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Throughout the Master of Arts in Conference Interpreting at the FTI, University of Geneva, Switzerland, which prepares students to work as conference interpreters, the topic of preparedness and what constitutes good preparation for a specific subject, conference or assignment is frequently discussed. Similarly, an interpreter's range of knowledge of the world, or culture générale, is pointed to as absolutely necessary and something that should be constantly improved. This paper examines one small portion of that general cultural knowledge that is Latin. A historical linguistic review of the language is provided as well as a corpus-based analysis of three areas of interest – medicine, law and general cultural references – to find where Latin phrases and expressions are still to be found in modern French and English speeches. The aim is to provide students and beginning interpreters with a tool to improve their knowledge in this area and deal more effectively with Latin when they are confronted with it while working.

SMES technology based on MgB2 superconductor and cryogenic-free cooling can offer a viable solution to power-intensive storage in the short term. One of the main obstacles to the development of dry-cooled SMES systems is the heat load removal due to the AC loss of the superconductor during fast charging and discharging cycles at high power. Accurate knowledge of the amount and distribution of AC loss in the coil is of paramount importance for the sizing and the design of the cooling system and for assessing the possible operational limits of the technology. In this manuscript, the AC loss of a 500 kJ/200 kW multifilamentary MgB2 SMES during charge–discharge cycling at full power is numerically investigated. The methodology and assumptions of the calculation are briefly resumed, and numerical results are reported and discussed in detail. In particular, the time profile and the distribution of the dissipated power all over the coil are reported. An average dissipation of 85.5 mW/m is found all over the coil during one charge–discharge cycle at full power, with a peak of 150.1 mW/m in the turns lying at the ends of the coil.

A three-year research project, called DRYSMES4GRID, was recently funded by the Italian Minister of Economic Development, Italy. The project, which involves five Italian partners (companies, universities, and research institutes), is aimed to demonstrate the feasibility of cost-competitive SMES based on magnesium diboride (MgB2) with a cryogen-free cooling by means of the manufacturing and the testing of a demonstrator with an objective rating of 500 kJ/200 kW. This rating is deemed suitable for disclosing the critical technological aspects of all components in view of practical applications. A further goal of the project is the assessment of the technical and economic benefits that the SMES can bring to real-world electric grids. The general outline and technical objectives of the project are presented in this paper. Preliminary design assumptions and results concerning the MgB2 coil and the power condition system are also discussed. © 2018 IEEE.

This paper evaluates the economic sustainability of different premium power park (PPP) solutions – derived from two prototypes and a theoretical solution – and completes a previous technical analysis of the same PPP solutions. All of these are utility-provided solutions that improve the quality of the electricity delivered at medium voltage (MV) level. We calibrate the study on the potential customers of a PPP, which are MV users sensitive to power quality (PQ) events and badly served. As to PQ events, accidental interruptions and voltage dips are concerned. We evaluate the direct costs caused by PQ events through original and simple cost models developed using different approaches. Even though until today PPPs have not proved to be a winning idea, the results prospect possible future applications of this idea as a consequence of the increasing penetration of dispersed generation, maturation of renewables and developments of energy storage technologies.