Summary of the Closing Session

Plausible costs of photovoltaic power plants of concentration are presented. Costs are based as much as possible on the recent experience of solar thermal plants. Efficiencies, on the existing world experience of PV power plants. The result is that the costs of concentrating photovoltaic plants should be of 0.08 ECUs/ kWh, about 1/3 of that of flat module plants, and of the same order of magnitude, even lower, than those attributed to solar thermal plants of present technology.

For the future, high concentration systems based on Si or tandem cells seem to be the most promising, also in the range of costs of the advanced solar thermal plants.     

Fatigue crack in large-scale tubular joints for offshore structures

Tubular members have been used for constructing offshore structures. Large-scale fatigue tests of welded tubular K-joints under the balanced in-plane bending brace were carried out to investigate the fatigue behavior of API 2W Gr.50 steel produced by POSCO. The experimental results were verified by numerical approaches and compared with the IIW, DnV RP-C203 and API RP 2A-WSD design curves. The test results based on the hot spot stress were in agreement with the design curves. The SCF factor for tubular K-jo...     

LIPID AND CHOLESTEROL OXIDATION,COLOR CHANGES,AND VOLATILE PRODUCTION IN IRRADIATED RAW PORK BATTERS WITH DIFFERENT FAT CONTENT1

An emulsion-type product was prepared to determine the effect of irradiation on lipid and cholesterol oxidation, color change, and volatile production in raw pork with different fat contents. Lipid oxidation increased with an increase in fat content or irradiation dose. Irradiated batters had higher cholesterol oxides than nonirradiated, and the major cholesterol oxides formed in irradiated pork batters were 7α- and 7β-hydroxycholesterol. Hunter color a- and b-values of raw pork batters were decreased by irradiation regardless of fat content. Irradiation increased the amount ofvolatiles significantly. Although lipid oxidation of high fat products (10 and 15% fat) was higher than that of low fat products (4%), high fat products did not always produce greater amount of volatiles. In summary, irradiation increased lipid and cholesterol oxidation, volatiles production and had detrimental effects on the color of raw pork batters under aerobic condition.     

Deletion of cell division cycle 2-like 1 gene locus on 1p36 in non-Hodgkin lymphoma

Our laboratories have documented a significantly high occurrence of chromosome 1p36 rearrangements in non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). The cell division cycle 2-like 1(CDC2L1) (also known as TP58 or PITSLRE) gene, a protein kinase implicated in apoptotic signaling, is located at the very distal region of chromosome 1p36 and is likely to be disrupted by structural rearrangements involving 1p36. To determine the molecular consequences of the recurrent involvement of the 1p36 region, we examined metaphases containing 1p36 abnormalities from 31 specimens derived from 26 patients for the possible deletion of CDC2L1 by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) using the TP58clk-1 DNA probe. Twenty-three cases exhibited the loss of CDC2L1 from the abnormal chromosome 1. In 2 of 26 cases, the gene locus was translocated to the partner chromosome, and in four specimens, all derived from one case, CDC2L1 was not deleted. This pilot investigation suggests that 1p36 rearrangements, and consequently the loss of the CDC2L1 gene locus, is important in NHL. This work also opens avenues for further molecular studies and prognostic correlations.     

Stage IA1 cervical adenocarcinoma: definition and treatment

OBJECTIVE: To propose a definition for stage IA1 cervical adenocarcinoma, based on the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) staging system, and to determine if patients meeting criteria might be candidates for conservative surgery. METHODS: Two hundred women were diagnosed with early-stage cervical adenocarcinoma from 1982 to 1996. Histopathologic sections were reviewed by a gynecologic pathologist. Medical records were reviewed, and patients included in this study had microscopically identifiable lesions, up to 3 mm invasive depth, up to 7 mm tumor width, and negative margins if cone biopsy was performed. RESULTS: Twenty-one patients with microinvasive adenocarcinoma met criteria for FIGO stage IA1 carcinoma of the cervix. The median (range) follow-up was 76 (30-172) months and median (range) patient age was 38 (24-75) years. Definitive treatment included type II or III radical hysterectomy in 16 cases, simple abdominal or vaginal hysterectomy in four cases, and loop electrosurgical excision procedure in one case; one patient received adjuvant pelvic radiation. The histologic subtypes were endocervical adenocarcinoma in 18 cases, adenosquamous carcinoma in two cases, and clear-cell adenocarcinoma in one case. There was no evidence of parametrial invasion or lymph node metastases in any patient who had radical surgery, and there were no disease recurrences. CONCLUSION: Patients with microinvasive adenocarcinoma who met criteria for FIGO stage IA1 cervical carcinoma had disease limited to the cervix, and conservative surgery, such as cone biopsy or simple hysterectomy, might offer them definitive treatment.     

Modeling considerations in seismic assessment of RC bridges using state-of-practice structural analysis software tools

The increasing awareness of the general society toward the seismic safety of structures has led to more restrictive performance requirements hence, many times, to the need of using new and more accurate methods of analysis of structures. Among these, nonlinear static procedures are becoming, evermore, the preferred choice of the majority of design codes, as an alternative to complete nonlinear time-history analysis for seismic design and assessment of structures. The many available software tools should therefore be evaluated and well understood, in order to be easily and soundly employed by the practitioners. The study presented herein intends to contribute to this need by providing further insight with respect to the use of commonly employed structural analysis software tools in nonlinear analysis of bridge structures. A comparison between different nonlinear modeling assumptions is presented, together with the comparison with real experimental results. Furthermore, alternative adaptive pushover procedures are proposed and applied to a case study bridge, based on a generic plastic hinge model. The adopted structural analysis program proved to be accurate, yielding reliable estimates, both in terms of local plastic hinge behavior and global structural behavior.