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

Modeling for use of water in agriculture

The present paper examines and evaluates the results of a survey carried out to define the criteria for restoring the surface water of the karstic stream "Gravina" (Southern-Italy). The stream runs through a watershed including several agricultural areas. The stream shows an environmental heterogeneity which is of great value to the conservation of biodiversity. The analysis supports a more general water pollution control strategy aimed at safeguarding natural water quality in the urbanized watershed with the aim, also, to reuse partially the water in agriculture. The methodology was based on the surface water sampling, quality parameter analysis and simulation by modelling. The variation and compatibility of wastewater discharge and water stream quality were verified by using a model available in literature in function of biodegradable pollutant load and dissolved oxygen. Several scenarios based on the fixed yield of treatment plants were examined

Sound Detection and Classification for Medical Telesurvey

International audienceMedical Telesurvey needs human operator assistance by smart information systems. This paper deals with the sound event detection in a noisy environment and presents a first classification approach. Detection is the first step of our sound analysis system and is necessary to extract the sig-nificant sounds before initiating the classification step. An algorithm based on the Wavelet Transform is evaluated in noisy environment. Then Wavelet based cepstral coeffi-cients are proposed and their results are compared with more classical parameters. Detection algorithm and sound classification methods are applied to medical telemonitor-ing. In our opinion, microphones surveying life sounds are better preserving patient privacy than video cameras

Imaging of lumpectomy surface with large field-of-view confocal laser scanning microscope for intraoperative margin assessment - POLARHIS study

Introduction: Breast-conserving surgery (BCS) in case of breast cancer and/or in-situ-carcinoma lesions (DCIS) intends to completely remove breast cancer while saving healthy tissue as much as possible to achieve better aesthetic and psychological outcomes for the patient. Such modality should result in postoperative tumor-free margins of the surgical resection in order to carry on with the next therapeutical steps of the patient care. However, 10–40% of patients undergo more than one procedure to achieve acceptable cancer-negative margins. A 2nd operation or further operation (re-operation) has physical, psychological, and economic consequences. It also delays the administration of adjuvant therapy, and has been associated with an elevated risk of local and distant disease relapse. In addition, a high re-operation rate can have significant economic effects - both for the service provider and for the payer. A more efficient intraoperative assessment of the margin may address these issues. Recently, a large field-of-view confocal laser scanning microscope designed to allow real-time intraoperative margin assessment has arrived on the market - the Histolog Scanner. In this paper, we present the first evaluation of lumpectomy margins assessment with this new device. Materials and methods: 40 consecutive patients undergoing BCS with invasive and/or DCIS were included. The whole surface of the surgical specimens was imaged right after the operation using the Histolog Scanner (HLS). The assessment of all the specimen margins was performed intraoperatively according to the standard-of-care of the center which consists of combined ultrasound (IOUS) and/or conventional specimen radiography (CSR), and gross surgical inspection. Margin assessment on HLS images was blindly performed after the surgery by 5 surgeons and one pathologist. The capabilities to correctly determine margin status in HLS images was compared to the final histopathological assessment. Furthermore, the potential reduction of positive-margin and re-operation rates by utilization of the HLS were extrapolated. Results: The study population included 7/40 patients with DCIS (17.5%), 17/40 patients with DCIS and invasive ductal cancer (IDC NST) (42.5%), 10/40 patients with IDC NST (25%), 4/40 with invasive lobular cancer (ILC) (10%), and 1/40 patients with a mix of IDC NST, DCIS, and ILC. Clinical routine resulted in 13 patients with positive margins identified by final histopathological assessment, resulting in 12 re-operations (30% re-operation rate). Amongst these 12 patients, 10 had DCIS components involved in their margin, confirming the importance of improving the detection accuracy of this specific lesion. Surgeons, who were given a short familiarization on HLS images, and a pathologist were able to detect positive margins in 4/12 and 7/12 patients (33% and 58%), respectively, that were missed by the intraoperative standard of care. In addition, a retrospective analysis of the HLS images revealed that cancer lesions can be identified in 9/12 (75%) patients with positive margins. Conclusion: The present study presents that breast cancer can be detected by surgeons and pathologists in HLS images of lumpectomy margins leading to a potential reduction of 30% and 75% of the re-operations. The Histolog Scanner is easily inserted into the clinical workflow and has the potential to improve the intraoperative standard-of-care for the assessment of breast conserving treatments. In addition, it has the potential to increase oncological safety and cosmetics by avoiding subsequent resections and can also have a significant positive economic effect for service providers and cost bearers. The data presented in this study will have to be further confirmed in a prospective phase–III–trial

Making 2‐D Materials Mechanochemically by Twin‐Screw Extrusion:Continuous Exfoliation of Graphite to Multi‐Layered Graphene

Mechanochemistry has developed rapidly in recent years for efficient chemicals and materials synthesis. Twin screw extrusion (TSE) is a particularly promising technique in this regard because of its continuous and scalable nature. A key aspect of TSE is that it provides high shear and mixing. Because of the high shear, it potentially also offers a way to delaminate 2‐D materials. Indeed, the synthesis of 2‐D materials in a scalable and continuous manor remains a challenge in their industrialization. Here, as a proof‐of‐principle, the automated, continuous mechanochemical exfoliation of graphite to give multi‐layer graphene (MLG, ≈6 layers) by TSE is demonstrated. To achieve this, a solid‐and‐liquid‐assisted extrusion (SLAE) process is developed in which organic additives such as pyrene are rendered liquid due to the high temperatures used, to assist with the exfoliation, and simultaneously solid sodium chloride is used as a grinding aid. This gave MLG in high yield (25 wt%) with a short residence time (8 min) and notably with negligible evidence for structural deterioration (defects or oxidation)

A pulsating white dwarf in an eclipsing binary

White dwarfs are the burnt-out cores of Sun-like stars and are the fate of 97 per cent of the stars in our Galaxy. The internal structure and composition of white dwarfs are hidden by their high gravities, which causes all elements apart from the lightest ones to settle out of their atmospheres. The most direct method of probing the inner structure of stars and white dwarfs in detail is via asteroseismology. Here we present a pulsating white dwarf in an eclipsing binary system, enabling us to place extremely precise constraints on the mass and radius of the white dwarf from the lightcurve, independent of the pulsations. This 0.325-solar-mass white dwarf—one member of the SDSS J115219.99+024814.4 system—will serve as a powerful benchmark with which to constrain empirically the core composition of low-mass stellar remnants and to investigate the effects of close binary evolution on the internal structure of white dwarfs

Conductive-Atomic Force Microscopy Investigation of the Electrical Properties of Low Temperature Deposed ZnO Transparent Thin Films

The paper presents the investigation by conductive-atomic force microscopy (C-AFM) of the variation of the local conductivity and topography of the transparent ZnO thin films deposed onto soda lima glass substrates by spin-coating of pre-prepared ZnO nanoparticles. With conductivity measurements at the nanometer level, the chemical and crystalline structure of the thin films obtained at temperature below 200 °C was investigated by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction, respectively, as a function of the number of the deposed layers and conditions of their deposition, such as deposition rate and the temperature of post-deposition annealing. The increase of the thermal treatment temperature, from 120 to 180 °C, leads to increased values of all thin films, most notably for the thickest sample with three layers deposed at 500 rpm that shows the highest decrease of thickness, indicating the highest compaction. The samples with three layers post-treated at 180 oC show grain growth associated with increased roughness

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