The effect of phase change materials on the physical and mechanical properties of concrete made with recycled aggregate

With the world’s population increasing, the issue of energy consumption has become increasingly prominent, particularly during the building operation phase, where substantial energy is required for heating and cooling. Presently, the energy necessary for buildings is sourced mainly from the combustion of fossil fuels, leading to not only energy scarcity but also severe environmental pollution and ecological damage. Furthermore, rapid urbanization has generated a lot of construction and demolition waste. To address these challenges, one promising approach is the incorporation of phase-change materials in recycled aggregate from construction and demolition waste to replace the raw materials of concrete. In this study, the phase-change material suitable for the thermal comfort requirements of buildings was selected and combined with recycled aggregate to replace the natural aggregate in concrete. All the materials used were characterized and three compositions were prepared. From the results, the workability of concrete increased with the phase-change materials added. Regarding water absorption performance, the incorporation of functionalized recycled aggregate presented a small water absorption performance. However, the mechanical performance decreased with the phase-change materials used. This work provides data for the application of phase-change materials in green concrete

Influence of the incorporation of construction and demolition waste functionalized with phase change material on the mechanical properties of concrete

O crescimento das urbanizações levou ao rápido desenvolvimento da indústria da construção, originando uma grande quantidade de resíduos de construção e demolição (RCD) e em simultâneo um aumento nos consumos energéticos e emissões de dióxido de carbono (CO2) para a atmosfera. A aplicação simultânea de RCD e tecnologias de calor latente incorporadas em betões permite a reutilização de agregados reciclados, mas também minimizar o consumo de energia durante o período de utilização do edifício. Este estudo tem como principal objetivo a avaliação da incorporação de material de mudança de fase (PCM) em agregado reciclado proveniente de RCD, utilizado em substituição do agregado natural para a produção de betões, assim como a avaliação do comportamento mecânico dos betões produzidos. A incorporação de PCM no agregado reciclado foi efetuada segundo duas técnicas distintas, a vácuo e a pressão atmosférica, sendo produzidos betões com os diferentes agregados. Foi possível verificar que a presença do agregado reciclado dopado com PCM afetou negativamente o desempenho mecânico das diferentes formulações de betão desenvolvidas.The growth of urbanization has led to the rapid development of the construction industry, resulting in a large amount of construction and demolition waste (CDW) and, at the same time, an increase in energy consumption and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions into the atmosphere. The simultaneous application of CDW and latent heat technologies incorporated into concrete allows for the reuse of recycled aggregates while also minimizing energy consumption during the building's use period. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the incorporation of phase change material (PCM) in recycled aggregates from CDW, used to replace natural aggregates in concrete production, as well as to evaluate the mechanical behaviour of the produced concrete. The incorporation of PCM in recycled aggregates was carried out using two different techniques, vacuum and atmospheric pressure, and concrete was produced with the different aggregates. It was possible to verify that the presence of recycled aggregate doped with PCM negatively affected the mechanical performance of the different developed concrete formulations

Green thermal aggregates: influence of the physical properties of recycled aggregates with phase change materials

Increasing construction and demolition waste (CDW) and the large amount of energy consumption in the building operation process are high-profile issues at present. In the construction industry, recycled aggregated (RA) from CDW can be reutilized in construction, along with green materials, for example, as a road base layer, as aggregate in concrete, etc. Phase change materials (PCM) are often used as building materials due to their good latent heat storage properties. With the use of RA as a matrix to absorb PCM, a thermal performance aggregate can be obtained. This work studied the physical properties of RA from Portugal and combined PCM with RA to prepare a green thermal aggregate through two methodologies using a vacuum and atmospheric pressure. The green aggregate was used in concrete to observe its effect on the compressive strength of concrete. The results showed that the amount of PCM absorbed by the RA mainly depends on the porosity of the matrix material. At the same time, the volume expansion coefficient of PCM was 2.7%, which was not enough to destroy the RA. Ultimately, as the amount of green thermal aggregate increases, the compressive strength of concrete decreases. Green thermal aggregate prepared under vacuum conditions has a greater negative impact on the compressive strength of concrete.This work was partly financed by the FCT/MCTES through national funds (PIDDAC) received from the R&D Centre for Territory, Environment, and Construction (CTAC), under reference UIDB/04047/2020 and UIBD/152844/2022

Influência da incorporação de resíduos de construção e demolição com material de mudança de fase nas propriedades mecânicas de betões

O crescimento das urbanizações levou ao rápido desenvolvimento da indústria da construção, originando uma grande quantidade de resíduos de construção e demolição (RCD) e em simultâneo um aumento nos consumos energéticos e emissões de dióxido de carbono (CO2) para a atmosfera. A aplicação simultânea de RCD e tecnologias de calor latente incorporadas em betões permite a reutilização de agregados reciclados, mas também minimizar o consumo de energia durante o período de utilização do edifício. Este estudo tem como principal objetivo a avaliação da incorporação de material de mudança de fase (PCM) em agregado reciclado proveniente de RCD, utilizado em substituição do agregado natural para a produção de betões, assim como a avaliação do comportamento mecânico dos betões produzidos. A incorporação de PCM no agregado reciclado foi efetuada segundo duas técnicas distintas, a vácuo e a pressão atmosférica, sendo produzidos betões com os diferentes agregados. Foi possível verificar que a presença do agregado reciclado dopado com PCM afetou negativamente o desempenho mecânico das diferentes formulações de betão desenvolvidas.Este trabalho foi financiado pela Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), no âmbito da bolsa de doutoramento com referência UI/BD/152844/2022

Influence of the incorporation of construction and demolition waste functionalized with phase change material on the mechanical properties of concrete

O crescimento das urbanizações levou ao rápido desenvolvimento da indústria da construção, originando uma grande quantidade de resíduos de construção e demolição (RCD) e em simultâneo um aumento nos consumos energéticos e emissões de dióxido de carbono (CO2) para a atmosfera. A aplicação simultânea de RCD e tecnologias de calor latente incorporadas em betões permite a reutilização de agregados reciclados, mas também minimizar o consumo de energia durante o período de utilização do edifício. Este estudo tem como principal objetivo a avaliação da incorporação de material de mudança de fase (PCM) em agregado reciclado proveniente de RCD, utilizado em substituição do agregado natural para a produção de betões, assim como a avaliação do comportamento mecânico dos betões produzidos. A incorporação de PCM no agregado reciclado foi efetuada segundo duas técnicas distintas, a vácuo e a pressão atmosférica, sendo produzidos betões com os diferentes agregados. Foi possível verificar que a presença do agregado reciclado dopado com PCM afetou negativamente o desempenho mecânico das diferentes formulações de betão desenvolvidas.The growth of urbanization has led to the rapid development of the construction industry, resulting in a large amount of construction and demolition waste (CDW) and, at the same time, an increase in energy consumption and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions into the atmosphere. The simultaneous application of CDW and latent heat technologies incorporated into concrete allows for the reuse of recycled aggregates while also minimizing energy consumption during the building's use period. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the incorporation of phase change material (PCM) in recycled aggregates from CDW, used to replace natural aggregates in concrete production, as well as to evaluate the mechanical behaviour of the produced concrete. The incorporation of PCM in recycled aggregates was carried out using two different techniques, vacuum and atmospheric pressure, and concrete was produced with the different aggregates. It was possible to verify that the presence of recycled aggregate doped with PCM negatively affected the mechanical performance of the different developed concrete formulations

Systematic genetic analysis of the MHC region reveals mechanistic underpinnings of HLA type associations with disease.

The MHC region is highly associated with autoimmune and infectious diseases. Here we conduct an in-depth interrogation of associations between genetic variation, gene expression and disease. We create a comprehensive map of regulatory variation in the MHC region using WGS from 419 individuals to call eight-digit HLA types and RNA-seq data from matched iPSCs. Building on this regulatory map, we explored GWAS signals for 4083 traits, detecting colocalization for 180 disease loci with eQTLs. We show that eQTL analyses taking HLA type haplotypes into account have substantially greater power compared with only using single variants. We examined the association between the 8.1 ancestral haplotype and delayed colonization in Cystic Fibrosis, postulating that downregulation of RNF5 expression is the likely causal mechanism. Our study provides insights into the genetic architecture of the MHC region and pinpoints disease associations that are due to differential expression of HLA genes and non-HLA genes

Gene expression patterns in four brain areas associate with quantitative measure of estrous behavior in dairy cows

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The decline noticed in several fertility traits of dairy cattle over the past few decades is of major concern. Understanding of the genomic factors underlying fertility, which could have potential applications to improve fertility, is very limited. Here, we aimed to identify and study those genes that associated with a key fertility trait namely estrous behavior, among genes expressed in four bovine brain areas (hippocampus, amygdala, dorsal hypothalamus and ventral hypothalamus), either at the start of estrous cycle, or at mid cycle, or regardless of the phase of cycle.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>An average heat score was calculated for each of 28 primiparous cows in which estrous behavior was recorded for at least two consecutive estrous cycles starting from 30 days post-partum. Gene expression was then measured in brain tissue samples collected from these cows, 14 of which were sacrificed at the start of estrus and 14 around mid cycle. For each brain area, gene expression was modeled as a function of the orthogonally transformed average heat score values using a Bayesian hierarchical mixed model. Genes whose expression patterns showed significant linear or quadratic relationships with heat scores were identified. These included genes expected to be related to estrous behavior as they influence states like socio-sexual behavior, anxiety, stress and feeding motivation (<it>OXT, AVP, POMC, MCHR1</it>), but also genes whose association with estrous behavior is novel and warrants further investigation.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Several genes were identified whose expression levels in the bovine brain associated with the level of expression of estrous behavior. The genes <it>OXT </it>and <it>AVP </it>play major roles in regulating estrous behavior in dairy cows. Genes related to neurotransmission and neuronal plasticity are also involved in estrous regulation, with several genes and processes expressed in mid-cycle probably contributing to proper expression of estrous behavior in the next estrus. Studying these genes and the processes they control improves our understanding of the genomic regulation of estrous behavior expression.</p

Human obesity and endothelium-dependent responsiveness

Obesity is an ongoing worldwide epidemic. Besides being a medical condition in itself, obesity dramatically increases the risk of development of metabolic and cardiovascular disease. This risk appears to stem from multiple abnormalities in adipose tissue function leading to a chronic inflammatory state and to dysregulation of the endocrine and paracrine actions of adipocyte-derived factors. These, in turn, disrupt vascular homeostasis by causing an imbalance between the NO pathway and the endothelin 1 system, with impaired insulin-stimulated endothelium-dependent vasodilation. Importantly, emerging evidence suggests that the vascular dysfunction of obesity is not just limited to the endothelium, but also involves the other layers of the vessel wall. In particular, obesity-related changes in medial smooth muscle cells seem to disrupt the physiological facilitatory action of insulin on the responsiveness to vasodilator stimuli, whereas the adventitia and perivascular fat appear to be a source of pro-inflammatory and vasoactive factors that may contribute to endothelial and smooth muscle cell dysfunction, and to the pathogenesis of vascular disease. While obesity-induced vascular dysfunction appears to be reversible, at least in part, with weight control strategies, these have not proved sufficient to prevent the metabolic and cardiovascular complication of obesity on a large scale. While a number of currently available drugs have shown potentially beneficial vascular effects in patients with obesity and the metabolic syndrome, elucidation of the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying vascular damage in obese patients is necessary to identify additional pharmacologic targets to prevent the cardiovascular complications of obesity, and their human and economic costs. LINKED ARTICLES: This article is part of a themed section on Fat and Vascular Responsiveness. To view the other articles in this section visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bph.2012.165.issue-3

Approaches in biotechnological applications of natural polymers

Natural polymers, such as gums and mucilage, are biocompatible, cheap, easily available and non-toxic materials of native origin. These polymers are increasingly preferred over synthetic materials for industrial applications due to their intrinsic properties, as well as they are considered alternative sources of raw materials since they present characteristics of sustainability, biodegradability and biosafety. As definition, gums and mucilages are polysaccharides or complex carbohydrates consisting of one or more monosaccharides or their derivatives linked in bewildering variety of linkages and structures. Natural gums are considered polysaccharides naturally occurring in varieties of plant seeds and exudates, tree or shrub exudates, seaweed extracts, fungi, bacteria, and animal sources. Water-soluble gums, also known as hydrocolloids, are considered exudates and are pathological products; therefore, they do not form a part of cell wall. On the other hand, mucilages are part of cell and physiological products. It is important to highlight that gums represent the largest amounts of polymer materials derived from plants. Gums have enormously large and broad applications in both food and non-food industries, being commonly used as thickening, binding, emulsifying, suspending, stabilizing agents and matrices for drug release in pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. In the food industry, their gelling properties and the ability to mold edible films and coatings are extensively studied. The use of gums depends on the intrinsic properties that they provide, often at costs below those of synthetic polymers. For upgrading the value of gums, they are being processed into various forms, including the most recent nanomaterials, for various biotechnological applications. Thus, the main natural polymers including galactomannans, cellulose, chitin, agar, carrageenan, alginate, cashew gum, pectin and starch, in addition to the current researches about them are reviewed in this article.. }To the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientfíico e Tecnológico (CNPq) for fellowships (LCBBC and MGCC) and the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nvíel Superior (CAPES) (PBSA). This study was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit, the Project RECI/BBB-EBI/0179/2012 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027462) and COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006684) (JAT)