Display omitted
•Steady-state sodium flows for Richardson’s number between 0.13 and 4.2 are simulated.•The TrioCFD code with a RANS approach and a k-∊ turbulence model is used.•75% of the ...experimental temperature data are simulated with less than 2°C deviation.
In the framework of the validation of the TrioCFD code for mixed convection and steady-state sodium flows, four experiments obtained using the SUPERCAVNA experimental equipment and involving Richardson numbers ranging from 0.13 to 4.21 are simulated. The TrioCFD numerical tool uses a RANS approach with a k-∊ turbulence model including a buoyancy term and the computed results are in very good agreement with the experiments.
•New experimental data set of 3D images of air–water interfaces in a soil.•Remarkably accurate prediction of air–water interfaces by the two-phase LBM.•Acceptable prediction of air–water interfaces ...by the morphological MOSAIC model.
Recent progress in the understanding of soil microbial processes at micrometric scales has created a need for models that accurately predict the microscale distribution of water, and the location of air–water interfaces in pores. Various models have been developed and used for these purposes, but how well they fare against real data has yet largely to be determined. In this context, for the first time, this article compares the prediction of two of these models to experimental data obtained on soil material. The distribution of water and air in soil samples constituted of repacked aggregates, equilibrated at three matric potentials (−0.5 kPa, −1 kPa and −2 kPa), was measured via synchrotron X-ray computed tomography at a resolution of 4.6 µm. Water distribution was simulated by a two-phase lattice Boltzmann model (LBM) and a morphological model (MOSAIC). Results indicate that, when one lifts the assumption, motivated by capillary theory, that a pore can drain only if a connecting pore is already full of air, MOSAIC gives an acceptable approximation of the observed air–water interfaces. However, discretization of pores as geometrical primitives causes interfaces predicted by MOSAIC to have nonphysical shapes. By contrast, LBM is able to predict remarkably well the location of air–water interfaces. Nevertheless, given the huge difference in computing time (minutes versus tens of hours) required to run these two models, it is recommended that further research be carried out on the development of both, in parallel.
While two-rowed barley is usually preferred for malting and beer-making, six-rowed malting barley varieties appeared in Europe around 30 years ago, and several breeders have dedicated improvement ...programs on this specific germplasm. In this study, we evaluated the feasibility of genomic prediction for yield and malting related traits using 679 breeding lines from two French barley breeders, as well as a set of recently registered varieties. These lines were evaluated in five locations and two harvest years in an unbalanced design. Although the germplasm from the two breeders does show some trend towards differentiation, globally the whole panel did not show a clear-cut genetic structure. Predictive ability of GBLUP was evaluated through random cross-validation within and across breeder sets, and using cross-prediction between breeder sets. Results show moderate to high predictive ability (PA), particularly for malt friability and β-glucan content, for which predictive ability of 0.8 was obtained with training populations as small as 105 registered varieties and across breeding sets. The long range of useful linkage disequilibrium in this particular germplasm allows using as few as 2000 to 5000 markers to obtain high PA. Other prediction methods such as Bayesian LASSO, Bayes Cpi or EGBLUP did not improve predictive ability. These results are very encouraging for implementing genomic prediction of malting quality traits in applied breeding programs.
Following the debate on the implications of international trade for global climate policy, this paper introduces the topic of the economic benefits from trade obtained by exporting countries in ...relation to the emissions generated in the production of exports. In 2008, 24% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and 20% of the employment around the world were linked to international trade. China “exported” 30% of emissions and hosted 37.5% of the jobs generated by trade worldwide. The European Union and the United States of America were the destination of 25% and 18.4% of the GHG emissions embodied in trade. The imports of these two regions contributed to the creation of 45% of the employment generated by international trade. This paper proposes the idea of including trade issues in international climate negotiations, taking into account not only the environmental burden generated by developed countries when displacing emissions to developing countries through their imports, but also the economic benefits of developing countries producing the goods exported to developed countries.
•Employment and trade issues should be considered in GHG emission reduction policies.•In 2008 24% of global GHG emissions and 20% of the employment are linked to trade.•43% of GHG and 45% of employment embedded in trade are due to EU and US imports.•China exports 30% of the GHG and hosts 38% of the jobs generated by trade worldwide.
Nitrous oxide (N2O) offers both hypnotic and analgesic characteristics. We therefore tested the hypothesis that N2O administration decreases the amount of propofol and remifentanil given by a ...closed-loop automated controller to maintain a similar bispectral index (BIS).
In a randomized multicentre double-blind study, patients undergoing elective surgery were randomly assigned to breathe 60% inspired N2O (N2O group) or 40% oxygen (AIR group). Anaesthesia depth was evaluated by the proportion of time where BIS was within the range of 40–60 (BIS40–60). The primary outcomes were propofol and remifentanil consumption, with reductions of 20% in either being considered clinically important.
A total of 302 patients were randomized to the N2O group and 299 to the AIR group. At similar BIS40–60 79 (67–86)% vs 76 (65–85)%, N2O slightly decreased propofol consumption 4.5 (3.7–5.5) vs 4.8 (4.0–5.9) mg kg−1 h−1, P=0.032, but not remifentanil consumption 0.17 (0.12–0.23) vs 0.18 (0.14–0.24) µg kg−1 min−1. For the subgroups of men, at similar BIS40–60 80 (72–88)% vs 80 (70–87)%, propofol 4.2 (3.4–5.3) vs 4.4 (3.6–5.4) mg kg−1 h−1 and remifentanil 0.19 (0.13–0.25) vs 0.18 (0.15–0.23) µg kg−1 min−1 consumptions were similar in the N2O vs AIR group, respectively. For the subgroups of women, at similar BIS40–60 76 (64–84)% vs 72 (62–82)%, propofol 4.7 (4.0–5.8) vs 5.3 (4.5–6.6) mg kg−1 h−1, P=0.004 and remifentanil 0.18 (0.13–0.25) vs 0.20 (0.15–0.27) µg kg−1 min−1, P=0.029 consumptions decreased with the co-administration of N2O.
With automated drug administration titrated to comparable BIS, N2O only slightly reduced propofol consumption and did not reduce remifentanil consumption. There was a minor gender dependence, but not by a clinically important amount.
This study was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT00547209.
Summary
Objective
Bleeding is the main complication of warfarin therapy, even patients with an international normalized ratio (INR) in the target range can suffer bleeding, suggesting that INR does ...not perfectly reflect the therapeutic effect of warfarin. We hypothesized the INR might underestimate the level of anticoagulation in a subject with a lower factor (F) IX level than average.
Methods and results
We modeled warfarin anticoagulation in our in vitro thrombin generation (TG) model by adjusting the levels of vitamin K‐dependent factors to those of patients with an INR of 2–3. Variation in FIX had a marked effect on TG but had no effect on the prothrombin time (PT)–INR. A prospective observational, cross‐sectional clinical study including 341 consecutive patients admitted to the emergency department with an INR between 2 and 3, showed a statistically lower FIX activity in bleeders (P = 0.004) compared with others. No correlation was found between TG capacity and PT–INR results (P = 0.36). However, in patients, presenting with a warfarin‐related hemorrhage, TG was significantly lower (P < 0.001) than others. A correlation on the boundary of significance was observed between TG capacity and FIX levels (P = 0.09).
Conclusion
These data demonstrates that patients who bleed when their PT–INR is in the target range 2–3 might have defective TG related to a lower level of FIX than expected.
Fractures have been recently identified in potential host rock for high level nuclear waste disposal, like indurated argilite formations. These fractures appear as potential rapid pathways for ...radionuclides transport and hydrodynamic properties of the transport inside these systems must thus be characterized. Miscible non-sorbing and sorbing tracers displacements were performed on a 2-D model derived from a real fracture geometry observed in the Tournemire argilite formation with a lattice-gas cellular automaton (LGA). LGA was shown to easily handle the complex geometry of such a fracture. The numerical breakthrough curves obtained were inverted with the 1-D CDE and MIM transport models. Two main conclusions were drawn: (i) at the length scale of the study, the non-sorbing tracer transport in our fracture geometry was more accurately interpreted in terms of the MIM model rather than in terms of the classical CDE model; (ii) in order to correctly model the sorbing tracers migration, the hydrodynamic dispersion coefficient value was found to increase with the increase of the retardation factor. A semi-empirical relation based on the Taylor–Aris theory was then used to describe this dependency.
Numerical models that solve transport of pollutants at the macroscopic scale in unsaturated porous media need the effective diffusion dependence on saturation as an input. We conducted numerical ...computations at the pore scale in order to obtain the effective diffusion curve as a function of saturation for an academic sphere packing porous medium and for a real porous medium where pore structure knowledge was obtained through X-ray tomography. The computations were performed using a combination of lattice Boltzmann models based on two relaxation time (TRT) scheme. The first stage of the calculations consisted in recovering the water spatial distribution into the pore structure for several fixed saturations using a phase separation TRT lattice Boltzmann model. Then, we performed diffusion computation of a non-reactive solute in the connected water structure using a diffusion TRT lattice Boltzmann model. Finally, the effective diffusion for each selected saturation value was estimated through inversion of a macroscopic classical analytical solution.
To study degradation processes occurring on painting materials, the use of high-resolution micro-analytical techniques is highly requested since it provides a detailed identification and localisation ...of both the original and deteriorated ingredients. Among the various pigments recently studied, the characterisation of verdigris has received a major interest. This pigment has not a unique chemical formula, but its composition depends on the recipe employed for its manufacturing. Moreover, verdigris paints are not stable and are subject to a colour change from blue-green to green, which occurs in the first few months after the application. In this paper, we focused our attention on the use of ATR-FTIR mapping as a useful method to identify verdigris secondary products and pathways. Several mock-ups and real samples have been analysed, and the correlation among the detected compounds and their spatial location, obtained by the application of ATR-FTIR microscopy in mapping mode, allowed formulating some hypotheses on the degradation pattern of verdigris, which may feed the discussion on the transformation and stability of this pigment. From an analytical point of view, we showed how FTIR mapping approaches may be extremely useful both for the identification of compounds in complex matrix in which single spectra may limit the exhaustive characterisations due to bands overlapping and for the study of degradation pathways by taking into consideration the relative distribution of degradation products.
In the past years the Slovenian Performance Analysis/Safety Assessment team has performed many generic studies for the future Slovenian low and intermediate level waste repository, most recently a ...Special Safety Analysis for the Krško site. The modelling approach was to split the problem into three parts: near-field (detailed model of the repository), far-field (i.e., geosphere) and biosphere. In the Special Safety Analysis the code used to perform the near-field calculations was Hydrus2D.
Recently the team has begun a cooperation with the French Commisariat àl’Énergie Atomique/Saclay (CEA/Saclay) and, as a part of this cooperation, began investigations into using the Alliances numerical platform for near-field calculations in order to compare the overall approach and calculated results.
The article presents the comparison between these two codes for a silo-type repository that was considered in the Special Safety Analysis. The physical layout and characteristics of the repository are presented and a hydraulic and transport model of the repository is developed and implemented in Alliances. Some analysis of sensitivity to mesh fineness and to simulation timestep has been preformed and is also presented. The compared quantity is the output flux of radionuclides on the boundary of the model. Finally the results from Hydrus2D and Alliances are compared and the differences and similarities are commented.
PDF
