Experimental analysis of self-healing cement-based materials incorporating extruded cementitious hollow tubes

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: N.M.P. is supported by the European Research Council (ERC Starting Grant Ideas 2011 BIHSNAM No. 279985 on ‘‘Bio-inspired hierarchical supernanomaterials,’’ ERC Proof of Concept (PoC) 2013-1 REPLICA2 No. 619448 on ‘‘Large-area replication of biological anti-adhesive nanosurfaces,’’ ERC PoC 2013-2 KNOTOUGH no. 632277 on ‘‘Super-tough knotted fibres’’), by the European Commission under the Graphene Flagship (WP10 ‘‘Nanocomposites,’’ No. 604391), and by the Provincia Autonoma di Trento (‘‘Graphene nanocomposites,’’ No. S116/2012-242637 and regional deliberation No. 2266)

Gas-phase chemistry of molecular containers

The remarkable technical advances in mass spectrometry during the last decades, including soft ionisation techniques, the coupling of electrospray ionisation to flow reactors, and the broad scope of tandem mass spectrometric experiments applicable to mass-selected ions allow investigating the chemistry of molecular capsules in solution as well as in the absence of any environment. With these methods, mass spectrometry is capable of answering many questions starting from providing analytical characterisation data (elemental composition, stoichiometry, etc.) to structural aspects (connectivities, positions of building blocks in supramolecular complexes) and to the examination of solution and gas-phase reactivity including reactions inside molecular containers. The present article reviews this work with a focus rather on the chemical questions that can be answered than on the technical specialities of (tandem) mass spectrometry

Púas como elementos para la trilla de vainas de Prosopis flexuosa

Uno de los problemas principales para la reproducción y la investigación del género Prosopis es extraer con facilidad las semillas desde el fruto, por eso en este trabajo se propone un nuevo mecanismo de trilla para vainas de este género y considerar la evaluación de los factores, tanto del fruto como del mecanismo,que pueden afectar la calidad y la eficiencia de la trilla.Los resultados muestran que las púas utilizadas y su distribución conforman un área de trilla que permite extraer las semillas en mayor o menor cantidad, dependiendo del tamaño de la luz entre el cilindro y el cóncavo independientemente de la velocidad que se emplee en el tratamiento

Extruded Cementitious Hollow Tubes For Healing Agent Delivery

A novel self-healing system for cement composites is proposed in this study. It is based on the use of extruded cementitious hollow tubes filled with a liquid healing agent to be added in cement composites during mixing. These tubular capsules were characterized in terms of flexural strength, liquid storage capability, mixing survival effectiveness and releasing ability upon crack formation. The suitability of a specific mono-component liquid healing agent – a sodium silicate solution – was also assessed. Finally, the self-healing effectiveness of the proposed system was verified using a three-point-bending procedure to induce crack formation on laboratory scale specimens and to evaluate their mechanical recovery after self-healing. Positive results were achieved, though further research is needed to reach a final optimization

H1N1 2009 influenza vaccine prevention: A comparison between the italian press and the scientific recommendations

Methods: Messages broadcasted by the press were compared with national and international recommendations regarding influenza vaccine. All of the issues of the 5 best selling national newspapers and the 2 best selling general magazines were read from 15 October 2009 to 15 November 2009 in order to select the articles that addressed influenza vaccination. The major messages extracted from these articles were compared with the scientific literature. Results: 217 articles out of 160 newspaper issues and 7 articles out of 8 magazine issues were selected. Articles mainly focused on the vaccine target population and on health care workers reluctance to be vaccinated. Dosage, side effects, efficacy and safety were other recurrent topics. Press-reported messages were largely consistent with the scientific literature, except for the time interval needed between H1N1 and seasonal influenza vaccine administration. Discussion: The issue of vaccination against the H1N1 pandemic influenza received broad media attention during the study period. The information reported was usually correct, but sometimes it failed to convey clear messages. In particular, concern regarding potential side effects and the low uptake of vaccination in healthcare workers appears to have been associated with the very low vaccine uptake in the general population