AISI Direct Steelmaking Program

Pilot plant trials with the horizontal vessel were completed. Design of a third pressurized vessel and an offgas cleaning and tempering system was completed. Installation is now underway. A basic study and a pre-engineering design of a 350,000-metric ton/y demonstration plant were completed, and efforts are underway to develop such a demonstration plant at a host steel company. Foreign filings have been prepared for the two-zone countercurrent smelter (patent applied for). Work with a water model of two-zone smelter was completed. The horizontal smelter program was completed. Trials were conducted to determine how sulfur is partitioned among the hot metal, slag, and offgas. Design of offgas cleaning and tempering loop was completed

Why Our Next President May Keep His or her Senate Seat: A Conjecture on the Constitution’s Incompatibility Clause

Heart diseases are common and significant contributors to worldwide mortality and morbidity. During recent years complement mediated inflammation has been shown to be an important player in a variety of heart diseases. Despite some negative results from clinical trials using complement inhibitors, emerging evidence points to an association between the complement system and heart diseases. Thus, complement seems to be important in coronary heart disease as well as in heart failure, where several studies underscore the prognostic importance of complement activation. Furthermore, patients with atrial fibrillation often share risk factors both with coronary heart disease and heart failure, and there is some evidence implicating complement activation in atrial fibrillation. Moreover, Chagas heart disease, a protozoal infection, is an important cause of heart failure in Latin America, and the complement system is crucial for the protozoa-host interaction. Thus, complement activation appears to be involved in the pathophysiology of a diverse range of cardiac conditions. Determination of the exact role of complement in the various heart diseases will hopefully help to identify patients that might benefit from therapeutic complement intervention

Leptin and adiponectin as predictors of cardiovascular risk after gestational diabetes mellitus

Source at https://doi.org/10.1186/s12933-016-0492-4.Background: Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is a significant risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) in later life, but the mechanism remains unclear. Adipokine imbalance in the presence of metabolic dysfunction may be a key event in promoting CVD. The aim of the study was to examine the relationships between GDM, cardiovascular risk, and plasma adiponectin, leptin and the leptin/adiponectin (L/A) ratio in pregnancy and at 5 years after the index pregnancy. Methods: This population-based prospective cohort included 300 women who had an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) during pregnancy. Five years later, the OGTT was repeated along with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, lipid analysis, and pulse wave velocity analysis. Fasting adiponectin and leptin levels were measured four times during pregnancy and at follow-up. Results: We found the L/A ratio higher in GDM women during both pregnancy and follow-up compared to nonGDM women. A high L/A ratio during pregnancy was associated with CV risk based on lipid ratios at follow-up, especially the TG/HDL-C ratio. Further, interaction analysis indicated that an increase in the L/A ratio of 1 unit was associated with a higher CV risk in GDM compared to normal pregnancy. Finally, low adiponectin levels independently predicted increased lipid ratios at follow-up. Conclusions: Taken together, our findings suggest that high L/A ratio in pregnancy and in particularly in those with GDM are associated with an unfavorable CVD risk profile during follow-up. Future studies should investigate if a dysregulated leptin and adiponectin profile during pregnancy is associated with atherosclerotic disease during long-term follow-up

Recovery of iron, carbon and zinc from steel plant waste oxides using the AISI-DOE postcombustion smelting technology

This report describes a process to recover steel plant waste oxides to be used in the production of hot metal. The process flowsheet used at the pilot plant. Coal/coke breeze and iron ore pellets/waste oxides are charged into the smelting reactor. The waste oxides are either agglomerated into briquettes (1 inch) using a binder or micro-agglomerated into pellets (1/4 inch) without the use of a binder. The iron oxides dissolve in the slag and are reduced by carbon to produce molten iron. The gangue oxides present in the raw materials report to the slag. Coal charged to the smelter is both the fuel as well as the reductant. Carbon present in the waste oxides is also used as the fuel/reductant resulting in a decrease in the coal requirement. Oxygen is top blown through a central, water-cooled, dual circuit lance. Nitrogen is injected through tuyeres at the bottom of the reactor for stirring purposes. The hot metal and slag produced in the smelting reactor are tapped at regular intervals through a single taphole using a mudgun and drill system. The energy requirements of the process are provided by (i) the combustion of carbon to carbon monoxide, referred to as primary combustion and (ii) the combustion of CO and H{sub 2} to CO{sub 2} and H{sub 2}O, known as postcombustion

Nonuniversal Critical Spreading in Two Dimensions

Continuous phase transitions are studied in a two dimensional nonequilibrium model with an infinite number of absorbing configurations. Spreading from a localized source is characterized by nonuniversal critical exponents, which vary continuously with the density phi in the surrounding region. The exponent delta changes by more than an order of magnitude, and eta changes sign. The location of the critical point also depends on phi, which has important implications for scaling. As expected on the basis of universality, the static critical behavior belongs to the directed percolation class.Comment: 21 pages, REVTeX, figures available upon reques

Krill oil attenuates left ventricular dilatation after myocardial infarction in rats

Background: In the western world, heart failure (HF) is one of the most important causes of cardiovascular mortality. Supplement with n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) has been shown to improve cardiac function in HF and to decrease mortality after myocardial infarction (MI). The molecular structure and composition of n-3 PUFA varies between different marine sources and this may be of importance for their biological effects. Krill oil, unlike fish oil supplements, contains the major part of the n-3 PUFA in the form of phospholipids. This study investigated effects of krill oil on cardiac remodeling after experimental MI. Rats were randomised to pre-treatment with krill oil or control feed 14 days before induction of MI. Seven days post-MI, the rats were examined with echocardiography and rats in the control group were further randomised to continued control feed or krill oil feed for 7 weeks before re-examination with echocardiography and euthanization. Results: The echocardiographic evaluation showed significant attenuation of LV dilatation in the group pretreated with krill oil compared to controls. Attenuated heart weight, lung weight, and levels of mRNA encoding classical markers of LV stress, matrix remodeling and inflammation reflected these findings. The total composition of fatty acids were examined in the left ventricular (LV) tissue and all rats treated with krill oil showed a significantly higher proportion of n-3 PUFA in the LV tissue, although no difference was seen between the two krill oil groups. Conclusions: Supplement with krill oil leads to a proportional increase of n-3 PUFA in myocardial tissue and supplement given before induction of MI attenuates LV remodeling

Disturbed lipid profile in common variable immunodeficiency – a pathogenic loop of inflammation and metabolic disturbances

The relationship between metabolic and inflammatory pathways play a pathogenic role in various cardiometabolic disorders and is potentially also involved in the pathogenesis of other disorders such as cancer, autoimmunity and infectious diseases. Common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) is the most common primary immunodeficiency in adults, characterized by increased frequency of airway infections with capsulated bacteria. In addition, a large proportion of CVID patients have autoimmune and inflammatory complications associated with systemic inflammation. We summarize the evidence that support a role of a bidirectional pathogenic interaction between inflammation and metabolic disturbances in CVID. This include low levels and function of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), high levels of triglycerides (TG) and its major lipoprotein very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL), and an unfavorable fatty acid (FA) profile. The dysregulation of TG, VLDL and FA were linked to disturbed gut microbiota profile, and TG and VLDL levels were strongly associated with lipopolysaccharides (LPS), a marker of gut leakage in blood. Of note, the disturbed lipid profile in CVID did not include total cholesterol levels or high low-density lipoprotein levels. Furthermore, increased VLDL and TG levels in blood were not associated with diet, high body mass index and liver steatosis, suggesting a different phenotype than in patients with traditional cardiovascular risk such as metabolic syndrome. We hypothesize that these metabolic disturbances are linked to inflammation in a bidirectional manner with disturbed gut microbiota as a potential contributing factor

Mean-Field Analysis and Monte Carlo Study of an Interacting Two-Species Catalytic Surface Reaction Model

We study the phase diagram and critical behavior of an interacting one dimensional two species monomer-monomer catalytic surface reaction model with a reactive phase as well as two equivalent adsorbing phase where one of the species saturates the system. A mean field analysis including correlations up to triplets of sites fails to reproduce the phase diagram found by Monte Carlo simulations. The three phases coexist at a bicritical point whose critical behavior is described by the even branching annihilating random walk universality class. This work confirms the hypothesis that the conservation modulo 2 of the domain walls under the dynamics at the bicritical point is the essential feature in producing critical behavior different from directed percolation. The interfacial fluctuations show the same universal behavior seen at the bicritical point in a three-species model, supporting the conjecture that these fluctuations are a new universal characteristic of the model.Comment: 11 pages using RevTeX, plus 4 Postscript figures. Uses psfig.st

Numerical Study of a Field Theory for Directed Percolation

A numerical method is devised for study of stochastic partial differential equations describing directed percolation, the contact process, and other models with a continuous transition to an absorbing state. Owing to the heightened sensitivity to fluctuationsattending multiplicative noise in the vicinity of an absorbing state, a useful method requires discretization of the field variable as well as of space and time. When applied to the field theory for directed percolation in 1+1 dimensions, the method yields critical exponents which compare well against accepted values.Comment: 18 pages, LaTeX, 6 figures available upon request LC-CM-94-00

Theory of Branching and Annihilating Random Walks

A systematic theory for the diffusion--limited reaction processes $A + A \to 0$ and $A \to (m+1) A$ is developed. Fluctuations are taken into account via the field--theoretic dynamical renormalization group. For $m$ even the mean field rate equation, which predicts only an active phase, remains qualitatively correct near $d_c = 2$ dimensions; but below $d_c' \approx 4/3$ a nontrivial transition to an inactive phase governed by power law behavior appears. For $m$ odd there is a dynamic phase transition for any $d \leq 2$ which is described by the directed percolation universality class.Comment: 4 pages, revtex, no figures; final version with slight changes, now accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let