Improving mechanical properties of novel flax/tannin composites through different chemical treatments

Due to the inherent environmental benefits of using renewable materials, mimosa tannin resin (a natural phenolic resin) reinforced by flax fibres could offer desirable characteristics (lightweight, economic and low environmental impact) aiming at reducing carbon footprint of superlight electric vehicles. The non-woven flax mats were chemically treated (alkali, acetylation, silane and enzymatic treatment) to prepare tannin composites through compression moulding (130 °C/35 min/1.5 MPa). The change in fibre morphology was seen in SEM (scanning electronic microscope) images. The treatments (except enzymatic) showed significant improvement in tensile properties, along with enhancement (acetylation) in flexural properties, but little effect on impact resistance for all treatments. APS (aminopropyl triethoxy siloxane) treated composites showed highest tensile strength of 60 MPa and modulus of 7.5 GPa. BTCA (butanetetracarboxylic acid) treatment led to the highest flexural strength of up to 70 MPa. NaOH treatment retained the impact failure force of about 0.5 kN and sustained the saturation energy (4.86 J) compared to untreated composites (4.80 J)

Towards a Knowledge-Based Secure Healthcare Resource Balancing System

This paper describes the collaborative partnership between European regions with the objective of developing a secure information network for the advancement of healthcare and humanitarian aid work. The basis for the project is the EU i2010 Initiative (European Information Society for Growth and Employment (June 2005)). The aims and objectives of EU i2010 are to ensure that European business, governments and citizens make the best use of ICT in order to improve industrial competitiveness, support growth and the creation of jobs, as well as aiming to address key societal challenges including geographic and social exclusion. The combination of a widely dispersed population, healthcare provision in remote environments, and an overall shortage of medical professionals, are key issues in the delivery of services. The objective is therefore to establish a system to overcome a lack of qualified medical professionals and establish cross-border data transmission to improve patient treatment and optimize existing healthcare resources. The intent is develop a platform application which can then be transferred for the benefit of other healthcare services

Wooden Breast Myodegeneration of Pectoralis Major Muscle Over the Growth Period in Broilers

Wooden breast (WB) myopathy of broiler chickens is a myodegenerative disease of an unknown etiology and is macroscopically characterized by a hardened consistency of the pectoralis major muscle. Our aim was to describe the development and morphology of WB over the growth period in broilers. Additionally, the effect of restricted dietary selenium on the occurrence of WB was examined by allocating the birds in 2 dietary groups: restricted and conventional level of selenium. The experiment included 240 male broilers that were euthanized at ages of 10, 18, 24, 35, 38, or 42 days and evaluated for WB based on abnormal hardness of the pectoralis major muscle. The severity and the distribution of the lesion and presence of white striping were recorded. The first WB cases were seen at 18 days; 13/47 birds (28%) were affected and the majority exhibited a mild focal lesion. In subsequent age groups the WB prevalence varied between 48% and 73% and the lesion was usually diffuse and markedly firm. White striping often coexisted with WB. Histological evaluation performed on 111 cases revealed a significant association of myodegeneration and lymphocytic vasculitis with WB. Vasculitis and perivascular cell infiltration were restricted to the veins. Restricted dietary selenium did not affect the occurrence of WB (P = .44). Our results indicate that WB starts focally and spreads to form a diffuse and more severe lesion.Peer reviewe

A Bibliometric Study on Authorship Trends and Research Themes in Knowledge Management Literature

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from IFKAD via the link in this record.The aim of the study is to identify the contribution of authors in the domain of Knowledge Management (KM). The underlying data is from two leading KM journals, namely, the Journal of Knowledge Management (JKM) and the Journal of Intellectual Capital (JIC). We downloaded articles from Thomson Reuters Web of Science (WoS),with JKM and JIC-specific searches resulting in 508 and 73 citing articles respectively. The timeframe of analysis was 2009-2016. This dataset was used to create co-citation network visualisations to provide insights into the clusters of authors and research topics. Measures such as Betweenness centrality and hubs-authorities (HITS) were used to identify significant authors and their key themes of interest. More specifically, network analysis identified six dominant research themes, it revealed a total of 14,422 authors being cited (depicted as nodes in the visualisation) with a total of 1,023,123 citations (edges). Based on the findings of this study, the paper will explore the specific themes and the intellectual turning points in KM research and its evolution. Our bibliometric analysis has practical significance for researchers since it recognises the dominant research areas, and by extension, it identifies those that are still in their infancy; the latter having the potential of representing an interesting research gap. The limitation of the study is that the underlying data is only from two journals (albeit, from the top two journals in KM), which may lead to partially biased results. In future, the aim is to also leverage the analysis to more KM journals, e.g., the top ten journals within the Serenko & Bontis (2013) most updated list

Biosynthesis of γ-aminobutyric acid by lactic acid bacteria in surplus bread and its use in bread making

Aims: The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of bread as substrate for γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) biosynthesis, establishing a valorization strategy for surplus bread, repurposing it within the food chain. Methods and results: Surplus bread was fermented by lactic acid bacteria (LAB) to produce GABA. Pediococcus pentosaceus F01, Levilactobacillus brevis MRS4, Lactiplantibacillus plantarum H64 and C48 were selected among 33 LAB strains for the ability to synthesize GABA. Four fermentation experiments were set up using surplus bread as such, added of amylolytic and proteolytic enzymes, modifying the pH or mixed with wheat bran. Enzyme-treated slurries led to the release of glucose (up to 20 mg g-1 ) and free amino acid, whereas the addition of wheat bran (30% of bread weight) yielded the highest GABA content (circa 800 mg kg-1 of dry weight) and was the most suitable substrate for LAB growth. The selected slurry was ultimately used as an ingredient in bread making causing an increase in free amino acids. Conclusions: Besides the high GABA concentration (148 mg kg-1 dough), the experimental bread developed in this study was characterized by good nutritional properties, highlighting the efficacy of tailored bioprocessing technologies as means to mitigate food wastage. Significance and impact of study: Our results represent a proof of concept of effective strategies to repurpose food industry side streams

First Steps Towards Gamification Of Online Physics And Mathematics Assignments

The objective of this practice paper is to describe and analyse the use of online learning tasks on engineering mathematics and physics courses. The development of learning tasks was inspired by the promising effects of gamification techniques in higher education. Hence, some gamification elements, such as bonus points and immediate feedback were integrated into the learning tasks. Course results and student feedback demonstrate the positive impact of gamification of online learning tasks on students’ motivation and learning. In the end, further possibilities of increasing the number and repertoire of gamification techniques in engineering mathematics and physics courses are discussed

Wooden breast myopathy links with poorer gait in broiler chickens

Wooden breast myopathy, a condition where broiler breast muscles show a hardened consistency post-mortem, has been described recently. However, it is not known how wooden breast myopathy affects the bird activity or welfare. Altogether, over 340 birds of five commonly used commercial hybrids were housed in 25 pens, and sample birds killed at ages of 22, 32, 36, 39 and 43 days. Their breast muscle condition was assessed post-mortem by palpation. The birds were gait scored and their latency to lie was measured before killing. For further behavior observations, one affected and healthy bird in 12 pens were followed on 5 days for 20 minutes using video recordings. The connection of myopathy to gait score and activity was analyzed with mixed models. A higher gait score of wooden-breast-affected birds than that of unaffected birds (2.9 +/- 0.1 v. 2.6 +/- 0.1, P <0.05) indicated a higher level of locomotor difficulties over all age groups. The wooden-breast-affected birds had fewer crawling or movement bouts while lying down compared with unaffected (P <0.05). Wooden breast myopathy-affected birds were heavier (2774 +/- 91 v. 2620 +/- 91 g; P <0.05) and had higher breast muscle yield (21 +/- 1 v. 19 +/- 1%; P <0.05) than unaffected birds overall. Older birds had longer lying bouts, longer total lying time, fewer walking bouts, more difficulties to walk and to stand compared with younger birds (P <0.05). Birds with poorer gait had longer total lying time and fewer walking bouts (P <0.05). Birds with greatest breast muscle yield had the largest number of lying bouts (P <0.05). It was concluded that wooden breast myopathy was associated with an impairment of gait scores, and may thus be partly linked to the common walking abnormalities in broilers.Peer reviewe

Urinary Biomarkers Indicative of Apoptosis and Acute Kidney Injury in the Critically Ill

BackgroundApoptosis is a key mechanism involved in ischemic acute kidney injury (AKI), but its role in septic AKI is controversial. Biomarkers indicative of apoptosis could potentially detect developing AKI prior to its clinical diagnosis.MethodsAs a part of the multicenter, observational FINNAKI study, we performed a pilot study among critically ill patients who developed AKI (n = 30) matched to critically ill patients without AKI (n = 30). We explored the urine and plasma levels of cytokeratin-18 neoepitope M30 (CK-18 M30), cell-free DNA, and heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) at intensive care unit (ICU) admission and 24h thereafter, before the clinical diagnosis of AKI defined by the Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes - creatinine and urine output criteria. Furthermore, we performed a validation study in 197 consecutive patients in the FINNAKI cohort and analyzed the urine sample at ICU admission for CK-18 M30 levels.ResultsIn the pilot study, the urine or plasma levels of measured biomarkers at ICU admission, at 24h, or their maximum value did not differ significantly between AKI and non-AKI patients. Among 20 AKI patients without severe sepsis, the urine CK-18 M30 levels were significantly higher at 24h (median 116.0, IQR [32.3-233.0] U/L) than among those 20 patients who did not develop AKI (46.0 [0.0-54.0] U/L), P = 0.020. Neither urine cell-free DNA nor HSP70 levels significantly differed between AKI and non-AKI patients regardless of the presence of severe sepsis. In the validation study, urine CK-18 M30 level at ICU admission was not significantly higher among patients developing AKI compared to non-AKI patients regardless of the presence of severe sepsis or CKD.ConclusionsOur findings do not support that apoptosis detected with CK-18 M30 level would be useful in assessing the development of AKI in the critically ill. Urine HSP or cell-free DNA levels did not differ between AKI and non-AKI patients

Probabilistic Verification at Runtime for Self-Adaptive Systems

An effective design of effective and efficient self-adaptive systems may rely on several existing approaches. Software models and model checking techniques at run time represent one of them since they support automatic reasoning about such changes, detect harmful configurations, and potentially enable appropriate (self-)reactions. However, traditional model checking techniques and tools may not be applied as they are at run time, since they hardly meet the constraints imposed by on-the-fly analysis, in terms of execution time and memory occupation. For this reason, efficient run-time model checking represents a crucial research challenge. This paper precisely addresses this issue and focuses on probabilistic run-time model checking in which reliability models are given in terms of Discrete Time Markov Chains which are verified at run-time against a set of requirements expressed as logical formulae. In particular, the paper discusses the use of probabilistic model checking at run-time for self-adaptive systems by surveying and comparing the existing approaches divided in two categories: state-elimination algorithms and algebra-based algorithms. The discussion is supported by a realistic example and by empirical experiments