Many young engineers consider cement plants pretty complicated because of their weird technology. The reason probably lies in the fact that you cannot understand all those technologies unless you worked in such a plant and saw all processes from scratch.... Read more

The post The essentials of electrical systems in cement plants appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Hydropower plants, one of the major sources of energy in countries with an abundance of water resources, have unique generation and power evacuation characteristics. From mere kilowatts to thousands of megawatts, they come in every shape and size. In this... Read more

The post Major steps in designing generation and power evacuation in large hydropower plants appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Nowadays, when we all see and feel the colossal crisis looming on the horizon, the question of energy security is among the first things on the table in each country’s management. It’s now essential more than ever for each country... Read more

The post Electrical engineering for hydropower, from run-of-river to pumped storage plants appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Most compensation banks are controlled stepwise. For this purpose it is essential to ‘know’ when it is allowed to (de)activate a capacitor step by the power factor relay (controller). The so-called C/k value is calculated by the step size C... Read more

The post How To Control Reactive Power In Larger Electrical Plants With Multiple Incomers appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

The objective of the site inspection and test plan for testing and commissioning is to establish a comprehensive framework for conducting site testing and commissioning activities. It’s as simple as that! The site testing and commissioning of a transmission or... Read more

The post Dos and don’ts in site testing and commissioning distribution and transmission plants appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Power generating plants are always a capital investment in all countries across the world. Not many countries are building new generating plants nowadays. As we all feel, a worldwide energy crisis of unparalleled severity and complexity is currently underway. The... Read more

The post Which types of power generating plants are worth planning and constructing nowadays? appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

PepsiCo, Inc. recently announced plans to achieve 100% renewable electricity for its U.S. direct operations this year. The U.S. is the food and beverage company’s largest market and accounts for nearly half of its total global electricity consumption.

The funding is part of a total of €380m and falls under the Chips Joint Undertaking.

Read more: EU invests €133m in Dutch photonic chip plants

G.D., the Italian solutions provider to the manufacturing industry, has chosen Panasonic TOUGHBOOK devices to manage and operate its production and packaging machinery. G.D. offers a portfolio of high-speed production lines and a varied array of solutions to meet its manufacturing customers’ needs.

Restore biodiversity in your community.

Wetlands managers have spent years using fire and chemicals to fight phragmites, an invasive reed that chokes everything else out. But coaxing native plants to move back in is difficult.

Aston station adoption planting project helps local people grow.

“More than sixty cannabis plants in various stages of growth” were “seized and subsequently destroyed,” the police confirmed. A police spokesperson said, “Shortly before 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 3, 2024, police officers were on mobile patrol when they had occasion to attend a property in the area of Mission Lane, Pembroke. “A check of the […]

The quirky folks at Fodor’s let me share some of the world’s weirdest plants, fungi, and microorganisms to inspire your #plantnerd bucket list (I’ve seen 5 out of 10 of these weirdos out in the wild!) 10 Plants From Around the World That Will Upset and Delight | Fodor’s Travel

The article EIT Elsewhere | Sharing the World’s Weirdest Plants on Fodor’s Travel originated at EverInTransit.com

Our host, Eric Schulze, has the answer

At a new park in Bosnia and Herzegovina, two dozen gardeners have spent years replicating the Dutch artist's masterpiece using the land as their canvas

Knee replacement doesn’t have to be ‘total’

Using a new method to turn stripped-down plant cells into other types of cells, Penn State biologists explored how structural banding patterns increase the stability of cell walls. They also explored how their assembly goes astray in mutant plant cells, which could inform methods to break down plant cells for biofuels.

Endangered succulents in the Richtersveld have been given a lifeline from poaching, mining, overgrazing, and climate change

India’s federal power minister on Tuesday asked the states that are away from coal resources to consider setting up nuclear-based power plants, besides identifying and listing the power utilities to meet investments to support growing power demand.

The Indian government in its federal budget this year had proposed to partner with private players to develop small nuclear reactors to increase the amount of electricity from sources that do not produce carbon dioxide emissions.

States should consider setting up nuclear power plants at the sites where coal-based thermal power plants have completed their life, Manohar Lal, the country’s power minister, told states as per a government statement.

India’s stringent nuclear compensation laws have hampered talks with foreign power plant builders such as General Electric GE.N and Westinghouse.

The country, which currently has about 8 gigawatts of nuclear capacity, aims to increase it to 20 GW by 2032.

The minister also asked the states to identify and list their power utilities in the country’s stock exchange to meet increasing investment demand in the power sector as well as improve the transmission system to add more renewable capacity.

India has pledged to achieve a net zero carbon emission target by 2070 and has a target of 500 GW of renewable energy by 2030.

Devices that let people with paralysis walk and talk are rapidly improving. Some see a future in which we alter memories and download skills – but major challenges remain

Our ancestors probably used a wide range of plant-based tools that have since been lost to history. Now we're finally getting a glimpse of this Botanic Age

Our ancestors probably used a wide range of plant-based tools that have since been lost to history. Now we're finally getting a glimpse of this Botanic Age

Our ancestors probably used a wide range of plant-based tools that have since been lost to history. Now we're finally getting a glimpse of this Botanic Age

Title: Survey Says: Hair Transplants Make Men Look Younger
Category: Health News
Created: 8/25/2016 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/26/2016 12:00:00 AM

Devices that let people with paralysis walk and talk are rapidly improving. Some see a future in which we alter memories and download skills – but major challenges remain

DNA methylation is one of several epigenetic mechanisms crucial for regulating gene expression in eukaryotic organisms.

The post Scientists Investigate Inner Workings of DNA Methylation in Plants appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

The compound creatine, a popular exercise supplement that only occurs naturally in animal products, could one day be produced in edible plants

Mike Hodgin, director of strategic applications, Meridian Electronics Division discusses enabling and protecting vital medical implants with epoxies.

Cochlear implants—the neural prosthetic cousins of standard hearing aids—can be a tremendous boon for people with profound hearing loss. But many would-be users are turned off by the device’s cumbersome external hardware, which must be worn to process signals passing through the implant. So researchers have been working to make a cochlear implant that sits entirely inside the ear, to restore speech and sound perception without the lifestyle restrictions imposed by current devices.

A new biocompatible microphone offers a bridge to such fully internal cochlear implants. About the size of a grain of rice, the microphone is made from a flexible piezoelectric material that directly measures the sound-induced motion of the eardrum. The tiny microphone’s sensitivity matches that of today’s best external hearing aids.

Cochlear implants create a novel pathway for sounds to reach the brain. An external microphone and processor, worn behind the ear or on the scalp, collect and translate incoming sounds into electrical signals, which get transmitted to an electrode that’s surgically implanted in the cochlea, deep within the inner ear. There, the electrical signals directly stimulate the auditory nerve, sending information to the brain to interpret as sound.

But, says Hideko Heidi Nakajima, an associate professor of otolaryngology at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Eye and Ear, “people don’t like the external hardware.” They can’t wear it while sleeping, or while swimming or doing many other forms of exercise, and so many potential candidates forgo the device altogether. What’s more, incoming sound goes directly into the microphone and bypasses the outer ear, which would otherwise perform the key functions of amplifying sound and filtering noise. “Now the big idea is instead to get everything—processor, battery, microphone—inside the ear,” says Nakajima. But even in clinical trials of fully internal designs, the microphone’s sensitivity—or lack thereof—has remained a roadblock.

Nakajima, along with colleagues from MIT, Harvard, and Columbia University, fabricated a cantilever microphone that senses the motion of a bone attached behind the eardrum called the umbo. Sound entering the ear canal causes the umbo to vibrate unidirectionally, with a displacement 10 times as great as other nearby bones. The tip of the “UmboMic” touches the umbo, and the umbo’s movements flex the material and produce an electrical charge through the piezoelectric effect. These electrical signals can then be processed and transmitted to the auditory nerve. “We’re using what nature gave us, which is the outer ear,” says Nakajima.

Why a cochlear implant needs low-noise, low-power electronics

Making a biocompatible microphone that can detect the eardrum’s minuscule movements isn’t easy, however. Jeff Lang, a professor of electrical engineering at MIT who jointly led the work, points out that only certain materials are tolerated by the human body. Another challenge is shielding the device from internal electronics to reduce noise. And then there’s long-term reliability. “We’d like an implant to last for decades,” says Lang.

In tests of the implantable microphone prototype, a laser beam measures the umbo’s motion, which gets transferred to the sensor tip. JEFF LANG & HEIDI NAKAJIMA

The researchers settled on a triangular design for the 3-by-3-millimeter sensor made from two layers of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), a biocompatible piezoelectric polymer, sandwiched between layers of flexible, electrode-patterned polymer. When the cantilever tip bends, one PVDF layer produces a positive charge and the other produces a negative charge—taking the difference between the two cancels much of the noise. The triangular shape provides the most uniform stress distribution within the bending cantilever, maximizing the displacement it can undergo before it breaks. “The sensor can detect sounds below a quiet whisper,” says Lang.

Emma Wawrzynek, a graduate student at MIT, says that working with PVDF is tricky because it loses its piezoelectric properties at high temperatures, and most fabrication techniques involve heating the sample. “That’s a challenge especially for encapsulation,” which involves encasing the device in a protective layer so it can remain safely in the body, she says. The group had success by gradually depositing titanium and gold onto the PVDF while using a heat sink to cool it. That approach created a shielding layer that protects the charge-sensing electrodes from electromagnetic interference.

The other tool for improving a microphone’s performance is, of course, amplifying the signal. “On the electronics side, a low-noise amp is not necessarily a huge challenge to build if you’re willing to spend extra power,” says Lang. But, according to MIT graduate student John Zhang, cochlear implant manufacturers try to limit power for the entire device to 5 milliwatts, and just 1 mW for the microphone. “The trade-off between noise and power is hard to hit,” Zhang says. He and fellow student Aaron Yeiser developed a custom low-noise, low-power charge amplifier that outperformed commercially available options.

“Our goal was to perform better than or at least equal the performance of high-end capacitative external microphones,” says Nakajima. For leading external hearing-aid microphones, that means sensitivity down to a sound pressure level of 30 decibels—the equivalent of a whisper. In tests of the UmboMic on human cadavers, the researchers implanted the microphone and amplifier near the umbo, input sound through the ear canal, and measured what got sensed. Their device reached 30 decibels over the frequency range from 100 hertz to 6 kilohertz, which is the standard for cochlear implants and hearing aids and covers the frequencies of human speech. “But adding the outer ear’s filtering effects means we’re doing better [than traditional hearing aids], down to 10 dB, especially in speech frequencies,” says Nakajima.

Plenty of testing lies ahead, at the bench and on sheep before an eventual human trial. But if their UmboMic passes muster, the team hopes that it will help more than 1 million people worldwide go about their lives with a new sense of sound.

The work was published on 27 June in the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering.

Dr. Cassandra Quave’s path to her work as a leader in antibiotic drug discovery research initiatives at Emory University in Atlanta started when she was a child and she and her family dealt with her own serious health issues that have had life-long repercussions.

In children who have received a donor medlinkstem cell transplant/medlink, having a varied range of microorganisms in their gut before the transplant

In the United States, around 30-40% of potential donor hearts are excluded from transplant consideration due to insufficient function. This limits available

medlinkColorectal cancer/medlink frequently metastasizes to the liver, and for some patients, surgical removal of liver tumors is not feasible. A

Transplanted hearts functioned longer in mice when the recipients who received the organs were administered with the novel antibody treatment before the surgery.

medlinkUterine transplants/medlink (!--ref1--), though relatively new, have shown promising results. Since the first procedure in 2011, over 100 transplants have been performed globally.

bHighlights:/bul class="group-list punch-points" liCoventry University, UHCW NHS Trust, and MOHAN Foundation collaborate to promote organ donation

Sickle cell disease is an inherited red blood cell disorder that affects hemoglobin, the protein carrying oxygen through the body. In this condition,

Kidney transplantation from a deceased donor with HIV to a recipient who also has HIV is as safe and effective as transplants from donors without HIV.

Companies as well as individual entrepreneurs looking for oxygen or nitrogen seek out an oxygen nitrogen plant in India. India is a developing country nourished with high quality raw materials. In addition, qualified workforce is also...

As another year comes to an end, at lightning speed - if I'm to add, it's nice to take a look back, right? A list of the top 10 houseplants searched globally in the year 2022 has been released by Google

Maybe Christmas is one of the most wonderful times of the year across the globe, but it is high time that we accept, it is a wasteful one as well. We all know how festive seasons are full of traditions and

Maurer, Tracy Nelson, 1965- author

Hummingbird, Nicholas, author

For the first time, power plants on the western coast would receive coal through the coastal shipping route, he said