The Continuous Publications Department

Dynamika systematycznego wzrostu, nowoczesna przestrzeń intelektu, labirynt znaków, magia zaangażowanych w swoją pracę ludzi z pasją – to tylko kilka haseł, które przychodzą na myśl, kiedy chcemy przywołać nazwę Biblioteki Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego i 70 lat jej historii. Łódź przed dwoma wiekami powstawała z tradycji niejednorodnych, i podobnie powstawał – jako mozaika różnych treści intelektualnych – Uniwersytet Łódzki.The article presents the origin and the development of The Continuous Publications Department in The Library of Łódź University. The text shows the changes in the process of acquisition, collecting, storing and providing access to Polish and foreign periodicals between 1945 and 2012. The process of adaptation of cataloged series and the cooperation with other Polish scientific libraries in similar problems, are also discussed

Exposure to diesel exhaust fumes in the context of exposure to ultrafine particles

Objectives: Diesel exhaust fumes emission is a significant source of ultrafine particles, the size of which is expressed in nanometers. People occupationally exposed to diesel exhaust particles include mainly workers servicing vehicles with engines of this type. This article presents the analysis of measurements of ultrafine particle concentrations occurring in the bus depot premises during the work connected with everyday technical servicing of buses. Material and Methods: The measurements were carried out in the everyday servicing (ES) room of the bus depot before, during and after the work connected with bus servicing. Determinations included: particle concentrations in terms of particle number and particle surface area, and mass concentrations of aerosol. Results: Mean value of number concentration of 10- to 1000-nm particles increased almost 20-fold, from 7600 particles/cm3 before starting bus servicing procedures to 130 000 particles/cm3 during the bus servicing procedures in the room. During the procedures, the mean surface area concentration of particles potentially deposited in the alveolar (A) region was almost 3 times higher than that of the particles depositing in the tracheo-bronchial (TB) region: 356.46 μm2/cm3 vs. 95.97 μm2/cm3, respectively. The mass concentration of the fraction of particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter 0.02–1 μm (PM1) increased 5-fold during the analyzed procedures and was 0.042 mg/m3 before, and 0.298 mg/m3 while the procedures continued. Conclusions: At the time when bus servicing procedures continued in the ES room, a very high increase in all parameters of the analyzed particles was observed. The diesel exhaust particles exhibit a very high degree of fragmentation and, while their number is very high and their surface area is very large, their mass concentration is relatively low. The above findings confirm that ultrafine particles found in diesel exhaust fumes may be harmful to the health of the exposed people, and to their respiratory tract in particular

Advanced Image Analysis of the Surface Pattern Emerging in Ni3Al Intermetallic Alloys on Anodization

Anodization of Ni3Al alloy is of interest in the field of industrial manufacturing, thanks to the formation of protective oxide layer on the materials working in corrosive environments and high temperatures. However, homogeneous surface treatment is paramount for technological applications of this material. The anodization conditions have to be set outside the ranges of corrosion and burning, which is the electric field enhanced anodic dissolution of the metal. In order to check against occurrence of these events, proper quantitative means for assessing the surface quality have to be developed and established. We approached this task by advanced analysis of scanning electron microscope images of anodized Ni3Al plates. The anodization was carried out in 0.3 M citric acid at two temperatures of 0 and 30°C and at voltages in the range of 2 12 V. Different figures can be used to characterize the quality of the surface, in terms of uniformity. Here, the concept of regularity ratio spread is used for the first time on surfaces of technological interest. Additionally, the Minkowski parameters have been calculated and their meaning is discussed

Superior strength of tri-layered Al-Cu-Al nano-composites processed by high-pressure torsion

This investigation demonstrates that a solid-state reaction occurs by the application of high-pressure torsion (HPT) in the production of nanostructured multilayered hybrid Al-Cu systems. Three-layered stacks of Al/Cu/Al were subjected for up to 200 revolutions of HPT under an applied pressure of 6.0 GPa. Microstructural and mechanical properties analysis were carried out after HPT using X-ray diffraction, scanning and transmission electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectrometry (EDX), microhardness measurements and tensile tests. The SEM observations revealed the formation of a multi-nano-layered structure in the whole volume of the disks. Further investigations with the use of TEM demonstrated that each nano-layer consists of nano-grains having sizes of about 20 nm. Analysis by XRD and selected area electron diffraction (SAED) confirmed the formation of intermetallic CuAl2 and Cu9Al4 phases in the layered structures. The experiments also showed a significant improvement in microhardness (up to ~450 Hv) and tensile properties (over 900 MPa of UTS after 200 turns) when compared to both Al-1050 and 99.95%Cu alloys in the initial state and after HPT processing. The results demonstrate that HPT offers an outstanding opportunity for producing novel nanostructured Al-Cu multilayered composites having unique mechanical properties