EDF Energy North America

The main goal of this study was to evaluate four major remote sensing soil moisture (SM) products over the state of Texas. These remote sensing products are: (i) the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer—Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) (2002–September 2011); (ii) the Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity system (SMOS, 2010–present); (iii) AMSR2 (2012–present); and (iv) the Soil Moisture Active Passive system (SMAP, 2015–present). The quality of the generated SM data is influenced by the accuracy and precision of the sensors and the retrieval algorithms used in processing raw data. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the quality of these satellite SM products using in situ measurements and/or by inter-comparing their data during overlapping periods. In this study, these two approaches were used where we compared each satellite SM product to in situ soil moisture measurements and we also conducted an inter-comparison of the four satellite SM products at 15 different locations in Texas over six major land cover types (cropland, shrub, grassland, forest, pasture and developed) and eight climate zones along with in situ SM data from 15 Mesonet, USCRN and USDA-NRCS Scan stations. Results show that SM data from SMAP had the best correlation coefficients range from 0.37 to 0.92 with in situ measurements among the four tested satellite surface SM products. On the other hand, SM data from SMOS, AMSR2 and AMSR-E had moderate to low correlation coefficients ranges with in situ data, respectively, from 0.24–0.78, 0.07–0.62 and 0.05–0.52. During the overlapping periods, average root mean square errors (RMSEs) of the correlations between in situ and each satellite data were 0.13 (AMSR-E) and 0.13 (SMOS) cm3/cm3 (2010–2011), 0.16 (AMSR2) and 0.14 (SMOS) cm3/cm3 (2012–2016) and 0.13, 0.16, 0.14 (SMAP, AMSR2, SMOS) cm3/cm3 (2015–2016), respectively. Despite the coarser spatial resolution of all four satellite products (25–36 km), their SM measurements are considered reasonable and can be effectively used for different applications, e.g., flood forecasting, and drought prediction; however, further evaluation of each satellite product is recommended prior to its use in practical applications.

Based on slip line field analysis and finite element analysis of elastic‐perfectly plastic materials, plastic η factor solutions for single edge‐cracked specimens in tension (SE(T)) with a wide range of crack lengths are proposed, both for homogeneous specimens and for bi‐material specimens with interface cracks. Moreover, two different plastic η factor solutions are given: one based on experimental load–load line displacement records, ηVLLp , and the other based on experimental load–crack mouth opening displacement (CMOD) records, ηCMODp . Comparison with existing finite element results shows good agreement. For deep cracks (a/w > ∼0.45), the ηVLLp solutions are insensitive to the strain hardening, to the specimen length and to the specimen thickness. However, for shallower cracks (a/w < ∼0.45), the ηVLLp solutions are sensitive to the specimen thickness, to the strain hardening and to the specimen length, suggesting difficulties associated with a robust determination of J and C * integrals from experimental data. On the other hand, the ηCMODp solution is not sensitive to the crack length, to the specimen thickness, to strain hardening and to the specimen length, even for shallow cracked specimens. This suggests that the use of CMOD can provide robust J and C * estimation schemes even for shallow crack testing.

We have evaluated an anti-autocrine growth factor monoclonal antibody for potential use in the treatment of patients with small-cell lung cancer. The monoclonal antibody, designated 2A11, binds to the C-terminal region of the autocrine growth factor gastrin-releasing peptide and neutralizes its growth-promoting effects in vitro and in vivo. Equilibrium-binding analysis demonstrated that the peptide binds to the antibody (dissociation constant = 1.5 x 10(-10) at least as avidly as it binds to the tumor peptide receptor. Pharmacokinetic studies in normal BALB/c mice demonstrated an initial clearance half-life (alpha t1/2) of 24.3 +/- 4 hours and a secondary clearance half-life (beta t1/2) of 1039.6 +/- 309 hours, and biodistribution studies revealed a distribution pattern which generally reflected blood flow. Single intravenous infusions of 2A11 (20 mg/20-25-kg dogs) into normal mongrel dogs with surgically created gastric fistulas antagonized the stimulatory effects of exogenously infused gastrin-releasing peptide or bombesin on plasma gastrin release and gastric acid secretion. Toxicology studies in normal dogs (with gastric fistulas) infused with 50 mg 2A11 intravenously three times a week for 4 weeks failed to reveal any adverse behavioral, clinical, or pathological effects. Four of six dogs developed an immune response to 2A11. Anti-idiotypic antibodies elicited in two cases did not mimic the functional effects of the peptide. We conclude that the concept of immunoblockade of an autocrine growth factor appears feasible in vivo.

The NURESIM Project of the 6th European Framework Program initiated the development of a new‐generation common European Standard Software Platform for nuclear reactor simulation. The thermal‐hydraulic subproject aims at improving the understanding and the predictive capabilities of the simulation tools for key two‐phase flow thermal‐hydraulic processes such as the critical heat flux (CHF). As part of a multi‐scale analysis of reactor thermal‐hydraulics, a two‐phase CFD tool is developed to allow zooming on local processes. Current industrial methods for CHF mainly use the sub‐channel analysis and empirical CHF correlations based on large scale experiments having the real geometry of a reactor assembly. Two‐phase CFD is used here for understanding some boiling flow processes, for helping new fuel assembly design, and for developing better CHF predictions in both PWR and BWR. This paper presents a review of experimental data which can be used for validation of the two‐phase CFD application to CHF investigations. The phenomenology of DNB and Dry‐Out are detailed identifying all basic flow processes which require a specific modeling in CFD tool. The resulting modeling program of work is given and the current state‐of‐the‐art of the modeling within the NURESIM project is presented.

Understanding how a gas is able to strongly insulate electric devices is certainly of great importance to the electrical engineering community. More precisely, modeling how a dielectric gas stops an electric current requires to understand what makes a gas a good dielectric, or in other words, what makes a gas presenting a high dielectric strength (DS). We show how to easily estimate the DS of a gas by calculating its ability to absorb light.

BACKGROUND: The transplantation of isolated hepatocytes in large animals, including nonhuman primates, must be evaluated before clinical trials are performed. However, in the absence of large transgenic animals and large-animal (as opposed to small-animal) models of genetic deficiencies, it is difficult to evaluate the fate of transplanted hepatocytes, their localization, survival, and function within the parenchyma of the host liver. In this work, we aimed to develop a technique for delivering hepatocytes to the liver of a nonhuman primate and to evaluate their localization and functionality in the short term. METHODS: A 20% hepatectomy was performed in 34 cynomolgus monkeys (Macaca fascicularis) and hepatocytes were isolated. Hepatocytes were labeled in vitro with a recombinant retrovirus expressing the beta-galactosidase gene and returned to the liver by infusion through a portal catheter left in place. Liver biopsies were performed 4 and 7 d after transplantation. RESULTS: Twenty-four monkeys underwent surgery to define the necessary technical adjustments and to optimize conditions. Six monkeys died. The whole protocol, including the transplantation of genetically marked hepatocytes and procurement of liver biopsies, was performed in the remaining 10 monkeys. In eight monkeys, transplanted hepatocytes expressing the beta-galactosidase gene were widely distributed in the portal tracts, sinusoids, and hepatocyte plates of the host liver 4 and 7 d after transplantation. CONCLUSIONS: We have developed an experimental nonhuman primate model for the evaluation of hepatocyte transplantation. We demonstrated the engraftment and functioning of transplanted hepatocytes in the host liver 4 and 7 d after transplantation.

Abstract Over the past 35 years, geothermal projects have been developed in the Upper Rhine Graben (URG) to exploit deep geothermal energy. Underneath approximately 2 km of sedimentary deposits, the deep target consists of a granitic basement, which is highly fractured and hydrothermally altered. Therefore, it has high potential as a geothermal reservoir. Despite dense 2D seismic data coverage originally acquired for oil exploration (for a target two-way traveltime between 300 and 700 ms), the faults at the top of the granitic basement (between 1400 and 4000 ms) are poorly imaged, and their locations remain uncertain. To gain a better understanding of this large-scale faulting and to ensure the viability of future geothermal projects, a 3D seismic survey was acquired in the French part of the URG during the summer of 2018. This paper describes how an integrated project, combining seismic data processing, high-end imaging, and enhanced interpretation, was conducted to improve the understanding of this complex basin for geothermal purposes. By revealing the deep granite layer and its complex associated fault network, the insight from this project can help accurately locate future production wells.

Summary form only given. In response to the need for the decarbonization of the transport sector, it is expected that large fleets of electric vehicles (EVs) will constitute an important share of the electricity demand. This evolution is likely to be accompanied by a parallel evolution of the electricity supply business with the deployment of smart grid technologies. As a consequence, it is expected that demand will feature higher potential for communication and control, which will enable its active participation in the daily operational planning of power systems. In particular, EVs being equipped with a battery can both defer their demand or inject electricity back into the system. However, to achieve volumes that can have an impact on the system, these demands need to be aggregated and operated as an ensemble. This paper proposes the necessary adaptations to include the input of EV aggregation to electricity markets. This permits the scheduling of EV charging and services in coordination with the system operator thus enhancing the power system's efficiency and security while reducing its environmental impact. Results show that the EVs penetration levels that the system would be able to absorb without requiring expansion of the supply side, are significantly increased when coordination over their charging schedule is performed.

Biomonitoring of toxicity, using the Ceriodaphnia dubia acute toxicity test, was performed on a gasoline-contaminated aquifer in San Diego, Calif. undergoing in situ bioremediation. The bioremediation approach here featured nitrate enrichment of extracted groundwater (with subsequent reinfiltration back into the aquifer) to stimulate bacterial denitrification. Dentrification has been shown to support biodegradation of the monoaromatic hydrocarbons—benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and the isomers of xylene (BTEX). During the period between the start of bioremediation (October, 1989) and the end of nutrient enrichment (March, 1992), BTEX levels at the two most contaminated wells on site (MW1 and MW5) were reducted by about 81 and 99%, respectively. In acute bioassays of groundwater from MW1 during the first 6 months of bioremediation, concentrations of groundwater from about 3 to 10% produced 50% mortality of Ceriodaphnia after 24 h exposure, whereas groundwater concentrations of greater than 20% were required after remediation. When the 24-h LC50's for mortality were plotted as a function of BTEX concentration, the slope of the regression line was similar for both laboratory and field nitrate-enrichment studies. At MW5, where the BTEX level was dramatically reduced by 99% during bioremediation, the 24-h LC50 after bioremediation increased to 56% (from initial values of 12–15%), while uncontaminated groundwater from a well up-gradient of the gasoline leak, showed an LC50 value of 74%. These results demonstrate that even after bioremediation of an aquifer (with an associated BTEX reduction of 81–99%), the toxicity (as measured by Ceriodaphnia) of the groundwaters may not be reduced to precontamination levels.

Development of distributed generation, energy efficiency and demand-side management measures, economical and technical constraints to meet the performance targets fixed by the regulatory bodies are just some of the new challenges facing distribution system operators in the smart grid development context. Simulation capabilities are playing a major role in the distribution business improvements needed to meet these new objectives. For instance, simulation is providing support to develop the functionalities associated with the self-healing grid concept. This article describes a roadmap for fast simulation and modeling tools applied to distribution systems. A survey of key industry experts was conducted to identify the main drivers for improving simulation and modelling functionalities and to determine the most likely path that evolution will take. The results of this roadmap are intended to provide a high level view of the functionalities that will be needed in the next 10 years to enable smart grid operation. These functions will be enabled by developments in various technical areas, providing solid foundations to build on. This roadmap identifies technological gaps and new software/hardware solution needs, It is focused on the future developments in these areas. (7 pages)

Abstract ChemInform is a weekly Abstracting Service, delivering concise information at a glance that was extracted from about 100 leading journals. To access a ChemInform Abstract of an article which was published elsewhere, please select a “Full Text” option. The original article is trackable via the “References” option.

The development of electric vehicles (EV) is a major lever towards low carbon transportation. It comes with increasing numbers of charging infrastructures which can be smartly managed to control the CO2 cost of EV electricity consumption or used as flexible assets for grid management. To achieve that, an efficient day-ahead forecast of charging behaviours is required at different spatial resolutions (e.g., household and public stations). We propose an extensive benchmark of 14 models for both load and occupancy day-ahead forecasts, covering 8 open charging session datasets of different types (residential, workplace and public stations). Two modelling approaches are compared: direct and bottom-up. The direct approach forecasts the aggregated load (resp. occupation) directly of an area/station whereas the bottom-up approach models each individual EV charging session before aggregating them. This second approach is key to the effective implementation of smart charging strategies. We consider both machine learning models (Random Forests and Gated Recurrent Units) and statistical models (Generalised Additive Models, Poisson Regression, Mixture Regression, Auto-Regressive) in order to maximise the spectrum of our benchmark. We finally propose an adaptive aggregation strategy to assess the variety of forecasts at hand. Overall, we demonstrate that direct approaches reach better performances than bottom-up approaches across all datasets considered. We further show that the different approaches used can lead to an improved performance of direct approaches when using an adaptive aggregation strategy. In fact, our best model produces a forecast which is more than 5 times better relative to the persistence on residential data.

Abstract The impacts of wind energy on bat populations is a growing concern because wind turbine blades can strike and kill bats, and wind turbine development is increasing. We tested the effectiveness of 2 management actions at 2 wind‐energy facilities for reducing bat fatalities: curtailing turbine operation when wind speeds were <5.0 m/second and combining curtailment with an acoustic bat deterrent developed by NRG Systems. We measured the effectiveness of the management actions using differences in counts of bat carcasses quantified by daily and twice‐per‐week standardized carcass searches of cleared plots below turbines, and field trials that estimated searcher efficiency and carcass persistence. We studied turbines located at 2 adjacent wind‐energy facilities in northeast Illinois, USA, during fall migration (1 Aug–15 Oct) in 2018. We estimated the effectiveness of each management action using a generalized linear mixed‐effects model with several covariates. Curtailment alone reduced overall bat mortality by 42.5% but did not reduce silver‐haired bat ( Lasionycteris noctivagans ) mortality. Overall bat fatality rates were 66.9% lower at curtailed turbines with acoustic deterrents compared to turbines that operated at manufacturer cut‐in speed. Curtailment and the deterrent reduced bat mortality to varying degrees between species, ranging from 58.1% for eastern red bats ( Lasiurus borealis ) to 94.4 for big brown bats ( Eptesicus fuscus ). Hoary ( Lasiurus cinereus ) and silver‐haired bat mortality was reduced by 71.4% and 71.6%, respectively. Our study lacked a deterrent‐only treatment group because of the expense of acoustic deterrents. We estimated the additional reduction in mortality with concurrent deployment of the acoustic deterrent and curtailment under the assumption that curtailment and the acoustic deterrent would have reduced mortality by the same percentage at adjacent wind‐energy facilities. Acoustic deterrents resulted in 31.6%, 17.4%, and 66.7% additional reductions of bat mortality compared to curtailment alone for eastern red bat, hoary bat, and silver‐haired bat, respectively. The effectiveness of acoustic deterrents for reducing bat mortality at turbines with rotor‐swept area diameters >110 m is unknown because high frequency sound attenuates quickly, which reduces coverage of rotor‐swept areas. Management actions should consider species differences in the ability of curtailment and deterrents to reduce bat mortality and increase energy production.

Abstract The purpose of the current study was to integrate two streams of research that have remained largely distinct: negotiation and group composition. Specifically, this experiment examined the interactive effects of two individual difference variables (polychronicity and dominance) on multi‐party negotiation performance (task conflict and joint profit) in either unanimity or majority rule contexts. Results from business students in a multi‐issue negotiation exercise revealed that personality does play a role in group negotiation, but relationships were contingent, as revealed by the presence of a significant two‐way interaction for task conflict and a three‐way interaction for joint profit. Group polychronicity resulted in higher task conflict, but only when group dominance was low. The polychronicity–dominance interaction significantly predicted joint profit under majority rule, but had little effect under a unanimity decision rule. Consistent with task conflict results, polychronicity negatively predicted joint profit, but only for lower dominance groups under majority rule. Findings reinforce the importance of examining how multiple individual differences interact with each other, as well as with situational factors, to determine group negotiation outcomes.

This paper presents approximate closed-form plastic limit load solutions for branch junctions under out-of-plane bending and under combined pressure and out-of-plane bending, based on three-dimensional finite element limit analyses for an elastic-perfectly plastic material. When bending is applied to the branch pipe, the plastic limit loads for out-of-plane bending are shown to be lower than those for in-plane bending. However, for bending to the run pipe, the opposite trend is found. For combined pressure and out-of-plane bending, either the circular interaction or the parabolic interaction rule can be used, depending on the bending location and the branch geometry. Comparison with published experimental plastic limit load data shows that the predictions agree relatively well with the test data.

In early 2020, the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic was an unprecedented shock to the global education system, resulting in most educational institutions closing their doors and turning to various forms of remote learning to ensure continuous education for their communities. Since the world has not experienced this scale of school closure before, the goal of this study was to explore what, if anything, non-state schools (NNSs) were doing to support remote learning that may help them to prepare for future events that curtail education. In May 2020, Edify, an international non-governmental organization (INGO) operating in eleven nations in Latin America (LATAM), Sub-Saharan Africa and India conducted a telephone survey with a stratified random sample of 388 school leaders. Since the extent learning had continued across contexts was relatively unknown, the survey aimed to inform the organization's current and future responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and potential future educational interruptions. In addition to identifying the various uses of technology and possible innovations as to how non-state schools can respond when a crisis impacts their operating status, this paper describes three areas of concern expressed by the school leaders: (1) the health and safety of children and adults in their schools; (2) the various challenges of maintaining financial sustainability; and (3) the learning loss of students from the lack of preparedness for such a massive interruption in their school's normal operations.

Exposure limits for workers and the public are based on both chemical toxicity and radiation dose. As a consequence of the different procedures used in their calculation they are incompatible, and adherence to one limit may result in a serious breach of the other. This paper explores the background to these limits, the problems posed by their application and proposes how best to achieve compliance with both limits.

Storage is being proposed to solve many issues on distribution networks and distribution planners need tools to assess its impact on capacity, reliability, and power quality. Accurate analysis requires sequential-time simulation. This paper describes three types of storage simulations on distribution systems for three different time frames: capacity evaluations in 15-min intervals; renewable generation smoothing in 1-min intervals; and electromechanical dynamics analysis in intervals ranging from seconds down to microseconds. The illustrations come from recent research. (4 pages)

Compared to a centralised grid operation management<br> for the distribution grid, a distributed and decentralised<br> agent-based operation has a lot of advantages, like<br> scalability, modularity and robustness. We propose the<br> concept for an agent-based distribution grid operation<br> management based on a traffic light concept. Depending<br> on the situation in the grid, the operation management<br> can be in different modes, which define the way how the<br> grid is operated.

A hybrid simulation test setup is developed to investigate and validate the application of hybrid simulation to the gravity load collapse of reinforced concrete frames. The OpenFresco software framework for hybrid simulation is used in combination with an event-driven real-time predictor/corrector ensuring continuous hybrid testing. A shear-critical reinforced concrete column loaded through three dynamic actuators constitutes the physical substructure while a nonlinear ductile reinforced concrete frame makes up the numerical substructure within the OpenSees environment. This paper presents a nonlinear transformation method designed to allow for an accurate application of the loading on the specimen and a new predictor corrector scheme to eliminate force feedback oscillations. Validation of this hybrid simulation setup is achieved through a comparison with a shaking table test of the same reinforced concrete frame by performing two hybrid tests. Based on the results from the hybrid tests, procedures which are expected to improve the results of the hybrid test are presented.