Topic Review
Solar Photovoltaic in Kenya
PV technology has advanced significantly in the last decade and this has presented new opportunities in most economies but with attendant challenges. This topic review explores, from a renewable energy system implementation lens, the key barriers and solutions towards increasing the integration of solar PV in Kenya.
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  • 14 Jan 2021
Topic Review
β-Adrenergic Agonist Residue Point-of-Care Testing
The illegal use of β-adrenergic agonists during livestock growth poses a threat to public health; the long-term intake of this medication can cause serious physiological side effects and even death. Therefore, rapid detection methods for β-adrenergic agonist residues on-site are required. Traditional detection methods such as liquid chromatography have limitations in terms of expensive instruments and complex operations. In contrast, paper methods are low cost, ubiquitous, and portable, which has led to them becoming the preferred detection method in recent years. Various paper-based fluidic devices have been developed to detect β-adrenergic agonist residues, including lateral flow immunoassays (LFAs) and microfluidic paper-based analytical devices (μPADs).
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  • 28 Jul 2022
Topic Review
Rural Logistic Facilities
Transport has long been considered a concern for rural residents around the world. Rural express logistics, one of the transport topics, is associated with rural residents’ convenience as well as e-commerce development. As key nodes in the network, logistic centers need to be properly located to improve the delivery efficiency. In general, existing studies on rural logistics are mostly conducted qualitatively. Most studies focus on policy suggestions on the development of rural e-commerce, while geographic, economic, and population data are not exploited enough. Although some issues such as route design and rural e-commerce are getting attention, there are still very few studies on site selection of rural logistic centers. Much uncertainty still exists about balancing the coverage rates with the operational cost when evaluating the optimal locations for logistic centers in remote rural areas with low population density. Quantitative methods are urgently needed for solving the logistic center locating problem, especially in areas at the early stages of building a rural logistic network.
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  • 23 May 2022
Topic Review
Liver Vessel Segmentation: A Review
The segmentation of liver blood vessels is of major importance as it is essential for formulating diagnoses, planning and delivering treatments, as well as evaluating the results of clinical procedures. Different imaging techniques are available for application in clinical practice, so the segmentation methods should take into account the characteristics of the imaging technique.
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  • 18 Mar 2021
Topic Review
Methanotrophic Bacteria in Wastewater Treatment
Wastewater treatment plants and other remediation facilities serve important roles, both in public health, but also as dynamic research platforms for acquiring useful resources and biomolecules for various applications. An example of this is methanotrophic bacteria within anaerobic digestion processes in wastewater treatment plants. These bacteria are an important microbial source of many products including ectoine, polyhydroxyalkanoates, and methanobactins, which are invaluable to the fields of biotechnology and biomedicine.
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  • 10 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Mechanobiology of Chondrocytes
This entry is associated with a review article, published in MDPI Applied Sciences on 23 April 2020, about the current knowledge on the mechanical stimulation of mesenchymal stem cells for cartilage regeneration. Loading stresses, physiologically experienced by chondrocytes, regulate the production of glycosaminoglycan and collagen, as well as promote and preserve cell viability. Therefore, there is a rising interest in the development of devices that impose mechanical stimuli, such as compression and shear stress, on mesenchymal stem cells. The mentioned review will analyze the dynamics within the joint, the physiological stimuli experienced by the chondrocytes, and how the biomechanical stimulation can be applied to a stem cell culture in order to induce chondrogenesis. In addition to that, paper lists some of the current applications in the field.
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  • 29 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Atrial Fibrillation Arrhythmia Detection Methods
Atrial fibrillation (AF) is still a major cause of disease morbidity and mortality, making its early diagnosis desirable and urging researchers to develop efficient methods devoted to automatic AF detection. Till now, the analysis of electrocardiography (Holter-ECG) recordings remains the gold-standard technique to screen AF. This is usually achieved by studying either RR interval time series analysis, P-wave detection or combinations of both morphological characteristics. After extraction and selection of meaningful features, each of the AF detection methods might be conducted through univariate and multivariate data analysis. Many of these automatic techniques have been proposed over the last years. 
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  • 12 Jul 2022
Topic Review
Propellant Depot
An orbital propellant depot is a cache of propellant that is placed in orbit around Earth or another body to allow spacecraft or the transfer stage of the spacecraft to be fueled in space. It is one of the types of space resource depots that have been proposed for enabling infrastructure-based space exploration. Many different depot concepts exist depending on the type of fuel to be supplied, location, or type of depot which may also include a propellant tanker that delivers a single load to a spacecraft at a specified orbital location and then departs. In-space fuel depots are not necessarily located near or at a space station. Potential users of in-orbit refueling and storage facilities include space agencies, defense ministries and communications satellite or other commercial companies. Satellite servicing depots would extend the lifetime of satellites that have nearly consumed all of their orbital maneuvering fuel and are likely placed in a geosynchronous orbit. The spacecraft would conduct a space rendezvous with the depot, or vice versa, and then transfer propellant to be used for subsequent orbital maneuvers. In 2011, Intelsat showed interest in an initial demonstration mission to refuel several satellites in geosynchronous orbit, but all plans have been since scrapped. A low earth orbit (LEO) depot's primary function would be to provide propellant to a transfer stage headed to the moon, Mars, or possibly a geosynchronous orbit. Since all or a fraction of the transfer stage propellant can be off-loaded, the separately launched spacecraft with payload and/or crew could have a larger mass or use a smaller launch vehicle. With a LEO depot or tanker fill, the size of the launch vehicle can be reduced and the flight rate increased—or, with a newer mission architecture where the beyond-Earth-orbit spacecraft also serves as the second stage, can facilitate much larger payloads—which may reduce the total launch costs since the fixed costs are spread over more flights and fixed costs are usually lower with smaller launch vehicles. A depot could also be placed at Earth-Moon Lagrange point 1 (EML-1) or behind the Moon at EML-2 to reduce costs to travel to the moon or Mars. Placing a depot in Mars orbit has also been suggested.
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  • 22 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Deep Eutectic Solvents (DESs)
Deep eutectic solvents (DESs) are promising green solvents, due to their versatility and properties such as high biodegradability, inexpensiveness, ease of preparation and negligible vapor pressure. They have been employed as green catalysts in biomass transformations and its upgrading into valuable chemicals. 
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  • 18 Mar 2021
Topic Review
Evaluating Geothermal Systems through Life Cycle Assessment
In these days of heightened environmental consciousness, many countries are shifting their focus towards renewable energy sources for both large-scale uses (such as power plants that generate electricity) and smaller-scale applications (e.g., building heating and cooling). Taking into account a holistic method, LCA on the one hand allows to display the whole life cycle of a system from the extraction of raw materials, its creation to the production phase and finally to its disposal. On the other hand, it reveals through multiple environmental impact categories, the hot spots that account for the different stages of the cycle defining the environmental identity of the system and consequently driving policy makers on taking final decisions. Geothermal energy is an extremely viable alternative that, combined with other renewable energy systems, may mitigate the negative effects of the existing energy mix worldwide.
  • 1.2K
  • 18 Aug 2022
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