DESIGN FOR SUSTAINABILITY: PRODUCT LIFE-CYCLE ANALYSIS IN ALUMINUM AUTO BODY APPLICATIONS

The scope of this work is to generate quantifiable measures of sustainability elements that apply to manufactured products in terms of environmental, social and economic benefits. This thesis presents a comprehensive analysis for developing a methodology to compare the costs encountered by a vehicle over its entire life-cycle (Pre-manufacturing, Manufacturing, Use, and Post-use stages), considering two different material scenarios, aluminum versus steel, used in body-in-white (BIW) structures and exterior body panels. The potential benefits of using lighter materials in auto body applications are further evaluated through a Sustainability Scoring method. The proposed six major integral sustainable elements considered in this work are: products environmental impact, societal impact, functionality, resource utilization and economy, manufacturability and recyclability/remanufacturability. Each of these elements has corresponding sub-elements and influencing factors which are categorized as having equal importance to the product

Real-time computer-aided diagnosis of focal pancreatic masses from endoscopic ultrasound imaging based on a hybrid convolutional and long short-term memory neural network model

Differential diagnosis of focal pancreatic masses is based on endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) guided fine needle aspiration biopsy (EUS-FNA/FNB). Several imaging techniques (i.e. gray-scale, color Doppler, contrast-enhancement and elastography) are used for differential diagnosis. However, diagnosis remains highly operator dependent. To address this problem, machine learning algorithms (MLA) can generate an automatic computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) by analyzing a large number of clinical images in real-time. We aimed to develop a MLA to characterize focal pancreatic masses during the EUS procedure. The study included 65 patients with focal pancreatic masses, with 20 EUS images selected from each patient (grayscale, color Doppler, arterial and venous phase contrast-enhancement and elastography). Images were classified based on cytopathology exam as: chronic pseudotumoral pancreatitis (CPP), neuroendocrine tumor (PNET) and ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). The MLA is based on a deep learning method which combines convolutional (CNN) and long short-term memory (LSTM) neural networks. 2688 images were used for training and 672 images for testing the deep learning models. The CNN was developed to identify the discriminative features of images, while a LSTM neural network was used to extract the dependencies between images. The model predicted the clinical diagnosis with an area under curve index of 0.98 and an overall accuracy of 98.26%. The negative (NPV) and positive (PPV) predictive values and the corresponding 95% confidential intervals (CI) are 96.7%, [94.5, 98.9] and 98.1%, [96.81, 99.4] for PDAC, 96.5%, [94.1, 98.8], and 99.7%, [99.3, 100] for CPP, and 98.9%, [97.5, 100] and 98.3%, [97.1, 99.4] for PNET. Following further validation on a independent test cohort, this method could become an efficient CAD tool to differentiate focal pancreatic masses in real-time

PRODUCT LIFE-CYCLE ANALYSIS IN ALUMINUM AUTO BODY APPLICATIONS By

The scope of this work is to generate quantifiable measures of sustainability elements that apply to manufactured products in terms of environmental, social and economic benefits. This thesis presents a comprehensive analysis for developing a methodology to compare the costs encountered by a vehicle over its entire life-cycle (Pre-manufacturing, Manufacturing, Use, and Post-use stages), considering two different material scenarios, aluminum versus steel, used in body-in-white (BIW) structures and exterior body panels. The potential benefits of using lighter materials in auto body applications are further evaluated through a “Sustainability Scoring ” method. The proposed six major integral sustainable elements considered in this work are: product’s environmental impact, societal impact, functionality, resource utilization and economy, manufacturability and recyclability/remanufacturability. Each of these elements has corresponding subelements and influencing factors which are categorized as having equal importance to the product

Environmental impact of the Midia Port - Black Sea (Romania), on the coastal sediment quality

The aim of the study was to evaluate the impact of potential pollution sources, mainly from the upstream anthropogenic sources and port-related activities. The in-vestigated area covered a wide range of anthropogenic im-pacts (e.g., industrial wastes, storm water runoff, acciden-tal oil spills, intentional discharges and shipping activities). The quality of water and Sediments was assessed us-ing Standard methods, as physical-chemical parameters, chemistry and biology (microbiology, ecotoxicology) aim-ing to figure the level of pollution and the effect of port-related activities. Seawater quality results agreed generally with environmental Standards. Though, in some samples the concentrations of sulphates (mg/1) and heavy metals (μg/1), as B, As and Se exceeded the recommended lim-its, without posing a serious environmental concern. Most of the surface sediment samples contain critical levels of hydrocarbons (C>12), (mg/kg), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (ng/g) and polychlorobiphenyls (ng/g). For some heavy metals (mg/kg), exchangeable concentrations were found to be very close or above the regulations. The signifi-cance of this study is incontestable taking into account the lack of previous relevant historical data of this area. In this sense, it was possible to indicate, in general, good environmental conditions, despite the industrial and concentrated local port-related activities in the investigated area

Structural and catalytic properties of mono- and bimetallic nickel-copper nanoparticles derived from MgNi(Cu)Al-LDHs under reductive conditions

International audienceHerein, a way to generate mono- and bi-metallic copper and/or nickel nanoparticles by the direct reduction of Mg(Ni)CuAl-layered double hydroxide (LDH) precursors is reported. Cu and Ni with various molar ratios (0:1,1:4,1:1,4:1 and 1:0) were substituted in the MgAl brucite-like sheets during synthesis. Studies on the evolution of LDH structures under H-2 reduction of as-synthesized samples at different temperatures (30-550 degrees C) followed by in situ XRD evidenced the high reducibility of copper cations. The metallic phases generated during reduction of LDHs were dependent on the chemical composition of the sample. The corresponding TEM images display small, very well-dispersed metallic nanoparticles. A positive effect of nickel cations on the dispersion and thermostability of metallic copper phase was also observed, especially with increasing Ni content. For instance, metallic particle sizes of 6.5 and 3.3 nm were calculated for the NPs generated by reduction at 500 degrees C of MgCuAl and MgNiCuAl (Ni:Cu = 1:1), respectively. Outstanding results for the hydrogenation of cinnamaldehyde in liquid phase were obtained on Cu-rich materials that are able to generate metallic active sites even after reduction at temperature as low as 150 degrees C. Due to the difficulty to detect the metallic phases generated after reduction at 150 degrees C by usual techniques (e.g., TPR, in situ XRD and TEM), Cu-0 was put in evidence by the dissociative chemisorption of N2O. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Evaluation of MMR Status and PD-L1 Expression Using Specimens Obtained by EUS-FNB in Patients with Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC)

Deficient DNA mismatch repair status (dMMR)/high microsatellite instability have been shown to be predictive biomarkers for immune checkpoint inhibitor drugs which block the programmed death protein-1/programmed death ligand-1 (PD-1/PD-L1) interaction between tumor cells and activated T cells. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of MMR status and quantification of PD-L1 expression in pancreatic endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle biopsy (EUS FNB) specimens. Immunochemistry (IHC) was performed on consecutive archived treatment-naïve formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded EUS-FNB samples. The specimens were considered to have PD-L1 expression if PD-L1 was expressed in ≥1% of tumor cells and a high level of expression if ≥50%. Tumors with absent nuclear staining of DNA mismatch repair proteins (MLH1, MSH2, MSH6, or PMS2) were classified as dMMR. A total of 28 treatment-naïve patients who underwent EUS-FNB and had a final diagnosis of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) were included in the study. All the EUS-FNB samples were adequate for the evaluation of MMR and PD-L1 expression. None of the patients with PDAC included in the study had a dMMR tumor. PD-L1 expression was identified in 39% of the cohort (n = 11). Expression thresholds of ≥1%, ≥10%, and ≥50% in tumor cells were identified in 11 (39%), 4 (14%), and 1 (4%) patients, respectively. The evaluation of MMR status and PD-L1 can be successfully performed on EUS-FNB pancreatic specimens. Furthermore, MMR expression failed to show utility in recognizing immunotherapy vulnerability in pancreatic cancer; the only recommendation for testing remains for patients with heritable cancers. Meanwhile high PD-L1 expression was correlated with poor prognosis. This association may identify a subgroup of patients where immune checkpoints inhibitors could provide therapeutic benefits, spotlighting the role of EUS-FNB in the field of immune-oncology

Soil-washing and thermal plasma treatment for decontamination of dredged marine sediments from the Midia port \u2013 Romania

The aim of this paper is to show the results of two methodological approaches applied for decontamination of the Midia Port dredged sediment to assess their potential reusability. Firstly, the sediment samples were defined in physical, chemical, microbiological and ecotoxicological terms. The results were compared to the limit values established by environmental regulations for dredged sediment management. Some sediment samples exposed a very high concentration of hydrocarbons; the sediments were classified in three categories on the basis of their level of organic/inorganic pollutants. The polluted sediment samples were subjected to the soil-washing treatment. The post treatment analysis revealed that the coarse silty and sandy fractions resulted unpolluted. The soil-washing induced the physical concentration of pollutants (i.e. C>12) in the silty-clay fraction. The wastewater from the treatment plant, once treated, showed no critical issues. After soil-washing treatment, the sediment samples were exposed to a laboratory scale 30kW RF thermal plasma source. Two types of plasma assisted treatments have been performed: the carbothermal process (to evaluate the technical feasibility of silicon extraction during material inertization) and the vitrification process (only for material inertization). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersion spectroscopy (EDS) withal X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and leaching tests were used to investigate the obtained material. The acquired results revealed a decontamination of the collected sediments with leaching test results below legal limits. EDS analysis showed the increment of silica (SiO2) content by about 5-7 % after the plasma treatment and that the localized extraction of silicon by the carbothermal reduction process has been obtained