• 제목/요약/키워드: environmental challenge

검색결과 390건 처리시간 0.025초

The technological state of the art of wave energy converters

  • GURSEL, K. Turgut
    • Advances in Energy Research
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    • 제6권2호
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    • pp.103-129
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    • 2019
  • While global demand for energy increases annually, at the same time the demand for carbon-free, sulphur-free and NOx-free energy sources grows considerably. This state poses a challenge in the research for newer sources like biomass and shale gas as well as renewable energy resources such as solar, wind, geothermal and hydraulic energy. Although wave energy also is a form of renewable energy it has not fully been exploited technically and economically so far. This study tries to explain those reasons in which it is beyond doubt that the demand for wave energy will soon increase as fossil energy resources are depleted and environmental concerns gain more importance. The electrical energy supplied to the grid shall be produced from wave energy whose conversion devices can basically work according to three different systems. i. Systems that exploit the motions or shape deformations of their mechanisms involved, being driven by the energy of passing waves. ii. Systems that exploit the weight of the seawater stored in a reservoir or the changes of water pressure by the oscillations of wave height, iii. Systems that convert the wave motions into air flow. One of the aims of this study is to present the classification deficits of the wave energy converters (WECs) of the "wave developers" prepared by the European Marine Energy Center, which were to be reclassified. Furthermore, a new classification of all WECs listed by the European Marine Energy Center was arranged independently. The other aim of the study is to assess the technological state of the art of these WECs designed and/or produced, to obtain an overview on them.

Axial compressive strength of short steel and composite columns fabricated with high stength steel plate

  • Uy, B.
    • Steel and Composite Structures
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    • 제1권2호
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    • pp.171-185
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    • 2001
  • The design of tall buildings has recently provided many challenges to structural engineers. One such challenge is to minimise the cross-sectional dimensions of columns to ensure greater floor space in a building is attainable. This has both an economic and aesthetics benefit in buildings, which require structural engineering solutions. The use of high strength steel in tall buildings has the ability to achieve these benefits as the material provides a higher strength to cross-section ratio. However as the strength of the steel is increased the buckling characteristics become more dominant with slenderness limits for both local and global buckling becoming more significant. To arrest the problems associated with buckling of high strength steel, concrete filling and encasement can be utilised as it has the affect of changing the buckling mode, which increases the strength and stiffness of the member. This paper describes an experimental program undertaken for both encased and concrete filled composite columns, which were designed to be stocky in nature and thus fail by strength alone. The columns were designed to consider the strength in axial compression and were fabricated from high strength steel plate. In addition to the encased and concrete filled columns, unencased columns and hollow columns were also fabricated and tested to act as calibration specimens. A model for the axial strength was suggested and this is shown to compare well with the test results. Finally aspects of further research are addressed in this paper which include considering the effects of slender columns which may fail by global instabilities.

Unmet Needs for Mental Health Care and Its Implication for Health Education in Canada

  • Park, Jung-Wee;Nelson Connie H.
    • 보건교육건강증진학회지
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    • 제22권3호
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    • pp.29-47
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    • 2005
  • Objectives: Individuals' self-reported unmet needs are an important indicator of heath care of their society. Using data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) Cycle 1.2, we examine unmet needs for mental health care in Canada and discuss its implications to health education. Results: The most frequently reported reason for unmet needs was barriers to acceptability issues, which stem primarily from lack of knowledge of mental health, negative attitudes towards mental disorder, and mistrust of mental health professionals. Unmet needs for mental health care appeared an especially serious issue among the young. Also, individuals who reported unmet needs tended to have some ill health behavior such as illicit drug use that could be their coping mechanism. On the other hand, emotional and informational support factors have shown an important mitigating effect on unmet needs. Conclusions: These findings of unmet needs pose a major challenge to health education. To effectively address unmet mental health care needs, it is recommended that the focus of relevant policies and programs should be on enhancing a multi-level mental health education strategy including efforts on individual, environmental and professional level education.

병원건축 길찾기 요소의 중요도 분석에 관한 연구 -'A'종합병원 외래진료부를 중심으로- (A Study on the Analysis of Factors Affecting Patients' Way-Finding in the Hospital - Focused on a Case of 'A' General Hospital -)

  • 윤지선;박재승
    • 의료ㆍ복지 건축 : 한국의료복지건축학회 논문집
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    • 제14권3호
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    • pp.43-54
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    • 2008
  • Upon reviewing the tendency of the large-scale hospital buildings constructed so far, we may well know that the architectural space of the hospital buildings has been designed for users' conveniences in terms of functional elements fulfilled, efficiency, uniform colors and lighting, which means that patients may well feel difficult to find their ways in the hospital. The result may be that the patients who are weak mentally and physically feel uneasy or tensed when they wander in the hospital, which may lead to their increased physical fatigue, higher blood pressure or other harmful effects. Thus, patients' way-finding emerges as a new design challenge for the hospital building. The purpose of this study was to define the environmental variables and factors affecting patients' way-finding in the hospital and thereby, determine the correlations between the variables/factors and way-finding to provide for some framework of analysis useful to solutions of patients' way-finding problems, while identifying the causes for difficulty of their way-finding due to differences of perception between hospital building designer and user groups.

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Behavioral Effects of Mianserin on the Developmental Toxicity of Cocaine

  • Kang, Dong-Won;Kim, Dong-Goo
    • Toxicological Research
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    • 제12권2호
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    • pp.171-179
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    • 1996
  • To investigate the involvement of $5-HT_{2A}/ 5-HT_{2C} receptors in the developmental toxicity of cocaine in rats, mianserin (2.5 mg/kg), a $5-HT_{2A}/5-HT_{2C}$ receptor antagonist, and/or cocaine HCl (45 mg/kg) were administered intraperitoneally (i.p.), during postnatal days (PND) 7-13. Behavioral assessments for the rat pups were done after 100 days of age by using the progressive ratio schedule of reinforcement (FR 1-FR 128, doubled everyday) and cocaine challenge (5, 15 or 30 mg/kg i.p.) upon established FR 32 behavior. Cocaine injected just prior to the FR 32 session suppressed the established FR 32 responding in a dose-dependent manner. The low dose of cocaine did not affect the FR 32 responding, while the high dose of cocaine suppressed it in all experimental groups. However, by the middle dose of cocaine, rats previously received water-cocaine in their early life showed a marked resistance to cocaine-induced behavioral suppression, and this resistance was not observed in rats received both mianserin and cocaine in their early life. These results suggest that $5-HT_{2A}/ 5-HT_{2C}$ receptors may have an important role for the persistently altered behavioral sensitivity to cocaine caused by exposure to cocaine during development.

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Molecular Typing in Public Health Laboratories: From an Academic Indulgence to an Infection Control Imperative

  • Allerberger, Franz
    • Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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    • 제45권1호
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    • pp.1-7
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    • 2012
  • Using three Austrian case studies, the variegated applications of molecular typing in today's public health laboratories are discussed to help illustrate preventive management strategies relying on DNA subtyping. DNA macrorestriction analysis by pulsed field gel electrophoresis has become the gold standard for subtyping of food borne pathogens like listeria, salmonella, campylobacter and Bacillus cereus. Using a Salmonella Mbandaka outbreak from the year 2010 as example, it is shown how the comparison of patterns from human isolates, food isolates, animal isolates and feed isolates can allow to identify and confirm a source of disease. An epidemiological connection between the simultaneous occurrence of tuberculosis in cattle and deer with cases of human tuberculosis due to Mycobacterium caprae in 2010 was excluded using mycobacterial interspersed repetitive units variable-number tandem repeats subtyping. Also in 2010, multilocus sequence typing with nonselective housekeeping genes, the so-called sequence based typing protocol, was used to elucidate connections between an environmental source (a hospital drinking water system) and a case of legionellosis. During the last decades, molecular typing has evolved to become a routine tool in the daily work of public health laboratories. The challenge is now no longer to simply type microorganisms, but to type them in a way that allows for data exchange between public health laboratories all over the world.

전파관리정책 및 법 제도 개선 방안에 관한 연구 (Research on Radio Wave Communication Management Policy and System Improvement)

  • 강병찬;김기문;임재홍
    • 한국정보통신학회논문지
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    • 제12권7호
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    • pp.1149-1159
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    • 2008
  • 전파 통신의 보급과 이용의 확대에 따라 전파에 대한 수요가 급격히 증가하고 전파 통신의 효율적인 이용을 위한 정책은 서비스의 보급 및 확산은 물론 향후 이 분야의 기술 발전을 위하여 지속적으로 연구되어야 할 과제이다. 본 논문에서는 당국의 전파 진흥 정책의 여건 변화, 전파 이용의 환경 변화 및 기술 발전에 따른 발전된 무선 통신분야의 전파 관리 정책 및 제도에 체계적이고 효율적인 대처가 필요하기 때문에 전파 관련 국제 협약 및 제외국의 제도 및 정책을 분석, 검토하고 행정 조정을 통하여 개선 방안을 제시함을 목적으로 하는 것이다.

Autonomous pothole detection using deep region-based convolutional neural network with cloud computing

  • Luo, Longxi;Feng, Maria Q.;Wu, Jianping;Leung, Ryan Y.
    • Smart Structures and Systems
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    • 제24권6호
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    • pp.745-757
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    • 2019
  • Road surface deteriorations such as potholes have caused motorists heavy monetary damages every year. However, effective road condition monitoring has been a continuing challenge to road owners. Depth cameras have a small field of view and can be easily affected by vehicle bouncing. Traditional image processing methods based on algorithms such as segmentation cannot adapt to varying environmental and camera scenarios. In recent years, novel object detection methods based on deep learning algorithms have produced good results in detecting typical objects, such as faces, vehicles, structures and more, even in scenarios with changing object distances, camera angles, lighting conditions, etc. Therefore, in this study, a Deep Learning Pothole Detector (DLPD) based on the deep region-based convolutional neural network is proposed for autonomous detection of potholes from images. About 900 images with potholes and road surface conditions are collected and divided into training and testing data. Parameters of the network in the DLPD are calibrated based on sensitivity tests. Then, the calibrated DLPD is trained by the training data and applied to the 215 testing images to evaluate its performance. It is demonstrated that potholes can be automatically detected with high average precision over 93%. Potholes can be differentiated from manholes by training and applying a manhole-pothole classifier which is constructed using the convolutional neural network layers in DLPD. Repeated detection of the same potholes can be prevented through feature matching of the newly detected pothole with previously detected potholes within a small region.

재조명되는 람노리피드 양산화 동향연구 (Revisit to the Commercial-scale Production of Rhamnolipids)

  • 오경석
    • 한국응용과학기술학회지
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    • 제38권5호
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    • pp.1219-1228
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    • 2021
  • 친환경적 바이오 계면활성제의 하나인 람노리피드(rhamnolipid)의 제조는 Pseudomonas aeruginos 계열의 박테리아가 가장 많이 사용되며, 바이오 공정을 통해 생산된다. 람노리피드의 화학구조는 rhamnose당과 𝛽-hydroxylated fatty acid의 결합으로 이루어져 있으며, 바이오 공정을 통해 동질체 혼합물 형태로 생산된다. 발효(fermentation)공정 중 거품 제어가 수율을 결정하는 가장 중요한 요인으로 알려져 있다. 본 논문에서는, 박테리아 내부에서 일어나는 람노리피드 합성 메카니즘을 소개하였고, 발효공정에서 문제점으로 인식되었던 거품 제어 방법에 대한 최근 시도들을 살펴보았다. 10년 전과 비교하여, 람노리피드 양산화 가능성은 빠르게 높아지고 있다. 특히, 람노리피드와 같은 바이오 계면활성제는 의약품과 같은 고부가가치 제품으로 응용된다면, 시장의 요구가 더 커질 것으로 기대한다.

Dynamic assessment of the seismic isolation influence for various aircraft impact loads on the CPR1000 containment

  • Mei, Runyu;Li, Jianbo;Lin, Gao;Zhu, Xiuyun
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • 제50권8호
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    • pp.1387-1401
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    • 2018
  • An aircraft impact (AI) on a nuclear power plant (NPP) is considered to be a beyond-design-basis event that draws considerable attention in the nuclear field. As some NPPs have already adopted the seismic isolation technology, and there are relevant standards to guide the application of this technology in future NPPs, a new challenge is that nuclear power engineers have to determine a reasonable method for performing AI analysis of base-isolated NPPs. Hence, dynamic influences of the seismic isolation on the vibration and structural damage characteristics of the base-isolated CPR1000 containment are studied under various aircraft loads. Unlike the seismic case, the impact energy of AI is directly impacting on the superstructure. Under the coupled influence of the seismic isolation and the various AI load, the flexible isolation layer weakens the constraint function of the foundation on the superstructure, the results show that the seismic isolation bearings will produce a large horizontal deformation if the AI load is large enough, the acceleration response at the base-mat will also be significantly affected by the different horizontal stiffness of the isolation bearing. These concerns require consideration during the design of the seismic isolation system.