Search Results (3)

Wind turbine (WT) technology becomes more and more important due to the serious environmental and energy issues. The toothed poles outer rotor doubly salient permanent magnet (DSPM) generator with simple and durable design, high torque and high-power density has a great prospect in wind turbines application. The large diameter makes the construction of such a machine more convenient due to the installation of the turbine blades directly to the outer rotor generator surface. Nevertheless, the size of the generator must be increased to provide larger output power. This increases the generator’s mass. Thus, larger massive DSPM generators are undesirable in wind turbine design. In this paper, an optimization design procedure of the outer rotor doubly salient permanent magnet generator ORDSPMG is proposed for 10 kW WT application. The reduction of the generator weight is demonstrated and proofed. The considered machine version is characterized by having the same effective axial length and output torque imposed by the specifications relative to the 10 kW direct drive WT. An optimization procedure using a fast and effective method, namely the symbiotic organism search (SOS) algorithm coupled to a parametric two dimensional finite elements analysis (2D-FEA), is employed to optimize the machine parameters. The main parameters affecting the generator design are also analyzed. The results obtained reveal that the proposed generator topology presents low weight and thus high torque density among other satisfactory characteristics. Full article

Background: Brain metastasis from breast cancer (bca) in young women is doubly devastating because both quality of life and life expectancy are significantly reduced. With new radiation technology and drugs that have emerged, survival is expected to increase for these young women. Methods: Using the oacis and sardo patient databases, we identified 121 patients diagnosed with bca and brain metastasis between 2006 and 2016 at the University of Montreal Hospital Centre. Those patients were divided into Group A, patients who developed brain metastasis during the evolution of metastatic bca, and Group B, patients whose first metastasis was to the brain. For each group, we compared young patients (<40 years of age) with older patients (≥40 years of age). Results: Among the 121 patients with brain metastasis, median overall survival (mos) was significantly longer for those less than 40 years of age than for those 40 or more years of age (18 months vs. 4 months, p < 0.001). With respect to the timing of brain metastasis, survival was significantly longer in Group B than in Group A (7 months vs. 4 months, p = 0.032). In Group A, mos was significantly longer for patients less than 40 years of age than for patients 40 or more years of age (18 months vs. 3 months, p = 0.0089). In Group B, the 2-year overall survival rate was 57% for patients less than 40 years of age and 12% for those 40 or more years of age (mos: not reached vs. 7 months; p = 0.259). Conclusions: In our single-centre retrospective cohort of women with brain metastasis from bca, prognosis was better for young women (<40 years) than for older women (≥40 years). Survival was also longer for patients whose initial metastasis was to the brain than for patients whose brain metastasis developed later in the disease course. In patients who received systemic treatment, median survival remained significantly higher in women less than 40 years of age. Further studies are needed to validate those results. Full article

Pyoderma gangrenosum (PG) is a rare neutrophilic dermatosis characterized by painful necrotic ulceration affecting preferentially the lower extremities. Diagnosis is challenging, and a thorough workup (including biopsy) is required. In this case report, we describe a 67-year-old patient with a diagnosis of myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) who developed fever and PG two days after the first cycle of subcutaneous azacitidine (Vidaza; Celgene Corporation, Summit, NJ, USA). On physical examination, the patient had four erythematous plaques at sites of subcutaneous injections of azacitidine on the arms, as well as three other plaques in proximity. A skin biopsy demonstrated a dense neutrophilic interstitial infiltrate in the dermis. After the diagnosis of PG, prednisone 1 mg/kg was started and the fever subsided rapidly. This was followed by the resolution of the cutaneous lesions. Changing the route of administration of azacitidine from subcutaneous to intravenous and adding a daily dose of prednisone during the treatment allowed the patient to receive a total of 10 cycles of azacitidine. This is the second case reported in the literature. Because azacitidine is frequently used in mds and acute myeloid leukemia, clinicians should be aware of this rare cutaneous adverse event. Our approach can be used to avoid the recurrence of PG when continuing azacitidine treatment. Full article