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With the rise of Europe's sustainable economy, dedicated gas networks for carbon capture & storage and hydrogen transport are being developed. In part, they consist of repurposed natural gas grids. Gas flow primary standards that can provide directly traceable and accurate measurements at representative process conditions applicable to the gas grid are scarce due to their cost intensity, and historically developed only for natural gas. VSL's high-pressure natural gas flow primary standard was established more than two decades ago to provide traceability at pressures up to 64 bar(a) and flow rates up to 230 m3/h. Recently, the usage of the standard for nearly pure CO2-gas was assessed. This paper will present the main operational and metrological requirements set when upgrading VSL's high-pressure natural gas flow primary standard to usage with CO2-gas and hydrogen blends with natural gas. Practical methods for fulfilling these requirements are presented and illustrated with examples. These findings will stimulate development of primary gas flow standards and realization of direct traceability for the diverse set of energy transition gases.

This paper reviews and summarises the work that has been conducted and the technology used in exploring and developing the Northern Bowen and Galilee basins in Queensland. It examines the methods operators have used in drilling, completing and testing wells through the varying stages of exploration, appraisal and development in the different parts of the basins. It examines all the work conducted in the Betts Creek Beds and Aramac Coal Measures throughout the Galilee Basin; the Moranbah Coal Measures, Rangal Coal Measures and Fort Cooper Coal Measures in the Moranbah area of the Bowen Basin; the Rangal Coal Measures, Burngrove Formation and Fairhill Formation in the Blackwater area; the conventional and coal seam gas developments in the Rolleston area, including the Bandanna Formation plays near Injune; and the Baralaba Coal Measures in the Moura area. Wells have been completed both open and cased hole with techniques including vertical wells, both with and without hydraulic fracturing and cavitation, as well as a variety of horizontal well designs including surface to inseam wells with vertical intercept wells and multiple lateral sections, chevron wells and both heel and toe intercepts. Operators have also implemented multiple wells on one pad. Throughout the Northern Bowen Basin, horizontal well drilling has been a key technology in commercial development. Generally, activities within the Galilee Basin have not progressed as far as the Bowen Basin, but nevertheless, horizontal wells are also emerging as a key technology.

ABSTRACTThe internationalisation of Higher Education is broadly seen as a positive development. It is a process that is said to contribute to intercultural skills acquisition, which is deemed crucial in today’s globalised society. Yet, research has shown that the benefits of being confronted with other ideas and viewpoints can get lost in translation due to different languages and academic cultures. We set out to explore the impact of the international classroom on study success and argue that there might be an optimum level of internationalisation. Based on a dataset that includes more than 2822 GPA scores for 836 students from four first-year cohorts of an international Bachelor in European Studies, we find strong empirical evidence that students’ study success is lower when there are few (below 3) or many (above 6) different nationalities in the classroom. We find the strongest effects of internationalisation for students who regularly attend class (i.e. 80–90%). Hence, we present strong evidence that internationalisation has a both a negative and a positive impact on students’ study success but students will only experience these beneficial and detrimental effects of learning in an international environment when they attend class.

Automated driving systems, which can take over certain dynamic driving tasks from the driver, are becoming increasingly available in commercial vehicles. One of these automated driving systems widely introduced in commercial vehicles is adaptive cruise control (ACC). This system is designed to maintain certain desired driving speeds and time headways as chosen by drivers and based on the settings available within the system. The properties and actual performance of these systems will affect the traffic flow and its stability. However, the specific properties and their workings are rarely publicly available. Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to test the actual performance of a commercial ACC system under different desired speed and distance gap settings, as well as driving modes in a car-following situation. For this purpose, a pilot field test was conducted in the Netherlands in which two identical commercial vehicles equipped with ACC systems were driven simultaneously. The first vehicle was used to create a pre-specified speed profile by adapting the ACC system settings manually, whereas the second vehicle followed the lead vehicle when the ACC system was engaged to test its actual performance. The main findings indicate that the different system settings affect the car-following indicators, and system response times were found to be comparable to human response times. The eco mode was found to affect some of the car-following indicators, and it does not deteriorate safety below the safety level of driving with short headway setting in drive mode.

AbstractIt is under debate how preferential perfusion of the brain (brain-sparing) in fetal growth restriction (FGR) relates to long-term neurodevelopmental outcome. Epigenetic modification of neurotrophic genes by altered fetal oxygenation may be involved. To explore this theory, we performed a follow-up study of 21 FGR children, in whom we prospectively measured the prenatal cerebroplacental ratio (CPR) with Doppler sonography. At 4 years of age, we tested their neurodevelopmental outcome using the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence, the Child Behavior Checklist, and the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function. In addition, we collected their buccal DNA to determine the methylation status at predefined genetic regions within the genes hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha (HIF1A), vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA), erythropoietin (EPO), EPO-receptor (EPOR), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), and neurotrophic tyrosine kinase, receptor, type 2 (NTRK2) by pyrosequencing. We found that FGR children with fetal brain-sparing (CPR <1, n= 8) demonstrated a trend (0.05 < p< 0.1) toward hypermethylation of HIF1Aand VEGFAat their hypoxia-response element (HRE) compared with FGR children without fetal brain-sparing. Moreover, in cases with fetal brain-sparing, we observed statistically significant hypermethylation at a binding site for cyclic adenosine monophophate response element binding protein (CREB) of BDNFpromoter exon 4 and hypomethylation at an HRE located within the NTRK2promoter (both p<0.05). Hypermethylation of VEGFAwas associated with a poorer Performance Intelligence Quotient, while hypermethylation of BDNFwas associated with better inhibitory self-control (both p<0.05). These results led us to formulate the hypothesis that early oxygen-dependent epigenetic alterations due to hemodynamic alterations in FGR may be associated with altered neurodevelopmental outcome in later life. We recommend further studies to test this hypothesis.