The presence of pharmaceuticals in the aquatic ecosystem has received great attention from the scientific community in the last decades, due to their potential impact on living organisms. This paper presents a short review of the results of investigations performed by INCD-ECOIND concerning the occurrence of 32 pharmaceutical compounds belonging to important therapeutic classes and 2 disinfectants along the Danube River and its tributaries. Grab water samples were collected from multiple points along the River (10 sites) and from 2 locations for each of the tributaries Jiu, Olt and Argeș, upstream and downstream of large cities. All samples were quantified via solid phase extraction, followed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Results of these studies show that various pharmaceutical compounds are present in the dissolved water phase of the Danube River and its tributaries in low to moderate amounts with variation due to season and location.

Abstract-In this paper the authors present a comparison between optimised versions of three torque sharing functions, with different number of degrees of freedom, used for improving the efficiency in Switched Reluctance Motors. Starting from the basic rectangular variation, the ascending and descending flanks of the function are modeled using a cosine, exponential and a more general approach (further referred to as piecewise cubic sharing function). The degrees of freedom varying between two and an arbitrary number (for the general approach) are determined so as to minimize losses, when operating in smooth torque conditions. Based upon an optimisation procedure with both linear and nonlinear constraints, the total (copper and iron) losses are minimized considering a limited available DC bus voltage. Moreover, a smooth model is presented so as to be able to separate the two main causes for the torque ripple and it is shown that, neglecting the chopping ripple, a ripple-free torque can be obtained. Extensive studies have been conducted for determining the optimal number of degrees of freedom (DoFs) for the piecewise cubic function. The proposed methods were successfully implemented on a 8/6, 30kW peak power, SRM both numerically and experimentally-wise.

Degradation of engineering structures due to corrosion affects their safety by reducing the cross-section of structural components and altering the material's mechanical characteristics. These parameter changes are observable in the shift of the natural frequencies. In the study presented in this paper, it was demonstrated that the kinetic energy distribution reflects the mass participation, thus being able to predict frequency changes due to mass loss, while the modal strain energy distribution can be properly used to indicate the location of the damage. As a result, two mathematical relations were developed by the authors, predicting the frequency changes due to the main effects of corrosion: loss of mass and loss of stiffness.

The present paper deals with the comparative design and analysis of 3 Switched Reluctance Machine (SRM) topologies for electric vehicle propulsion. A preliminary design of the machine will be carried out, giving the initial geometric and electric (winding) data. Different numbers of phases and different combinations of stator and rotor pole numbers will be considered, keeping the same main dimensions (outer and inner stator diameter, airgap length, stack length, stator pole height, stator yoke width, rotor pole height) and the same winding per phase (number of turns and wire diameter).Index Terms--switched reluctance machine, electric vehicle, conventional and optimal design, electromagnetic field analysis.

A simple, sensitive and reliable HPLC-FLD method for the routine determination of 4-nonylphenol, 4-NP and 4-tert-octylphenol, 4-t-OP content in water samples was developed. The method consists in a liquid-liquid extraction of the target analytes with dichloromethane at pH  3.0-3.5 followed by the HPLC-FLD analysis of the organic extract using a Zorbax Eclipse XDB C8 column, isocratic elution with a mixed solvent acetonitrile/water 65:35, at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min and applying a column temperature of 40°C. The method was validated and then applied with good results for the determination of 4-NP and 4-t-OP in Ialomiţa River water samples collected each month during 2006. The concentration levels of 4-NP and 4-t-OP vary between 0.08-0.17 μg/L with higher values of 0.24-0.37 μg/L in the summer months for 4-NP, and frequently <0.05 μg/L but also between 0.06-0.09 μg/L with higher values of 0.12-0.16 μg/L in July and August for 4-t-OP and were strongly influenced by sesonial and anthropic factors. The method was also applied on samples collected over 2 years 2007 and 2008 from urban wastewaters discharged into sewage or directly into the rivers by economic agents located in 30 Romanian towns. Good results were obtained when the method was used for analysis of effluents discharged into surface waters by 16 municipal wastewater treatment plants, during the year 2008.

This article presents the environmental pollution level with organic UV filters and the effect they pose on aquatic organisms in Romania.

This paper presents the implementation of an instantaneous torque control technique named Direct Instantaneous Torque Control (DITC) on a 4-phase, 8/6, 30kW peak-power Switched Reluctance Machine (SRM) used for electric vehicle traction. On-line instantaneous torque estimation methods and the principles of the DITC are discussed. Simulation and experimental results are presented in the paper and a comparative study with current profiling techniques using three different torque-sharing functions is made.

Nowadays, the damage severity evaluation in mechanical structures is mostly performed by analyzing the natural frequency shift. The non-isotropic materials, as the multi-layered ones, are widespread in industrial applications, due to their interesting physicmechanical properties. Thus, a deeper approach of multi-layered beams becomes an important request in the research domain. This paper introduces a damage severity estimator by expressing the crack evolution as a function of stored energy. It is well known that the energy stored in a beam without damage is greater than the energy of that damaged beam. As a consequence, the beam deflection can be related to the stored energy. In this regard, the possibility to split the damage localization and the damage severity assessment has been proven, and also the graphical evolution of the natural frequency shift has been achieved as a function of the crack depth. The results achieved by the finite element method (FEM) and experimental tests are given in tables and graphics. For the first five vibration modes, a comparison was made between frequencies accomplished by analytical, numerical and experimental analyses, in order to give more credibility to the accuracy of the research data presented in this paper.