Robotic 3D printing with earth: A case study for optimisation of 3D printing building blocks

The interest in 3D printed earthen buildings in developed countries has increased due to the demand for healthy, comfortable and sustainable buildings constructed with low carbon materials and laboursaving methods. However, the amount of research about this field is still limited. Our research aims to contribute to this field by optimising the robotic 3D printing process by investigating issues such as buckling while printing, adequate soil mix recipe for printing, print and extrusion speed calibration. This paper illustrates the process and the results of the temporary research project and the Robotic Cob Printing Workshop with MSc Computational Methods in Architecture (CMA) students at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, in March 2022. The project aims to achieve structural stability with less material by using the geometry and the infill of the building block while exploring the role of computational design, robotic extrusion and material understanding in robotic 3D printing with earth as a low-carbon novel building method

Cyanobacterial mats: Microanalysis of community metabolism

The microbial communities in two sites were studied using several approaches: (1) light microscopy; (2) the measurement of microprofiles of oxygen and sulfide at the surface of the microbial mat; (3) the study of diurnal variation of oxygen and sulfides; (4) in situ measurement of photosynthesis and sulfate reduction and study of the coupling of these two processes; (5) measurement of glutathione in the upper layers of the microbial mat as a possible oxygen quencher; (6) measurement of reduced iron as a possible intermediate electron donor along the established redoxcline in the mats; (7) measurement of dissolved phosphate as an indicator of processes of break down of organic matter in these systems; and (8) measurement of carbon dioxide in the interstitial water and its delta C-13 in an attempt to understand the flow of CO2 through the systems. Microbial processes of primary production and initial degradation at the most active zone of the microbial mat were analyzed

Spatial disconnection between stellar and dust emissions: the test of the Antennae Galaxies (Arp 244)

The detection with of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) of dust-rich high redshift galaxies whose cold dust emission is spatially disconnected from the ultraviolet emission bears a challenge for modelling their spectral energy distributions (SED) with codes based on an energy budget between the stellar and dust components. We test the validity of energy balance modelling on a nearby resolved galaxy with vastly different ultraviolet and infrared spatial distributions and infer what information can be reliably retrieved from the analysis of the full spectral energy distribution. We use 15 broadband images of the Antennae Galaxies ranging from far-ultraviolet to far-infrared and divide Arp 244 into 58 square ~1 kpc$^2$ regions. We fit the data with CIGALE to determine the star formation rate, stellar mass and dust attenuation of each region. We compare these quantities for the addition of the 58 regions to the ones obtained for Arp 244 as a whole and find that both estimates are consistent within one sigma. We present the spatial distribution of these physical parameters as well as the shape of the attenuation curve across the Antennae Galaxies . We also observe a flattening of the attenuation curves with increasing attenuation and dust surface density in agreement with the predictions of hydrodynamical simulations coupled with radiative transfer modelling.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Quasienergy spectra of a charged particle in planar honeycomb lattices

The low energy spectrum of a particle in planar honeycomb lattices is conical, which leads to the unusual electronic properties of graphene. In this letter we calculate the quasienergy spectra of a charged particle in honeycomb lattices driven by a strong AC field, which is of fundamental importance for its time-dependent dynamics. We find that depending on the amplitude, direction and frequency of external field, many interesting phenomena may occur, including band collapse, renormalization of velocity of ``light'', gap opening etc.. Under suitable conditions, with increasing the magnitude of the AC field, a series of phase transitions from gapless phases to gapped phases appear alternatively. At the same time, the Dirac points may disappear or change to a line. We suggest possible realization of the system in Honeycomb optical lattices.Comment: 4+ pages, 5 figure

Competing phases in the high field phase diagram of (TMTSF)2_2ClO4_4

A model is presented for the high field phase diagram of (TMTSF)$_2$ClO$_4$, taking into account the anion ordering, which splits the Fermi surface in two bands. For strong enough field, the largest metal-SDW critical temperature corresponds to the N=0 phase, which originates from two intraband nesting processes. At lower temperature, the competition between these processes puts at disadvantage the N=0 phase vs. the N=1 phase, which is due to interband nesting. A first order transition takes then place from the N=0 to N=1 phase. We ascribe to this effect the experimentally observed phase diagrams.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures (to appear in Phys. Rev. Lett.

Field-induced confinement in (TMTSF)2ClO4 under accurately aligned magnetic fields

We present transport measurements along the least conducting c direction of the organic superconductor (TMTSF)2ClO4, performed under an accurately aligned magnetic field in the low temperature regime. The experimental results reveal a two-dimensional confinement of the carriers in the (a,b) planes which is governed by the magnetic field component along the b' direction. This 2-D confinement is accompanied by a metal-insulator transition for the c axis resistivity. These data are supported by a quantum mechanical calculation of the transverse transport taking into account in self consistent treatment the effect of the field on the interplane Green function and on the intraplane scattering time

Construção de micoteca de Mycosphaerella musicola no Estado da Bahia.

A cultura da bananeira assume importância econômica e social em todo o mundo sendo cultivada em mais de 130 países tropicais e subtropicais, principalmente por pequenos agricultores. No Brasil, a Região Nordeste se destaca, representando 40% da produção nacional e o Estado da Bahia se posiciona em primeiro lugar, sendo responsável pela renda de milhões de famílias no nordeste do país

Combining Contrast Invariant L1 Data Fidelities with Nonlinear Spectral Image Decomposition

This paper focuses on multi-scale approaches for variational methods and corresponding gradient flows. Recently, for convex regularization functionals such as total variation, new theory and algorithms for nonlinear eigenvalue problems via nonlinear spectral decompositions have been developed. Those methods open new directions for advanced image filtering. However, for an effective use in image segmentation and shape decomposition, a clear interpretation of the spectral response regarding size and intensity scales is needed but lacking in current approaches. In this context, $L^1$ data fidelities are particularly helpful due to their interesting multi-scale properties such as contrast invariance. Hence, the novelty of this work is the combination of $L^1$-based multi-scale methods with nonlinear spectral decompositions. We compare $L^1$ with $L^2$ scale-space methods in view of spectral image representation and decomposition. We show that the contrast invariant multi-scale behavior of $L^1-TV$ promotes sparsity in the spectral response providing more informative decompositions. We provide a numerical method and analyze synthetic and biomedical images at which decomposition leads to improved segmentation.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, conference SSVM 201

Antitumor Activity of Pembrolizumab in Biomarker-Unselected Patients With Recurrent and/or Metastatic Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma: Results From the Phase Ib KEYNOTE-012 Expansion Cohort.

Purpose Treatment with pembrolizumab, an anti-programmed death-1 antibody, at 10 mg/kg administered once every 2 weeks, displayed durable antitumor activity in programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) -positive recurrent and/or metastatic (R/M) head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) in the KEYNOTE-012 trial. Results from the expansion cohort, in which patients with HNSCC, irrespective of biomarker status, received a fixed dose of pembrolizumab at a less frequent dosing schedule, are reported. Patients and Methods Patients with R/M HNSCC, irrespective of PD-L1 or human papillomavirus status, received pembrolizumab 200 mg intravenously once every 3 weeks. Imaging was performed every 8 weeks. Primary end points were overall response rate (ORR) per central imaging vendor (Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors v1.1) and safety. Secondary end points included progression-free survival, overall survival, and association of response and PD-L1 expression. Patients who received one or more doses of pembrolizumab were included in analyses. Results Of 132 patients enrolled, median age was 60 years (range, 25 to 84 years), 83% were male, and 57% received two or more lines of therapy for R/M disease. ORR was 18% (95% CI, 12 to 26) by central imaging vendor and 20% (95% CI, 13 to 28) by investigator review. Median duration of response was not reached (range, ≥ 2 to ≥ 11 months). Six-month progression-free survival and overall survival rates were 23% and 59%, respectively. By using tumor and immune cells, a statistically significant increase in ORR was observed for PD-L1-positive versus -negative patients (22% v 4%; P = .021). Treatment-related adverse events of any grade and grade ≥ 3 events occurred in 62% and 9% of patients, respectively. Conclusion Fixed-dose pembrolizumab 200 mg administered once every 3 weeks was well tolerated and yielded a clinically meaningful ORR with evidence of durable responses, which supports further development of this regimen in patients with advanced HNSCC