The Effect of Disinfectants, Cleaning, and Drying Practices on Oriental Rugs Flooded with Contaminated River Water: Public Health and Policy Implications

Oriental rugs contaminated with Category 3 floodwater potentially harbor environmental bacteria known to be human pathogens. River water inoculated with three species of gram positive and gram negative environmental bacteria (Escherichia coli, Enterococcus faecalis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa) were used to assess the effectiveness of disinfectant type, cleaning methodology and drying practices by examining the survival rates of bacteria. Rug sections were immersed for one hour in contaminated water, saturated in one of three EPA registered disinfectant products (Phenol, Quaternary chloride, and Thyme oil) or tap water as a control, followed by cleaning and drying. The results showed that all disinfectants reduced the overall microbial load better than tap water. Two applications of disinfectants were slightly more effective than one application, which, in combination with drying in 24 hours or less, produced an effect that notably reduced microbial counts. These results provide in-plant rug cleaners the ability to assess the benefits of different products and drying procedures, and demonstrate significant reductions of potentially pathogenic bacteria in Oriental rugs contaminated with Category 3 water

The Effect of Disinfectants, Cleaning, and Drying Practices on Oriental Rugs Flooded with Contaminated River Water: Public Health and Policy Implications

Oriental rugs contaminated with Category 3 floodwater potentially harbor environmental bacteria known to be human pathogens. River water inoculated with three species of gram positive and gram negative environmental bacteria (Escherichia coli, Enterococcus faecalis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa) were used to assess the effectiveness of disinfectant type, cleaning methodology and drying practices by examining the survival rates of bacteria. Rug sections were immersed for one hour in contaminated water, saturated in one of three EPA registered disinfectant products (Phenol, Quaternary chloride, and Thyme oil) or tap water as a control, followed by cleaning and drying. The results showed that all disinfectants reduced the overall microbial load better than tap water. Two applications of disinfectants were slightly more effective than one application, which, in combination with drying in 24 hours or less, produced an effect that notably reduced microbial counts. These results provide in-plant rug cleaners the ability to assess the benefits of different products and drying procedures, and demonstrate significant reductions of potentially pathogenic bacteria in Oriental rugs contaminated with Category 3 water

« Ad imaginem et similitudinem Dei » ? Les personnages qui entourent le Christ mort à l’épreuve de l’harmonie avec le divin

C’est grâce à l’Incarnation que Dieu donne une chance aux hommes de retourner à l’ère de la ressemblance divine. À travers le Christ, il prend en effet l’apparence charnelle des hommes – des pécheurs – et se rend imitable. Ressembler au Christ, c’est donc retrouver un peu de l’harmonie qui régnait au jardin d’Éden. L’imitation du Christ est par conséquent la condition sine qua non du salut : obtenir la Rédemption est impossible sans se conformer au Christ par les actes et, surtout, par la pensée : « Je suis crucifié avec le Christ [déclare Paul aux Galates, 2, 19-20], et ce n’est plus moi qui vis, mais le Christ qui vit en moi. » Nous proposons de montrer que, dans les images, cette association entre la laideur et le péché est fréquente. Ainsi, comparés au Christ, les bourreaux et le mauvais larron sont laids et difformes : les uns doivent servir de modèles au spectateur et les autres de « contre-figures ».It is through the Incarnation that God gives men a chance to return to the era of the divine likeness. Through Christ, he is indeed the appearance of carnal men – sinners – and goes imitable. Like Christ, so it regains some of the harmony that reigned in the Garden of Eden. The imitation of Christ is therefore the sine qua non of salvation obtain redemption is impossible without complying with Christ through acts and, especially, by the thought : « I am crucified with Christ [Paul says to the Galatians 2, 19-20] and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. » We propose to show that in the pictures, this association between ugliness and sin is common. Thus, compared to Christ, executioners and the bad thief are ugly and deformed : one should serve as models for the spectator, and the other as « contre-figures »

Bipolar Thermoelectricity in Bilayer-Graphene/Superconductor Tunnel Junctions

We investigate the thermoelectric properties of a hybrid nanodevice composed by a 2D carbon based material and a superconductor. This system presents nonlinear bipolar thermoelectricity as induced by the spontaneous breaking of the Particle-Hole (PH) symmetry in a tunnel junction between a BiLayer Graphene (BLG) and a Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superconductor. In this scheme, the nonlinear thermoelectric effect, predicted and observed in SIS' junctions is not affected by the competitive effect of the Josephson coupling. From a fundamental perspective, the most intriguing feature of this effect is its bipolarity, that poses new issues on the nature of thermoelectricity in solid state systems. The capability to open and control the BLG gap guarantees improved thermoelectric performances, that reach up to 1 mV/K regarding the Seebeck coeffcient and a power density of 1 nW/$\mu$m$^2$ for temperature gradients of tens of Kelvins. Furthermore, the externally controlled gating can also dope the BLG, which is otherwise intrinsically PH symmetric, giving us the opportunity to investigate the bipolar thermoelectricity even in presence of a controlled suppression of the PH symmetry. The predicted robustness of this system could foster further experimental investigations and applications in the near future, thanks to the available techniques of nano-fabrication