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Remediation Of A Clay Contaminated With Petroleum Hydrocarbons Using Soil Reagent Mixing
Soil reagent mixing (SRM) is a remediation technique whereby powder or slurried reagents are delivered and mixed in-situ or ex-situ with contaminated soils or sediments by augers or other types of soil mixers. This paper summarises the work carried out for a laboratory treatability study of SRM on clayey soil samples contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbon compounds from a petrol filling station site in Kent, UK. The study examined the effects of mixing binder reagents on the total soil and leachate concentrations of hydrocarbons. Quicklime, hydrated lime and ordinary Portland cement, in a number of different formulations, were used in the study. Furthermore, the addition of gypsum to some reagent formulations was evaluated in an attempt to improve the strength of the binder/soil mix. Temperature and evolution of volatiles were monitored during the mixing of soils with the reagents. The mixing of soil with binder reagents resulted in changes in physical and physico-chemical properties of the clay, and in significant decreases in total soils and leachate concentrations of petroleum hydrocarbon compounds. The mechanisms responsible for the decreases in concentrations were examined. Significant increases in the remoulded strength of the clay were observed upon addition of certain binder formulations
A combined proteomics, metabolomics and in vivo analysis approach for the characterization of probiotics in large-scale production
The manufacturing processes of commercial probiotic strains may be affected in different ways in the attempt to optimize yield, costs, functionality, or stability, influencing gene expression, protein patterns, or metabolic output. Aim of this work is to compare different samples of a high concentration (450 billion bacteria) multispecies (8 strains) formulation produced at two different manufacturing sites, United States of America (US) and Italy (IT), by applying a combination of functional proteomics, metabolomics, and in vivo analyses. Several protein-profile differences were detected between IT-and US-made products, with Lactobacillus paracasei, Streptococcus thermophilus, and Bifidobacteria being the main affected probiotics/microorganisms. Performing proton nuclear magnetic spectroscopy (1H-NMR), some discrepancies in amino acid, lactate, betaine and sucrose concentrations were also reported between the two products. Finally, we investigated the health-promoting and antiaging effects of both products in the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans. The integration of omics platforms with in vivo analysis has emerged as a powerful tool to assess manufacturing procedures
Percutaneous Tibial Nerve Stimulation for Treatment of Idiopathic Faecal Incontinence: Mid-term Results from a Single Center
Abstract
Objective: Percutaneous tibial nerve stimulation is a recent and minimally invasive treatment for faecal
incontinence (FI). The aim of this study is to evaluate the mid-term results in patients with idiopathic faecal
incontinence (IFI).
Methods: Fifty one patients (42 female and 9 male) were prospectively recruited. Patients were treated twice a
week for 6 weeks as per study protocol. We have assessed the degree of fecal incontinence using the Cleveland
Clinic faecal incontinence (CCF-FI) score at baseline, at 6 weeks, at 6 months and at 1 year. Also the anorectal
manometric data (mean resting pressure (MRP), squeeze pressure (SP) and, rectal sensation) at baseline, at 6
weeks and at 6 months have been evaluated.
Results: The median CCF-FI score was significantly decreased from an initial baseline value from 12 to 7 at 6
weeks, 3 at 6 months and, 3 at 1 year (respectively: 1st interquartile 4.5, 1, 0 vs 10; 3rd interquartile 9, 5, 5 vs 14.5,
p = 0.0001). Anorectal manometry showed an improvement of the internal (resting pressure, MRP) and the external
sphincters (squeeze pressure, SP) at 6 months compared to the baseline and 6 weeks by PTNS, while, RP and SP
at 6 months was greater than at baseline and 6 weeks (p = 0.004 and p = 0.002 respectively).
Conclusions: This study demonstrates that stimulation of the posterior tibial nerve could be an excellent
procedure for the treatment of IFI. The stimulation of the posterior tibial nerve can improve the fecal continence
(CCF-FI score) in the short term and this improvement is maintained after 1 year of follow-up without treatmen
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Ianus: an Adpative FPGA Computer
Dedicated machines designed for specific computational algorithms can
outperform conventional computers by several orders of magnitude. In this note
we describe {\it Ianus}, a new generation FPGA based machine and its basic
features: hardware integration and wide reprogrammability. Our goal is to build
a machine that can fully exploit the performance potential of new generation
FPGA devices. We also plan a software platform which simplifies its
programming, in order to extend its intended range of application to a wide
class of interesting and computationally demanding problems. The decision to
develop a dedicated processor is a complex one, involving careful assessment of
its performance lead, during its expected lifetime, over traditional computers,
taking into account their performance increase, as predicted by Moore's law. We
discuss this point in detail
An in-depth view of the microscopic dynamics of Ising spin glasses at fixed temperature
Using the dedicated computer Janus, we follow the nonequilibrium dynamics of
the Ising spin glass in three dimensions for eleven orders of magnitude. The
use of integral estimators for the coherence and correlation lengths allows us
to study dynamic heterogeneities and the presence of a replicon mode and to
obtain safe bounds on the Edwards-Anderson order parameter below the critical
temperature. We obtain good agreement with experimental determinations of the
temperature-dependent decay exponents for the thermoremanent magnetization.
This magnitude is observed to scale with the much harder to measure coherence
length, a potentially useful result for experimentalists. The exponents for
energy relaxation display a linear dependence on temperature and reasonable
extrapolations to the critical point. We conclude examining the time growth of
the coherence length, with a comparison of critical and activated dynamics.Comment: 38 pages, 26 figure
apeNEXT: A multi-TFlops Computer for Simulations in Lattice Gauge Theory
We present the APE (Array Processor Experiment) project for the development
of dedicated parallel computers for numerical simulations in lattice gauge
theories. While APEmille is a production machine in today's physics simulations
at various sites in Europe, a new machine, apeNEXT, is currently being
developed to provide multi-Tflops computing performance. Like previous APE
machines, the new supercomputer is largely custom designed and specifically
optimized for simulations of Lattice QCD.Comment: Poster at the XXIII Physics in Collisions Conference (PIC03),
Zeuthen, Germany, June 2003, 3 pages, Latex. PSN FRAP15. Replaced for adding
forgotten autho
Nature of the spin-glass phase at experimental length scales
We present a massive equilibrium simulation of the three-dimensional Ising
spin glass at low temperatures. The Janus special-purpose computer has allowed
us to equilibrate, using parallel tempering, L=32 lattices down to T=0.64 Tc.
We demonstrate the relevance of equilibrium finite-size simulations to
understand experimental non-equilibrium spin glasses in the thermodynamical
limit by establishing a time-length dictionary. We conclude that
non-equilibrium experiments performed on a time scale of one hour can be
matched with equilibrium results on L=110 lattices. A detailed investigation of
the probability distribution functions of the spin and link overlap, as well as
of their correlation functions, shows that Replica Symmetry Breaking is the
appropriate theoretical framework for the physically relevant length scales.
Besides, we improve over existing methodologies to ensure equilibration in
parallel tempering simulations.Comment: 48 pages, 19 postscript figures, 9 tables. Version accepted for
publication in the Journal of Statistical Mechanic
Matching microscopic and macroscopic responses in glasses
We first reproduce on the Janus and Janus II computers a milestone experiment
that measures the spin-glass coherence length through the lowering of
free-energy barriers induced by the Zeeman effect. Secondly we determine the
scaling behavior that allows a quantitative analysis of a new experiment
reported in the companion Letter [S. Guchhait and R. Orbach, Phys. Rev. Lett.
118, 157203 (2017)]. The value of the coherence length estimated through the
analysis of microscopic correlation functions turns out to be quantitatively
consistent with its measurement through macroscopic response functions.
Further, non-linear susceptibilities, recently measured in glass-forming
liquids, scale as powers of the same microscopic length.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Simulating spin systems on IANUS, an FPGA-based computer
We describe the hardwired implementation of algorithms for Monte Carlo
simulations of a large class of spin models. We have implemented these
algorithms as VHDL codes and we have mapped them onto a dedicated processor
based on a large FPGA device. The measured performance on one such processor is
comparable to O(100) carefully programmed high-end PCs: it turns out to be even
better for some selected spin models. We describe here codes that we are
currently executing on the IANUS massively parallel FPGA-based system.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures; submitted to Computer Physics Communication
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