On The Potential Of Lignin As A Sintering Aid And Binder For Designing Porous Foams

Lignin, as an abundant source of bio-renewable material, has been a subject of investigation for many years. Due to its chemically heterogenous and recalcitrant nature, 98% of the material is discarded as waste [3]. Laboratory groups have been exploring lignin’s potential as a value-added ingredient to promote biocompatibility, biodegradation, and substitute toxic, petroleum-based materials [4,6]. In our laboratory, lignin has been utilized as precursor for carbon foam, yielding highly porous structures after pyrolysis [5], and has also been shown to be compatible with other bio-waste materials [8]. The next stage of research focusses on controlled additions of Cu or Distiller’s Dried Grains with Solubles (DDGS) to reinforce lignin during pyrolysis. To achieve the goal of enhancing and controlling the properties of pyrolyzed lignin, Cu was used as a base metal for designing scaffolds. As an associated bio-waste material, DDGS has been shown to have significant commercial potential beyond edible materials [14-20]. Separate additions of these materials are combined with lignin using similar design principles for manufacturing, methodology of fabrication, and characterization. In both composite systems, lignin is observed to be a low temperature sintering aid, or pore former, while acting as a strong mechanical binder. Cu or DDGS additions within a lignin matrix resulted in strength enhancement as compared to fabricated lignin foams while achieving highly porous composite foams. Such foams exhibit temperature-controlled wettability, resulting in hydrophobic behavior when fabricated at 300 °C, or hydrophilic behavior when fabricated at 900 °C. The research concludes that Cu and DDGS can be effective reinforcements into lignin-based carbon foams. In addition, lignin can be a low-temperature sintering aid which is derived from bio-renewable sources

Law and Economics After Behavioral Economics

This is the published version

The Cult of Efficiency in Corporate Law

This paper challenges a fundamental assumption of corporate law scholarship. Corporate law is heavily influenced by economics, and by normative economics in particular. Economic efficiency, for example, is seen as the primary goal of good corporate governance. But this dependence on standard notions of economic efficiency is unfortunate, as those notions are highly problematic. In economic theory, efficiency is spelled out in terms of individual preference satisfaction, which is an inadequate foundation for any sort of normative analysis. We argue that on any account of the good, people will sometimes prefer things that aren’t good for them on that account. Giving people what they want, then, isn’t necessarily an accomplishment, and thus the normative assessment of economic outcomes is much more complicated than economists recognize. This fact is something that should be reflected in corporate law scholarship, and would greatly expand the range of possible considerations when restructuring corporate law

“I am afraid of being treated badly if I show it”: A cross-sectional study of healthcare accessibility and Autism Health Passports among UK Autistic adults

Autistic people are more likely to experience stigma, communication barriers and anxiety during healthcare. Autism Health Passports (AHPs) are a communication tool that aim to provide information about healthcare needs in a standardised way. They are recommended in research and policy to improve healthcare quality

DISTRESS, EUSTRESS, AND INTENTIONS TO CONTINUE DISTANCE LEARNING IN THE CONTEXT OF RAPID SHIFTS TO ONLINE COURSES

COVID-19 brought significant, rapid changed to education, including information systems education. One of the most significant of these changes was the abrupt transition from face-to-face instruction to distance learning. As is often the case with abrupt transitions, this shift was stress inducing for many affected, including students. In this extended abstract we describe an empirical study of two types of distance learning stress, distress [stress that is detrimental to well-being] and eustress [stress that enhances well-being] in the context of distance learning. Using data from a survey of higher education students in the United States, we demonstrate that the perceived abruptness of the transition to distance learning had a positive impact on distress, and a negative impact on eustress. Further, distress and eustress impacted intentions to continue with distance learning, but these impacts were fully mediated by distance learning satisfaction

Age-dependent molecular alterations in the autophagy pathway in HIVE patients and in a gp120 tg mouse model: reversal with beclin-1 gene transfer.

Aged (>50 years old) human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) patients are the fastest-growing segment of the HIV-infected population in the USA and despite antiretroviral therapy, HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder (HAND) prevalence has increased or remained the same among this group. Autophagy is an intracellular clearance pathway for aggregated proteins and aged organelles; dysregulation of autophagy is implicated in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, and HAND. Here, we hypothesized that dysregulated autophagy may contribute to aging-related neuropathology in HIV-infected individuals. To explore this possibility, we surveyed autophagy marker levels in postmortem brain samples from a cohort of well-characterized <50 years old (young) and >50 years old (aged) HIV+ and HIV encephalitis (HIVE) patients. Detailed clinical and neuropathological data showed the young and aged HIVE patients had higher viral load, increased neuroinflammation and elevated neurodegeneration; however, aged HIVE postmortem brain tissues showed the most severe neurodegenerative pathology. Interestingly, young HIVE patients displayed an increase in beclin-1, cathepsin-D and light chain (LC)3, but these autophagy markers were reduced in aged HIVE cases compared to age-matched HIV+ donors. Similar alterations in autophagy markers were observed in aged gp120 transgenic (tg) mice; beclin-1 and LC3 were decreased in aged gp120 tg mice while mTor levels were increased. Lentivirus-mediated beclin-1 gene transfer, that is known to activate autophagy pathways, increased beclin-1, LC3, and microtubule-associated protein 2 expression while reducing glial fibrillary acidic protein and Iba1 expression in aged gp120 tg mice. These data indicate differential alterations in the autophagy pathway in young versus aged HIVE patients and that autophagy reactivation may ameliorate the neurodegenerative phenotype in these patients

Assessing the Reliability of Ultrasound Imaging to Examine Radial Nerve Excursion

AbstractUltrasound imaging allows cost effective in vivo analysis for quantifying peripheral nerve excursion. This study used ultrasound imaging to quantify longitudinal radial nerve excursion during various active and passive wrist movements in healthy participants. Frame-by-frame cross-correlation software allowed calculation of nerve excursion from video sequences. The reliability of ultrasound measurement of longitudinal radial nerve excursion was moderate to high (intraclass correlation coefficient range = 0.63–0.86, standard error of measurement 0.19–0.48). Radial nerve excursion ranged from 0.41 to 4.03 mm induced by wrist flexion and 0.28 to 2.91 mm induced by wrist ulnar deviation. No significant difference was seen in radial nerve excursion during either wrist movement (p > 0.05). Wrist movements performed in forearm supination produced larger overall nerve excursion (1.41 ± 0.32 mm) compared with those performed in forearm pronation (1.06 ± 0.31 mm) (p < 0.01). Real-time ultrasound is a reliable, cost-effective, in vivo method for analysis of radial nerve excursion