Financial implications for companies running standby generators in support of a smart grid

Integrating renewable energy into built environments requires additional attention to the balancing of supply and demand due to their intermittent nature. Demand Side Response (DSR) has the potential to make money for organisations as well as support the System Operator as the generation mix changes. There is an opportunity to increase the use of existing technologies in order to manage demand. Company-owned standby generators are a rarely used resource; their maintenance schedule often accounts for a majority of their running hours. DSR encompasses a range of technologies and organisations; Sustainability First (2012) suggest that the System Operator (SO), energy supply companies, Distribution Network Operators (DNOs), Aggregators and Customers all stand to benefit from DSR. It is therefore important to consider impact of DSR measures to each of these stakeholders. This paper assesses the financial implications of organisations using existing standby generation equipment for DSR in order to avoid peak electricity charges. It concludes that under the current GB electricity pricing structure, there are several regions where running diesel generators at peak times is financially beneficial to organisations. Issues such as fuel costs, Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) charges, maintenance costs and electricity prices are discussed.

Characterization of Metal and Trace Element Contents of Particulate Matter (PM10) Emitted by Vehicles Running on Brazilian FuelsHydrated Ethanol and Gasoline with 22% of Anhydrous Ethanol

Emission of fine particles by mobile sources has been a matter of great concern due to its potential risk both to human health and the environment. Although there is no evidence that one sole component may be responsible for the adverse health outcomes, it is postulated that the metal particle content is one of the most important factors, mainly in relation to oxidative stress. Data concerning the amount and type of metal particles emitted by automotive vehicles using Brazilian fuels are limited. The aim of this study was to identify inhalable particles (PM10) and their trace metal content in two light-duty vehicles where one was fueled with ethanol while the other was fueled with gasoline mixed with 22% of anhydrous ethanol (gasohol); these engines were tested on a chassis dynamometer. The elementary composition of the samples was evaluated by the particle-induced x-ray emission technique. The experiment showed that total emission factors ranged from 2.5 to 11.8 mg/km in the gasohol vehicle, and from 1.2 to 3 mg/km in the ethanol vehicle. The majority of particles emitted were in the fine fraction (PM2.5), in which Al, Si, Ca, and Fe corresponded to 80% of the total weight. PM10 emissions from the ethanol vehicle were about threefold lower than those of gasohol. The elevated amount of fine particulate matter is an aggravating factor, considering that these particles, and consequently associated metals, readily penetrate deeply into the respiratory tract, producing damage to lungs and other tissues.

Circadian Pattern of Wheel-Running Activity of a South American Subterranean Rodent (Ctenomys cf knightii)

Circadian rhythms are regarded as essentially ubiquitous features of animal behavior and are thought to confer important adaptive advantages. However, although circadian systems of rodents have been among the most extensively studied, most comparative biology is restricted to a few related species. In this study, the circadian organization of locomotor activity was studied in the subterranean, solitary north Argentinean rodent, Ctenomys knightii. The genus, Ctenomys, commonly known as Tuco-tucos, comprises more than 50 known species over a range that extends from 12S latitude into Patagonia, and includes at least one social species. The genus, therefore, is ideal for comparative and ecological studies of circadian rhythms. Ctenomys knightii is the first of these to be studied for its circadian behavior. All animals were wild caught but adapted quickly to laboratory conditions, with clear and precise activity-rest rhythms in a light-dark (LD) cycle and strongly nocturnal wheel running behavior. In constant dark (DD), the rhythm expression persisted with free-running periods always longer than 24h. Upon reinstatement of the LD cycle, rhythms resynchronized rapidly with large phase advances in 7/8 animals. In constant light (LL), six animals had free-running periods shorter than in DD, and 4/8 showed evidence of splitting. We conclude that under laboratory conditions, in wheel-running cages, this species shows a clear nocturnal rhythmic organization controlled by an endogenous circadian oscillator that is entrained to 24h LD cycles, predominantly by light-induced advances, and shows the same interindividual variable responses to constant light as reported in other non-subterranean species. These data are the first step toward understanding the chronobiology of the largest genus of subterranean rodents.

Effects of voluntary running on spatial memory and mature brain-derived neurotrophic factor expression in mice hippocampus after status epilepticus

Voluntary physical activity improves memory and learning ability in rodents, whereas status epilepticus has been associated with memory impairment. Physical activity and seizures have been associated with enhanced hippocampal expression of BDNF, indicating that this protein may have a dual role in epilepsy. The influence of voluntary physical activity on memory and BDNF expression has been poorly studied in experimental models of epilepsy. In this paper, we have investigated the effect of voluntary physical activity on memory and BDNF expression in mice with pilocarpine-incluced epilepsy. Male Swiss mice were assigned to four experimental groups: pilocarpine sedentary (PS), pilocarpine runners (PRs), saline sedentary (SS) and saline runners (SRs). Two days after pilocarpine-induced status epilepticus, the affected mice (PR) and their running controls (SR) were housed with access to a running wheel for 28 days. After that, the spatial memory and the expression of the precursor and mature forms of hippocampal BDNF were assessed. PR mice performed better than PS mice in the water maze test. In addition, PR mice had a higher amount of mature BDNF (14 kDa) relative to the total BDNF (14 kDa + 28 kDa + 32 kDa forms) content when compared with PS mice. These results show that voluntary physical activity improved the spatial memory and increased the hippocampal content of mature BDNF of mice with pilocarpine-induced status epilepticus. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Performance results of running parallel applications on the InteGrade

The InteGrade middleware intends to exploit the idle time of computing resources in computer laboratories. In this work we investigate the performance of running parallel applications with communication among processors on the InteGrade grid. As costly communication on a grid can be prohibitive, we explore the so-called systolic or wavefront paradigm to design the parallel algorithms in which no global communication is used. To evaluate the InteGrade middleware we considered three parallel algorithms that solve the matrix chain product problem, the 0-1 Knapsack Problem, and the local sequence alignment problem, respectively. We show that these three applications running under the InteGrade middleware and MPI take slightly more time than the same applications running on a cluster with only LAM-MPI support. The results can be considered promising and the time difference between the two is not substantial. The overhead of the InteGrade middleware is acceptable, in view of the benefits obtained to facilitate the use of grid computing by the user. These benefits include job submission, checkpointing, security, job migration, etc. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Antipanic procedures reduce the strychnine-facilitated wild running of rats

Wild running (WR) behavior of rats seen in response to intense acoustic stimulation of audiogenic seizure-paradigm is very similar to the panic flight and can be facilitated by subconvulsive doses of strychnine. The present work aimed to test whether antipanic procedures, such as dorsal periaqueductal gray (dPAG) lesion and imipramine treatments, affect the strychnine-facilitated WR. In study 1, six Wistar male adult rats with electrolytic lesion of dPAG had their WR completely blocked, whereas it was facilitated in 50% of sham-lesioned control rats by a dose of 0.5 mg/kg of strychnine administered intraperitoneal. This effect was not reproduced with a higher strychnine dose (1.0 mg/kg). In study 2, the effects of imipramine were investigated by testing 36 rats under a dose of strychnine that induces WR in 50% of subjects. They were assigned into three experimental groups: imipramine treatments of 5.0 and 10.0 mg/kg, and infusions of saline. All these treatments were subchronical with three intraperitoneal injections within 24h. Imipramine (10.0mg/kg) reduced the incidence of WR in comparison to the saline results. It is concluded that strychnine-facilitated WR is reduced by antipanic procedures and, therefore, can be viewed as a manifestation closely related to panic. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. B.V. All rights reserved.

Correlation between the fighting rates of REM sleep-deprived rats and susceptibility to the 'wild running' of audiogenic seizures

Sleep-deprived rats exhibit defensive fighting as well as explosive flights very similar to the wild-running of audiogenic seizures. In order to determine why sleep deprivation is a common factor that facilitates both panic and convulsive manifestations, the present study was undertaken to investigate whether rats that display sleep deprivation-induced fighting (SDIF) are the same as those that are susceptible to audiogenic wild-running (WR). Twenty-eight male adult Wistar rats were divided into two groups assigned to two e-sleep deprivation for 5 days and had their SDIF evaluated in social experimental schemes. In the first, 18 subjects were submitted to REM grouping. After 1 week for recovery, their susceptibility to WR was tested in an acoustic stimulation trial ( 104 dB, 200 Hz, 60 S). Rats that did not present WR received a lactate infusion and were tested again by acoustic stimulation 40 min later. In the second experimental scheme, 10 subjects were initially evaluated for WR susceptibility and the number of SDIF was recorded in social grouping after I week. Three categories of WR-susceptibility were determined: WR-sensitive rats, intermediate WR-sensitive rats and WR-insensitive rats. T'he number of SDIF in each category was significantly different and there was a high positive correlation (r=0.89; Spearman test) between the number of SDIF and the level of WR-susceptibility. We conclude that the reasons why sleep deprivation exerts facilitatory effects on both panic and convulsive manifestations are due to overlappings of neural pathways responsible for both behavioral patterns and for the property of sleep deprivation to increase neuronal excitability. (C) 2002 Elsevier B.V. B.V. All rights reserved.

On the optimum parameters of a device for harvesting energy from running and walking

This paper investigates the feasibility of using an energy harvesting device tuned such that its natural frequency coincides with higher harmonics of the input to capture energy from walking or running human motion more efficiently. The paper starts by reviewing the concept of a linear resonant generator for a tonal frequency input and then derives an expression for the power harvested for an input with several harmonics. The amount of power harvested is estimated numerically using measured data from human subjects. Assuming that the input is periodic, the signal is reconstructed using a Fourier series before being used in the simulation. It is found that although the power output depends on the input frequency, the choice of tuning the natural frequency of the device to coincide with a particular higher harmonic is restricted by the amount of damping that is needed to maximize the amount of power harvested, as well as to comply with the size limit of the device. It is also found that it is not feasible to tune the device to match the first few harmonics when the size of the device is small, because a large amount of damping is required to limit the motion of the mass.

Calcaneal Tendon Regions Exhibit Different MMP-2 Activation After Vertical Jumping and Treadmill Running

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Effect of soccer training on the running speed and the blood lactate concentration at the lactate minimum test

Tegtbur et al. [23] devised a new method able to estimate the intensity at maximal lactate steady state termed lactate minimum test. According to Billat et al. [7], no studies have yet been published on the affect of training on highest blood lactate concentration that can be maintained over time without continual blood lactate accumulation. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to verify the effect of soccer training on the running speed and the blood lactate concentration (BLC) at the lactate minimum test (Lac(min)). Thirteen Brazilian male professional soccer players, all members of the same team playing at National level, volunteered for this study. Measurements were carried out before (pre) and after (post) eight weeks of soccer training. The Lac(min) test was adapted to the procedures reported by Tegtbur et al. [23]. The running speed at the Lac(min) test was taken when the gradient of the line was zero. Differences in running speed and blood lactate concentration at the Lac(min) test before (pre) and after (post) the training program were evaluated by Student's paired t-test. The training program increased the running speed at the Lac(min) test (14.94 +/- 0.21 vs. 15.44 +/- 0.42* km(.)h(-1)) and the blood lactate concentration (5.11 +/- 2.31 vs. 6.93 +/- 1.33* mmol(.)L(-1)). The enhance in the blood lactate concentration may be explained by an increase in the lactate/H+ transport capacity of human skeletal muscle verified by other authors.

Effect of a previous high intensity running exercise on isokinetic muscular strength in individuals with different training backgrounds

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Validity of the running anaerobic sprint test for assessing anaerobic power and predicting short-distance performances

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Stress biomarkers in rats submitted to swimming and treadmill running exercises

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)