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An experimental device that can accurately measure the magnetic entropy change, Δs, as a function of temperature, T, and magnetic field, H, is presented. The magnetic field source is in this case a set of counter-rotating concentric Halbach-type magnets, which produce a highly homogeneous applied field with constant orientation. The field may be varied from 0 to 1.5 T in a continuous way. The temperature stability of the system is controlled to within ±10 mK and the standard range for the current setup is from 230 K to 330 K. The device is under high vacuum and we show that thermal losses to the ambient are negligible in terms of the calorimetric determination of the magnetic entropy change, while the losses cannot be ignored when correcting for the actual sample temperature. We apply the device to two different types of samples; one is commercial grade Gd, i.e., a pure second-order phase transition material, while the other is Gd5Si2Ge2, a first order magnetic phase transition material. We demonstrate the device’s ability to fully capture the thermal hysteresis of the latter sample by following appropriate thermal resetting scheme and magnetic resetting scheme. © 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.

BackgroundRisks of transfusion-transmitted disease are currently at a record low in the developed world. Still, available methods for blood surveillance might not be sufficient to detect transmission of diseases with unknown etiologies or with very long incubation periods. Study Design and MethodsWe have previously created the anonymized Scandinavian Donations and Transfusions (SCANDAT) database, containing data on blood donors, blood transfusions, and transfused patients, with complete follow-up of donors and patients for a range of health outcomes. Here we describe the re-creation of SCANDAT with updated, identifiable data. We collected computerized data on blood donations and transfusions from blood banks covering all of Sweden and Denmark. After data cleaning, two structurally identical databases were created and the entire database was linked with nationwide health outcomes registers to attain complete follow-up for up to 47 years regarding hospital care, cancer, and death. ResultsAfter removal of erroneous records, the database contained 25,523,334 donation records, 21,318,794 transfusion records, and 3,692,653 unique persons with valid identification, presently followed over 40 million person-years, with possibility for future extension. Data quality is generally high with 96% of all transfusions being traceable to their respective donation(s) and a very high (>97%) concordance with official statistics on annual number of blood donations and transfusions. ConclusionsIt is possible to create a binational, nationwide database with almost 50 years of follow-up of blood donors and transfused patients for a range of health outcomes. We aim to use this database for further studies of donor health, transfusion-associated risks, and transfusion-transmitted disease.

Monoclonal B-cell lymphocytosis (MBL) is a precursor of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Observations of MBL in blood donors raise concern that transmitted MBL may cause recipient CLL. Using a database with health information on 1.5 million donors and 2.1 million recipients, we compared CLL occurrence among 7413 recipients of blood from 796 donors diagnosed with CLL after donation cessation, and among 80, 431 recipients of blood from 7477 matched CLL-free donors. During follow-up, 12 and 107 cases of CLL occurred among the exposed and unexposed recipients, respectively, yielding a relative risk of 0.94 (95% confidence interval, 0.52-1.71). Analyses using the entire database showed no evidence of CLL clustering among recipients of blood from individual donors. In conclusion, when donor MBL was approximated by subsequent donor CLL diagnosis, data from 2 countries' entire computerized transfusion experience over more than 30 years indicate that MBL/CLL transmission does not contribute importantly to recipient CLL risk.

The performance of a combined solar photovoltaic (PV) and thermoelectric generator (TEG) system is examined using an analytical model for four different types of commercial PVs and a commercial bismuth telluride TEG. The TEG is applied directly on the back of the PV, so that the two devices have the same temperature. The PVs considered are crystalline Si (c-Si), amorphous Si (a-Si), copper indium gallium (di) selenide (CIGS) and cadmium telluride (CdTe) cells. The degradation of PV performance with temperature is shown to dominate the increase in power produced by the TEG, due to the low efficiency of the TEG. For c-Si, CIGS and CdTe PV cells the combined system produces a lower power and has a lower efficiency than the PV alone, whereas for an a-Si cell the total system performance may be slightly increased by the TEG.

Experimental results for an active magnetic regenerator (AMR) are presented. The focus is on whether or not it pays off to partly substitute soft magnetic material with non-magnetic insulation in a flux-conducting core in the magnet system. Such a substitution reduces losses due to heat conduction and eddy currents, but also reduces the magnetic field. Two different cores were tested in the AMR system with different cooling loads and it is shown, that in the present case, replacing half of the iron with insulation lead to an average reduction in temperature span of 14%, but also a small decrease in COP, hence the substitution did not pay off. Furthermore, it is shown experimentally, that small imbalances in the heat transfer fluid flow greatly influence the system performance. A reduction of these imbalances through valve adjustments resulted in an increase in the temperature span from approximately 16 K to 27.3 K.

IMPORTANCE: Biomarkers for the early diagnosis of patients with pancreatic cancer are needed to improve prognosis.OBJECTIVES: To describe differences in microRNA expression in whole blood between patients with pancreatic cancer, chronic pancreatitis, and healthy participants and to identify panels of microRNAs for use in diagnosis of pancreatic cancer compared with the cancer antigen 19-9 (CA19-9).DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: A case-control study that included 409 patients with pancreatic cancer and 25 with chronic pancreatitis who had been included prospectively in the Danish BIOPAC (Biomarkers in Patients with Pancreatic Cancer) study (July 2008-October 2012) plus 312 blood donors as healthy participants. The microRNA expressions in pretreatment whole blood RNA samples were collected and analyzed in 3 randomly determined subcohorts: discovery cohort (143 patients with pancreatic cancer, 18 patients with chronic pancreatitis, and 69 healthy participants), training cohort (180 patients with pancreatic cancer, 1 patient with chronic pancreatitis, and 199 healthy participants), and validation cohort (86 patients with pancreatic cancer, 7 patients with chronic pancreatitis, and 44 healthy participants); 754 microRNAs were screened in the discovery cohort and 38 microRNAs in the training cohort and 13 microRNAs in the validation cohort.MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Identification of microRNA panels (classifiers) for diagnosing pancreatic cancer.RESULTS: The discovery cohort demonstrated that 38 microRNAs in whole blood were significantly dysregulated in patients with pancreatic cancer compared with controls. These microRNAs were tested in the training cohort and 2 diagnostic panels were constructed comprising 4 microRNAs in index I (miR-145, miR-150, miR-223, miR-636) and 10 in index II (miR-26b, miR-34a, miR-122, miR-126*, miR-145, miR-150, miR-223, miR-505, miR-636, miR-885.5p). The test characteristics for the training cohort were i

We quantify the effect of hysteresis on the performance of the magnetocaloric first order material Gd5Si2Ge2 undergoing an ideal active magnetic regenerator (AMR) cycle. The material is carefully characterized through magnetometry (VSM) and calorimetry (DSC) in order to enable an accurate model description of the phase transition at varying magnetic fields and temperatures. Using detailed experimental property data, a Preisach type model is used to describe the thermal hysteresis effects and simulate the material under realistic working conditions. We find that the adiabatic temperature change is limited by a significant fraction of the thermal hysteresis.

A magnetic material in an externally applied magnetic field will in general experience a spatially varying internal magnetic field due to demagnetizing effects. When the performance of active magnetic regenerators (AMRs) is evaluated using numerical models the internal field is often assumed to be spatially constant and equal to the applied field, thus neglecting the demagnetizing field. Furthermore, the experimental magnetocaloric properties used (adiabatic temperature change, isothermal entropy change and specific heat) are often not corrected for demagnetization. The demagnetizing field in an AMR is in general both a function of the overall shape of the regenerator and its morphology (packed particles, parallel plates etc.) as well as the magnetization of the material. Due to the pronounced temperature dependence of the magnetization near the Curie temperature, the demagnetization field is also temperature dependent. We propose a relatively straightforward method to correct sufficiently for the demagnetizing field in AMR models. We discuss how the demagnetizing field behaves in regenerators made of packed spheres under realistic operation conditions.

We present an experimental setup recently developed at DTU Energy Conversion for measuring specific heat and direct isothermal entropy change in a varying magnetic field (DSC device) using calorimetry. The device operates in high vacuum (~1e-6 mbar) and measurements are fully automated with respect to magnetic field and temperature control. A magnetic field source comprised of two concentric Halbach type magnets that are fixed with respect to each other through a mechanical gear supply the applied magnetic field. The applied field range is 0.001 to 1.57 T with a minimum field step size smaller than 0.01 T. The magnet control is fully integrated in software allowing measurement scans to be automated. This device is an upgrade of an existing device where it is now possible to install a sample and then run temperature scans at different magnetic fields (specific heat measurement) as well as magnetic field scans under isothermal conditions (direct isothermal entropy change measurements).

In active magnetic regeneration (AMR) systems, not only the magnetocaloric properties of materials, but also the regenerator geometry plays an important role in the system performance. Packed sphere regenerators are often employed in existing prototypes, however, the characteristics such as relatively large pressure drop and almost fixed porosity make loss reductions and further optimization challenging. This paper proposes and focuses on packed screen regenerators, which may exhibit lower pressure drop and equivalent heat transfer performance to packed sphere regenerators. A 1D AMR model is improved and applied to simulate the regenerators. The performance of the new regenerators is studied and compared with that of the packed sphere regenerators. Possible fabrication methods of the packed screen regenerators are also discussed.

The magnetocaloric effect of a magnetic material is characterized by two quantities, the isothermal entropy change and the adiabatic temperature change, both of which are functions of temperature and applied magnetic field. We discuss the scaling properties of these quantities close to a second order phase transition within the context of critical scaling theory. In the critical region the isothermal entropy change will exhibit universal scaling exponents. However, this is only true close to Tc and for small fields; we show that for finite fields the scaling exponents in general become field dependent, even at Tc. Furthermore, the scaling exponents at finite fields are not universal: Two models with the same critical exponents can exhibit markedly different scaling behaviour even at relatively low fields. Turning to the adiabatic temperature change, we argue that it is not determined exclusively by the scaling part of the free energy and its derivatives. This means that the field dependence of the adiabatic temperature change in the critical region depends on the regular part (background) of the specific heat associated with the lattice and conduction electrons. The field dependence can still be fitted to a power-law expression but with non-universal exponents as we show explicitly both within mean-field theory and using the so-called Arrott-Noakes equation of state. Finally, we discuss the implications of these observations for the interpretation of a widely used phenomenological scaling procedure.

MAGGIE, a new AMR prototype, is presented. It has been designed to produce a temperature span and cooling power relevant to commercial refrigeration applications combined with an attractive COP and a compact design. Concepts and design considerations are described. Initial non optimized tests show a COP of 3.6 at a temperature span of 7.2K with 103 W of cooling power.

We discuss how magnetic domains influence the magnetic entropy change calculated from magnetisation data. In a simple qualitative model we show that the effect is to change the shape of the apparent isothermal entropy change curve compared to the true curve determined by the entropy. We further show that failure to correct for the magnetostatic demagnetisation will augment the apparent effect of domains.

The magnetocaloric effect of a magnetic material is characterized by two quantities, the isothermal entropy change and the adiabatic temperature change, both of which are functions of temperature and applied magnetic field. We discuss the scaling properties of these quantities close to a second-order phase transition within the context of the theory of critical phenomena. Sufficiently close to the critical temperature of a second-order material, the scaling of the isothermal entropy change will be determined by the critical exponents and will be the same as that of the singular part of the entropy itself. However, this is only true in the critical region near Tc and for small fields; for finite fields, scaling with constant exponents, in general, break down, even at Tc. The field dependence can then be described by field-dependent scaling exponents. We show that the scaling exponents at finite fields are not universal, showing significant variation for models in the same universality class. As regards the adiabatic temperature change, it is not determined exclusively by the singular part of the free energy and its derivatives. We show that the field dependence of the adiabatic temperature change at the critical temperature depends on the nonsingular part of the specific heat. The field dependence can still be fitted to a power-law expression but with nonuniversal exponents, as we show explicitly both within mean-field theory and using the so-called Arrott-Noakes equation of state. Within the framework of the Bean-Rodbell model, we briefly consider the scaling properties of the magnetocaloric effect in first-order materials. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings for a widely used phenomenological scaling procedure for magnetocaloric quantities.