In this paper, the authors present an extended survey on the evolution and the modern approaches in the thermal analysis of electrical machines. The improvements and the new techniques proposed in the last decade are analyzed in depth and compared in order to highlight the qualities and defects of each. In particular, thermal analysis based on lumped-parameter thermal network, finite-element analysis, and computational fluid dynamics are considered in this paper. In addition, an overview of the problems linked to the thermal parameter determination and computation is proposed and discussed. Taking into account the aims of this paper, a detailed list of books and papers is reported in the references to help researchers interested in these topics.

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Evolution and Modern Approaches for Thermal Analysis of Electrical Machines

An automated irrigation system was developed to optimize water use for agricultural crops. The system has a distributed wireless network of soil-moisture and temperature sensors placed in the root zone of the plants. In addition, a gateway unit handles sensor information, triggers actuators, and transmits data to a web application. An algorithm was developed with threshold values of temperature and soil moisture that was programmed into a microcontroller-based gateway to control water quantity. The system was powered by photovoltaic panels and had a duplex communication link based on a cellular-Internet interface that allowed for data inspection and irrigation scheduling to be programmed through a web page. The automated system was tested in a sage crop field for 136 days and water savings of up to 90% compared with traditional irrigation practices of the agricultural zone were achieved. Three replicas of the automated system have been used successfully in other places for 18 months. Because of its energy autonomy and low cost, the system has the potential to be useful in water limited geographically isolated areas.

Automated Irrigation System Using a Wireless Sensor Network and GPRS Module

A natural carbohydrate biopolymer was extracted from the agricultural biomass waste (durian seed). Subsequently, the crude biopolymer was purified by using the saturated barium hydroxide to minimize the impurities. Finally, the effect of different drying techniques on the flow characteristics and functional properties of the purified biopolymer was investigated. The present study elucidated the main functional characteristics such as flow characteristics, water- and oil-holding capacity, solubility, and foaming capacity. In most cases except for oven drying, the bulk density decreased, thus increasing the porosity. This might be attributed to the increase in the inter-particle voids of smaller sized particles with larger contact surface areas per unit volume. The current study revealed that oven-dried gum and freeze-dried gum had the highest and lowest compressibility index, thus indicating the weakest and strongest flowability among all samples. In the present work, the freeze-dried gum showed the lowest angle of repose, bulk, tapped and true density. This indicates the highest porosity degree of freeze dried gum among dried seed gums. It also exhibited the highest solubility, and foaming capacity thus providing the most desirable functional properties and flow characteristics among all drying techniques. The present study revealed that freeze drying among all drying techniques provided the most desirable functional properties and flow characteristics for durian seed gum.

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Effect of different drying techniques on flowability characteristics and chemical properties of natural carbohydrate-protein Gum from durian fruit seed.

A joint initiative by the British Thoracic Society and the Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery in Great Britain and Ireland was undertaken to update the 2001 guidelines for the selection and assessment of patients with lung cancer who can potentially be managed by radical treatment.

https://thorax.bmj.com/content/thoraxjnl/65/Suppl_3/iii1.full.pdf

Guidelines on the radical management of patients with lung cancer

In this paper, we present four purely textile patch antennas for Bluetooth applications in wearable computing using the frequency range around 2.4 GHz. The textile materials and the planar antenna shape provide a smooth integration into clothing while preserving the typical properties of textiles. The four antennas differ in the deployed materials and in the antenna polarization, but all of them feature a microstrip line as antenna feed. We have developed a manufacturing process that guarantees unaffected electrical behavior of the individual materials when composed to an antenna. Thus, the conductive textiles possess a sheet resistance of less than 1Omega/squarein order to keep losses at a minimum. The process also satisfies our requirements in terms of accuracy meeting the Bluetooth specifications. Our investigations not only characterize the performance of the antennas in planar shape, but also under defined bending conditions that resemble those of a worn garment. We show that the antennas can withstand clothing bends down to a radius of 37.5 mm without violating specifications

/pdf/design-and-characterization-of-purely-textile-patch-antennas-2nanw0dxzs.pdf

Design and Characterization of Purely Textile Patch Antennas

This paper describes a processing technique that can be used to combine the pieces of information coming from different medical analyses. Such a technique is based on a mixed neural-and-conventional processing that allows both an easy neural network training and a robust estimation to be obtained. The paper is focused on the differentiation of asthma, bronchitis and emphysema by using functional non-invasive tests only, but the proposed technique can be easily applied to several different situations.

/pdf/mixed-neural-conventional-processing-to-differentiate-airway-331xn9dy8a.pdf

Mixed neural-conventional processing to differentiate airway diseases by means of functional non-invasive tests

Measurement is fundamental to medical research and clinical practice. Physicians, clinicians, and medical laboratory scientists must not only be able to detect and diagnose health issues but also have confidence in the results reported by their instruments and measurement methods in order to make the correct decision for their patients. Reliability, accuracy, and efficiency of the implemented methods and devices are, therefore, the main concerns of researchers working in the field of medical measurements and applications. 

Guest Editorial for Recent Advances in Medical, Biomedical, and Healthcare Measurements Special Section

Rotating-coil measurement systems are widely used to measure the multipolar fields of particle accelerator magnets. This paper presents a rotating-coil measurement system that aims at providing a complete data set for the characterization of quadrupole magnets with small bore diameters (26 mm). The PCB magnetometer design represents a challenging goal for this type of transducer. It is characterized by an aspect ratio 30% higher than the state of the art, imposed by the reduced dimension of the external radius of the rotating shaft and the necessity of covering the entire magnet effective length (500 mm or higher). The system design required a novel design for the mechanical asset, also considering the innovation represented by the commercial carbon fiber tube, housing the PCB magnetometer. Moreover, the measurement system is based primarily on standard and commercially available components, with simplified control and post-processing software applications. The system and its components are cross-calibrated using a stretched-wire system and another rotating-coil system. The measurement precision is established in a measurement campaign performed on a quadrupole magnet characterized by an inner bore diameter of 45 mm.

/pdf/rotating-coil-measurement-system-for-small-bore-diameter-1xs96hd9.pdf

Rotating-Coil Measurement System for Small-Bore-Diameter Magnet Characterization

This paper deals with the traceability-assurance problems that are faced when a distributed measuring system is employed. These problems are highlighted for different distributed-system architecture, then a set of guidelines is provided in order to correctly manage such systems from a metrological point of view. The proposed solution is based on a network-assisted calibration procedure, which requires suitable travelling standards that are sent to the nodes of a distributed system under calibration and are remotely controlled through the Internet. Two prototypes of travelling standard are also described that have been designed in order to implement the proposed calibration procedure. The first prototype can be used for the calibration of system, which require tight temporal coherence, while the second one is able to calibrate measuring nodes that monitor the chemical pollution.

Traceability Issues in Distributed Measuring Systems

A garden building located in Torino, 25 VERDE, designed by the architect Luciano Pia is object of a monitoring diagnostic campaign, started in 2016 and still in progress, for ensuring a long-lasting sustainable preservation. The residential complex of sixty-three apartments conceived as a habitable forest in which almost 200 trees cut down the fine dust caused by cars, is characterized by irregularly shaped terraces, supported by weathering steel tree-like structures. The weathering steels or high-strength low alloy steels have a unique interesting characteristic: they corrode under proper environmental conditions, forming a compact and tightly adherent oxide barrier that seals out the atmosphere and retards further corrosion. Dry and wet cycles create a protecting patina layer, meanwhile the constant presence of humidity and of aggressive gaseous pollutants (SO2, NOx, etc) in the atmosphere degrades the properties of the layer. The diagnostic intervention is centered in the monitoring of the weathering steel structures by means of in situ electrochemical techniques, as Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS). The experimental data confirm that the high sensitivity and low invasiveness of EIS makes it a powerful technique for corrosion assessment of metallic structures exposed outdoor.

Marco Parvis

Papers

Mixed neural-conventional processing to differentiate airway diseases by means of functional non-invasive tests

Guest Editorial for Recent Advances in Medical, Biomedical, and Healthcare Measurements Special Section

Rotating-Coil Measurement System for Small-Bore-Diameter Magnet Characterization

Traceability Issues in Distributed Measuring Systems

Garden building diagnostic systems for sustainable preservation