An improved dental composite with potent antibacterial function

A new BisGMA-based antibacterial dental composite has been formulated and evaluated. Compressive strength and bacterial viability were utilized to evaluate the formed composites. It was found that the new composite exhibited a significantly enhanced antibacterial function along with improved mechanical and physical properties. The bromine-containing derivative-modified composite was more potent in antibacterial activity than the chlorine-containing composite. The modified composites also exhibited an increase of 30–53% in compressive yield strength, 15–30% in compressive modulus, 15–33% in diametral tensile strength and 6–20% in flexural strength, and a decrease of 57–76% in bacterial viability, 23–37% in water sorption, 8–15% in shrinkage, 8–13% in compressive strength, and similar degree of conversion, than unmodified composite. It appears that this experimental composite may possibly be introduced to dental clinics as an attractive dental restorative due to its improved properties as well as enhanced antibacterial function

Line and Continuum Variability in Active Galaxies

We compared optical spectroscopic and photometric data for 18 AGN galaxies over 2 to 3 epochs, with time intervals of typically 5 to 10 years. We used the Multi-Object Double Spectrograph (MODS) at the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) and compared the spectra to data taken from the SDSS database and the literature. We find variations in the forbidden oxygen lines as well as in the hydrogen recombination lines of these sources. For 4 of the sources we find that, within the calibration uncertainties, the variations in continuum and line spectra of the sources are very small. We argue that it is mainly the difference in black hole mass between the samples that is responsible for the different degree of continuum variability. In addition we find that for an otherwise constant accretion rate the total line variability (dominated by the narrow line contributions) reverberates the continuum variability with a dependency $\Delta L_{line} \propto (\Delta L_{cont.})^{\frac{3}{2}}$. Since this dependency is prominently expressed in the narrow line emission it implies that the luminosity dominating part of the narrow line region must be very compact with a size of the order of at least 10 light years. A comparison to literature data shows that these findings describe the variability characteristics of a total of 61 broad and narrow line sources.Comment: 30 pages including the appendix, 18 figures including the appendix. Accepted 2015 September 3. Received 2015 August 24; in original form 2015 July 3 in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societ

Power allocation for D2D communications using max-min message-passing algorithm

The approach of factor-graphs (FGs) is applied in the context of power control and user pairing in Device-to-Device (D2D) communications as an effective underlay concept in wireless cellular networks. D2D communications can increase the spectral efficiency of wireless cellular networks by establishing a direct link between devices with limited help from the evolved node base stations (eNBs). A well-designed user pairing and power allocation scheme with low complexity can remarkably improve the system’s performance. In this paper, a simple and distributed FG based approach is utilized for power control and user pairing implementation in an underlay cellular network with D2D communications. A max-min criterion is proposed to maximize the minimum rate of all active users in the network, including the cellular and multiple D2D co-channel links in the uplink direction. An associated message-passing (MP) algorithm is presented to distributedly solve the resultant NP-hard maximization problem, with a guaranteed convergence compared to game-theoretic and Q-learning based methods. The complexity and convergence of the proposed method are analyzed and numerical results confirm that the proposed scheme outperforms alternative algorithms in terms of complexity, while keeping the sum-rate of users nearly the same as centralized counterpart methods

Comparative preliminary evaluation of two in-stream water treatment technologies for the agricultural reuse of drainage water in the Nile delta

In the Nile Delta, a complex network of canals collects drainage water from surface-irrigated fields, but also municipal wastewater. The goal of this work was to assess the technical, environmental and financial feasibility of the upgrade of a drainage canal (DC) into either an in-stream constructed wetland (ICW) or a canalized facultative lagoon (CFL), in order to produce a water re-usable in agriculture according to the Egyptian law. The model-based design of the proposed technologies was derived from field experimental data for the ICW and laboratory data for the CFL. Both technologies, integrated by a sedimentation pond and a disinfection canal, led to the attainment of the water quality standards imposed by Egyptian Law 92/2013 for the reuse of drainage water. The life cycle assessment indicated that the upgrade of an existing DC to either an ICW or a CFL results in an extremely small environmental burden, 64 0.3% of that of a traditional activated sludge process. The cost/benefit analysis (CBA) was based on the assumptions that (i) farmers currently irrigate a non-food crop (cotton) with the low-quality drainage water present in the DC, and (ii) thanks to the upgrade to a ICW or CFL, farmers will irrigate a food crop characterized by a higher market price (rice). The CBA indicated that the DC upgrade to an ICW represents an attractive investment, as it leads to a financial rate of return > 10% over a wide range of cotton market prices. Conversely, the upgrade to a CFL is less attractive due to high investment costs. In conclusion, the upgrade of DCs to ICWs appears a promising option for the treatment of drainage canal water in the Nile Delta, thanks to the high pollutant removal performances, low cost and negligible environmental burden. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Assessment of Rainfall Intensity Equations Enlisted in the Egyptian Code for Designing Potable Water and Sewage Networks

The design of combined sewage system networks is based on the sanitary discharge (domestic, industrial) and the runoff generated by rainfall. The Egyptian code of practice for designing potable water and sewage networks gives two Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) equations to calculate the intensity of rainfall to be applied to all cities of Egypt. The purpose of this research is to study and assess the adequacy of the rainfall intensity equations suggested by the aforementioned Egyptian code. This is carried out taking into consideration the available rainfall ground station measurements and remote sensing Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) satellite rainfall estimates. This assessment leads to the following results. For the Mediterranean coastal cities, the code of practice equations significantly underestimates the rainfall intensities for all storm durations, which may lead to road networks damage and accidents due to hydroplaning and road flooding. On the contrary, for many other southern cities along the Nile Valley, the code equations significantly overestimate the rainfall intensities, which affects the economical aspect of the sewage network. Consequently, the current research suggests new rainfall intensity equations instead of the code equations