Childhood obesity is a prevalent problem in the United States. Obesity increases the risk for many diseases. Obese children are likely to become obese adults with additional comorbidities. Studies have reported mixed findings regarding associations between reading nutrition labels and improved dietary behaviors/healthy weight status. The purpose of this study is to determine whether the frequency of children reading nutrition labels is related to frequency of performing 12 dietary behaviors. De-identified baseline data from a previous quasiexperimental pilot study were analyzed. Data were collected from 4th and 5th graders (n = 42) at an after-school program. An adapted paper survey was administered to the children to measure the number of days (0–7) they read nutrition labels and performed 12 dietary behaviors over the preceding week. Due to non-normal distribution of data, non-parametric Spearman rho correlations were conducted to determine relationships between frequency of reading nutrition labels and dietary behaviors. Positive correlations were found between frequency of reading nutrition labels and eating fruit for breakfast; eating vegetables at lunch/dinner; eating whole grain/multigrain bread (p < .05); eating fruit for a snack; eating vegetables for a snack (p < .01). Frequency of reading nutrition labels was inversely related to drinking soda/sugar-sweetened beverages (p < .05). Significant relationships were found between frequency of reading nutrition labels and several dietary behaviors associated with childhood obesity prevention. Findings are promising and support the need for further intervention research to determine potential direct influences of children reading nutrition labels on dietary behaviors.

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Yes / The essay revisits the puzzle of the ‘passage’ of time in relation to EPR-type measurements and asks what philosophical consequences can be drawn from them. Some argue that the lack of invariance of temporal order in the measurement of a space-like related EPR pair, under relativistic motion, casts serious doubts on the ‘reality’ of the lapse of time. Others argue that certain features of quantum mechanics establish a tensed theory of time – understood here as Possibilism or the growing block universe. The paper analyzes the employment of frame-invariant entropic clocks in a relativistic setting and argues that tenselessness does not imply timelessness. But this conclusion does not support a tensed theory of time, which requires a preferred foliation. It is argued that the only reliable inference from the EPR example and the use of entropic clocks is an inference not just to a Leibnizian order of the succession of events but a frame-invariant order according to some selected clocks.

Investigation of momentum and heat transfer between the fluid and solid phase is critical to the study of fluid-particle systems. Dense suspensions are characterized by the solid fraction (ratio of solid volume to total volume), the particle Reynolds number, and the shape of the particle. The behavior of non-spherical particles deviates considerably from spherical particle shapes which have been studied extensively in the literature. Momentum transfer, to first-order, is driven by drag forces experienced by the particles in suspension, followed by lift and lateral forces, and also through the transmission of fluid torque to the particles. The subject of this thesis is a family of prolate ellipsoidal particle geometries of aspect ratios (AR) 2.5, 5.0 and 10.0 at nominal solid fractions (φ) between 0.1 and 0.3, and suspensions of cylinders of AR=0.25. The nominal particle Reynolds number (Re) is varied between 10 to 200, representative of fluidized beds. Fluid forces and heat transfer coefficients are obtained numerically by Particle Resolved Simulations (PRS) using the Immersed Boundary Method (IBM). The method enables the calculation of the interstitial flow and pressure field surrounding each particle in suspension leading to the direct integration of fluid forces acting on each particle in the suspension. A substantial outcome of the research is the development of a new drag force correlation for random suspensions of prolate ellipsoids over the full range of geometries and conditioned studied. In many practical applications, especially as the deviation from the spherical shape increases, particles are not oriented randomly to the flow direction, resulting in suspensions which have a mean preferential orientation. It is shown that the mean suspension drag varies linearly with the orientation parameter, which varies from -2.0 for particles oriented parallel to the flow direction to 1.0 for particles normal to the flow direction. This result is significant as it allows easy calculation of drag force for suspension with any preferential orientation. The heat transfer coefficient or Nusselt number is investigated for prolate ellipsoid suspensions. Significantly, two methods of calculating the heat transfer coefficient in the literature are reconciled and it is established that one asymptotes to the other. It is also established that unlike the drag force, at low Reynolds number the suspension mean heat transfer coefficient is very sensitive to the spatial distribution of particles or local-to-particle solid fractions. For the same mean solid fraction, suspensions dominated by particle clusters or high local solid fractions can exhibit Nusselt numbers which are lower than the minimum Nusselt number imposed by pure conduction on a single particle in isolation. This results from the dominant effect of thermal wakes at low Reynolds numbers. As the Reynolds number increases, the effect of particle clusters on heat transfer becomes less consequential. For the 0.25 aspect ratio cylinder, it was found that while existing correlations under predicted the drag forces, a sinusoidal function F_(d,θ)=F_(d,θ=0°)+(F_(d,θ=90°)-F_(d,θ=0°) )sin⁡(θ) captured the variation of normalized drag with respect to inclination angle over the range 10≤Re≤300 and 0≤φ≤0.3. Further the mean ensemble drag followed F_d=F_(d,θ=0°)+1/2(F_(d,θ=90°)-F_(d,θ=0°)). It was shown that lift forces were between 20% to 80% of drag forces and could not be neglected in models of fluid-particle interaction forces. Comparing the pitching fluid torque to collision torque during an elastic collision showed that as the particle equivalent diameter, density, and collision velocities decreased, fluid torque could be of the same order of magnitude as collisional torque and it too could not be neglected from models of particle transport in suspensions. / Doctor of Philosophy / Momentum and heat exchange between the fluids (air, water…) and suspensions of solid particles plays a critical role in power generation, chemical processing plants, pharmaceuticals, in the environment, and many other applications. One of the key components in momentum exchange are the forces felt by the particles in the suspension due to the flow of the fluid around them and the amount of heat the fluid can transfer to or from the particles. The fluid forces and heat transfer depend on many factors, chief among them being the properties of the fluid (density, viscosity, thermal properties) and the properties of the particles in the suspension (size, shape, density, thermal properties, concentration). This introduces a wide range of parameters that have the potential to affect the way the fluid and particles behave and move. Experimental measurements are very difficult and expensive to conduct in these systems and computational modeling can play a key role in characterization. For accuracy, computational models have to have the correct physical laws encoded in the software. The objective of this thesis is to use very high-fidelity computer models to characterize the forces and heat transfer under different conditions to develop general formulas or correlations which can then be used in less expensive computer models. Three basic particle shapes are considered in this study, a sphere, a disk like cylindrical particles, and particles of ellipsoidal shapes. More specifically, Particle Resolved Simulations of flow through suspensions of ellipsoids with aspect ratio of 2.5, 5, 10 and cylinders with aspect ratio of 0.25 are performed. The Reynolds number range covered is [10, 200] for ellipsoids and [10, 300] for cylinders with solid fraction range of [0.1, 0.3]. New fluid drag force correlations are proposed for the ellipsoid and cylinder suspensions, respectively, and heat transfer behavior is also investigated.

This PhD work has been dedicated to the improvement of the modelling of air condensers of both round tube and fins (RTPFs) and Minichannel technologies. The calculation platform employed is IMST-ART. This is a dedicated software for the design of refrigeration, air-conditioning and heat pump equipment following the vapor compression cycle. The model implemented in IMST-ART for condensers and evaporators is the combination of a segment-by-segment approach with the numerical method SEWTLE (Semi Explicit method for Wall Temperature Linked Equations) for the solution of the resulting system of equations. The target of the first part of this thesis was the comparative analysis of the empirical correlations aimed at the evaluation of the heat transfer coefficients and pressure drop in both the air and refrigerant sides of a condenser. The Literature review pointed out the presence of many studies concerning the condensation modelling. Therefore, after selecting the most interesting to compare, the first objective of this first part of the PhD became the identification of a suitable methodology for defining the best combination of correlations for the estimation of the thermo-hydraulic performance of the condensers. After an in-depth analysis of different possibilities, a well-defined methodology was identified as the best for the purpose. In the thesis, it was successfully applied to the identification of the best set of correlations for the heat transfer coefficients and friction factors for both the round-tube and minichannel condensers. The second part of the PhD was targeted to the improvement of the condensation modelling. In particular, the attention was focused on the analysis of the phenomena taking place at the beginning of the condensation process, when the superheated vapor finds the wall of the condenser being at a temperature lower than the refrigerant saturation temperature, i.e. convective condensation superheated vapor zone (CSH zone). It is well known that, in this zone, the condensation starts with some kind of droplet/thin film condensation on the walls. Afterwards, the bulk of the refrigerant flow reaches the saturation temperature and the condensation occurs at saturated conditions. Hence, the PhD thesis has been dedicated to the implementation in the general model for condensers (in IMST-ART software) of this CSH zone, which it was found to have an important effect on the prediction of the wall temperatures distribution in the tested air condensers. Two different numerical solutions were implemented and compared, i.e. Temperature and Enthalpy approaches, and validated against experimental results. Prediction results are very similar, thus the Enthalpy approach was selected because it required lower computational time. The final part of thesis was oriented towards the study of the effect of airflow maldistribution on the performance of air condensers. An innovative experimental methodology for generating and measuring any uneven air velocity profile at the inlet of a heat exchanger was first developed in a dedicated wind tunnel and then applied for the analysis of the performance degradation of one sample of condenser of each RTPFs and Minichannel technologies. Three different velocity profiles were produced and tested along a wide set of operating conditions, including different refrigerant charges and hence subcoolings. The experimental results showed that, although differences in wall temperature distribution were significant, the effect of air maldistribution on the performance of the two tested condensers was small. The improved model was validated against the experimental results and also showed little effect on condenser performance. Finally, the agreement between the results of the simulation and the experimental results was very satisfactory. / Este trabajo de doctorado se ha dedicado a la mejora del modelado de condensadores de aire, con tecnología de tubos y aletas o minicanales. La plataforma de software empleada es IMST-ART, que es un software dedicado a asistir el diseño de equipos de refrigeración, aire acondicionado y bomba de calor, basados en el ciclo de compresión de vapor. El modelo de IMST-ART para condensadores y evaporadores se basa en una aproximación segmento a segmento combinada con el método numérico SEWTLE (Semi Explicit method for Wall Temperature Linked Equations) para la solución del sistema de ecuaciones resultante. El objetivo de la primera parte de esta tesis fue el análisis comparativo de las correlaciones empíricas destinadas a evaluar los coeficientes de transferencia de calor y la caída de presión para condensadores de aire, tanto para el lado del aire como para el del refrigerante. La revisión de la Literatura mostró la existencia de numerosos estudios sobre el modelado de la condensación en este tipo de intercambiadores. Por lo tanto, después de la selección de las correlaciones más interesantes a comparar, el primer objetivo de esta primera parte de la tesis resultó el encontrar la metodología más adecuada para la identificación de cuáles eran las correlaciones que mejor estimaban el comportamiento termo-hidráulico de los condensadores. Después de un análisis en profundidad de diferentes posibilidades, se encontró la metodología claramente más adecuada y se pasó a aplicarla a la identificación del mejor conjunto de correlaciones para los coeficientes de transferencia de calor y factores de fricción para condensadores de aire. La segunda parte del doctorado se dirigió a la mejora del modelado del comienzo del proceso de condensación cuando el vapor sobrecalentado encuentra la pared del condensador a una temperatura que está por debajo de la temperatura de saturación del refrigerante en lo que se puede denominar como condensación convectiva en la zona de vapor sobrecalentado (zona CSH). Es bien sabido que la condensación comienza en esta zona con algún tipo de condensación de gotas/película delgada sobre las paredes antes de que el núcleo del flujo de refrigerante alcance la temperatura de saturación y la condensación se produzca en condiciones saturadas. La segunda parte del doctorado se ha dedicado a la implementación en el modelo general de condensadores (en el software IMST-ART) de esta zona CSH, que se encontró que tenía un efecto importante en la predicción de la distribución de las temperaturas de la pared en los condensadores de aire ensayados. Se implementaron y compararon dos soluciones numéricas diferentes, denominados aproximación de temperatura y aproximación de entalpía respectivamente, y se validaron por comparación con resultados experimentales. La predicción resultó ser muy similar con ambas aproximaciones por lo que finalmente se seleccionó la aproximación de entalpía por ser considerablemente más rápida. La parte final de la tesis se orientó hacia el estudio del efecto de la mala distribución del flujo de aire en el rendimiento de los condensadores de aire. Para este fin se desarrolló una metodología experimental innovadora capaz de generar y medir cualquier perfil de velocidad de aire no uniforme a la entrada de un intercambiador de calor. El desarrollo se llevó a cabo primero en un túnel de viento específicamente dedicado a este propósito y luego se aplicó para el análisis de la degradación de las prestaciones de dos muestras de condensador de cada una de las tecnologías estudiades: RTPFs y Minicanal. Mediante la metodología desarrollado se generaron tres perfiles de velocidad diferentes que se ensayaron a lo largo de un amplio conjunto de condiciones de funcionamiento, incluyendo diferentes cargas de refrigerante y, por tanto, grados de subenfriamiento en el refrigerante. Los resultados experimentales mostraron que el efecto de la mala distrib / Aquest treball de doctorat s'ha dedicat a la millora de la modelització de condensadors d'aire, amb tecnologia de tubs i aletes o minicanals. La plataforma de software emprada és IMST-ART, que és un software dedicat a assistir el disseny d'equips de refrigeració, aire condicionat i bomba de calor, basats en el cicle de compressió de vapor. El model de IMST-ART per condensadors i evaporadors es basa en una aproximació segment a segment combinada amb el mètode numèric SEWTLE (Semi Explicit method for Wall Temperature Linked Equations) per a la solució del sistema d'equacions resultant. L'objectiu de la primera part d'aquesta tesi va ser l'anàlisi comparativa de les correlacions empíriques destinades a avaluar els coeficients de transferència de calor i la caiguda de pressió per condensadors d'aire, tant per al costat de l'aire com per al del refrigerant. La revisió de la Literatura va mostrar l'existència de nombrosos estudis sobre la modelització de la condensació en aquest tipus d'intercanviadors. Per tant, després de la selecció de les correlacions més interessants a comparar, el primer objectiu d'aquesta primera part de la tesi va resultar el trobar la metodologia més adequada per a la identificació de quines eren les correlacions que millor estimaven el comportament termo-hidràulic dels condensadors. Després d'una anàlisi en profunditat de diferents possibilitats, es va trobar la metodologia clarament més adequada i es va passar a aplicar-la a la identificació del millor conjunt de correlacions per als coeficients de transferència de calor i factors de fricció per condensadors d'aire. La segona part del doctorat es va dirigir a la millora de la modelització del començament del procés de condensació quan el vapor sobreescalfat troba la paret del condensador a una temperatura que està per sota de la temperatura de saturació del refrigerant, en el que es pot denominar com condensació convectiva a la zona de vapor sobreescalfat (zona CSH). És ben sabut que la condensació comença en aquesta zona amb algun tipus de condensació de gotes/pel·lícula sobre les parets abans que el nucli del flux de refrigerant arribi a la temperatura de saturació i la condensació es produeixi en condicions saturades. La segona part del doctorat s'ha dedicat a la implementació en el model general de condensadors (en el programari IMST-ART) d'aquesta zona CSH, que es va trobar que tenia un efecte important en la predicció de la distribució de les temperatures de la paret en els condensadors d'aire assajats. Es van implementar i van comparar dues solucions numèriques diferents, denominades aproximació de temperatura i aproximació d'entalpia respectivament, i es van validar per comparació amb resultats experimentals. La predicció va resultar ser molt semblant amb les dues aproximacions pel que finalment es va seleccionar l'aproximació d'entalpia per ser considerablement més ràpida. La part final de la tesi es va orientar cap a l'estudi de l'efecte de la mala distribució del flux d'aire en el rendiment dels condensadors d'aire. Amb aquesta finalitat es va desenvolupar una metodologia experimental innovadora capaç de generar i mesurar qualsevol perfil de velocitat d'aire no uniforme a l'entrada d'un intercanviador de calor. El desenvolupament es va dur a terme primer en un túnel de vent específicament dedicat a aquest propòsit i després es va aplicar per a l'anàlisi de la degradació de les prestacions de dues mostres de condensador de cadascuna de les tecnologies estudiades: RTPFs i Minicanal. Mitjançant la metodologia desenvolupada es van generar tres perfils de velocitat diferents que es van assajar al llarg d'un ampli conjunt de condicions de funcionament, incloent càrregues diferents de refrigerant i, per tant, graus de subrefredament en el refrigerant. Els resultats experimentals van mostrar que l'efecte de la mala distribució de l'aire en les prestacions dels dos condensadors provats va / Pisano, A. (2017). Analysis of the condensation process and air maldistribution in finned tube and minichannel condensers [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/86182

No / The ability to generate predictive models linking the in vitro assessment of pharmaceutical products with in vivo performance has the potential to enable greater control of clinical quality whilst minimizing the number of in vivo studies in drug development. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) provide a means of generating predictive models correlating critical product characteristics to key performance attributes. In this regard, ANNs have been used to model historical data exploring the relative lung bioavailability of salbutamol from several different nebulizers. The generated ANN model was shown to relate urinary salbutamol excretion at 30 min postinhalation, which is the index of relative lung bioavailability of salbutamol, to specific fractions of the particle size distribution, to subject body surface area and to the methods of nebulization. This model was validated using unseen data and gave good agreement with pharmacokinetic outcomes for 17 data records. The model gave improved predictions of urinary salbutamol excretion for individual subjects compared to the published linear correlation generated using the same data. It is therefore concluded that ANN models have the potential to provide reliable estimates of pharmacokinetic performance that relate to lung deposition, for nebulized medicines in individual subjects.