New water-based copolymer nanoparticles and their use as eco-friendly binders for industry of flexographic ink, part I

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to prepare, characterise and evaluate nano-emulsions of copolymers of various compositions as eco-friendly binders for flexographic ink industry. Design/methodology/approach: Various nano-emulsions of copolymers were prepared using styrene (St), butyl acrylate (BuAc), acrylic acid (AA) and acrylamide (AAm) monomers by means of a conventional seeded emulsion polymerisation technique, using K2S2O8 as the initiator. The characterisation of the prepared emulsions was performed using Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). A selection of copolymers was formulated with pigments and additional ingredients, as water-based flexographic inks. The inks were characterised for their viscosity, pH, degree of dispersion, water resistance and colour density. Findings: It was found that the low viscosity of the prepared copolymers may reduce the film thickness of the flexographic inks and may also increase the spreading of the ink on the surface. As a result, stable modified polyacrylate-based latex with improved physico-mechanical properties were obtained. The prepared latexes were showed improving and enhancing in water resistance; gloss values, and the print density that ranged from 2.06 to 2.51 and the maximum gloss values (39 and 48) were also obtained. Also, these binders provide excellent adhesion properties for both the pigment particles and the base paper. Practical implications: This study focuses on the preparation of new water-based copolymer nanoparticles and their use as eco-friendly binders for flexographic ink industry. Social implications: The ink formulations developed could find use in industrial-scale printing. Originality/value: Eco-friendly environment ink formulations for printing on paper substrates are novel

N-Acetylcysteine restores sevoflurane postconditioning cardioprotection against myocardial ischemia reperfusion injury in diaebtic rats

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Faint young Sun paradox remains

The Sun was fainter when the Earth was young, but the climate was generally at least as warm as today; this is known as the `faint young Sun paradox'. Rosing et al. [1] claim that the paradox can be resolved by making the early Earth's clouds and surface less reflective. We show that, even with the strongest plausible assumptions, reducing cloud and surface albedos falls short by a factor of two of resolving the paradox. A temperate Archean climate cannot be reconciled with the low level of CO2 suggested by Rosing et al. [1]; a stronger greenhouse effect is needed.Comment: 3 pages, no figures. In press in Nature. v2 corrects typo in author list in original submissio

Energy loss in perturbative QCD

We review the properties of energetic parton propagation in hot or cold QCD matter, as obtained in recent works. Advances in understanding the energy loss - collisional and radiative - are summarized, with emphasis on the latter: it features very interesting properties which may help to detect the quark-gluon plasma produced in heavy ion collisions. We describe two different theoretical approaches, which lead to the same radiated gluon energy spectrum. The case of a longitudinally expanding QCD plasma is investigated. The energy lost by a jet with given opening angle is calculated in view of making predictions for the suppression (quenching) of hard jet production. Phenomenological implications for the difference between hot and cold matter are discussed. Numerical estimates of the loss suggest that it may be significantly enhanced in hot compared to cold matter.Comment: 49 pages latex file with 11 embedded PS figures. Uses ar.sty (included), one equation revised. submitted to Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Scienc

To VBAC or Not to VBAC

Catherine Spong discusses new research in PLoS Medicine that sheds more light on the risks of uterine rupture for women attempting a trial of labor following previous cesarean section

Coded Merkle Tree: Solving Data Availability Attacks in Blockchains

In this paper, we propose coded Merkle tree (CMT), a novel hash accumulator that offers a constant-cost protection against data availability attacks in blockchains, even if the majority of the network nodes are malicious. A CMT is constructed using a family of sparse erasure codes on each layer, and is recovered by iteratively applying a peeling-decoding technique that enables a compact proof for data availability attack on any layer. Our algorithm enables any node to verify the full availability of any data block generated by the system by just downloading a $\Theta(1)$ byte block hash commitment and randomly sampling $\Theta(\log b)$ bytes, where $b$ is the size of the data block. With the help of only one connected honest node in the system, our method also allows any node to verify any tampering of the coded Merkle tree by just downloading $\Theta(\log b)$ bytes. We provide a modular library for CMT in Rust and Python and demonstrate its efficacy inside the Parity Bitcoin client.Comment: To appear in Financial Cryptography and Data Security (FC) 202

Negative Effect of Smoking on the Performance of the QuantiFERON TB Gold in Tube Test.

False negative and indeterminate Interferon Gamma Release Assay (IGRA) results are a well documented problem. Cigarette smoking is known to increase the risk of tuberculosis (TB) and to impair Interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) responses to antigenic challenge, but the impact of smoking on IGRA performance is not known. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of smoking on IGRA performance in TB patients in a low and high TB prevalence setting respectively. Patients with confirmed TB from Denmark (DK, n = 34; 20 smokers) and Tanzania (TZ, n = 172; 23 smokers) were tested with the QuantiFERON-TB Gold In tube (QFT). Median IFN-γ level in smokers and non smokers were compared and smoking was analysed as a risk factor for false negative and indeterminate QFT results. Smokers from both DK and TZ had lower IFN-γ antigen responses (median 0.9 vs. 4.2 IU/ml, p = 0.04 and 0.4 vs. 1.6, p < 0.01), less positive (50 vs. 86%, p = 0.03 and 48 vs. 75%, p < 0.01) and more false negative (45 vs. 0%, p < 0.01 and 26 vs. 11%, p = 0.04) QFT results. In Tanzanian patients, logistic regression analysis adjusted for sex, age, HIV and alcohol consumption showed an association of smoking with false negative (OR 17.1, CI: 3.0-99.1, p < 0.01) and indeterminate QFT results (OR 5.1, CI: 1.2-21.3, p = 0.02). Cigarette smoking was associated with false negative and indeterminate IGRA results in both a high and a low TB endemic setting independent of HIV status