Compensation for Uneven Surfaces When Building Laser Deposited Structures

Direct Laser Deposition (DLD) is a blown-powder laser deposition process that can be used to quickly produce, modify or repair fully-dense metallic parts by a layered manufacturing method. However, uneven substrate surfaces often cause variation in the deposited layer which is magnified by succeeding layers. Research carried out at the University of Liverpool has resulted in a non-feedback layer height controlling process based on controlling the shape of the powder streams emitted from a four-port side feed nozzle. This method limits deposited layer height by causing a sharp reduction of catchment efficiency in the vertical plane at a fixed distance from the powder feed nozzle, and is therefore capable of depositing a consistent layer height in spite of power, powder flow or process velocity variation. This paper demonstrates how this method of layer height control can compensate for irregular substrate surfaces in the production of accurate DLD parts.Mechanical Engineerin

Perceptions and Attitudes to Waste Disposal: An Assessment of Waste Disposal Behaviors in the Tamale Metropolis

The study was done in the Northern Region of Ghana (Tamale metropolis) in 2012. Primary data on waste collection and management were collected at the household level (210 households) using questionnaires based on the Theory of Reasoned Action (TORA) construct. Secondary data was also collected from records of Zoom-lion Ghana Limited as well as the Tamale Municipal Waste Management Department. The TORA model was employed to evaluate how perceptions and attitudes of households influenced disposal of solid waste and willingness to pay (WTP). Overall, attitude of households had strong influence on the intention to use collection bins in future. On the other hand, social referents had no influence on the intention to use collection bins. Neither the overall attitude nor subjective norms of households had influence on their intention to use open pit as a method of solid waste disposal. Overall, attitude of households had stronger influence on their intention to pay for solid waste collection than the subjective norms. Households are willing to pay an average amount of GH ¢4.0 monthly, which is subject to the type of job or income earned by the household heads. Keywords: Solid waste, household, willingness to pay, attitude, subjective norm

Quantifying Shape of Star-Like Objects Using Shape Curves and A New Compactness Measure

Shape is an important indicator of the physical and chemical behavior of natural and engineered particulate materials (e.g., sediment, sand, rock, volcanic ash). It directly or indirectly affects numerous microscopic and macroscopic geologic, environmental and engineering processes. Due to the complex, highly irregular shapes found in particulate materials, there is a perennial need for quantitative shape descriptions. We developed a new characterization method (shape curve analysis) and a new quantitative measure (compactness, not the topological mathematical definition) by applying a fundamental principle that the geometric anisotropy of an object is a unique signature of its internal spatial distribution of matter. We show that this method is applicable to “star-like” particles, a broad mathematical definition of shape fulfilled by most natural and engineered particulate materials. This new method and measure are designed to be mathematically intermediate between simple parameters like sphericity and full 3D shape descriptions. For a “star-like” object discretized as a polyhedron made of surface planar elements, each shape curve describes the distribution of elemental surface area or volume. Using several thousand regular and highly irregular 3-D shape representations, built from model or real particles, we demonstrate that shape curves accurately encode geometric anisotropy by mapping surface area and volume information onto a pair of dimensionless 2-D curves. Each shape curve produces an intrinsic property (length of shape curve) that is used to describe a new definition of compactness, a property shown to be independent of translation, rotation, and scale. Compactness exhibits unique values for distinct shapes and is insensitive to changes in measurement resolution and noise. With increasing ability to rapidly capture digital representations of highly irregular 3-D shapes, this work provides a new quantitative shape measure for direct comparison of shape across classes of particulate materials

Cancer - Cell survival guide

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/62618/1/431035a.pd

A pilot study of megestrol acetate and ibuprofen in the treatment of cachexia in gastrointestinal cancer patients.

Advanced gastrointestinal cancer patients with weight loss and an acute-phase response (n = 15) were given megestrol acetate (480 mg day(-1)) and ibuprofen (1200 mg day(-1)) for 6 weeks. Overall, there was an increase in body weight (P = 0.01) and a reduction in C-reactive protein concentrations (P = 0.02), with no change in total body water (P = 0.24) over this period. This regimen may be an effective non-toxic treatment for cancer cachexia and is worthy of further study

Failure of systemic ketosis to control cachexia and the growth rate of the Walker 256 carcinosarcoma in rats.

The Walker 256 carcinosarcoma was shown to lack the enzyme 3-ketoacid CoA transferase. This suggests that ketone bodies cannot be used as a major substrate for the energy metabolism of this tumour. Systemic ketosis (1-2 mM acetoacetate plus 3-hydroxybutyrate) was induced both in tumour-bearing and in non-tumour-bearing rats with a diet containing 70% medium chain triglyceride. However, in rats bearing the Walker 256 tumour, this dietary ketosis did not reduce the tumour growth rate nor did it prevent the subsequent decrease in host body weight. Host body nitrogen losses were similarly unaffected. The ketosis induced in tumour bearing rats was shown to be abnormal since the blood glucose concentration of ketotic, tumour-bearing rats was significantly higher compared with that of ketotic non-tumour bearing rats (5.2 +/- 0.4 mM cf 3.4 +/- 0.6 mM, P less than 0.01). These results may partly explain why systemic ketosis failed to alter the growth and cachexia induced by the Walker 256 carcinosarcoma

Changes in nutritional status associated with unresectable pancreatic cancer.

Weight loss is common in patients with pancreatic cancer; however, the nature and progress of their nutritional depletion are not well documented. In this study, pre-illness weight and duration of weight loss were recorded in 20 patients with histologically confirmed unresectable cancer of the pancreas. Patients then underwent nutritional analysis at monthly intervals until death. The median period of assessment was 27 weeks (interquartile range 22.5-38.0 weeks). At the time of diagnosis, all patients had lost weight [median 14.2% (10.0-20.0%) of pre-illness stable weight], and this weight loss was progressive, increasing to a median of 24.5% by the time of the last assessment (P =0.0004). Body mass index was significantly reduced from a pre-illness median value of 24.9 kg m-2 (22.4-27.4 kg m-2) to 20.7 kg m-2 (19.5-23.6 kg m-2) at the time of diagnosis and further to 17.7 kg m-2 (16.6-23.1 kg m-2) just before death (P =0.0003). Further evidence of tissue depletion was evident from the significant reductions in lean body mass [43.4 kg (36.9-53.0 kg) to 40.1 kg (33.5-50.7 kg) P =0.008] and fat mass [12.5 kg (8.9-17.8 kg) to 9.6 kg (6.3-15.1 kg) P =0.03). This study confirms that the majority of patients with unresectable pancreatic cancer have already undergone significant weight loss by the time of diagnosis and that the natural history of this process is one of inexorable progression. These results highlight the need for selective non-toxic therapeutic intervention to attenuate cachexia and indicate that such interventions should be instituted early in the course of the disease