Benchmarking Gas Path Diagnostic Methods: A Public Approach

Recent technology reviews have identified the need for objective assessments of engine health management (EHM) technology. The need is two-fold: technology developers require relevant data and problems to design and validate new algorithms and techniques while engine system integrators and operators need practical tools to direct development and then evaluate the effectiveness of proposed solutions. This paper presents a publicly available gas path diagnostic benchmark problem that has been developed by the Propulsion and Power Systems Panel of The Technical Cooperation Program (TTCP) to help address these needs. The problem is coded in MATLAB (The MathWorks, Inc.) and coupled with a non-linear turbofan engine simulation to produce "snap-shot" measurements, with relevant noise levels, as if collected from a fleet of engines over their lifetime of use. Each engine within the fleet will experience unique operating and deterioration profiles, and may encounter randomly occurring relevant gas path faults including sensor, actuator and component faults. The challenge to the EHM community is to develop gas path diagnostic algorithms to reliably perform fault detection and isolation. An example solution to the benchmark problem is provided along with associated evaluation metrics. A plan is presented to disseminate this benchmark problem to the engine health management technical community and invite technology solutions

Measurement of the Spectral Shape of the beta-decay of 137Xe to the Ground State of 137Cs in EXO-200 and Comparison with Theory

We report on a comparison between the theoretically predicted and experimentally measured spectra of the first-forbidden non-unique $\beta$-decay transition $^{137}\textrm{Xe}(7/2^-)\to\,^{137}\textrm{Cs}(7/2^+)$. The experimental data were acquired by the EXO-200 experiment during a deployment of an AmBe neutron source. The ultra-low background environment of EXO-200, together with dedicated source deployment and analysis procedures, allowed for collection of a pure sample of the decays, with an estimated signal-to-background ratio of more than 99-to-1 in the energy range from 1075 to 4175 keV. In addition to providing a rare and accurate measurement of the first-forbidden non-unique $\beta$-decay shape, this work constitutes a novel test of the calculated electron spectral shapes in the context of the reactor antineutrino anomaly and spectral bump.Comment: Version as accepted by PR

Complexity Variability Assessment of Nonlinear Time-Varying Cardiovascular Control

The application of complex systems theory to physiology and medicine has provided meaningful information about the nonlinear aspects underlying the dynamics of a wide range of biological processes and their disease-related aberrations. However, no studies have investigated whether meaningful information can be extracted by quantifying second-order moments of time-varying cardiovascular complexity. To this extent, we introduce a novel mathematical framework termed complexity variability, in which the variance of instantaneous Lyapunov spectra estimated over time serves as a reference quantifier. We apply the proposed methodology to four exemplary studies involving disorders which stem from cardiology, neurology and psychiatry: Congestive Heart Failure (CHF), Major Depression Disorder (MDD), Parkinson?s Disease (PD), and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) patients with insomnia under a yoga training regime. We show that complexity assessments derived from simple time-averaging are not able to discern pathology-related changes in autonomic control, and we demonstrate that between-group differences in measures of complexity variability are consistent across pathologies. Pathological states such as CHF, MDD, and PD are associated with an increased complexity variability when compared to healthy controls, whereas wellbeing derived from yoga in PTSD is associated with lower time-variance of complexity

Standby Rates for Combined Heat and Power Systems

Improvements in technology, low natural gas prices, and more flexible and positive attitudes in government and utilities are making distributed generation more viable. With more distributed generation, notably combined heat and power, comes an increase in the importance of standby rates, the cost of services utilities provide when customer generation is not operating or is insufficient to meet full load. This work looks at existing utility standby tariffs in five states. It uses these existing rates and terms to showcase practices that demonstrate a sound application of regulatory principles and ones that do not. The paper also addresses areas for improvement in standby rates

Mid-Atlantic forest ecosystem vulnerability assessment and synthesis: a report from the Mid-Atlantic Climate Change Response Framework project

Forest ecosystems will be affected directly and indirectly by a changing climate over the 21st century. This assessment evaluates the vulnerability of 11 forest ecosystems in the Mid-Atlantic region (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, eastern Maryland, and southern New York) under a range of future climates. We synthesized and summarized information on the contemporary landscape, provided information on past climate trends, and described a range of projected future climates. This information was used to parameterize and run multiple forest impact models, which provided a range of potential tree responses to climate. Finally, we brought these results before two multidisciplinary panels of scientists and land managers familiar with the forests of this region to assess ecosystem vulnerability through a formal consensus-based expert elicitation process

Gravity-driven instabilities: interplay between state-and-velocity dependent frictional sliding and stress corrosion damage cracking

We model the progressive maturation of a heterogeneous mass towards a gravity-driven instability, characterized by the competition between frictional sliding and tension cracking, using array of slider blocks on an inclined basal surface, which interact via elastic-brittle springs. A realistic state- and rate-dependent friction law describes the block-surface interaction. The inner material damage occurs via stress corrosion. Three regimes, controlling the mass instability and its precursory behavior, are classified as a function of the ratio $T_c/T_f$ of two characteristic time scales associated with internal damage/creep and with frictional sliding. For $T_c/T_f \gg 1$, the whole mass undergoes a series of internal stick and slip events, associated with an initial slow average downward motion of the whole mass, and progressively accelerates until a global coherent runaway is observed. For $T_c/T_f \ll 1$, creep/damage occurs sufficiently fast compared with nucleation of sliding, causing bonds to break, and the bottom part of the mass undergoes a fragmentation process with the creation of a heterogeneous population of sliding blocks. For the intermediate regime $T_c/T_f \sim 1$, a macroscopic crack nucleates and propagates along the location of the largest curvature associated with the change of slope from the stable frictional state in the upper part to the unstable frictional sliding state in the lower part. The other important parameter is the Young modulus $Y$ which controls the correlation length of displacements in the system.Comment: 40 pages, 13 figure

Accurate and reliable quantification of total microalgal fuel potential as fatty acid methyl esters by in situ transesterification

In the context of algal biofuels, lipids, or better aliphatic chains of the fatty acids, are perhaps the most important constituents of algal biomass. Accurate quantification of lipids and their respective fuel yield is crucial for comparison of algal strains and growth conditions and for process monitoring. As an alternative to traditional solvent-based lipid extraction procedures, we have developed a robust whole-biomass in situ transesterification procedure for quantification of algal lipids (as fatty acid methyl esters, FAMEs) that (a) can be carried out on a small scale (using 4–7 mg of biomass), (b) is applicable to a range of different species, (c) consists of a single-step reaction, (d) is robust over a range of different temperature and time combinations, and (e) tolerant to at least 50% water in the biomass. Unlike gravimetric lipid quantification, which can over- or underestimate the lipid content, whole biomass transesterification reflects the true potential fuel yield of algal biomass. We report here on the comparison of the yield of FAMEs by using different catalysts and catalyst combinations, with the acid catalyst HCl providing a consistently high level of conversion of fatty acids with a precision of 1.9% relative standard deviation. We investigate the influence of reaction time, temperature, and biomass water content on the measured FAME content and profile for 4 different samples of algae (replete and deplete Chlorella vulgaris, replete Phaeodactylum tricornutum, and replete Nannochloropsis sp.). We conclude by demonstrating a full mass balance closure of all fatty acids around a traditional lipid extraction process

Magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound surgery (MRgFUS) treatment for uterine fibroids

Magnetic Resonance-guided focused Ultrasound Surgery (MRgFUS) is gaining popularity as an alternative to medical and surgical interventions in the management of symptomatic uterine fibroids. Studies have shown that it is an effective non-invasive treatment with minimal associated risks as compared to myomectomy and hysterectomy. MRgFUS can be offered to a majority of patients suffering from symptomatic uterine fibroids. It has been suggested that the use of broader inclusion criteria as well as the mitigation techniques makes it possible to offer MRgFUS to a much larger subset of patients than previously believed. This paper will describe how MRgFUS treatment for uterine fibroids is performed at the University of Malaya Medical Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia