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Active restoration is considered a profitable strategy to return ecosystems to their predisturbance state, in a reasonable time frame. However, ecological restoration of marine ecosystems is still in its infancy if compared to the terrestrial context. A review of 498 studies published in the last 25 years was carried out within the MERCES H2020 EU project to understand the effects of marine restoration actions across coastal habitats at global scale. Here, an overview focused on the Mediterranean Sea was carried out to identify both contextual and methodological determinants of restoration success in the basin. Results show that restoration efforts across habitats are increasing, especially in seagrasses and saltmarshes, but never approached at ecosystem level. Targets, methods, response variables and standards are still very heterogeneous. Short project duration (one-two years), small restoration areas (< 1 ha), lack of controls and knowledge of baselines are still a limit for deriving generalities. Finally, restorations rarely consider future challenges linked to global change, thus impairing long- term success stories. Marine restoration is a promising approach to counteract habitat loss in coastal areas. However, restoration science needs more robust approaches leading to the development of best practices (e.g. protocols, monitoring of the effects, reasons for failure) to be applied at spatial and temporal scales so as to answer to present and future disturbance regimes.

A floating wave power device called backward bent ducted buoy (BBDB) which was developed by National Institute of Ocean Technology works on oscillating water column (OWC) principle. The power module on BBDB consists of a unidirectional impulse (UDI) turbine and a permanent magnet direct current generator (PMDC). It underwent open sea trials several times for studying performance characteristics and improvising the power module from year 2011 to 2015. These trials were carried out off the Chennai coast near the south breakwater of Kamarajar Port Limited (KPL). BBDB was deployed and monitored over several weeks and it generated electric power. During the trials the buoy also withstood the strong winds and large waves during Cyclone Thane in December 2011. Though BBDB produced power, it was felt it needed improvement on wave to wire energy conversion. For any OWC-based wave energy device, it is necessary that the power module provides appropriate damping to oscillating water column in order to achieve efficient wave to wire energy conversion. Damping provided by the turbine depends on the relation between pressure drop across a turbine and volumetric flow rate. For a geometric similar construction, turbines with different diameters provide different levels of damping and it became necessary to study the performance of turbines with different diameters. Thus, two major areas were earmarked for optimization studies, namely, wave to pneumatic energy conversion (energy capture by buoy) and pneumatic to mechanical power conversion (turbine performance). In situ pneumatic performance of BBDB was evaluated using orifices with different pressure drop—flow characteristics. The orifice providing optimum damping was chosen and a turbine with similar pressure drop—flow rate characteristics were fabricated. This turbine with polycarbonate stator guide vanes and rotor made using an additive manufacturing technique was extensively tested in oscillating airflow test rig. After this, an open sea trial of BBDB with this new turbine and four-point mooring was carried out in 2015 and it was observed during the trials that there was a significant improvement in overall performance of BBDB. This article gives a detailed account of turbine-OWC matching exercise, including all sea trials. For the entire duration of this long exercise, a comprehensive instrumentation plan was devised and implemented in order to record performance data for assessing the BBDB’s performance. This article gives details of the instrumentation and data acquisition system and its transmission to the shore station inside port premises. This exercise has paved way for developing OWC-based BBDB for producing larger power outputs.

The hydrokinetic energy potential of at Indian oceans remains largely untapped. The attempts toward utilizing this resource have made recently in India. However, those were mostly limited to academic studies. The current speeds along the Indian coastline are lesser as compared to other locations in the world. However, few places in India like the Gulf of Khambhat, Sundarbans, and Andaman and Nicobar Islands have currents due to tides. To initiate technology development to develop the hydrokinetic turbines and electric generator suitable for Indian sea climate, surveying of such location is essential. Early in 2008, when NIOT was executing the freshwater transportation project between islands, the current was visibly observed at Macpherson Strait in Andaman Island. Hence, the detailed current measurement exercise was carried out at the nearby Viper Island and Macpherson Strait. Even though the surface current was high on Viper Island, the current measured at 1–2 m below the sea water level was as low as 0.5 m/s (since it is a closed channel), whereas in Macpherson Strait it was observed as high as 2 m/s. In this location, the in-house developed prototype of ϕ 0.8 × 1 m straight bladed turbine was tested in floating configuration. In this trial, the current measurement was carried out over a period of time. The occurrences of current were plotted from these measured current data. From these occurrence data, the maximum available annual hydrokinetic energy is in the order of 4.8 MWh/m2 at this location. This paper focuses the suitable locations for ocean current turbine installations and current availability on Viper Island and Macpherson Strait of Andaman, India.

In India we have twelve major ports and two hundred minor and intermediate ports. All the port deploy several conventional navigation buoys with marker lamps in the navigational channel for guiding the ships entry into the port. Generally, these marker lamps are powered by batteries using the photovoltaic power module. The efficiency of PV modules mostly affected by waves and weather and it demands regular maintenance. In order to replace the PV modules, National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) has indigenously developed wave powered navigational buoy similar to the existing buoys and the major advantage of this wave powered buoys is, the power will be extracted throughout the day. This power module is such as designed, it will generate power in low wave conditions. Since the waves are very random in nature, the extraction of maximum power is a challenge. The objective of this paper is to discuss about the development of the power takeoff system (PTO), which includes the selection of generator, design of charging circuit and sizing of the battery bank to catch the power at maximum efficiency. A range of combinations of chosen power modules is tested under various input frequencies in the oscillatory airflow test rig at the ocean engineering department of IIT Madras. To validate the design of the power takeoff system, NIOT has successfully filled out open sea trial at off Ennore, Chennai and generated power under various input wave conditions also presented in this paper.

To study the natural recovery from sports concussion, 12 concussed high school football athletes and 12 matched uninjured teammates were evaluated with symptom rating scales, tests of postural balance and cognition, and an event-related fMRI study during performance of a load-dependent working memory task at 13 h and 7 weeks following injury. Injured athletes showed the expected postconcussive symptoms and cognitive decline with decreased reaction time (RT) and increased RT variability on a working memory task during the acute period and an apparent full recovery 7 weeks later. Brain activation patterns showed decreased activation of right hemisphere attentional networks in injured athletes relative to controls during the acute period with a reversed pattern of activation (injured > controls) in the same networks at 7 weeks following injury. These changes coincided with a decrease in self-reported postconcussive symptoms and improved cognitive test performance in the injured athletes. Results from this exploratory study suggest that decreased activation of right hemisphere attentional networks mediate the cognitive changes and postconcussion symptoms observed during the acute period following concussion. Conversely, improvement in cognitive functioning and postconcussive symptoms during the subacute period may be mediated by compensatory increases in activation of this same attentional network. (JINS, 2013, 19, 1–10)

Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator (PMSG) is a type of electric generator where external excitation source is not required to produce a magnetic field because of which it suits underwater electricity generation using Ocean Current Turbines (OCT). Due to the slow speed nature of the OCT, mechanical transmission systems such as gear box, belt drives usually being used to fit the torque — speed characteristics of OCTS with the high speed PMSGs. This results in high starting torque in addition to the transmission losses. To avoid these issues, low speed PMSGs are required to be designed for the speed-torque characteristics of the OCT. This paper briefs the novel methodology to design the low speed PMSGs for the OCT applications and in-house fabrication of a low speed PMSG using the same methodology.

The ocean current energy is one of the clean forms of available renewable energy sources. Based on the topography of the islands, the subsea current is comparatively more than the mainland. Most of the islands are not having self-sustained power sources due to the limitations of infrastructure even though the power requirement is less. The National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) of Ministry of Earth Sciences has undertaken the research and development of an ocean current power module for such islands. The first prototype ocean current turbine (OCT) power module was tested at Macpherson Strait in the Andaman open sea. The subsea power module of the system comprises of the turbine, transmission system, generator and the associated power and instrumentation systems. The development and implementation of electrical and instrumentation system for an underwater OCT power module are one of the challenging task, hence the entire system required to be designed for in-situ conditions. This paper aims to describe the design of Power take off (PTO) system, data acquisition, and wireless communication of prototype ocean current power module trials in open sea conditions.

The extraction of gibberellic acid (GA 3 ), a powerful vegetal growth promoter widely used in agriculture, has been studied using emulsion liquid membrane (ELM) technology. The system used in this study consisted of a water-in-oil emulsion made of KCl aqueous solution and n-heptane stabilised by the surfactant SPAN 80. Aliquat 336, a commonly used carrier, was added to organic phase in order to increase both mass transfer and selectivity. This emulsion was dispersed on either prepared aqueous solutions of GA 3 or fermentation broths. The fermentation was performed using the fungi Gibberella fujikuroi in fed-batch modality, achieving GA 3 concentrations around 0.65 g L −1 . Selection experiments pointed out that the most important variables in the extraction process were surfactant concentration (SPAN 80), carrier concentration (Aliquat 336), and time extraction. An optimisation experimental protocol was carried out using prepared GA 3 solutions, achieving the maximum extraction (88%) under the following conditions: Aliquat 336 4.3% (v/v); SPAN 80 4.4% (v/v); extraction time 20 s. When the optimisation of these variables was carried out using fermentation broth the optimum conditions found were Aliquat 336 7.4% (v/v); SPAN 80 11.2% (v/v) and extraction time 62 s. Under these conditions, the extraction yield was 68% and the concentration increase was 2.2-fold. These results suggest that GA 3 extraction using ELM is perfectly possible and its application in other configurations and scales, such as pilot scale column configuration should be considered.

Private hospitals with nonemployed, volunteer medical staffs face a special challenge in meeting the patient-care needs posed by a mass casualty incident (MCI). Although most disaster response systems focus on emergency department and trauma management, such systems often do not provide for the need to triage existing inpatients to create room for incoming casualties, for continuity of physician care for those patients, as well as for MCI victims in case of major disaster. Such systems must also provide a mechanism for ethical and appropriate rationing of limited resources during a MCI. Community hospitals without 24/7 in-house physicians must provide a mechanism for physician care for patients in situations in which access to the hospital may be limited by the disaster (eg, major earthquake or flood). This article describes a system established at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, a 740-bed not-for-profit hospital with a volunteer medical staff, to ensure continuity of physician care in a major disaster. To our knowledge, this is the first published report of such a system.

In transitive inference, participants learn a set of context-dependent discriminations that can be organized into a hierarchy that supports inference. Several studies show that inference occurs with or without task awareness. However, some studies assert that without awareness, performance is attributable to pseudoinference. By this account, inference-like performance is achieved by differential stimulus weighting according to the stimuli's proximity to the end items of the hierarchy. We implement an inference task that cannot be based on differential stimulus weighting. The design itself rules out pseudoinference strategies. Success on the task without evidence of deliberative strategies would therefore suggest that true inference can be achieved implicitly. We found that accurate performance on the inference task was not dependent on explicit awareness. The finding is consistent with a growing body of evidence that indicates that forms of learning and memory supporting inference and flexibility do not necessarily depend on task awareness.

In this study, we report results on a piezoelectric- material-based mechanical energy-harvesting device that was fabricated by combining laser machining with microelectronics packaging technology. It was found that the laser-machining process did not have significant effect on the electrical properties of piezoelectric material. The fabricated device was tested in the low-frequency regime of 50 to 1000 Hz at constant force of 8 g (where g = 9.8 m/s(2)). The device was found to generate continuous power of 1.13 microW at 870 Hz across a 288.5 kOmega load with a power density of 301.3 microW/cm(3).

In the last years, a considerable number of studies have been performed on the correlation between Helicobacter pylori infection and ischaemic heart disease. The reason is the supposed role of some chronic infections in the genesis and development of vessel wall injury and atheromatous plaque, as already reported for Chlamydia pneumoniae and herpes viruses. While this association may be theoretically conceivable, it still remains debated from a practical point of view. Epidemiological and animal studies as well as some eradicating trials gave conflicting results, while studies investigating the specific molecular mimicry mechanisms induced by H. pylori strongly support the association. Moreover, none of the studies performed so far did take into account the effect of the genetic susceptibility to develop ischaemic heart disease or to respond to H. pylori infection. In particular, while the exposure to some known risk factor for atherosclerosis should lead to develop ischaemic heart disease, no condition or exposure, either individual or in combination, completely explains the occurrence and the progression of the disease, as many patients develop ischaemic heart disease in the absence of any risk factor. Based on these concepts, can we state that H. pylori infection may cause the same effect in patients with ischaemic heart disease as in healthy subjects? Further studies are needed in order to clarify this issue.

Bubble inclusion is one of the fastest growing operations practiced in the food industry. A variety of aerated foods is currently available in supermarkets, and newer products are emerging all the time. This paper aims to combine knowledge on chocolate aeration with studies performed on bubble formation and dispersion characteristics. More specifically, we have investigated bubble formation induced by applying vacuum. Experimental methods to determine gas hold-up (volume fraction of air), bubble section distributions along specific planes, and chocolate rheological properties are presented. This study concludes that decreasing pressures elevate gas hold-up values due to an increase in the number of bubble nuclei being formed and release of a greater volume of dissolved gases. Furthermore, bubbles are observed to be larger at lower pressures for a set amount of gas because the internal pressure needs to be in equilibrium with the surrounding pressures. Temperature-induced changes to the properties of the chocolate have less of an effect on bubble formation. On the other hand, when different fats and emulsifiers are added to a standard chocolate recipe, milk fat was found to increase, significantly, the gas hold-up values and the mean bubble-section diameters. It is hypothesized that this behavior is related to the way milk fats, which contain different fatty acids to cocoa butter, crystallize and influence the setting properties of the final product. It is highlighted that apparent viscosity values at low shear rate, as well as setting behavior, play an important role in terms of bubble formation and entrainment.

Bilirubin, a by‐product of heme degradation, has an important role in cellular protection. Therefore, we speculated that bilirubin could be of potential therapeutic value in wound healing. To validate the hypothesis, we used a full‐thickness cutaneous wound model in rats. Bilirubin (30 mg/kg) was administered intraperitoneally every day for 9 days. The surface area of the wound was measured on days 0, 2, 4, 7 and 10 after the creation of the wound. The granulation tissue was collected on day 10 post‐wounding for analysing various parameters of wound healing. Bilirubin treatment accelerated wound contraction and increased hydroxyproline and glucosamine contents. mRNA expression of pro‐inflammatory factors such as intercellular cell adhesion molecule‐1 (ICAM‐1) and tumour necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α) were down‐regulated and that of anti‐inflammatory cytokine interleukin‐10 (IL‐10) was up‐regulated. The findings suggest that bilirubin could be a new agent for enhancing cutaneous wound healing.

White matter injury is a known complication of whole brain radiation (WBRT). Little is known about the factors that predispose a patient to such injury. The current study used MR volumetrics to examine risk factors, in particular the influence of pre-treatment white matter health, in developing white matter change (WMC) following WBRT. Thirty-four patients with unilateral metastatic disease underwent FLAIR MRI pre-treatment and at several time points following treatment. The volume of abnormal FLAIR signal in the white matter was measured in the hemisphere contralateral to the diseased hemisphere at each time point. Analyses were restricted to the uninvolved hemisphere to allow for the measurement of WBRT effects without the potential confounding effects of the disease on imaging findings. The relationship between select pre-treatment clinical variables and the degree of WMC following treatment was examined using correlational and regression based analyses. Age when treated and volume of abnormal FLAIR prior to treatment were significantly associated with WMC following WBRT; however, pre-treatment FLAIR volume was the strongest predictor of post-treatment WMCs. Age did not add any predictive value once white matter status was considered. No significant relationships were found between biological equivalent dose and select cerebrovascular risk factors (total glucose, blood pressure, BMI) and development of WMCs. The findings from this study identify pre-treatment white matter health as an important risk factor in developing WMC following WBRT. This information can be used to make more informed decisions and counsel patients on their risk for treatment effects.

Protein partitioning kinetics was measured for the semibatch extraction of lysozyme in a laboratory-scale, liquid-liquid spray column. The organic, isooctane phase contained reverse micelles formed from the anionic surfactant, sodium di-2-ethylhexyl sulfosuccinate. For the extraction of protein fi om aqueous to reverse micellar phases, experiments were performed over a range of dispersed-phase flow rates for cases of the organic- or aqueous-phase dispersion. The influence of aqueous-phase pH and ionic strength, which influence electrostatic interactions between protein and reverse micelles, was also investigated. Results were interpreted in terms of a two-film model of mass transfer. The nature of the dispersed phase could significantly influence the partitioning kinetics, while study of the droplet hydrodynamics suggested that stagnant drops were formed regardless of which phase was dispersed. Literature correlations for describing the droplet-formation process and droplet hydrodynamics predicted measured values satisfactorily. Attempts were also made to predict overall mass-transfer coefficients based on existing correlations describing mass transfer during droplet formation, free rise (or fall), and coalescence. Predicted values of K-L were 2-10 times greater than measured values, probably because of large concentrations of surfactant used to formulate the reverse micelle phases. This approach did, however, provide detailed information on the quantity of protein transferred during the successive processes of droplet formation, fi ee rise (or fall) and coalescence.

The acidities, proton affinities, ionization energies, dissociation energies, and heats of formation of the hypohalous and hydrohalic acids have been calculated at the G2 level of theory. Where reliable experimental data are available, our results are generally in good agreement but in other cases our predictions serve to fill important gaps. The calculated gas-phase acidities of the hypohalous acids (1507.9 (HOF), 1490.0 (HOCl), 1490.6 (HOBr), and 1487.0 (HOI) kJ mol-1 at 298 K) agree well with available experimental data and are close to one another (lying within a range of 20.9 kJ mol-1), showing that the nature of the halogen has relatively little impact on their acidity. In contrast, the ΔHacid values for the hydrohalic acids HX increase by 232.9 kJ mol-1 in going from HF to HI. Hypohalous acids are more acidic than water. In addition, hypofluorous acid is a slightly stronger acid than HF. However, other hypohalous acids are weaker than the hydrohalic acids HX (X = Cl−I). The calculated proton affini...

High-level ab initio molecular orbital calculations at the G2(+) level of theory have been carried out for the six non-identity nucleophilic substitution reactions, Y- + CH3X → YCH3 + X-, for Y, X = F, Cl, Br, and I. Central barrier heights (ΔH⧧cent) for reaction in the exothermic direction vary from 0.8 kJ mol-1 for Y = F, X = I up to 39.5 kJ mol-1 for Y = Cl, X = Br (at 0 K), and are in most cases significantly lower than those for the set of identity SN2 reactions X- + CH3X → XCH3 + X- (X = F−I). Overall barriers (ΔH⧧ovr) for reaction in the exothermic direction are all negative (varying from −68.9 kJ mol-1 for Y = F, X = I to −2.3 kJ mol-1 for Y = Br, X = I), in contrast to the overall barriers for the identity reactions where only the value for X = F is negative. Complexation enthalpies (ΔHcomp) of the ion−molecule complexes Y-···CH3X vary from 30.4 kJ mol-1 for Y = F, X = I to 69.6 kJ mol-1 for Y = I, X = F (at 298 K), in good agreement with experimental and earlier computational studies. Complexati...

Summary The Life cycle concept will become the backbone in a new industrial culture named sustainable production. Sustainability means that products are designed for their whole life cycle i.e. production, distribution, usage and disposal with minimized (acceptable) influence on the environment, occupational health and use of resources. A key element in this new engineering life cycle approach is a method/tool to assess and evaluate environmental, occupational health and resource consequences in all life cycle phases at the product development stage. In this paper a preliminary method for evaluating environmental consequences containing the major environmental effects is presented. The method outlined quantifies the term “environmental friendly” so it can be used as a “yardstick” in evaluating different technical solutions. The complex problems in the final design decisions are discussed and future perspectives outlined.

Excerpt Although earlier writers,1, 2, 3had discussed the syndrome of short P-R intervals and widened QRS complexes, proper clinical evaluation of the problem was not accomplished until the paper o...

Quantitative control of aroma generation during the Maillard reaction presents great scientific and industrial interest. Although there have been many studies conducted in simplified model systems, the results are difficult to apply to complex food systems, where the presence of other components can have a significant impact. In this work, an aqueous extract of defatted beef liver was chosen as a simplified food matrix for studying the kinetics of the Maillard reaction. Aliquots of the extract were heated under different time and temperature conditions and analyzed for sugars, amino acids, and methylbutanals, which are important Maillard-derived aroma compounds formed in cooked meat. Multiresponse kinetic modeling, based on a simplified mechanistic pathway, gave a good fit with the experimental data, but only when additional steps were introduced to take into account the interactions of glucose and glucose-derived intermediates with protein and other amino compounds. This emphasizes the significant role of the food matrix in controlling the Maillard reaction.

A new primary model based on a thermodynamically consistent first-order kinetic approach was constructed to describe non-log-linear inactivation kinetics of pressure-treated bacteria. The model assumes a first-order process in which the specific inactivation rate changes inversely with the square root of time. The model gave reasonable fits to experimental data over six to seven orders of magnitude. It was also tested on 138 published data sets and provided good fits in about 70% of cases in which the shape of the curve followed the typical convex upward form. In the remainder of published examples, curves contained additional shoulder regions or extended tail regions. Curves with shoulders could be accommodated by including an additional time delay parameter and curves with tails shoulders could be accommodated by omitting points in the tail beyond the point at which survival levels remained more or less constant. The model parameters varied regularly with pressure, which may reflect a genuine mechanistic basis for the model. This property also allowed the calculation of (a) parameters analogous to the decimal reduction time D and z , the temperature increase needed to change the D value by a factor of 10, in thermal processing, and hence the processing conditions needed to attain a desired level of inactivation; and (b) the apparent thermodynamic volumes of activation associated with the lethal events. The hypothesis that inactivation rates changed as a function of the square root of time would be consistent with a diffusion-limited process.

The Maillard reaction comprises a very complex, thermally-driven, set of reactions that leads to the formation of colour and flavour. In producing flavours, it is important to be able to quantitatively follow the course of this reaction system and thence control it by manipulating key input parameters, such as temperature, pH, type and concentration of the sugar and amino acid. To that end, the main intermediates of the reaction network have been identified and quantified so the data can be used in kinetic modelling of the reaction. Modelling should provide mechanistic insights as well as a quantitative tool to follow the progress of the complex Maillard reaction. A model developed for the glycine/xylose system is briefly reported and discussed.

To investigate the frequency of unreported concussion and estimate more accurately the overall rate of concussion in high school football players.Retrospective, confidential survey completed by all subjects at the end of the football season.A total of 1,532 varsity football players from 20 high schools in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, area were surveyed.The structured survey assessed (1) number of concussions before the current season, (2) number of concussions sustained during the current season, (3) whether concussion during the current season was reported, (4) to whom concussion was reported, and (5) reasons for not reporting concussion.Of respondents, 29.9% reported a previous history of concussion, and 15.3% reported sustaining a concussion during the current football season; of those, 47.3% reported their injury. Concussions were reported most frequently to a certified athletic trainer (76.7% of reported injuries). The most common reasons for concussion not being reported included a player not thinking the injury was serious enough to warrant medical attention (66.4% of unreported injuries), motivation not to be withheld from competition (41.0%), and lack of awareness of probable concussion (36.1%).These findings reflect a higher prevalence of concussion in high school football players than previously reported in the literature. The ultimate concern associated with unreported concussion is an athlete's increased risk of cumulative or catastrophic effects from recurrent injury. Future prevention initiatives should focus on education to improve athlete awareness of the signs of concussion and potential risks of unreported injury.