Poultry manure gasification and its energy yield

The disposal of poultry manure is one of the main problems of the poultry sector. The results of some tests developed in a gasification pilot plant are presented in this paper. The aim was to preliminarily analyze the energy generation from poultry manure treated by gasification. The level of energy yields and the quantification of the produced syngas are also reported. The good results suggests an possible application at full scale

Estudo dos agentes causais de diarreia em crianças menores de 5 anos no Hospital Geral do Bengo

A diarreia pode ser causada por vírus, parasitas e bactérias e constitui uma das principais causas de doença e morte em crianças menores de cinco anos em Angola. O presente estude assume como principal objectivo identificar os agentes patogénicos causadores de diarreia em crianças admitidas no Hospital Geral do Bengo

Estudo dos agentes causais de diarreia em crianças menores de 5 anos no Hospital Geral do Bengo

A diarreia pode ser causada por vírus, parasitas e bactérias e constitui uma das principais causas de doença e morte em crianças menores de cinco anos em Angola. O presente estude assume como principal objectivo identificar os agentes patogénicos causadores de diarreia em crianças admitidas no Hospital Geral do Bengo

Новые подходы в лечении паховых грыж

Universitatea „Lucian Blaga” Sibiu, România, Spitalul clinic al Ministerului Sănătăţii, Chişinău, Conferinţa Ştiinţifico-Practică „Medicina modernă, actualităţi şi perspective”, consacrată aniversării de 40 de ani ai Spitalului Clinic al Ministerului Sănătăţii, 27-28 mai, 2010, Chişinău, Republica MoldovaToday, the surgical treatment of an inguinal hernia can not be considered just a simple suture of the edges of the parietal defect. Considering the data presented in the literature, we emphasize the main features of the most frequently used interventions of treating inguinal hernias. An academic classification of the surgical techniques would be: open surgical procedures with tension suture (open “tension” repair); “no tension” open surgical procedures (open “tension-free” repair); mini-invasive surgical procedures; and laparoscopic interventions. Each of these procedures can be further classified as prosthetic or non-prosthetic depending on whether synthetic or biological prostheses are used. В настоящее время хирургическое лечение паховой грыжи не может заключаться в простом ушивании краев дефекта. Учитывая данные, представленные в литературе, мы уделяем внимание основным особенностям вмешательств, наиболее часто используемых, для лечения паховых грыж. Академическая классификация хирургических методов включает: открытые хирургические вмешательства, миниинвазивные и лапароскопические оперативные приемы. Каждая из этих процедур может быть выполнена с использованием синтетических или биологических протезов

A Dense Companion to the Short-Period Millisecond Pulsar Binary PSR J0636+5128

PSR J0636+5128 is a millisecond pulsar in one of the most compact pulsar binaries known, with a 96\,min orbital period. The pulsar mass function suggests a very low-mass companion, similar to that seen in so-called "black widow" binaries. Unlike in most of those, however, no radio eclipses by material driven off from the companion were seen leading to the possibility that the companion was a degenerate remnant of a carbon-oxygen white dwarf. We report the discovery of the optical counterpart of its companion in images taken with the Gemini North and Keck~I telescopes. The companion varies between $r=25$ and $r=23$ on the 96\,min orbital period of the binary, caused by irradiation from the pulsar's energetic wind. We modeled the multi-color lightcurve using parallax constraints from pulsar timing and determine a companion mass of $(1.71\pm0.23)\times 10^{-2}\,M_\odot$, a radius of $(7.6\pm1.4)\times 10^{-2}\,R_\odot$, and a mean density of $54\pm26\,{\rm g\,cm}^{-3}$, all for an assumed neutron star mass of $1.4\,M_\odot$. This makes the companion to PSR J0636+5128 one of the densest of the "black widow" systems. Modeling suggests that the composition is not predominantly hydrogen, perhaps due to an origin in an ultra-compact X-ray binary.Comment: 4 figures, 1 table. Submitted to ApJ on June 29, 2018. Accepted on July 20, 201

Semi-analytic method for slow light photonic crystal waveguide design

We present a semi-analytic method to calculate the dispersion curves and the group velocity of photonic crystal waveguide modes in two-dimensional geometries. We model the waveguide as a homogenous strip, surrounded by photonic crystal acting as diffracting mirrors. Following conventional guided-wave optics, the properties of the photonic crystal waveguide may be calculated from the phase upon propagation over the strip and the phase upon reflection. The cases of interest require a theory including the specular order and one other diffracted reflected order. The computational advantages let us scan a large parameter space, allowing us to find novel types of solutions.Comment: Accepted by Photonics and Nanostructures - Fundamentals and Application

The Peculiar Phase Structure of Random Graph Bisection

The mincut graph bisection problem involves partitioning the n vertices of a graph into disjoint subsets, each containing exactly n/2 vertices, while minimizing the number of "cut" edges with an endpoint in each subset. When considered over sparse random graphs, the phase structure of the graph bisection problem displays certain familiar properties, but also some surprises. It is known that when the mean degree is below the critical value of 2 log 2, the cutsize is zero with high probability. We study how the minimum cutsize increases with mean degree above this critical threshold, finding a new analytical upper bound that improves considerably upon previous bounds. Combined with recent results on expander graphs, our bound suggests the unusual scenario that random graph bisection is replica symmetric up to and beyond the critical threshold, with a replica symmetry breaking transition possibly taking place above the threshold. An intriguing algorithmic consequence is that although the problem is NP-hard, we can find near-optimal cutsizes (whose ratio to the optimal value approaches 1 asymptotically) in polynomial time for typical instances near the phase transition.Comment: substantially revised section 2, changed figures 3, 4 and 6, made minor stylistic changes and added reference

PSR J1641+3627F: a low-mass He white dwarf orbiting a possible high-mass neutron star in the globular cluster M13

We report on the discovery of the companion star to the millisecond pulsar J1631+3627F in the globular cluster M13. By means of a combination of optical and near-UV high-resolution observations obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope, we identified the counterpart at the radio source position. Its location in the color-magnitude diagrams reveals that the companion star is a faint (V \sim 24.3) He-core white dwarf. We compared the observed companion magnitudes with those predicted by state-of-the-art binary evolution models and found out that it has a mass of 0.23 \pm 0.03 Msun, a radius of 0.033^+0.004_-0.005 Rsun and a surface temperature of 11500^+1900_-1300 K. Combining the companion mass with the pulsar mass function is not enough to determine the orbital inclination and the neutron star mass; however, the last two quantities become correlated: we found that either the system is observed at a low inclination angle, or the neutron star is massive. In fact, assuming that binaries are randomly aligned with respect to the observer line of sight, there is a \sim 70% of probability that this system hosts a neutron star more massive than 1.6 Msun. In fact, the maximum and median mass of the neutron star, corresponding to orbital inclination angles of 90 deg and 60 deg, are M_NS,max = 3.1 \pm 0.6 Msun and M_NS,med = 2.4 \pm 0.5 Msun, respectively. On the other hand, assuming also an empirical neutron star mass probability distribution, we found that this system could host a neutron star with a mass of 1.5 \pm 0.1 Msun if orbiting with a low-inclination angle around 40 deg.Comment: Accepted for publication by Ap

Causes of industrial protein a column degradation, explored using Raman spectroscopy.

Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are used extensively as biotherapeutics for chronic and acute conditions. Production of mAbs is lengthy and expensive, with protein A affinity capture the most costly step, due both to the nature of the resin and its marked reduction in binding capacity with repeated use. Our previous studies using in situ ATR-FTIR spectroscopy indicated that loss in protein A binding capacity is not the result of leaching or degradation of protein A ligand, suggesting fouling is the principal cause. Here we explore binding behavior and resin capacity loss using Raman spectroscopy. Our data reveal a distinct Raman spectral fingerprint for mAb bound to the protein A ligand of MabSelect SuRe. The results show that the drop in static binding capacity (SBC) previously observed for used protein A resin is discernible by Raman spectroscopy in combination with partial least-squares regression. The SBC is lowest (35.76 mg mL-1) for used inlet resin compared to used outlet (40.17 mg mL-1) and unused resin samples (70.35 mg mL-1). Depth profiling by Raman spectroscopy indicates that at below saturating concentrations (∼18 mg mL-1), binding of mAb is not homogeneous through used resin beads with protein binding preferentially to the outer regions of the bead, in contrast to fully homogeneous distribution through unused control MabSelect SuRe resin beads. Analysis of the Raman spectra indicates that one foulant is irreversibly bound mAb. The presence of irreversibly bound mAb and host cell proteins was confirmed by mass spectrometric analysis of used resin beads

Stellar archaeology with Gaia: the Galactic white dwarf population

Gaia will identify several 1e5 white dwarfs, most of which will be in the solar neighborhood at distances of a few hundred parsecs. Ground-based optical follow-up spectroscopy of this sample of stellar remnants is essential to unlock the enormous scientific potential it holds for our understanding of stellar evolution, and the Galactic formation history of both stars and planets.Comment: Summary of a talk at the 'Multi-Object Spectroscopy in the Next Decade' conference in La Palma, March 2015, to be published in ASP Conference Series (editors Ian Skillen & Scott Trager