admission. This proportion could already be greater in some parts of the country and may increase if referrals of cases of self-poisoning increase faster than the facilities for their assessment and management. The provision of social work and psychiatric expertise in casualty departments may be one means of preventing unnecessary medical admissions without risk to the patients. Dr Blake's and Dr Bramble's figures do not demonstrate, however, that any advantage would attach to medical teams taking over assessment from psychiatrists except that, by implication, assessments would be completed sooner by staff working on the ward full time. What the figures actually suggest is that if assessment of overdoses were left to house doctors there would be an increase in admissions to psychiatric units (by 19°U), outpatients (by 5O°'), and referrals to social services (by 140o). So for house doctors to assess overdoses would provide no economy for the psychiatric or social services. The study does not tell us what the consequences would have been for the six patients who the psychiatrists would have admitted but to whom the house doctors would have offered outpatient appointments. E J SALTER

Vitamin D deficiency.

Impatti, adattamento e vulnerabilita Le cause e le responsabilita dei cambiamenti climatici sono state trattate sul numero di ottobre della rivista Cda. Approfondiamo l’argomento presentando il documento: “Cambiamenti climatici 2007: impatti, adattamento e vulnerabilita” votato ad aprile 2007 dal secondo gruppo di lavoro del Comitato Intergovernativo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Si tratta del secondo di tre documenti che compongono il quarto rapporto sui cambiamenti climatici.

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Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.

Renewable technologies are considered as clean sources of energy and optimal use of these resources minimize environmental impacts, produce minimum secondary wastes and are sustainable based on current and future economic and social societal needs. Sun is the source of all energies. The primary forms of solar energy are heat and light. Sunlight and heat are transformed and absorbed by the environment in a multitude of ways. Some of these transformations result in renewable energy flows such as biomass and wind energy. Renewable energy technologies provide an excellent opportunity for mitigation of greenhouse gas emission and reducing global warming through substituting conventional energy sources. In this article a review has been done on scope of CO2 mitigation through solar cooker, water heater, dryer, biofuel, improved cookstoves and by hydrogen.

https://www.beren.sakarya.edu.tr/sites/beren.sakarya.edu.tr/file/1380752545-07-RenewEn.pdf.pdf

Role of renewable energy sources in environmental protection: A review

The science and technology of ultracapacitors are reviewed for a number of electrode materials, including carbon, mixed metal oxides, and conducting polymers. More work has been done using microporous carbons than with the other materials and most of the commercially available devices use carbon electrodes and an organic electrolytes. The energy density of these devices is 3¯5 Wh/kg with a power density of 300¯500 W/kg for high efficiency (90¯95%) charge/discharges. Projections of future developments using carbon indicate that energy densities of 10 Wh/kg or higher are likely with power densities of 1¯2 kW/kg. A key problem in the fabrication of these advanced devices is the bonding of the thin electrodes to a current collector such the contact resistance is less than 0.1 cm2. Special attention is given in the paper to comparing the power density characteristics of ultracapacitors and batteries. The comparisons should be made at the same charge/discharge efficiency.

Ultracapacitors: Why, How, and Where is the Technology

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) constitute a class of flexible nonlinear models designed to mimic biological neural systems. In this entry, we introduce ANN using familiar econometric terminology and provide an overview of ANN modeling approach and its implementation methods. † Correspondence: Chung-Ming Kuan, Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, 128 Academia Road, Sec. 2, Taipei 115, Taiwan; ckuan@econ.sinica.edu.tw. †† I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the editor, Professor Steven Durlauf, for his patience and constructive comments on early drafts of this entry. I also thank Shih-Hsun Hsu and Yu-Lieh Huang for very helpful suggestions. The remaining errors are all mine.

Artificial neural networks

A three-dimensional model is proposed to describe the heat and mass transport process in drying of wood. The model is based on conservation of mass and energy and uses constant parameters obtained by comparing experimental data with numerical results. The model uses parameter values from literature. Experimental results obtained for temperature profiles during drying of a block of beech wood are compared with the model results. Satisfactory agreement is obtained over a range of drying air temperatures and velocities.

A Three Dimensional Model for Heat and Mass Transfer in Convective Wood Drying

Sustained release Miglitol-loaded poly (d, l-lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) microparticles were prepared using high pressure homogenization-solvent evaporation method. 23 full factorial desig...

Preparation and characterization of miglitol-loaded Poly (d, l-lactide-co-glycolide) microparticles using high pressure homogenization-solvent evaporation method

With high moisture and sugar content, fresh grapes respire and transpire actively after harvest, which contribute to quality loss. Drying can process grapes into raisins for longer shelf-life as well as dehydrated grapes, which can be used for wines or juice production. The pre-treatments, drying method and drying conditions, can significantly influence the quality of final products. In this chapter, firstly, different pretreatments as a necessary operation previous to the drying of grapes into raisins is introduced. These pre-treatments include chemical pre-treatment, physical pretreatment, and blanching. In addition, the quality and drying characteristics of different pre-treatments is summarized too. Secondly, the current status of different technologies for grape drying and their effects on drying kinetics and quality attributes of seedless grapes are described to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of each drying method. These drying methods include the traditional open sun drying, shade drying, hot-air drying, freezing drying, microwave drying, as well as the vacuum impulsed drying. Thirdly, influences of drying on bioactive substances (flavonoids, phenolics, anthocyanin, and resveratrol) and antioxidant capacity of grape by-products including seed, skin, stem, and stalk are also examined. Finally, the future research trends of grape and its by-product drying are indentified and discussed.

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Arun S. Mujumdar

Papers

A Three Dimensional Model for Heat and Mass Transfer in Convective Wood Drying

Preparation and characterization of miglitol-loaded Poly (d, l-lactide-co-glycolide) microparticles using high pressure homogenization-solvent evaporation method

Grape Drying: Current Status and Future Trends

Review of: “GRANULAR FILTRATION OF AEROSOLS AND HYDROSOLS” Chi Tien Butterworths Stoneham, MA 02180 (364 pages; U.S. $69.95)

Control of Industrial Dryers