Manufacturing Of Robust Natural Fiber Preforms Utilizing Bacterial Cellulose as Binder

We present a novel method of manufacturing rigid and robust short natural fiber preforms using a papermaking process. Bacterial cellulose acts simultaneously as the binder for the loose fibers and provides rigidity to the fiber preforms. These preforms can be infused with a resin to produce truly green hierarchical composites

Provenance and Trust

The interest in data provenance and trust has been increasing in the last years and the community is putting now a lot of effort in finding a standard model representation. The W3C provenance incubator group is focused on this area, analyzing different provenance models and making mappings between them and the Open Provenance Model (OPM)[1], which is the model they intend to make the standard. We want to develop a provenance system based in OPM and a trust algorithm from that provenance information. Our aim will be a platform that will not store the contents generated by the users, but it will store all the references to them, the opinions from the users, information from social networks, etc. to obtain semantic information from the Web. In this context, being able to predict the trust of a source or being able to track the content we’ve generated is a great choice for any use

Evaluating the performance of model transformation styles in Maude

Rule-based programming has been shown to be very successful in many application areas. Two prominent examples are the specification of model transformations in model driven development approaches and the definition of structured operational semantics of formal languages. General rewriting frameworks such as Maude are flexible enough to allow the programmer to adopt and mix various rule styles. The choice between styles can be biased by the programmer’s background. For instance, experts in visual formalisms might prefer graph-rewriting styles, while experts in semantics might prefer structurally inductive rules. This paper evaluates the performance of different rule styles on a significant benchmark taken from the literature on model transformation. Depending on the actual transformation being carried out, our results show that different rule styles can offer drastically different performances. We point out the situations from which each rule style benefits to offer a valuable set of hints for choosing one style over the other

Production and Evaluation of Activated Carbon from Sludge Generated in a Sewage Treatment Plant

Indexación: ScieloEn este trabajo se evaluó el carbón activado producido a partir de lodo generado en una planta de tratamiento de aguas servidas. El lodo utilizado proviene de un lodo activado tipo aireación extendida y la transformación fue realizada mediante un proceso de activación química con cloruro de zinc y pirólisis. La pirólisis se realizó a diferentes temperaturas (550, 600, 650°C) y tiempos (30, 45 y 60 minutos). El rendimiento en carbón obtenido fluctuó entre el 42 y 66%, registrándose el mayor rendimiento a la temperatura de 550°C. La capacidad de adsorción, para el carbón activado obtenido, evaluada mediante la constante de adsorción lineal, para el colorante cristal violeta, fluctuó entre los 0,05 y 0,132 L/g. De acuerdo a esto, el mejor carbón se obtuvo cuando la temperatura de pirólisis fue de 650 °C. No resulta estadísticamente significativo el efecto del tiempo de pirólisis, en la constante de adsorción lineal. Abstract This study evaluated the activated carbon produced from the sludge generated in a sewage treatment plant. The sewage sludge used came from an extended aeration plant, and the transformation was carried out by means of a process of chemical activation with zinc chloride and pyrolysis. Pyrolysis was done at different temperatures (550, 600, 650°C) and times (30, 45 and 60 minutes). The yield of the carbon obtained fluctuated between 42% and 66%, with the highest yield recorded at 550°C. The adsorption capacity for the activated charcoal obtained, evaluated by means of the constant of linear adsorption for the dye crystal violet, fluctuated between 0,05 and 0,132 L/g. According to this, the best charcoal was obtained when pyrolysis temperature was 650°C. The effect of the pyrolysis time on the constant of linear adsorption was not statistically significant

The evidential value of research on cognitive training to change food-related biases and unhealthy eating behavior: A systematic review and p-curve analysis

Cognitive bias modification (CBM), which retrains implicit biases towards unhealthy foods, has been proposed as a promising adjunct to improve the efficacy of weight loss interventions. We conducted a systematic review of research on three CBM approaches (i.e., cue-specific inhibitory control, approach bias modification, and attentional bias modification) for reducing unhealthy eating biases and behavior. We performed a p-curve analysis to determine the evidential value of this research; this method is optimally suited to clarify whether published results reflect true effects or false positives due to publication and reporting biases. When considering all CBM approaches, our results suggested that the findings of CBM trials targeting unhealthy eating are unlikely to be false positives. However, only research on attentional bias modification reached acceptable levels of power. These results suggest that CBM interventions may be an effective strategy to enhance the efficacy of weight loss interventions. However, there is room for improvement in the methodological standards of this area of research, especially increasing the statistical power can help to fully clarify the clinical potential of CBM, and determine the role of potential moderatorsConsejería de Educación e Investigación, Grant/Award Numbers: 2016-T1/SOC-1395, 2020-5A/SOC-19723; Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, Grant/Award Numbers: PSI2017-85159-P, Ref. FJC2018-036047-

Distortion and Signal Loss in Medial Temporal Lobe

Background: The medial temporal lobe (MTL) contains subregions that are subject to severe distortion and signal loss in functional MRI. Air/tissue and bone/tissue interfaces in the vicinity of the MTL distort the local magnetic field due to differences in magnetic susceptibility. Fast image acquisition and thin slices can reduce the amount of distortion and signal loss, but at the cost of image signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Methodology/Principal Findings: In this paper, we quantify the severity of distortion and signal loss in MTL subregions for three different echo planar imaging (EPI) acquisitions at 3 Tesla: a conventional moderate-resolution EPI (36363 mm), a conventional high-resolution EPI (1.561.562 mm), and a zoomed high-resolution EPI. We also demonstrate the advantage of reversing the phase encode direction to control the direction of distortion and to maximize efficacy of distortion compensation during data post-processing. With the high-resolution zoomed acquisition, distortion is not significant and signal loss is present only in the most anterior regions of the parahippocampal gyrus. Furthermore, we find that the severity of signal loss is variable across subjects, with some subjects showing negligible loss and others showing more dramatic loss. Conclusions/Significance: Although both distortion and signal loss are minimized in a zoomed field of view acquisition with thin slices, this improvement in accuracy comes at the cost of reduced SNR. We quantify this trade-off between distortion and SNR in order to provide a decision tree for design of high-resolution experiments investigating the functio

The mediterranean biotypes of Tylenchulus semipenetrans in Spanish citrus orchards

Les capacités de reproduction de quatorze populations du nématode des citrus (#Tylenchulus semipenetrans$) collectées dans la principale zone de citriculture de l'Espagne ont été comparées sur oranger amer et citrange Carrizo. Toutes les populations ont été identifiées comme appartenant au biotype méditerranéen. La capacité de reproduction varie considérablement en fonction des populations. Le pouvoir infestant et le taux de reproduction des populations collectées dans la rhizosphère des porte-greffes citranges Troyer ou Carrizo sont plus élevés (P supérieur ou égal à 0,05) que ceux des populations collectées sur oranger amer. (Résumé d'auteur

Functionalised graphene sheets as effective high dielectric constant fillers

A new functionalised graphene sheet (FGS) filled poly(dimethyl)siloxane insulator nanocomposite has been developed with high dielectric constant, making it well suited for applications in flexible electronics. The dielectric permittivity increased tenfold at 10 Hz and 2 wt.% FGS, while preserving low dielectric losses and good mechanical properties. The presence of functional groups on the graphene sheet surface improved the compatibility nanofiller/polymer at the interface, reducing the polarisation process. This study demonstrates that functionalised graphene sheets are ideal nanofillers for the development of new polymer composites with high dielectric constant values

Screening culture filtrates of fungi for activity against Tylenchulus semipenetrans

Postprint (published version

Exploiting the Hierarchical Structure of Rule-Based Specifications for Decision Planning

Rule-based specifications have been very successful as a declarative approach in many domains, due to the handy yet solid foundations offered by rule-based machineries like term and graph rewriting. Realistic problems, however, call for suitable techniques to guarantee scalability. For instance, many domains exhibit a hierarchical structure that can be exploited conveniently. This is particularly evident for composition associations of models. We propose an explicit representation of such structured models and a methodology that exploits it for the description and analysis of model- and rule-based systems. The approach is presented in the framework of rewriting logic and its efficient implementation in the rewrite engine Maude and is illustrated with a case study.