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Enhancing heat transfer efficiency in sphero-cylinder particle systems: a numerical study
No full textThe Nusselt number, a key indicator of heat transfer around sphero-cylindrical particles in uniform flow, depends primarily on three dimensionless parameters: the aspect ratio (β), incidence angle (θ), and Reynolds number (Re). This study systematically examines the convective heat transfer of sphero-cylindrical particles using a three-dimensional Lattice Boltzmann framework. The novelty of this work lies in deriving comprehensive correlations for the Nusselt number across a wide parameter range (Re = 10–100, β = 2–8, θ = 0–90°), quantifying the dependence of the sinusoidal exponent m on Re and β—an aspect rarely addressed in previous studies—and ensuring that the proposed correlations maintain deviations below 10 %. The results show that the average Nusselt number increases monotonically with Re, reaching up to 2.5 times its value at Re = 10 when Re = 100. At Re = 30, increasing β from 2 to 8 enhances Nu by 25.3 %, while the effect levels off for β > 6. When θ increases from 0° to 60°, Nu rises by about 7.5 %, but further increases yield diminishing benefits. The derived correlations for both Nu and m achieve maximum deviations of 9.75 % and 4.3 %, respectively. By quantifying the relationships between key parameters and heat transfer characteristics, this work provides a foundation for improving the design and efficiency of systems involving sphero-cylinder particles. Ultimately, this research is essential for advancing the field of heat transfer and fluid dynamics, with potential implications for enhancing the performance and sustainability of industrial processes reliant on fluid-particle interactions.</p
Governance arrangements for rehabilitation services in health systems: an overview of systematic reviews
No full textBackground:Cochrane Rehabilitation and the World Health Organization (WHO) Rehabilitation Programme have collaborated to produce four Cochrane overviews of systematic reviews that synthesize current available evidence from health policy and systems research (HPSR) in rehabilitation. Each overview focuses on one of the four pillars of HPSR as identified by the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care (EPOC) taxonomy: delivery arrangements, financial arrangements, governance arrangements, and implementation strategies. This overview focuses on governance arrangements, defined in the EPOC taxonomy as the rules or processes that affect the way in which powers are exercised, particularly regarding authority, accountability, openness, participation, and coherence.Objectives:This overview aimed to synthesize the current evidence on governance arrangements in rehabilitation from a health policy and systems research (HPSR) perspective. Our series of four overviews, incorporating evidence on governance arrangements, delivery arrangements, financial arrangements, and implementation strategies, have the following overarching objectives.• To offer a broad synthesis of the existing evidence on health policy and systems interventions' effects.• To direct end‐users, including policymakers, towards systematic reviews that may address their health policy questions.• To identify current research gaps and set priorities for future primary HPSR.• To pinpoint the needs and priorities for new evidence syntheses where no reliable, up‐to‐date systematic reviews currently exist.Methods:We searched the Epistemonokos database, the Health Systems Evidence database, and EPOC Group systematic reviews to identify reviews published between 1 January 2015 and 17 November 2024. We applied no language limitations. We included Cochrane and non‐Cochrane systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and selected non‐randomized studies of interventions (NRSIs) that evaluated the effectiveness of health policy and systems interventions for rehabilitation in health systems, specifically related to governance arrangements as defined in the EPOC taxonomy. All four overview teams collaborated to screen reviews and extract data. We used AMSTAR‐2 to critically appraise the quality of the reviews. Reviews with ratings of high‐to‐moderate confidence are reported separately from low‐confidence reviews.Main results:We found no Cochrane or non‐Cochrane systematic reviews of RCTs or NRSIs pertaining to rehabilitation and relevant to the EPOC pillar of governance arrangements. As a result, we are unable to offer a broad synthesis of the existing evidence or to signpost relevant reviews on health policy and systems interventions related to this pillar for end‐users. We did describe relevant research gaps and priorities for future primary HPSR in the rehabilitation field.Authors' conclusions:We found no evidence to address our research objectives of understanding the broad effects of governance arrangements for rehabilitation or identifying evidence that could help end‐users, including decision‐makers and policymakers, to address potential related health policy questions. Authors of future Cochrane overviews of reviews in HPSR focusing on governance and rehabilitation may wish to consider including systematic reviews with a broader range of observational designs, as well as qualitative and mixed‐methods research designs.Registration:The protocol was first published in the European Journal of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine online on 27 January 2025. The manuscript was received on 11 November 2024 and was accepted on 26 November 2024.Protocol: DOI 10.23736/S1973‐9087.24.08833‐6
The oral mucosa-fungi interactome
No full textHuman beings are indwelled by a wide array of cellular microbes, building up their core microbiome. Amongst these, bacterial constituents comprise about 99% of the population. The remaining small, yet diverse population of microbes are termed the ‘rare-biosphere’. The eukaryotic yeasts contribute a substantial population within the rare biosphere. Despite the reduced abundance, yeasts/fungi cause a wide range of infections ranging from superficial to deep-seated, invasive, and life-threatening infections. This chapter provides an in-depth view of the role of fungi, specifically Candida albicans, in oral health and disease. We highlight the interactive profiles between the mycobiome and host oral tissues including study models for future state-of-the-art research in this important area
Social finance and health
No full textAcross the globe, countries are struggling with growing pressures on publicly funded health systems and difficulties transitioning toward Universal Health Coverage (UHC). This situation is in the context of obstinate and widening health inequalities. New ways to fund health systems and improve health are needed. One potential response is social finance. This chapter explores the underrecognized and potentially underexploited role of two forms of social finance—microfinance and impact bonds—in responding to aspects of these global health challenges. These challenges involve funding and facilitating access to healthcare services and acting on health through social determinants of health. Although social finance performs imperfectly in these roles, the exploration raises interesting debates and ideas about how countries fund healthcare and impact health.<br/
A systematic review of the secondary market aspects of electrified vehicles
No full textIn response to the market shift towards electric mobility, this paper presents a systematic literature review of the secondary market aspects of electrified vehicles. Following PRISMA guidelines, a search across 11 databases yielded 4,120 records. After removing duplicates, 4,006 unique articles were screened, with 14 assessed in full text. Including additional grey literature, 12 contributions were included in the final sample. This research organises the aspects of the secondary market by categorising them according to the market forces concept. Key issues impacting consumers include resale value, range anxiety, and confidence in refurbished EVs. For trade and industry, it highlights the critical role of battery state-of-health and Tesla’s direct-to-consumer model. For government behaviour, it discusses import/ export challenges and emphasises robust end-of-life management. It also explores the role of public procurement in adding used EVs to the market. This paper provides a foundational reference for future research and framing of the secondary EV market.</p
Enhanced thermal management performance of phase change materials with fin structures under mechanical vibration conditions
No full textThis research developed a composite thermal management system by combining phase change materials (PCM) with fins to enhance the cooling performance of a cylindrical single lithium-ion battery. A thermal simulation model was used to evaluate the system under both non-vibrating and vibrating conditions, with PCM thickness set at 12 mm and mechanical vibrations characterized by an amplitude of 10 mm and a frequency of 50 Hz. Various fin configurations, including rectangular, triangular, T-shaped, trapezoidal, and I-shaped fins, with counts of 4, 6, 8, and 10, were analyzed. The results showed that the PCM-fin system significantly reduced the maximum battery temperature by up to 15.3 % and the maximum temperature difference by up to 42.8 % compared to PCM alone. Under non-vibrating conditions, the I-shaped fins provided the best cooling performance, with 8 fins identified as the optimal configuration, achieving a maximum temperature of 316.2 K and a maximum temperature difference of 3.8 K. When mechanical vibration was introduced, the system's performance improved further, with the maximum temperature reduced by an additional 6.5 % and the temperature difference by 18.7 %. Under vibrating conditions, 4 I-shaped fins were determined to be the optimal configuration, balancing cooling performance, production cost, and weight. These findings provide valuable insights for the design of efficient battery thermal management systems.</p
Sensory pollutants have negative but different effects on nestbox occupancy and breeding performance of a nocturnal raptor across Europe
Full text linkAnthropogenic noise and artificial light at night (ALAN) are expanding globally, acting as pervasive sensory pollutants that can disrupt wildlife behaviour and reproduction. While most research has focused on diurnal species, the effects of these pollutants on the ecological response of nocturnal predators remain poorly understood. Using data from nine European countries, we investigated the effects of traffic noise, ALAN, and road proximity on nestbox occupancy and reproduction in the Tawny Owl (Strix aluco), a nocturnal raptor widespread across Europe. Traffic noise consistently reduced both nestbox occupancy and reproductive success regardless of road proximity. ALAN also impaired occupancy and reproduction, but its negative effect on reproduction changed based on the proximity to roads. Interestingly, the negative effect of ALAN was stronger in sites further from roads, but it attenuated in their proximity, where owls' hatching success and brood size moderately improved. This finding suggests that near roads, where prey abundance and availability are also generally high, owls may either find the prey regardless of ALAN or they may exploit it to facilitate hunting and brood provisioning. However, vicinity to roads might enhance mortality by vehicle collisions, which represents one of the greatest threats for the conservation of owls. Our findings highlight that anthropogenic noise and the co-occurrence between ALAN and roads can affect settlement decisions and breeding performance in nocturnal raptors, with potential consequences across the food chain. Mitigating anthropogenic noise and promoting nighttime-lighting systems that minimize owls' presence close to roads will represent valuable actions to improve their conservation.</p
Transfer learning for data-driven wet gas flow metering: enhancing generalisation in digital measurement systems
No full textIn the energy and industrial process sectors, it is very important to be able to accurately and in real time estimate multiphase flowrates for safe and efficient operations. However, the advancement of data-driven soft sensors is hindered by the limited availability and significant expense of labelled field data. This study investigates transfer learning (TL) as a viable approach to address data constraints and assesses its efficacy within two deep learning architectures: Deep Neural Network (DNN) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) network. The source domain for both architectures was a large, high-quality dataset collected from the TÜV-SÜD NEL wet gas flow facility. Two representative field datasets with very few samples were selected as target domains to create realistic deployment scenarios. Conditional Tabular GANs (CTGANs) are used to ensure data augmentation while preserving physical plausibility. A structured TL framework was established to examine the effects of different layer-freezing strategies on the system. The results show that TL, especially when combined with full fine-tuning, performed better than non-TL methods. TL models not only provided more precise predictions of gas and liquid flow rates but also exhibited improved generalizability to unobserved field conditions and greater conformity with the physical behaviour. In both datasets and model architectures, TL consistently lowered prediction errors (in most cases) compared to non-TL methods. It also made convergence more stable and improved robustness when there was not much data available. In contrast, using pre-trained models without any changes led to a substantial drop in performance, whereas models built from scratch were more affected by a lack of data and often had trouble converging effectively. This framework has great potential for use in fields beyond oil and gas. This also supports the digital transformation of flow diagnostics in changing multiphase conditions.</p
The effectiveness of European Hip Surveillance Programmes in the identification and management of hip displacement and hip dislocation in children with cerebral palsy: a systematic review
No full textPurpose: To evaluate the effectiveness of European Hip Surveillance Programmes (HSPs) in the identification and surgical management of hip displacement/dislocation in children with Cerebral Palsy (CP), by systematically synthesising peer-reviewed evidence. Methods: Five databases (MEDLINE, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Science Direct and PEDro) were systematically searched in July 2023, alongside manual searching of reference lists and key journals to identify relevant studies conducted in Europe and written in English. Data were extracted and quality appraised using Joanna Briggs Institute Checklist for Analytical Cross-Sectional Studies (JBI-CACCS) appraisal tool. Results: Six observational cross-sectional studies totalling 5069 participants met the inclusion criteria. Critical appraisal revealed good overall methodological quality. Results indicated HSPs were effective in identifying progressive hip displacement/dislocation. Five studies reported a significant decrease in prevalence of hip dislocation in children undergoing surveillance compared to controls. The need for salvage surgeries was abolished within surveillance groups across all included studies. Conclusion: This review provides evidence that European HSPs can identify children at risk of developing hip displacement/dislocation and significantly reduce prevalence of dislocation. Future research including patient-reported outcomes such as pain, quality of life and burden of care for families may be useful to further evaluate effectiveness of HSPs.</p
Heat risk in the city of São Paulo: interactions between SUHI and social inequality
No full textHeat waves and urban heat islands, consequences of climate change and urbanization, are becoming more severe and frequent with a strong impact on heat risk. Understanding the spatial distribution of heat risk is essential to address climate adaptation. This work aims to develop a heat risk map for São Paulo, a subtropical city, the biggest in Latin America and the fourth largest in the world. The map was developed at the census tract scale, using public and open data and expert opinions, considering risk as a function of hazard, vulnerability and exposure conditions. The results show a strong relation between socioeconomic aspects and heat risk and the necessity of integrated policies to reduce the risk. The novelty of the work is in the inclusion of housing type, urban morphology and vegetation proximity as parameters in a subtropical city. The spatially explicit identification of heat risk can contribute to both São Paulo and National Climate Plans and act as a planning tool to support municipal level climate adaptation decision-making. This is the first heat risk map developed in Brazil using this approach and parameters and the protocol can be replicated to other cities in the country
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