An Initial Study of Properties of Monolithic Silicon Dioxide Parts Produced by the Ceramic on-Demand Extrusion Process

The ceramic on-demand extrusion (CODE) process is an additive manufacturing process for technical ceramics, which features an oil bath and partial drying to print stronger green bodies due to better preservation of the printed specimen structure and reduction of uneven part evaporation. A 3D printer capable of performing the CODE process is built with subsystems including motion, extrusion, and heating, and is controlled through LinuxCNC. The CODE printer and process is tested with silicon dioxide as the technical ceramic. High strength silicon dioxide parts are essential in various present-day industries such as dental, medical, and semiconductor. A 55vol% solids loading slurry feedstock is fed into the extruder and is printed in the shape of ASTM A-sized bars using specific printing parameters. The printed green bodies are subject to post-processing including drying in a humidity chamber and debinding and sintering in a sintering furnace. The density was measured at various sintering schedules for the sintered test specimens. Flexural strength values were obtained by performing a 3-point bending test according to the ASTM C1161 standard, and the mean strength values are reported. Both the density and flexural strength values are lower with printing using CODE when compared to other current additive and conventional manufacturing methods by approximately 32% and 77%, respectively. However, this can be attributed due to defects within the printed parts including porosity due to air pockets and insufficient viscosity when pre-processing the slurry and can be minimized to produce better results

P-06 Effectiveness of Exercising with Music

Effectiveness of Exercising with Music. Abstract Several research has been made by many psychologists and health professionals around the world about exercising and listening to music for meditation and relaxation. Everyone regardless of what age group, surely are aware and have knowledge regarding the health benefits associated with exercise and have a general interest in listening to good music while they drive or when they cook in the house just to have some fun twist to what they are doing so they don’t feel bored. So here we are trying to see how both exercise and music work together whether they have more health benefits than usual since most people feel excited, joyful, stressless or even motivated with music. And people who have religious belief would feel more empowered when they listen to their spiritual music with meaningful lyrics which will inspire them in different ways. Sometimes exercising silently can make you feel like a burden to workout but with music you can feel encouraged. People often listen to music simply because their work feels lighter and more pleasurable with music than like a tiring duty, but they seldom realize how many benefits are associated to this pairing of music of our choice with exercise. Exercise not only maintains our outward appearance by keeping our physical body fit, toned and slim. It also helps in the physiology of human body where it stimulates almost all the organs inside our body and promotes good metabolism, digestion, excretion and even detoxifies. On the other hand, music plays an excellent role in relaxing our muscles and by activating our brain cells in releasing happy hormones like adrenaline and serotonin that keep us joyful and positive which will obviously improve our overall health. Since health is not defined as not having a disease but it involves a complete well-being of a person physically, psychologically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually as defined by WHO. Our aim here is to bring about a change in the lifestyle of people so they can live a peaceful and harmonious lives regardless of what painful situations they may be going through because life is a gift of God and our body is the temple of God so we have to be happy in ourselves and keep our bodies functioning well just as they have been created so wonderfully by our creator God almighty

Pyrogenic carbon in Australian soils

Pyrogenic carbon (PyC), the combustion residues of fossil fuel and biomass, is a versatile soil fraction active in biogeochemical processes. In this study, the chemo-thermal oxidation method (CTO-375) was applied to investigate the content and distribution of PyC in 30 Australian agricultural, pastoral, bushland and parkland soil with various soil types. Soils were sampled incrementally to 50 cm in 6 locations and at another 7 locations at 0–10 cm. Results showed that PyC in Australian soils typically ranged from 0.27–5.62 mg/g, with three Dermosol soils ranging within 2.58–5.62 mg/g. Soil PyC contributed 2.0–11% (N = 29) to the total organic carbon (TOC), with one Ferrosol as high as 26%. PyC was concentrated either in the top (0–10 cm) or bottom (30–50 cm) soil layers, with the highest PyC:TOC ratio in the bottom (30–50 cm) soil horizon in all soils. Principal component analysis - multiple linear regression (PCA-MLR) suggested the silt-associated organic C factor accounted for 38.5% of the variation in PyC. Our findings suggest that PyC is an important fraction of the TOC (2.0–11%, N = 18) and chemically recalcitrant organic C (ROC) obtained by chemical C fractionation method accounts for a significant proportion of soil TOC (47.3–84.9%, N = 18). This is the first study comparing these two methods, and it indicates both CTO-375 and C speciation methods can determine a fraction of recalcitrant organic C. However, estimated chemically recalcitrant organic carbon pool (ROC) was approximately an order of magnitude greater than that of thermally stable organic carbon (PyC)

Effect of desferrioxamine B and Suwannee River fulvic acid on Fe(III) release and Cr(III) desorption from goethite

Siderophores are biogenic chelating ligands that facilitate the solubilization of Fe(III) and form stable complexes with a range of contaminant metals and therefore may significantly affect their biogeochemical cycling. Desferrioxamine B (DFOB) is a trihydroxamate siderophore that acts synergistically with fulvic acid and low molecular weight organic ligands to release Fe from Fe(III) oxides. We report the results of batch dissolution experiments in which we determine the rates of Cr(III) desorption and Fe(III) release from Cr(III)-treated synthetic goethite as influenced by DFOB, by fulvic acid, and by the two compounds in combination. We observed that adsorbed Cr(III) at 3% surface coverage significantly reduced Fe(III) release from goethite for all combinations of DFOB and fulvic acid. When DFOB (270 µM) was the only ligand present, dissolved Fe(III) and Cr(III) increased approximately 1000-fold and 16-fold, respectively, as compared to the ligand-free system, a difference we attribute to the slow rate of water exchange of Cr(III). Suwannee River fuvic acid (SRFA) acts synergistically with DFOB by (i) reducing the goethite surface charge leading to increased HDFOB+ surface excess and by (ii) forming aqueous Fe(III)-SRFA species whose Fe(III) is subsequently removed by DFOB to yield aqueous Fe(III)-DFOB complexes. These observations shed new light on the synergistic relationship between DFOB and fulvic acid and reveal the mechanisms of Fe(III) acquisition available to plants and micro-organisms in Cr(III) contaminated environments

Bayesian multiple target tracking

This thesis addresses several challenges in Bayesian target tracking, particularly for array signal processing applications, and for multiple targets. The optimal method for multiple target tracking is the Bayes’ joint filter that operates by hypothesising all the targets collectively using a joint state. As a consequence, the computational complexity of the filter increases rapidly with the number of targets. The probability hypothesis density and the multi-Bernoulli filters that overcome this complexity do not possess a suitable framework to operate directly on phased sensor array data. Instead, such data is converted into beamformer images in which close targets may not be effectively resolved and much information is lost. This thesis develops a multiple signal classification (MUSIC) based multi-target particle filter that improves upon the filters mentioned above. A MUSIC based multi-Bernoulli particle filter is also developed, that operates more directly on array data. The above mentioned particle filters require a resampling step which impedes information accumulation over successive observations, and affects the detection of very covert targets. This thesis develops soft resampling and soft systematic resampling to overcome this problem without affecting the accuracy of approximation. Additionally, modified Kolmogorov-Smirnov testing is proposed, to numerically evaluate the accuracy of the particle filter approximation

Chemodynamics of chromium reduction in soils: implications to bioavailability

Chromium toxicity in soils can be mitigated by reduction of Cr(VI) to Cr(III) which is influenced by the presence of free Cr(VI) species in soil solution, and the supply of protons and electrons. In this study, the effects of Cr(VI) adsorption (i.e. availability of free Cr(VI) species in soil solution), soil pH (i.e. supply of protons) and three electron donor carbon sources [black carbon (BC), chicken manure biochar (CMB) and cow manure (CM)] on the reduction of Cr(VI) to Cr(III) in soils were investigated. The results indicated that the rate of Cr(VI) reduction decreased with an increase in Cr(VI) adsorption and soil pH, which is attributed to decreased supply of free Cr(VI) ions and protons, respectively. Among the three different amendments tested, BC showed the highest rate of Cr(VI) reduction followed by CM and CMB. Furthermore, addition of BC, CM and CMB decreased the bioavailability of Cr(VI) in contaminated soils. The high efficiency of BC on Cr(VI) reduction was due to the electron donor\u27s functional groups such as phenolic, hydroxyl, carbonyl and amides. The study demonstrated that free form of Cr(VI) ions in soil solution and carbon amendments enriched with acidic functional groups favored the reduction of Cr(VI), thereby mitigating its bioavailability and toxicity in contaminated soils

Chromium(III) substitution inhibits the Fe(II)-accelerated transformation of schwertmannite.

Schwertmannite is an Fe(III)-oxyhydroxysulfate which is common in acid mine drainage (AMD) and acid sulfate soil (ASS) environments. Natural schwertmannite is often enriched in Cr(III), yet the effects of Cr(III) substitution on schwertmannite transformation to more stable Fe(III) minerals has not been addressed. Here we examine, for the first time, the effects of Cr(III) substitution on the Fe(II)-accelerated transformation of schwertmannite. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fe K-edge extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) spectroscopy shows that Cr(III) substitution inhibits schwertmannite transformation. Substitution at a Cr(III):Fe(III) ratio of 0.025 decreased schwertmannite transformation (at pH 6.5) by 18-49% (depending on Fe(II) concentrations) relative to that of Cr(III)-free schwertmannite. Formation of crystalline secondary phases (predominantly goethite) caused associated decreases in solid-phase Fe and Cr extractability by 1 M HCl. The extractability of Cr was consistently greater than that of Fe, suggesting some accumulation of Cr(III) at the residual schwertmannite surface-a phenomenon which passivates the surface against Fe(II)/Fe(III) electron transfer and atom exchange required for the Fe(II)-accelerated transformation process. The finding that Cr(III)-substitution inhibits schwertmannite transformation implies that it may also significantly impact associated Fe, S and trace metal(loid) behaviour

A study to evaluate the effectiveness of simple technique of placental drainage in control of third stage blood loss

Background: Postpartum hemorrhage is the most common and dreaded complication of third stage of labor. Third stage of labour is always a time of anxiety as the normal case can within a minute become abnormal and successful delivery can swiftly turn into a maternal mortality. India has a maternal mortality rate of 4/1000 live births, whereas it is 0.1 – 0.4 / 1000 live birth in developed countries. Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of simple technique of placental drainage in control of third stage blood loss Methods: A hospital based randomized controlled trial was conducted among 500 women during third stage of labour. They were divided into study and control groups. The study group was one in whom, cord clamping was not done the natural drainage of placenta was allowed, whereas, in the control group, cord clamping was performed. The outcome was assessed by measuring the mean duration of third stage of labour and the complications. Results: Women characteristics were similar for both the study group and the control group both for primigravida and multigravida. The obstetric characteristics like epidural anesthesia, and duration of first and second stage of labour was similar in both the study and control group. But the duration of third stage labour was prolonged in control group where cord was clamped compared to study group for primigravida and multigravida both. The numbers of cases with complications are more in the control group than study group. Conclusion: The mean duration of third stage labour was significantly lesser in placental drainage group compared to cord clamp group. Also the complications were less in the placental drainage group. Thus it can be concluded that the placental drainage is more effective than the cord clamp method

Resampling and Network Theory

Particle filtering provides an approximate representation of a tracked posterior density which converges asymptotically to the true posterior as the number of particles used increases. The greater the number of particles, the higher the computational complexity. This complexity can be implemented by operating the particle filter in parallel architectures. However, the resampling step in the particle filter requires a high level of synchronization and extensive information interchange between the particles, which impedes the use of parallel hardware systems. This paper establishes a new perspective for understanding particle filtering - that particle filtering can be achieved by adopting the principles of information exchange within a network, the nodes of which are now the particles in the particle filter. We propose to connect particles via a minimally connected network and resample each locally. This strategy facilitates full information exchange among the particles, but with each particle communicating with only a small fixed set of other particles, thus leading to minimal communication overhead. The key benefit is that this approach facilitates the use of many particles for accurate posterior approximation and tracking accuracy