A new generation of power supplies for pulsed loads

Pulsed power supply systems are employed in many fusion projects and in other scientific applications. A novel power supply approach and a first prototype unit were specifically developed to feed pulsed loads (low duty cycle), as the resistive or superconducting coils used to produce high magnetic fields for some seconds or longer. Thanks to the integrated energy storage, the high pulsed power required for the load is not drawn directly from the electrical grid. In fact, a huge amount of energy can be stored at low power (even through a single-phase 10 A plug, as normally used for household appliance). A significant fraction of the energy stored in the load can be recovered for successive operations. Without such energy storage, all the power supply devices and the upstream chain must be oversized and installed only in locations provided with adequate power. The first power supply unit (2 kA) was able to replace a previous system with comparable performances, but the old system occupies an extremely larger volume and needs a 20-kV connection at the input. Moreover, a specific solution was implemented to achieve a very fast (600 kW) energization of the magnets. The energy storage capability is intrinsically scalable: the setup can be rearranged and the storable energy can be updated even after the installation (for example, to increase the pulse duration)

Comparison and Modeling of Commercial Supercapacitors via Standardized Potentiostatic Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy

The main scope of the study is the characterization of the capacitive and resistive behavior of two supercapacitor cells and one hybrid supercapacitor available on the market, through potentiostatic electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (PEIS). The PEIS tests were performed by applying to all cells the same voltage perturbation in the same frequency range. In a first phase, the instrumentation used for the acquisitions was optimized, with particular care to the connections between the potentiostat and the supercapacitor cell. The Nyquist diagrams obtained for each sample are compared and capacitance/frequency graphs are deduced. The technological differences between various devices are then discussed in relation to the results. The characterization of the sample cells and the collected data are used to propose the corresponding models conceived for circuit simulation. These models are based on simple electronic components available in the standard circuit simulation software tools

Implication of high risk Human papillomavirus HR-HPV infection in prostate cancer in Indian population- A pioneering case-control analysis

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer with sexual history as a consistent risk factor. This is the pioneering study that evaluates the frequency of HPV infection in prostate cancer in India. Ninety five (95) histopathologically confirmed cancer and fifty five (55) BPH from Indian population were analyzed for HPV infection using a pair of consensus sequence primer followed by type specific PCRs for both high-risk and low-risk HPV types. The data demonstrate HPV infection in 41% of prostate tumor biopsies and 20% in BPH. Subsequent PCR- based HPV typing using type - specific primers revealed 32% were infected with HPV type 16 whereas 6% were found to be positive for HPV type 18, while in BPH controls only 5% of the BPH controls were infected with HPV 16 and this difference was highly significant (p = 0.0004). Significant proportion of HPV infected (74%) cases belonged to stage III and IV (p < 0.001) with a high Gleason score ≥8 (p = 0.003). The study represents for the first time the incidence of HPV infection in prostate cancer in Indian population and strengthens the hypothesis that HPV infection could be one of the co factor associated with progression of prostate cancer