Determination of the absorption length of CO2, Nd:YAG and high power diode laser radiation for a selected grouting material

The laser beam absorption lengths of CO2, Nd:YAG and a high power diode laser (HPDL) radiation for a newly developed SiO2/Al2O3-based tile grout have been determined through the application of Beer-Lambert’s law. The findings revealed marked differences in the absorption lengths despite the material having similar beam absorption coefficients for the lasers. The absorption lengths for the SiO2/Al2O3-based tile grout for CO2, Nd:YAG and HPDL radiation were calculated as being 23211 m, 1934 m and 1838 m respectively. Moreover, this method of laser beam absorption length determination, which has hitherto been used predominantly with lasers operated in the pulsed mode, is shown to be valid for use with lasers operated in the continuous wave (CW) mode, depending upon the material being treated

Dietary protein intake and renal function

Recent trends in weight loss diets have led to a substantial increase in protein intake by individuals. As a result, the safety of habitually consuming dietary protein in excess of recommended intakes has been questioned. In particular, there is concern that high protein intake may promote renal damage by chronically increasing glomerular pressure and hyperfiltration. There is, however, a serious question as to whether there is significant evidence to support this relationship in healthy individuals. In fact, some studies suggest that hyperfiltration, the purported mechanism for renal damage, is a normal adaptative mechanism that occurs in response to several physiological conditions. This paper reviews the available evidence that increased dietary protein intake is a health concern in terms of the potential to initiate or promote renal disease. While protein restriction may be appropriate for treatment of existing kidney disease, we find no significant evidence for a detrimental effect of high protein intakes on kidney function in healthy persons after centuries of a high protein Western diet

Transcript for Episode 11: Destined to Lead: Tom Judge\u27s Path to Becoming Montana\u27s Youngest Governor

https://digitalcommons.mtech.edu/crucible_transcriptions/1010/thumbnail.jp

Mild Dehydration Led to Increased Difficulty Falling Asleep

Sleep is fundamental process that benefits health and overall quality of life which can be affected by various aspects of daily living such as dehydration. A study has yet to investigate the impacts of euhydration and mild dehydration on sleep. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine effects of euhydration, mild-dehydration, and ad libitum drinking on sleep. METHODS: Eighteen male participants (mean±SD; age, 23±4y; height, 175.8±5.7cm; weight, 80.1±9.7kg) reported to the laboratory with different hydration status for 4 consecutive mornings(Day 1, baseline; Day 2, euhydrated; Day 3, mild-dehydrated; Day 4, ad libitum drinking). Hydration status was monitored by first morning urine specific gravity (USG) and plasma osmolality. Sleepwas measured using the Karolinska sleep diary (KSD). RESULTS: USG (baseline, 1.024±0.006; euhydrated, 1.018±0.007; mild-dehydrated, 1.030±0.003; ad libitum, 1.021±0.008, pCONCLUSION: When subjects were mildly dehydrated, sleep duration was longer while it was more difficult to fall asleep. More research is necessary, but the results of this study suggest it may be important to maintain euhydration to fall asleep easier

Physiotherapy management of low back pain: does practice match the Dutch guidelines

Contains fulltext : 49168.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)The purpose of this study is to explore adherence by Dutch physiotherapists to the physiotherapists' guideline for non-specific low back pain. For this study data from the National Information Service for Allied Health Care were used. This is a registration network that continuously collects information about physiotherapy patients and their treatment episodes. Within this network, adherence to the low back pain guideline was assessed by three criteria based on the guideline. These criteria concerned the number of sessions, the treatment goals, and the interventions. Data from patients with 'non-specific low back pain' as the reason for referral and a completed treatment episode were selected (n = 1254); 90 therapists in 40 practices treated these patients. The criterion concerning the number of sessions applied only for patients with acute complaints and was met in 17% of these patients. In about half of the patients the criterion for the treatment goals as well as the criterion relating to the interventions was met. Treatment goals are aimed mainly at improving mobility functions and changing body position. In more than three-quarters of the treatment episodes manual interventions (massage or manual manipulation) and exercise therapy were used frequently. As considerable variation in guideline adherence was shown to exist among therapists, there is clearly room for improvement in the quality of the care

Environmental controls on convective-scale perturbation growth

Flooding from intense rainfall, resulting from convection, causes millions of pounds of damage each year. However, convection has limited predictability, often resulting in short lead times for warnings of such events. This research aims to determine the spatial scales of perturbation growth in convective-scale forecasts for different environmental conditions over the British Isles. The convective adjustment timescale identifies whether cases are in equilibrium with the large-scale forcing, so can be used to quantitatively classify convection into the regimes of quasi-equilibrium and non-equilibrium. A method is found to calculate the timescale based on criteria considering its variability and the environment in which it is calculated. The most appropriate method uses a Gaussian kernel to spatially smooth convective available potential energy and precipitation accumulation fields before the calculation. A model climatology is created over the summers of 2012-2014 (due to limited operational data from the United Kingdom Variable resolution, UKV, configuration of the Met Office United Model) to understand the characteristics of the regimes over the British Isles. In summer 85% of convection is in convective quasi-equilibrium, with more nonequilibrium events in the south and west of the British Isles. The UKV is perturbed with Gaussian buoyancy perturbations to create an ensemble. These perturbations represent unresolved processes within the boundary layer. The perturbation growth is examined across a spectrum of cases and it is shown that events at the non-equilibrium end of the spectrum have higher spatial predictability than those at the equilibrium end (O(1 km) vs. O(10 km)), implying more localised growth in nonequilibrium, than quasi-equilibrium, environments. This research has implications in the interpretation of forecasts for defining regions when issuing weather warnings associated with convection. The research also has implications for adaptive forecasting, in which high-resolution forecasts are used for nonequilibrium convection and large-member ensembles are used for events in convective quasi-equilibriu

Evaporative Mass Loss Measurement as a Quality Control Tool for Quality Assurance in the Manufacture of Inks Suitable for High Speed (≥60 m/min) Printing

In any manufacturing environment, it is always important to be able to embrace a culture of traceability of any non-conformed product. For the case of ink manufacture, operator confusion, leading to the mixing-up of solvents, or connecting the incorrect solvent drum to solvent lines, can lead to disastrous consequences that are not trivial for a quality control/quality assurance team to unravel. Accordingly, simple methods for assessing whether the correct solvents were added in the correct ratios to products empower this QA/QC requirement. In this paper, we examine the use of a trivial measurement of evaporative mass loss as a protocol for validating the conformance of manufactured ink to specification. Inspired by the transport-limit that occurs at ultramicroelectrodes in electrochemistry, we develop theory to analyse evaporation rate measurements, and illustrate how vaporisation at the liquid | gas interface is dominated by a diffusion anisotropy, owing to natural convection for organic solvents, manufactured resins and commercialised inks that have been used, inter alia, for the underground transport tickets in the cities of London and Paris. We further demonstrate that the use of incorrect solvents is readily seen through evaporation rate transients, thereby enabling this measurement for human factor mitigation during the ink manufacture process

Interactions of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays with photons in the galactic center

Ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays passing through the central region of the Galaxy interact with starlight and the infrared photons. Both nuclei and protons generate secondary fluxes of photons and neutrinos on their passage through the central region. We compute the fluxes of these secondary particles, the observations of which can be used to improve one's understanding of origin and composition of ultrahigh-energy comic rays, especially if the violation of the Greisen--Zatespin--Kuzmin cutoff is confirmed by the future data.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure