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An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 385 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and skill, north of Athens, Greece. Etymology The word comes from the Academy in ancient Greece, which derives from the Athenian hero, Akademos. Outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning. The sacred space, dedicated to the goddess of wisdom, Athena, had formerly been an olive grove, hence the expression "the groves of Academe". In these gardens, the philosopher Plato conversed with followers. Plato developed his sessions into a method of teaching philosophy and in 387 BC, established what is known today as the Old Academy. By extension, academia has come to mean the accumulation, development and transmission of

Beyond scientific excellence: International mobility and the entrepreneurial activities of academic scientists

Valentina Tartari

As the international mobility of academic scientists is ever increasing, its effects on outcomes beyond research productivity deserve more attention. In this paper, we therefore investigate to what extent academics with different international mobility experiences differ in their likelihood to commercialize their research through entrepreneurship. To answer this question, we make use of a detailed survey covering all academics employed at Danish universities in 2017. Empirically, we distinguish three groups of academics according to their international experience (stayers, returnee, and immigrants) and focus on entrepreneurial outcomes realized while residing in the host country, Denmark. The estimation of duration models reveals that returnees are more than 50% more likely to become academic entrepreneurs than stayers. Immigrants, however, were between 38 and 47% less likely to start a firm than returnees. This difference seems to increase at higher levels of commercially relevant research and international research stays at international top institutions.

ELSEVIER2022

Analysis of the West African Power Pool (WAPP) and its development potential

First of all, it is necessary to specify that this study is an academic work carried out by a student. The hypothesis and the line of reasoning that aect the results obtained are proposed in the context of a master thesis. Electricity supply is a big challenge for West Africa. Indeed, the state members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) face many problem of electricity as their production and distribution systems are not enough developed and reliable. A good and reliable electricity supply could allow to develop the industries and improve the attractiveness of the region. The purpose of the West African Power Pool (WAPP) is to develop the electricity sector in West Africa and guarantee a reliable and continuous electricity supply at a competitive cost. Creating an open market for the whole region seems to be the best strategy to achieve these goals. This kind of market could decrease the electricity price by the wholesale purchase of energy, a better resources management and the building of large centralized power plants. Investors can be attracted to invest in new power plants and develop the sector. The objective of the study is to analyze the benets of dierent electricity supply strategies for each country. An autarkic strategy for which each country use its local plants to produce electricity. An open market strategy for which the region is considered as a unique area with an open market.A part of independence strategy for which an open market is in place but the importing countries should produce a certain part of their electricity locally. Moreover a strategy introducing renewables technologies is assessed to evaluate the economical impact on an open market of these technologies. To evaluate these strategies, the expansion of the power pool is planned and evaluate on an economical point of view. The existing power pool is consider and candidate plants are added depending on the strategy and the country. In West Africa, the mainly used plants are thermal plants using natural gas, heavy fuel or diesel and some hydroelectric plants. The expansion is optimized using the software PLANELEC by the minimization of the net present cost (NPC). The economical evaluation is made on the NPC and the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). The results demonstrate that the open market strategy provides the lowest LCOE. So all the countries will benet the creation of a market. The most used technology are combined cycle power plants and gas turbines using natural gas as a fuel. The renewable energy strategy will slightly increase the LCOE of the open market as these technologies are more expensive.

2019

Use of compact Laser Doppler Velocimetry in reduced scale model testing of hydraulic machines

Loïc Andolfatto, François Avellan, Vincent Berruex, Andres Müller, Masashi Sakamoto

Laser based flow survey methods such as Laser Doppler Velocimetry (LDV) or Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) have long been used for studying the flow in hydraulic machines. Even if the results have crucially improved our understanding of potentially destabilizing flow patterns in the draft tube at off-design conditions and the prediction of the stable operating range, these techniques are not systematically used for reduced scale model measurements in the frame of customer acceptance tests or development projects. In a not too distant past, the price, size and complexity of the necessary equipment and procedures exceeded the acceptable range for these projects. Recent developments however made them more accessible. Furthermore, the collaboration with experienced research institutes provides the necessary know-how as well as an added academic value by providing researchers with realistic test cases. This work reports a case study for which a compact LDV probe was used to measure the velocity field in the draft tube cone of a reduced scale physical model of a Francis turbine. The axial and tangential velocity profiles were established by performing measurements at several radial positions between the turbine centreline and the cone wall. The overall objective was the validation of numerical flow simulations across the entire operating range of the turbine, from partial to full load.

2018

Analysis of the West African Power Pool (WAPP) and its development potential

2019