Seismic Vulnerability of the Italian Roadway Bridge Stock

This study focuses on the seismic vulnerability evaluation of the Italian roadway bridge stock, within the framework of a Civil Protection sponsored project. A comprehensive database of existing bridges (17,000 bridges with different level of knowledge) was implemented. At the core of the study stands a procedure for automatically carrying out state-of-the-art analytical evaluation of fragility curves for two performance levels – damage and collapse – on an individual bridge basis. A webGIS was developed to handle data and results. The main outputs are maps of bridge seismic risk (from the fragilities and the hazard maps) at the national level and real-time scenario damage-probability maps (from the fragilities and the scenario shake maps). In the latter case the webGIS also performs network analysis to identify routes to be followed by rescue teams. Consistency of the fragility derivation over the entire bridge stock is regarded as a major advantage of the adopted approach

Heavy Quark Parameters and Vcb from Spectral Moments in Semileptonic B Decays

We extract the heavy quark masses and non-perturbative parameters from the Delphi preliminary measurements of the first three moments of the charged lepton energy and hadronic mass distributions in semileptonic B decays, using a multi-parameter fit. We adopt two formalisms, one of which does not rely on a 1/mc expansion and makes use of running quark masses. The data are consistent and the level of accuracy of the experimental inputs largely determines the present sensitivity. The results allow to improve on the uncertainty in the extraction of Vcb.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figure

Subfractionation of human very low density lipoproteins by heparin-Sepharose affinity chromatography.

Very low density lipoproteins obtained from normolipidemic subjects were fractionated into subclasses by means of affinity chromatography on a heparin-Sepharose column in the presence of MnCl2. The four subfractions eluted at 0.05, 0.12, 0.20, and 0.38 M NaCl and they differed in chemical composition and apoprotein pattern. The relative amounts of apoB and apoE in subfractions increased with increasing concentrations of the NaCl eluant. Modification of the arginyl residues with 1-2 cyclohexadione demonstrated that arginine plays an important role in determining the elution pattern of VLDL. In vitro studies indicated that only fractions eluted at 0.2 and 0.5 M NaCl compete with LDL for cellular receptors. These data suggest that the various subfractions may represent VLDL at different stages of catabolism

ATR-FTIR chemical screening for adulterants and sugar characterisation in honeys

The search for improvements in honey analysis is an important topic due to the relevance that adulterations and variations of sugar composition have in this food. Attenuated Total Reflectance Fourier Transform InfraRed spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) is a reliable and fast analytical instrumentation for analysis of liquids, semi-solids and solids, which is currently used in food chemistry for qualitative and quantitative investigations. This work is aimed to build a fast analytical method, using ATR-FTIR and Partial Least Square (PLS) chemometric tool, to quantitative determination of glucose, fructose and sucrose present in honeys. We analyzed 25 honeys from Trentino and Sicily and a significant spectral range from the whole ATR-FTIR spectra were selected. Then a PLS multivariate calibration model was built by using mixtures of glucose, fructose and sucrose at various concentration. Samples for cross-validation were selected, thereby allowing quantitative evaluation of glucose, fructose and sucrose in all samples. Furthermore, a representative number of honeys were mixed with common adulterant syrups to simulate adulteration procedures and to verify the reliability of the ATR-FTIR technique in recognizing them. Preliminary results revealed not only the quantitative reliability of ATR-FTIR spectroscopy in the evaluation of sugars in honeys, but also its ability in recognizing honey adulteration

DEPOSIÇÃO E UNIFORMIDADE DE DISTRIBUIÇÃO DA CALDA DE APLICAÇÃO EM PLANTAS DE CAFÉ CONILON UTILIZANDO A PULVERIZAÇÃO PNEUMÁTICA

O controle químico vem contribuindo há anos para garantir que as plantas expressem todo seu potencial genético, aumentando assim a produtividade em diversas culturas agrícolas, porém é vítima de constante preconceito por ocasionar contaminações ao meio ambiente, aplicadores e principalmente ao alimento. A utilização do pulverizador pneumático do tipo canhão é comumente contestada por apresentar baixa uniformidade na deposição e alta susceptibilidade a deriva e evaporação das gotas. Ainda assim, em cafeeiros do estado do Espírito Santo nas aplicações de fungicidas, inseticidas e adubos foliares tem-se aumentado o uso desse implemento, principalmente pela boa adaptação a terrenos com relevo acidentado, e bom rendimento operacional. Este trabalho tem como objetivo avaliar a uniformidade na deposição de gotas em lavoura de café conilon e a capacidade de penetração da calda no interior do dossel da planta utilizando um pulverizador pneumático em três velocidades de deslocamento do pulverizador. O experimento foi montado em lavoura de café conilon com três anos de idade, altura média de 1,6m utilizando delineamento inteiramente casualizado, em esquema fatorial (6x3x3) sendo seis linhas de plantio espaçadas em 3,5 m, três velocidades de deslocamento (5,4 km h-1, 7,8 km h-1 e 10,5 km h-1) em três posições de avaliação na planta (parte frontal, interna do dossel e posterior ao pulverizador). A solução pulverizada foi preparada com corante alimentício azul brilhante (FD&C nº 1) a 1.500 mg L-1, após aplicação foram coletadas quatro folhas de cada parcela e lavadas ao laboratório para análise em espectrofotômetro para posterior cálculo da deposição. Para comparar as médias encontradas foi utilizado o teste de Tukey a um nível de 5% de probabilidade. Os valores médios da velocidade do vento, umidade relativa do ar e temperatura ambiente no momento da aplicação foram respectivamente de 1,1 m s-1, 87% e 21,7°C. A deposição da aplicação utilizando pulverizador pneumático apresentou baixa uniformidade, com maior deposição na primeira e terceira linha de plantio, e redução na medida em que se aumenta a distância do conjunto pulverizador, além do baixo potencial de penetração de calda no dossel da planta. A segunda marcha (7,8 km h-1) mostra-se a mais indicada para as aplicações, nas mesmas condições do experimento

Carbon Dioxide: A Raw Material for Cementitious Mortar

Buildings and infrastructures can absorb CO2 from the atmosphere because of the carbonation process that affects the calcium hydroxide of concrete elements. The aim of this research project is to initiate the absorption at casting by adding dry ice pellets to cement-based mortars. Test results demonstrate that the flexural and compressive strength of the mortars are not modified by this addition. Conversely, due to the presence of CO2, the standard deviation of strength reduces with respect to that measured in plain mortars. Thus, carbon dioxide can be considered a valuable resource that improves the mechanical behavior of construction materials