Resistance of thermally modified ash (Fraxinus excelsior L.) wood under steam pressure against rot fungi, soil-inhabiting micro-organisms and termites

Thermal modification processes have been developed to increase the biological durability and dimensional stability of wood. The aim of this paper was to study the influence of ThermoWood® treatment intensity on improvement of wood decay resistance against soil-inhabiting micro-organisms, brown/white rots and termite exposures. All of the tests were carried out in the laboratory with two different complementary research materials. The main research material consisted of ash (Fraxinus excelsior L.) wood thermally modified at temperatures of 170, 200, 215 and 228 °C. The reference materials were untreated ash and beech wood for decay resistance tests, untreated ash wood for soil bed tests and untreated ash, beech and pine wood for termite resistance tests. An agar block test was used to determine the resistance to two brown-rot and two white-rot fungi according to CEN/TS 15083-1 directives. Durability against soil-inhabiting micro-organisms was determined following the CEN/TS 15083-2 directives, by measuring the weight loss, modulus of elasticity (MOE) and modulus of rupture (MOR) after incubation periods of 24, 32 and 90 weeks. Finally, Reticulitermes santonensis species was used for determining the termite attack resistance by non-choice screening tests, with a size sample adjustment according to EN 117 standard directives on control samples and on samples which have previously been exposed to soil bed test. Thermal modification increased the biological durability of all samples. However, high thermal modification temperature above 215 °C, represented by a wood mass loss (ML%) due to thermal degradation of 20%, was needed to reach resistance against decay comparable with the durability classes of ‘‘durable’’ or ‘‘very durable’’ in the soil bed test. The brown-rot and white-rot tests gave slightly better durability classes than the soil bed test. Whatever the heat treatment conditions are, thermally modified ash wood was not efficient against termite attack neither before nor after soft rot degradation

Predictores ocupacionales de la concentraciones de Dialquilfosfatos (DAPs) en floricultores de Morelos y Estado de México.

Tesis.El objetivo de este trabajo es evaluar qué características del trabajo en la floricultura,específicamente el tipo de actividades realizadas por los floricultores, el uso deEquipo de Protección Personal (EPP) y el lugar donde realizan dichas actividades,se asocian con las concentraciones de metabolitos de plaguicidasorganofosforados (OPs) en orina.METODOLOGÍA: Se realizó un estudio transversal que incluyó a 117 floricultore

Salt-fog spray aging of jute-basalt reinforced hybrid structures. Flexural and low velocity impact response

In this work, a study on the aging resistance of jute and jute-basalt interply hybrid laminates exposed to salt-fog is presented with the aim to investigate the possibility to enhance the durability of natural fiber reinforced composites for marine application by a ply-substitution approach. In particular, jute and basalt/jute reinforced composite plates were manufactured by vacuum assisted resin infusion in two different staking sequences (i.e., intercalated and sandwich-like basalt-jute) and aged under salt fog conditions. The effects of the accelerated aging at increasing times on the mechanical response of laminates were assessed in both quasi static (three point bending) and dynamic (low velocity impact) conditions. Overall, it was found that the substitution of external jute layers with basalt layers (i.e. sandwich like configuration) represents the best solution to enhance the durability of structures exposed to salt fog aging conditions. This is highlighted by lower decrements, after 90 days of aging, of the quasi-static flexural modulus and the impact peak load (16% and 3.5%, respectively) compared to those showed by jute laminate (40% and 10.5%, respectively)

Description and performance of track and primary-vertex reconstruction with the CMS tracker

A description is provided of the software algorithms developed for the CMS tracker both for reconstructing charged-particle trajectories in proton-proton interactions and for using the resulting tracks to estimate the positions of the LHC luminous region and individual primary-interaction vertices. Despite the very hostile environment at the LHC, the performance obtained with these algorithms is found to be excellent. For t (t) over bar events under typical 2011 pileup conditions, the average track-reconstruction efficiency for promptly-produced charged particles with transverse momenta of p(T) > 0.9GeV is 94% for pseudorapidities of vertical bar eta vertical bar < 0.9 and 85% for 0.9 < vertical bar eta vertical bar < 2.5. The inefficiency is caused mainly by hadrons that undergo nuclear interactions in the tracker material. For isolated muons, the corresponding efficiencies are essentially 100%. For isolated muons of p(T) = 100GeV emitted at vertical bar eta vertical bar < 1.4, the resolutions are approximately 2.8% in p(T), and respectively, 10 m m and 30 mu m in the transverse and longitudinal impact parameters. The position resolution achieved for reconstructed primary vertices that correspond to interesting pp collisions is 10-12 mu m in each of the three spatial dimensions. The tracking and vertexing software is fast and flexible, and easily adaptable to other functions, such as fast tracking for the trigger, or dedicated tracking for electrons that takes into account bremsstrahlung