Sanitser, an innovative sanitary ware body, formulated with waste glass and recycled materials

Abstract In the present paper, the results of "Sanitser" Life European project are presented. The aim of this study was to reduce the firing temperature for ceramic body (from 1250 to 1170 °C). This was achieved substituting feldspar and quartz with recycled blend materials and a little percentage of flux (less than 3%); in a sanitary ware vitreous china formulation a waste glass, granitic materials and fired broken ceramic pieces were introduced. Tests performed on the Sanitser formulation showed that it has the same final physical-chemical characteristics of the industrial vitreous china (VC) body. Besides, different ceramic pieces (wash basin, bidet and WC pan) were compared with VC production. The results showed that Sanitser body can replace vitreous china in the sanitary ware production. In this project, the firing temperature of the ceramic body is reduced significantly with a supposed decrease of the CO2 emissions. In Sanitser formulation, about 43.6% of recycled materials that would end in dumps were utilized

Analisis Tingkat Kebisingan Akibat Lalu Lintas Pada Kawasan Perkantoran dan Pendidikan di Kecamatan Kota Utara Kota Gorontalo

Increased traffic volume can result in environmental issues such as noise or noise pollution. The purpose of this study is to analyze the noise levels in the office and educational areas in Kota Utara District, Gorontalo City, using a traffic noise prediction calculation model and to analyze the comparative value of noise levels based on the prediction calculation model and quality standards according to KEP-48/MENLH/11/1996. The location of this study is spread over several points, namely in Kampus STIKES Bina Mandiri Gorontalo, in front of Kantor Kejaksaan Tinggi Gorontalo, and in front of Kantor Imigrasi TPI Kelas I Gorontalo. The method used in this study is an empirical method with a prediction model for traffic noise prediction.The results showed that the highest noise levels on Monday and Thursday occurred in the Kampus STIKES Bina Mandiri Gorontalo area with a noise intensity of 65.71 dB (A) and 64.71 dB (A). The highest noise level on Saturday occurred in front of Kantor Kejaksaan Tinggi Gorontalo with a noise intensity of 65.12 dB (A). According to a comparison of the results of the analysis and the quality standard according to KEP-48/MENLH/11/1996, the average noise level in the Kampus STIKES area has exceeded the quality standard value for the educational area, which is 55 dB (A). The noise level in front of Kantor Kejaksaan Tinggi Gorontalo on Saturday at 07.00–08.00 WITA shows that the noise intensity has exceeded the quality standard for office areas, which is 65 dB (A). Meanwhile, the noise level in front of Kantor Imigrasi on average still meets the quality standards required for office areas

Recent Developments of Electrochemical Wall Mass Transfer Probes and Their Application to Drag-Reducing Polymers

Electrochemical mass transfer probes are used to measure the velocity gradient at a wall. Recent advances in their application are reviewed. These include corrections for the time response of the probe, the simultaneous measurement at a number of locations of the two components of the fluctuating velocity gradient and a study of the influence of drag reducing polymers on turbulence. It is found that drag-reducing polymers cause an increase in the scale of flow oriented eddies in the viscous sublayer

Nutritional Risk Assessment and Cultural Validation of the Modified NUTRIC Score in Critically Ill Patients-A Multicenter Prospective Cohort Study

PURPOSE: Characterize the nutritional risk of critically ill patients with the modified NUTrition Risk in the Critically ill (NUTRIC) score. MATERIALS: National, multicenter, prospective, observational study conducted in 15 polyvalent Portuguese intensive care unit (ICU), during 6 months. Adult patients were eligible. Those transferred from another ICU or readmitted, brain dead at admission, and with length of ICU stay (LOS) of 72 hours or less were excluded. NUTRIC score was calculated at admission; scores ≥5 represent a high nutritional risk. Main outcome was mortality from all causes at 28 days after admission to the ICU; LOS and days without mechanical ventilation (days free of MV) were secondary outcomes. RESULTS: From 2061 admissions, 1143 patients were considered, mostly males (n = 744, 64.7%) with median (P25-P75) age of 64 (51-75). Patients at high nutritional risk were 555 (48.6%). High NUTRIC score was associated with longer LOS (P < .001), less days free of MV (P = .002) and higher 28-day mortality (P < .001). The area under the curve of NUTRIC score ≥5 for predicting 28-day mortality was 0.658 (95% CI, 0.620-0.696). NUTRIC score ≥5 had a positive predictive value 32.7% and a negative predictive value 88.8% for 28-day mortality. CONCLUSIONS: Almost half of the patients in Portuguese ICUs are at high nutritional risk. NUTRIC score was strongly associated with main clinical outcomes.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Dermoscopy and methyl aminolevulinate: A study for detection and evaluation of field cancerization

Actinic keratosis (AK) is a keratinocyte intraepidermal neoplasia UV light – induced that frequently appears in sun-exposed areas of the skin. Although historically AK was de fi ned as “ precancerous ” , actually it is considered as the earliest stage of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) in situ. Since AKs can progress into invasive SCC, their treatment isrecommended. AKsrarely developasa singlelesion;usually multiplelesions commonly affect anen- tire area of chronically actinic damaged skin. This has led to the concept of “ fi eld cancerization ” , an area chroni- cally sun-exposed that surrounds peripherally visible lesions, in which are individualized subclinical alterations. One of the main principles endpoint in the management of AKs is the evaluation and the treatment of fi eld cancerization. In this view, in order to detect and quantify fi eld cancerization, we employed a method based on the topical application of methyl aminolevulinate (MAL) and the detection of the fl uorescence emitted by its metabolite Protoporphyrin IX (PpIX); then, considering the extension and the intensity of measured fl uores- cence, we create a score of fi eld cancerization. The results show that patients underwent to daylight PDT had a reduction of total score, from T0 to T2. Whereas in the group untreated we observed a stability of total score or a slightly worse. So, the method and the score used allows to evaluate with a good approximation the dimension of fi eld cancerization and show the modi fi cation of it after treatment

Effects of sintering temperature on microstructure and properties of sanitaryware ceramic produced with waste material

Abstract This paper aims at exploring the possibility of using a great percentage of recycled materials into vitreous china (VC), thus, contributing to urban waste decrease while lowering the industry's buying costs, previously optimized, for the sanitaryware production. The recycled blend was introduced in the ceramic slip, Sanitser VC, and used in three sanitaryware production plants. This slip let to improve the environmental performances of the overall ceramic production through energy-saving and a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the firing temperature is 80-100 °C lower than traditional production. Therefore, the objective of this paper was to evaluate the firing behavior, technological properties, and microstructure of a typical industrial vitreous china body in comparison with Sanitser VC. The analytical results confirmed the force of this idea and highlighted the advantages of the choice made

Magnetic field resistant quantum interferences in bismuth nanowires based Josephson junctions

We investigate proximity induced superconductivity in micrometer-long bismuth nanowires con- nected to superconducting electrodes with a high critical field. At low temperature we measure a supercurrent that persists in magnetic fields as high as the critical field of the electrodes (above 11 T). The critical current is also strongly modulated by the magnetic field. In certain samples we find regular, rapid SQUID-like periodic oscillations occurring up to high fields. Other samples ex- hibit less periodic but full modulations of the critical current on Tesla field scales, with field-caused extinctions of the supercurrent. These findings indicate the existence of low dimensionally, phase coherent, interfering conducting regions through the samples, with a subtle interplay between orbital and spin contributions. We relate these surprising results to the electronic properties of the surface states of bismuth, strong Rashba spin-orbit coupling, large effective g factors, and their effect on the induced superconducting correlations.Comment: 5 page

The role of asymmetric interactions on the effect of habitat destruction in mutualistic networks

Plant-pollinator mutualistic networks are asymmetric in their interactions: specialist plants are pollinated by generalist animals, while generalist plants are pollinated by a broad involving specialists and generalists. It has been suggested that this asymmetric ---or disassortative--- assemblage could play an important role in determining the equal susceptibility of specialist and generalist plants under habitat destruction. At the core of the argument lies the observation that specialist plants, otherwise candidates to extinction, could cope with the disruption thanks to their interaction with generalist pollinators. We present a theoretical framework that supports this thesis. We analyze a dynamical model of a system of mutualistic plants and pollinators, subject to the destruction of their habitat. We analyze and compare two families of interaction topologies, ranging from highly assortative to highly disassortative ones, as well as real pollination networks. We found that several features observed in natural systems are predicted by the mathematical model. First, there is a tendency to increase the asymmetry of the network as a result of the extinctions. Second, an entropy measure of the differential susceptibility to extinction of specialist and generalist species show that they tend to balance when the network is disassortative. Finally, the disappearance of links in the network, as a result of extinctions, shows that specialist plants preserve more connections than the corresponding plants in an assortative system, enabling them to resist the disruption.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figure

Workpresence - Aplicação para a gestão de presenças

A gestão e controlo de presenças nas organizações tem, ao longo dos anos, vindo a merecer uma atenção cada vez mais significativa no meio das organizações. Existe uma perceção clara que o controlo eficaz e análise de presenças uma maior produtividade dos funcionários e, consequentemente, das organizações. O presente trabalho consiste no processo de desenvolvimento de um sistema informático para a gestão de presenças de funcionários de uma organização, na qual os funcionários utilizem uma aplicação móvel no seu smartphone, para registarem as suas entradas e as suas saídas. O administrador da organização terá acesso às suas ferramentas de gestão, visualização de estatísticas e à atividade dos seus funcionários através de uma aplicação Web. Estas duas aplicações estabelecerão comunicação entre as duas, através de tecnologia WebService. Já existem algumas aplicações no mercado de gestão de presenças, no entanto a grande maioria faz uso de sensores físicos, para controlar as presenças dos funcionários. Estes sensores físicos trazem algumas desvantagens como: requerem amplo tempo a serem instaladas, os funcionários necessitam de adaptar a novas rotinas, estão sujeitos a manutenções periódicas e em caso de avaria, a sua reparação pode demorar semanas. Todas estas desvantagens fazem com que os sensores físicos sejam bastante invasivos e difíceis de se adaptar a mudanças dentro de uma organização. O sistema proposto, designa-se por WorkPresence, utiliza as tecnologias Android e Web para disponibilizar a qualquer organização, um sistema de gestão de presenças que seja adaptável, intuitivo, pouco invasivo, sem custos de manutenção e utilizável em qualquer computador ou smartphone Android

Tameness of holomorphic closure dimension in a semialgebraic set

Given a semianalytic set S in a complex space and a point p in S, there is a unique smallest complex-analytic germ at p which contains the germ of S, called the holomorphic closure of S at p. We show that if S is semialgebraic then its holomorphic closure is a Nash germ, for every p, and S admits a semialgebraic filtration by the holomorphic closure dimension. As a consequence, every semialgebraic subset of a complex vector space admits a semialgebraic stratification into CR manifolds satisfying a strong version of the condition of the frontier.Comment: Published versio