a major role in this issue. That is why there is a growing interest for improving the design process of wind turbines at many aspects. This study compares two types of offshore wind turbines structures, the monopile and the jacket structure, in their dependency on wave load characteristics’ variations. The examined wave characteristics are significant wave height and wave peak period. The jacket structure showed lower influence of increase of wave height to stresses in the cross section at the bottom of the structure compared to the monopile structure. The monopile structure showed slight dependency of stresses on increasing wave frequency, while the jacket structure showed nearly no dependency, due to its more complex geometry and higher stiffness.

Ceramic filter candles, partially filled with pellets of a commercial nickel-based catalyst (about 600 g) for hydrocarbons reforming, were recently tested for in-situ syngas cleaning and conditioning in the freeboard of a fluidized-bed biomass steam gasifier, with positive results (Savuto et al. 2019). To get full insight into the performance of that device, characterizing more accurately the dependence of catalytic activity on the operating conditions, a more focused approach is needed; this work describes an experimental study utilizing a laboratory-scale tubular reactor containing a small packed bed with pellets of the same catalyst (3.9 g), and involving steam reforming tests of tar key-compounds (mixtures of naphthalene and toluene, optionally with the addition of thiophene, vaporized in an inert gas stream together with steam). The experimental data were used to infer a lumped kinetic law, referred to the steam reforming of a pseudo-component representing tars. This law was implemented in a mathematical model of the annular catalytic packed bed inside the filtering candle, obtaining numerical simulations in fair agreement with gasification experiments from Savuto et al. 2019, as far as tar removal from biomass product syngas was concerned. Proceedings of the 27th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 27-30 May 2019, Lisbon, Portugal, pp. 570-576

{"references": ["\"Glossary - Climate Change\". Education Center - Arctic Climatology\nand Meteorology. NSIDC National Snow and Ice Data Center.\nhttp://nsidc.org/arcticmet/glossary/climate_change.html. ; Glossary, in\nIPCC TAR WG1 2001.", "wikipedia\"Climatechange\" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change", "^ \"The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change\". 21\nMarch1994.\nhttp://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/background/items/13\n49.php. \"Climate change means a change of climate which is attributed\ndirectly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the\nglobal atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability\nobserved over comparable time periods.\"", "NASA \"What's in a Name? Global Warming vs. Climate Change\"..\nhttp://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/climate_by_any_other_name.\nhtml. Retrieved 23 July 2011.", "International Panel on Climate Change IPCC (2007): Climate Change\n2007:Synthesis Report. Available online:\nhttp://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr.pdf (Read:\n20.04.2010).", "Anne S. Kaslegard \"Climate Change and Cultural Heritage in the\nNordic Countries\" TemaNord 2010:599"]} Climate change could lead to changes in cultural environments and landscapes as we know them.Climate change presents an immediate and significant threat to our natural and built environments and to the ways of life which co-exist with these environments. In most traditional buildings, the harmony of texture with nature and environment has been ever considered; so houses and cities have been mixed with their natural environment so astonishingly and the selection and usage of materials have been in such a way that they have provided the utmost conformity with the environment, as the result the created areas have a unique beauty and attraction.The extent to which climate change contributes to destruction procedure on Iran-s historic buildings.is a subject of current discussion. Cities, towns and built-up areas also have their own characteristics that might make them particularly vulnerable to climate change.

With an increasing share of regenerative wind and solar energy in electricity supply, the aspect of load flexibility will gain importance, i.e. there is an increasing need for buffer capacities and / or power plants must be able to react more flexibly to changes of the demand. As an alternative or in addition to the new construction of peak­load power plants (pump storage systems, gas power plants), load-flexible dust burner technologies can be used in existing incinerators to increase the load flexibility and the fuel flexibility when using especially local regenerative fuel sources. Flexibility of the burner concept means an increase in changing fuel composition and non-stationary operation, which may cause changes of the combustion behavior and, hence, of the emission behavior. Flexibility in fuel sources changes the combustion and emission behavior, too, especially with regard to low rank fuels with high ash contents containing chlorine and alkali species. To control these non-stationary processes in the burner and downstream boiler area for an efficient operation, contact-free optical measurement methods are applied in addition to the measurement systems existing in the furnace chamber and furthermore control methods based on computational intelligence. Proceedings of the 19th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 6-10 June 2011, Berlin, Germany, pp. 1334-1337

{"references": ["European Wind Energy Association, EU energy policy after 2020,\nwww.ewea.org, 2011.", "M. Raciti Castelli, G. Grandi and E. Benini, \"Numerical Analysis of the\nPerformance of the DU91-W2-250 Airfoil for Straight-Bladed Vertical-\nAxis Wind Turbine Application\", submitted to ICAFM 2012:\nInternational Conference on Advances in Fluid Mechanics, Florence\n(Italy), February 28-29, 2012.", "W.A. Timmer, W. A. and R. P. J. O. M. van Rooij, \"Summary of the\ndelft university wind turbine dedicated airfoils\", AIAA-2003-0352.", "W.A. Timmer, W. A. and R. P. J. O. M. van Rooij, \"Design of airfoils\nfor wind turbine blades\", DUWIND, section Wind Energy, Faculty\nCiTG, 03 May, 2004.", "G. Lombardi, M. V. Salvetti and D. Pinelli, \"Numerical Evaluation of\nAirfoil Friction Drag\", J. Aircraft, Vol. 37, No. 2, pp. 354-356, 2000.", "Y. Lian and W. Shai, \"Laminar-Turbulent Transition of a Low Reynolds\nNumber Rigid or Flexible Airfoil\", AIAA Journal, Vol. 45, No. 7, July\n2007, pp. 1501-1513.", "F. R. Menter, R. B. Langrty, S. R. Likki, Y. B. Suzen, P. G. Huang and\nS. V\u00f6lker, \"A Correlation-Based Transition Model Using Local\nVariables - Part I: Model Formulation\", Journal of Turbomachinery,\nVolume 128, Issue 3, pp. 413-422, 2006.", "F. R. Menter, R. B. Langrty, S. R. Likki, Y. B. Suzen, P. G. Huang and\nS. V\u00f6lker, \"A Correlation-Based Transition Model Using Local\nVariables - Part II: Test Cases and Industrial Applications\", Journal of\nTurbomachinery, Volume 128, Issue 3, pp. 423-434, 2006.", "E. Benini and R. Ponza, \"Laminar to Turbulent Boundary Layer\nTransition Investigation on a Supercritical Airfoil Using the \u256c\u2502-\u256c\u00a9\nTransitional Model\", 40th Fluid Dynamics Conference and Exhibit, 28\nJune - 1 July 2010, Chicago, Illinois, AIAA 2010-4289.\n[10] S. Hosseinverdi and M. Boroomand, \"Prediction of Laminar-Turbulent\nTransitional Flow over Single and Two-Element Airfoils\", 40th Fluid\nDynamics Conference and Exhibit, 28 June - 1 July 2010, Chicago,\nIllinois, AIAA 2010-4290.\n[11] L. Yuhong and L. Congming, \"A numerical simulation of flow around a\nwind turbine airfoil based on transition model\", WNEC 2009: World\nNon-Grid-Connected Wind Power and Energy Conference, Nanjing\n(China), 24-26 Sept. 2009.\n[12] W.A. Timmer, W. A. and R. P. J. O. M. van Rooij, Aifoil DU91-W2-\n250 Coordinates and Measurements in Delft University 1.25x1.80 m\nLow-speed Wind tunnel, data provided by direct contact from the\nauthors.\n[13] ANSYS FLUENT 12.0-12.1 Documentation, Release 12.1 \u252c\u00ae ANSYS,\nInc. 2009-10-01.\n[14] J. Johansen, \"Prediction of Laminar/Turbulent Transition in Airfoil\nFlows\", Ris\u251c\u00a9 National Laboratory, Roskilde, Denmark, May 1997,\nRis\u251c\u00a9-R-987(EN).\n[15] M. Raciti Castelli, F. Garbo, E. Benini, \"Numerical investigation of\nlaminar to turbulent boundary layer transition on a NACA 0012 airfoil\nfor vertical-axis wind turbine applications\", Wind Engineering, Vol. 35,\nNo. 6, 2011, pp. 661-686."]} This paper presents a study of laminar to turbulent transition on a profile specifically designed for wind turbine blades, the DU91-W2-250, which belongs to a class of wind turbine dedicated airfoils, developed by Delft University of Technology. A comparison between the experimental behavior of the airfoil studied at Delft wind tunnel and the numerical predictions of the commercial CFD solver ANSYS FLUENT® has been performed. The prediction capabilities of the Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model and of the γ-θ Transitional model have been tested. A sensitivity analysis of the numerical results to the spatial domain discretization has also been performed using four different computational grids, which have been created using the mesher GAMBIT®. The comparison between experimental measurements and CFD results have allowed to determine the importance of the numerical prediction of the laminar to turbulent transition, in order not to overestimate airfoil friction drag due to a fully turbulent-regime flow computation.

{"references": ["S. Throp, \"Climate change challenges and opportunities. Special issue. CTA Spore, 2015.", "Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC) Climate change: The Physical Science Basis (summary for policy), IPCC, and Geneva. 2007.", "A.M. Atolagbe, \"Architecture in Nigeria and the Practice for Sustainable Development: A Comparative education\" Nairobi, Kenya: ICRAF. 2002.", "D.M. Ranasingbe, Forestry Education and Global Change. A case study on the contribution of Forest study of Modern and Indigenous housing strategy. AARCHES Journal, vol. 2, no. 1, 61 - 65. 2008.", "C. U. Nwajiuba, and R.U Onyeneke, Effects of climate change on the agriculture of sub-Saharan Africa: Lessons from Southeast Rainforest zone of Nigeria. Paper presented at the 10th Global Conference on Business and Economics, St Hugh's College University Press. 2010.", "M. Yesuf, S. Difalce; T. Deressa; C. Ringler and G.Kohlin, The impact of climate and Adaptation on food Production in low income countries; Evidence from the Nile Basin, Ethiopia. International Food Policy Research Institute Discussion (IFPRI) Paper No. 00828. Environment and Production Technology Division, IFPRI, Washington D.C. 2008.", "L. Grace, Sustainable Agriculture: the basic. www.gracelinks.org 2016 Accessed on 20/09/2016.", "I.U Nwaiwu, et al., The effects of Climate Change on Agricultural Sustainability in Southeast Nigeria \u2013 Implications \tfor Food \tSecurity. Asian Journal of Agricultural Extension, Economic and Sociology, vol. 3. No 1, 23-26 2013.", "Nigerian Environmental Study and Action team (NEST). Triggering Rural-Urban Interactions to Cope with Climate\t Change: An adaptation Experiment in Aba and its Region, southeastern Nigeria, NEST, Ibadan, Nigeria, 2012.\n[10]\tR. Mendelsohn, Measuring the effect of climate change on Developing country Agriculture: Two Essays on climate change on Agriculture FAO Corporate DocumentRepository, www.fao.org/docrep 2000. Accessed on 16/08/2016.\n[11]\tW. Akpalu, R.M. Hassan and C.Ringler. Climate Variability and Maize Yeild in South Africa:Results from GME (generalized maximum entropy) and MELE (maximum entropy leuven estimator) methods. International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Discussion Paper No. 00843, Environment and Production Technology Division, IFPRI, Washinton D.C.\n[12]\tR.U.Onyeneke, Climate change and Crop farmers Adaptation measures in the Southeast Rainforest zone of Nigeria (unpublished) MSC Thesis. 2010.\n[13]\tS. Anderson, Climate change impacts on the progress towards and the sustainability of MDG achievement across Africa\". Report to the Africa Partnerships Forum, 2010.\n[14]\tJ.O. Munonye and C.S. Nwosu, Agricultural sustainability and\tEnvironmental Quality. Conference on International Journal of Arts and Sciences, 08(04): 57 -65. 2015.\n[15]\tB, Ronald, Farm Productive Practices http://www.farm.org/features/002/roland-bunch Accessed on 17/06/2016."]} Climate change has both negative and positive effects in agricultural production. For agriculture to be sustainable in adverse climate change condition, some natural measures are needed. The issue is to produce more food with available natural resources and reduce the contribution of agriculture to climate change. The study reviewed climate change and sustainable agriculture in southeast Nigeria. Data from the study were from secondary sources. Ten scientific papers were consulted and data for the review were collected from three. The objectives of the paper were as follows: to review the effect of climate change on one major arable crop in southeast Nigeria (yam; Dioscorea rotundata); evident of climate change impact and methods for sustainable agricultural production in adverse weather condition. Some climatic parameter as sunshine, relative humidity and rainfall have negative relationship with yam production and significant at 10% probability. Crop production was predicted to decline by 25% per hectare by 2060 while livestock production has increased the incidence of diseases and pathogens as the major effect to agriculture. Methods for sustainable agriculture and damage of natural resources by climate change were highlighted. Agriculture needs to be transformed as climate changes to enable the sector to be sustainable. There should be a policy in place to facilitate the integration of sustainability in Nigeria agriculture.