5,364 research outputs found
Self-compression of 4.9 µm pulses to sub-40 fs with 2 mJ energy in Zinc Sulfide
No full textNonlinear self-compression of few-cycle multi-mJ pulses at 4.9 µm in ZnS is presented. 80 fs input pulses are compressed to 37 fs with 2.1 mJ energy at a 1 kHz repetition rate. © 2024 The Author(s
Visually induced analgesia: seeing the body reduces pain
No full textGiven previous reports of strong interactions between vision and somatic senses, we investigated whether vision of the body modulates pain perception. Participants looked into a mirror aligned with their body midline at either the reflection of their own left hand (creating the illusion that they were looking directly at their own right hand) or the reflection of a neutral object. We induced pain using an infrared laser and recorded nociceptive laser-evoked potentials (LEPs). We also collected subjective ratings of pain intensity and unpleasantness. Vision of the body produced clear analgesic effects on both subjective ratings of pain and the N2/P2 complex of LEPs. Similar results were found during direct vision of the hand, without the mirror. Furthermore, these effects were specific to vision of one’s own hand and were absent when viewing another person’s hand. These results demonstrate a novel analgesic effect of non-informative vision of the body
Correction to: Chamoun et al., Bacterial pathogenesis and interleukin-17: interconnecting mechanisms of immune regulation, host genetics, and microbial virulence that influence severity of infection
No full textChamoun MN, Blumenthal A, Sullivan MJ, Schembri MA, Ulett GC. 2018. Bacterial pathogenesis and interleukin-17: interconnecting mechanisms of immune regulation, host genetics, and microbial virulence that influence severity of infection. Critical Reviews in Microbiology. https://doi.org/10.1080/1040841X.2018.1426556.
When the above article was first published online, the below three corrections were missed.
The author ‘Antje Blumenthal’ was wrongly affiliated to the affiliation “cSchool of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, and Australian Infectious Disease Research Centre, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia”. Now this affiliation has been removed for this author.
The affiliation ‘bTranslational Research Institute, The University of Queensland Diamantina Institute, Woolloongabba, Australia’ of the author ‘Antje Blumenthal’ should read ‘bThe University of Queensland Diamantina Institute, Translational Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia’.
In Table 3, the sentence ‘Benefit of manipulating IL-17 levels to improve immunization strategies M. tuberculosis’ should read “Benefit of manipulating IL-17 levels to improve immunization strategies against M. tuberculosis”.No Full Tex
Generation of 22-mJ, 2.0-ps Pulses from a 1-kHz Ho:YLF Regenerative Chirped Pulse Amplifier
No full textWe report a CW-pumped Ho:YLF regenerative amplifier (RA) delivering pulses with 22.5-mJ energy and 2.0-ps duration at 1 kHz. The RA emitting at 2051 nm is broadband-seeded and implemented in a chirped pulse amplification system. © 2024 The Author(s
A Novel Lab‐Scale Fixed‐Bed Pyrolysis Reactor for Biofuel Production from Agro‐Waste: Experimental Set‐up and Preliminary Life Cycle Assessment Study
No full textThe present study reports the features and set-up of a novel lab-scale fixed bed
pyrolysis reactor for the production of solid and liquid bio-fuels from waste biomass. The
fixed bed reactor is tested by carrying out pyrolysis experiments using two different waste
biomasses. Olive tree trimmings (OT) and olive pulp (OP), olive cultivation and olive mill
industries residues respectively, are pyrolyzed, under nitrogen atmosphere, between 200
and 650 °C for a residence time of 0.5 h. The OT and OP pyrolysis chars were characterized
in terms of mass yields, high calorific values (HHVs), proximate and elemental analysis. Char
mass yields, on a dry basis (d.b.), decreased from 91 to 23 wt% and from 93 to 32 wt% for
OT and OP respectively with increasing pyrolysis temperature. HHVs increased between
200 and 325 °C up to 27.71 and 31.42 MJ/kg for OT and OP respectively but start decreasing
when further rising the pyrolysis temperature to 24.36 and 28.44 MJ/kg for OT and OP
respectively at 650 °C. The novel pyrolysis system set-up shows to be an efficient and
effective tool to test biomass pyrolysis at lab scale level and adapt to produce high energy
dense bio-chars for solid fuel applications starting from waste biomass. A preliminary life
cycle assessment (LCA) of the pyrolysis process is carried out for the two examined waste
biomasses, for calculating the life-cycle environmental impacts for the production of 1 MJ
of thermal energy by pyro-char combustion
A life cycle assessment of tri-generation from biomass waste: The experience of the “agro-combined” of Thibar
No full textThe study presents a life cycle assessment of energy produced by biogas obtained by biomass waste and fuelled in a tri-generation pilot plant located in Tunisia.
The results, referred to 1 MJ of exergy, showed that the plant construction causes 76% of primary energy consumption and gives a contribution higher than 90% on resource depletion and ionising radiation, and of 50% on ozone depletion. Operation causes 66% of the impact on human toxicity - cancer effects and more than 90% of the other impacts, except for ecotoxicity of freshwater mainly caused during the end-of life.
The study is one of the first applications of environmental analysis to tri-generation from waste in developing countries; it can be considered a guideline for similar countries for transforming the threat of waste in opportunity. Furthermore, it gives suggestions for a cleaner management of biomass waste to achieve a bio-economy based on energy from renewable sources
Pure-rotational 1D-CARS spatiotemporal thermometry with a single regenerative amplifier system
No full textWe report spatiotemporal pure-rotational coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy (CARS) in a one-dimensional imaging arrangement obtained with a single ultrafast regenerative amplifier system. The femtosecond pump/Stokes photon pairs, used for impulsive excitation, are delivered by an external compressor operating on a ∼35% beam split of the uncompressed amplifier output (2.5 mJ/pulse). The picosecond 1.2 mJ probe pulse is produced via the second-harmonic bandwidth compression (SHBC) of the ∼65% remainder of the amplifier output (4.5 mJ/pulse), which originates from the internal compressor. The two pump/Stokes and probe pulses are spatially, temporally, and repetition-wise correlated at the measurement, and the signal generation plane is relayed by a wide-field coherent imaging spectrometer onto the detector plane, which is refreshed at the same repetition rate as the ultrafast regenerative amplifier system. We demonstrate 1 kHz cinematographic 1D-CARS gas-phase thermometry across an unstable premixed methane/air flame-front, achieved with a single-shot precision <1% and accuracy <3%, 1.4 mm field of view, and an excellent <20 µm line-spread function.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Flight Performance and Propulsio
Evaluating and Prioritizing Circular Supply Chain Alternatives in the Energy Context with a Holistic Multi-Indicator Decision Support System
No full textTransitioning to a circular economy is crucial for sustainable energy development; yet, current energy supply chains lack comprehensive assessment tools. This study introduces the Holistic Multi-Indicator Decision Support System (HMI_DSS), an innovative tool grounded in life cycle thinking and advanced multi-criteria decision-making methodologies, including Entropy and PROMETHEE II. The HMI_DSS quantifies and assesses sustainability and circularity in energy systems by employing 49 indicators, with a focus on energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions. A case study on the rice straw energy supply chain for biogas production illustrates the tool’s effectiveness, comparing a baseline scenario to an alternative. The results show that the global warming potential (GWP) of the baseline is 122 gCO2eq/kWh, while the alternative is 116 gCO2eq/kWh. However, the baseline scenario has lower energy consumption (1.72 × 107 MJ annually) than the alternative (1.98 × 107 MJ). Overall, the alternative outperforms the baseline in terms of sustainability and circularity. The HMI_DSS offers a flexible and robust framework for evaluating trade-offs in energy systems, providing valuable insights for energy companies and researchers in adopting circular economy principles to achieve sustainable development
Multiple spatial representations of number: evidence for co-existing compressive and linear scales
No full textAlthough the spatial representation of number (mental number line) is well documented, the scaling associated with this representation is less clear. Sometimes people appear to rely on compressive scaling, and sometimes on linear scaling. Here we provide evidence for both compressive and linear representations on the same numerical bisection task, in which adult participants estimate (without calculating) the midpoint between two numbers. The same leftward bias (pseudoneglect) shown on physical line bisection appears on this task, and was previously shown to increase with the magnitude of bisected numbers, consistent with compressive scaling (Longo and Lourenco in Neuropsychologia 45:1400–1407, 2007). In the present study, participants held either small (1–9) or large (101–109) number primes in memory during bisection. When participants remembered small primes, bisection responses were consistent with compressive scaling. However, when they remembered large primes, responses were more consistent with linear scaling. These results show that compressive and linear representations may be accessed flexibly on the same task, depending on the numerical
context
Life Cycle Assessment of Wood Chips from Residual Biomass: A Case Study
No full textThe paper describes the results of a Life Cycle Assessment study of wood chips obtained from a residual forest biomass, to be used for energy purpose. The analysis is referred to 1 kg of wood chips as functional unit. The system boundaries include the collection of the residual biomass, the chipping process of biomass, the collection and transport of wood chips to the energy plant. The results show that the supply chain examined, with reference to the functional unit, causes an impact of 0.027 kg CO2eq and a consumption of 0.406 MJ of primary energy. A dominance analysis was developed to identify the most impactful stages of the production chain: the steps that contribute most to the impacts within the supply chain are the indirect drag and the chipping process, responsible for the 42% of the overall greenhouse gas emissions and primary energy consumption. Lastly, a sensitivity analysis was carried out, to assess the variation of the impacts related to the distance between the wood chips production site and the place of use. The sensitivity analysis shows that is important to have short supply chains within the proposed domain in order to lower the energy and environmental impacts
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