| 1. |
- Biollaz, S., et al.
(författare)
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Gas analysis in gasification of biomass and waste : Guideline report: Document 1
- 2018
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Rapport (refereegranskat)abstract
- Gasification is generally acknowledged as one of the technologies that will enable the large-scale production of biofuels and chemicals from biomass and waste. One of the main technical challenges associated to the deployment of biomass gasification as a commercial technology is the cleaning and upgrading of the product gas. The contaminants of product gas from biomass/waste gasification include dust, tars, alkali metals, BTX, sulphur-, nitrogen- and chlorine compounds, and heavy metals. Proper measurement of the components and contaminants of the product gas is essential for the monitoring of gasification-based plants (efficiency, product quality, by-products), as well as for the proper design of the downstream gas cleaning train (for example, scrubbers, sorbents, etc.). In practice, a trade-off between reliability, accuracy and cost has to be reached when selecting the proper analysis technique for a specific application. The deployment and implementation of inexpensive yet accurate gas analysis techniques to monitor the fate of gas contaminants might play an important role in the commercialization of biomass and waste gasification processes.This special report commissioned by the IEA Bioenergy Task 33 group compiles a representative part of the extensive work developed in the last years by relevant actors in the field of gas analysis applied to(biomass and waste) gasification. The approach of this report has been based on the creation of a team of contributing partners who have supplied material to the report. This networking approach has been complemented with a literature review. The report is composed of a set of 2 documents. Document 1(the present report) describes the available analysis techniques (both commercial and underdevelopment) for the measurement of different compounds of interest present in gasification gas. The objective is to help the reader to properly select the analysis technique most suitable to the target compounds and the intended application. Document 1 also describes some examples of application of gas analysis at commercial-, pilot- and research gasification plants, as well as examples of recent and current joint research activities in the field. The information contained in Document 1 is complemented with a book of factsheets on gas analysis techniques in Document 2, and a collection of video blogs which illustrate some of the analysis techniques described in Documents 1 and 2.This guideline report would like to become a platform for the reinforcement of the network of partners working on the development and application of gas analysis, thus fostering collaboration and exchange of knowledge. As such, this report should become a living document which incorporates in future coming progress and developments in the field.
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| 2. |
- Biollaz, S., et al.
(författare)
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Gas analysis in gasification of biomass and waste : Guideline report: Document 2 - Factsheets on gas analysis techniques
- 2018
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Rapport (refereegranskat)abstract
- Gasification is generally acknowledged as one of the technologies that will enable the large-scale production of biofuels and chemicals from biomass and waste. One of the main technical challenges associated to the deployment of biomass gasification as a commercial technology is the cleaning and upgrading of the product gas. The contaminants of product gas from biomass/waste gasification include dust, tars, alkali metals, BTX, sulphur-, nitrogen- and chlorine compounds, and heavy metals. Proper measurement of the components and contaminants of the product gas is essential for the monitoring of gasification-based plants (efficiency, product quality, by-products), as well as for the proper design of the downstream gas cleaning train (for example, scrubbers, sorbents, etc.). The deployment and implementation of inexpensive yet accurate gas analysis techniques to monitor the fate of gas contaminants might play an important role in the commercialization of biomass and waste gasification processes.This special report commissioned by the IEA Bioenergy Task 33 group compiles a representative part of the extensive work developed in the last years by relevant actors in the field of gas analysis applied to (biomass and waste) gasification. The approach of this report has been based on the creation of a team of contributing partners who have supplied material to the report. This networking approach has been complemented with a literature review. This guideline report would like to become a platform for the reinforcement of the network of partners working on the development and application of gas analysis, thus fostering collaboration and exchange of knowledge. As such, this report should become a living document which incorporates in future coming progress and developments in the field.
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| 3. |
- Jabado, Rima W., et al.
(författare)
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Troubled waters : Threats and extinction risk of the sharks, rays and chimaeras of the Arabian Sea and adjacent waters
- 2018
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Ingår i: Fish and Fisheries. - : Wiley-Blackwell. - 1467-2960 .- 1467-2979. ; 19:6, s. 1043-1062
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The extinction risk of sharks, rays and chimaeras is higher than that for most other vertebrates due to low intrinsic population growth rates of many species and the fishing intensity they face. The Arabian Sea and adjacent waters border some of the most important chondrichthyan fishing and trading nations globally, yet there has been no previous attempt to assess the conservation status of species occurring here. Using IUCN Red List of Threatened Species Categories and Criteria and their guidelines for application at the regional level, we present the first assessment of extinction risk for 153 species of sharks, rays and chimaeras. Results indicate that this region, home to 15% of described chondrichthyans including 30 endemic species, has some of the most threatened chondrichthyan populations in the world. Seventy-eight species (50.9%) were assessed as threatened (Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable), and 27 species (17.6%) as Near Threatened. Twenty-nine species (19%) were Data Deficient with insufficient information to assess their status. Chondrichthyan populations have significantly declined due to largely uncontrolled and unregulated fisheries combined with habitat degradation. Further, there is limited political will and national and regional capacities to assess, manage, conserve or rebuild stocks. Outside the few deepsea locations that are lightly exploited, the prognosis for the recovery of most species is poor in the near-absence of management. Concerted national and regional management measures are urgently needed to ensure extinctions are avoided, the sustainability of more productive species is secured, and to avoid the continued thinning of the regional food security portfolio.
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| 4. |
- Pirkis, Jane, et al.
(författare)
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Suicide numbers during the first 9-15 months of the COVID-19 pandemic compared with pre-existing trends : An interrupted time series analysis in 33 countries
- 2022
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Ingår i: eClinicalMedicine. - : Elsevier. - 2589-5370. ; 51
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background Predicted increases in suicide were not generally observed in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the picture may be changing and patterns might vary across demographic groups. We aimed to provide a timely, granular picture of the pandemic's impact on suicides globally. Methods We identified suicide data from official public-sector sources for countries/areas-within-countries, searching websites and academic literature and contacting data custodians and authors as necessary. We sent our first data request on 22nd June 2021 and stopped collecting data on 31st October 2021. We used interrupted time series (ITS) analyses to model the association between the pandemic's emergence and total suicides and suicides by sex-, age-and sex-by-age in each country/area-within-country. We compared the observed and expected numbers of suicides in the pandemic's first nine and first 10-15 months and used meta-regression to explore sources of variation. Findings We sourced data from 33 countries (24 high-income, six upper-middle-income, three lower-middle-income; 25 with whole-country data, 12 with data for area(s)-within-the-country, four with both). There was no evidence of greater-than-expected numbers of suicides in the majority of countries/areas-within-countries in any analysis; more commonly, there was evidence of lower-than-expected numbers. Certain sex, age and sex-by-age groups stood out as potentially concerning, but these were not consistent across countries/areas-within-countries. In the meta-regression, different patterns were not explained by countries' COVID-19 mortality rate, stringency of public health response, economic support level, or presence of a national suicide prevention strategy. Nor were they explained by countries' income level, although the meta-regression only included data from high-income and upper-middle-income countries, and there were suggestions from the ITS analyses that lower-middle-income countries fared less well. Interpretation Although there are some countries/areas-within-countries where overall suicide numbers and numbers for certain sex- and age-based groups are greater-than-expected, these countries/areas-within-countries are in the minority. Any upward movement in suicide numbers in any place or group is concerning, and we need to remain alert to and respond to changes as the pandemic and its mental health and economic consequences continue. Copyright (C) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
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| 5. |
- Khan, A., et al.
(författare)
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A comprehensive review of the methane decomposition using a gliding arc discharge reactor for hydrogen generation
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of the Energy Institute. - : Elsevier. - 1743-9671 .- 1746-0220. ; 109
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The use of fossil fuels has caused an ongoing increase in greenhouse gases (GHGs), which have a negative impact on both the environment and human health. The world requires an alternative green sustainable fuel that can solve these problems. Hydrogen (H2) can be considered as an alternative green energy source as it has zero carbon emissions. Methane (CH4) decomposition is a potential technique to produce H2 fuel. Gliding arc discharge (GAD) reactors have gained significant attention to produce H2 from the decomposition of CH4. This review focuses on the application of GAD reactors for CH4 conversion. The effects of different parameters, such as operation conditions, additives, geometric configuration, and catalysts, on the performance of the GAD reactor, are discussed in this review. © 2023 Energy Institute
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| 6. |
- Arikumar, K. S., et al.
(författare)
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FL-PMI : Federated Learning-Based Person Movement Identification through Wearable Devices in Smart Healthcare Systems
- 2022
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Ingår i: Sensors. - : MDPI. - 1424-8220. ; 22:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Recent technological developments, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, edge, and cloud computing, have paved the way in transforming traditional healthcare systems into smart healthcare (SHC) systems. SHC escalates healthcare management with increased efficiency, convenience, and personalization, via use of wearable devices and connectivity, to access information with rapid responses. Wearable devices are equipped with multiple sensors to identify a person's movements. The unlabeled data acquired from these sensors are directly trained in the cloud servers, which require vast memory and high computational costs. To overcome this limitation in SHC, we propose a federated learning-based person movement identification (FL-PMI). The deep reinforcement learning (DRL) framework is leveraged in FL-PMI for auto-labeling the unlabeled data. The data are then trained using federated learning (FL), in which the edge servers allow the parameters alone to pass on the cloud, rather than passing vast amounts of sensor data. Finally, the bidirectional long short-term memory (BiLSTM) in FL-PMI classifies the data for various processes associated with the SHC. The simulation results proved the efficiency of FL-PMI, with 99.67% accuracy scores, minimized memory usage and computational costs, and reduced transmission data by 36.73%.
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| 7. |
- Nasrin, Shamima, et al.
(författare)
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Chloramphenicol Derivatives with Antibacterial Activity Identified by Functional Metagenomics
- 2018
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Ingår i: Journal of natural products (Print). - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 0163-3864 .- 1520-6025. ; 81:6, s. 1321-1332
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A functional metagenomic approach identified novel and diverse soil-derived DNAs encoding inhibitors to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). A metagenomic DNA soil library containing 19 200 recombinant Escherichia coli BAC clones with 100 Kb average insert size was screened for antibiotic activity. Twenty-seven clones inhibited MRSA, seven of which were found by LC-MS to possess modified chloramphenicol (Cm) derivatives, including three new compounds whose structures were established as 1-acetyl-3-propanoylchloramphenicol, 1-acety1-3-butanoyl-chloramphenicol, and 3-butanoyl-1-propanoylchloramphenicol. Cm was used as the selectable antibiotic for cloning, suggesting that heterologously expressed enzymes resulted in derivatization of Cm into new chemical entities with biological activity. An esterase was found to be responsible for the enzymatic regeneration of Cm, and the gene trfA responsible for plasmid copy induction was found to be responsible for inducing antibacterial activity in some clones. Six additional acylchloramphenicols were synthesized for structure and antibacterial activity relationship studies, with 1-p-nitrobenzoylchloramphenicol the most active against Mycobacterium intracellulare and Mycobacterium tuberculosis, with MICs of 12.5 and 50.0 mu g/mL, respectively.
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