Effect of Fly Ash on the Durability Properties of High Strength Concrete

Utilization of fly ash as a supplementary cementitious material adds sustainability to concrete by reducing the CO2 emission of cement production. The positive effects of fly ash as a partial replacement of cement on the durability of concrete are recognized through numerous researches; however, the extent of improvement depends on the properties of fly ash. In this study, durability properties of high strength concrete utilizing high volume Class F fly ash sourced from Western Australia have been investigated. Concrete mixtures with fly ash as 30% and 40% of total binder wereused to cast the test specimens. The compressive strength, drying shrinkage, sorptivity and rapid chloride permeability of the fly ash and control concrete specimens were determined. The 28-day compressive strength of the concrete mixtures varied from 65 to 85 MPa. The fly ash concrete samples showed less drying shrinkage than the control concrete samples when designed for the same 28-day compressive strength of the control concrete. Inclusion of fly ash reduced sorptivity and chloride ion permeation significantly at 28 days and reduced further at 6 months. In general, incorporation of fly ash as partial replacement of cement improved the durability properties of concrete

A systematic review of population health interventions and Scheduled Tribes in India

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Despite India's recent economic growth, health and human development indicators of Scheduled Tribes (ST) or <it>Adivasi </it>(India's indigenous populations) lag behind national averages. The aim of this review was to identify the public health interventions or components of these interventions that are effective in reducing morbidity or mortality rates and reducing risks of ill health among ST populations in India, in order to inform policy and to identify important research gaps.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We systematically searched and assessed peer-reviewed literature on evaluations or intervention studies of a population health intervention undertaken with an ST population or in a tribal area, with a population health outcome(s), and involving primary data collection.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The evidence compiled in this review revealed three issues that promote effective public health interventions with STs: (1) to develop and implement interventions that are low-cost, give rapid results and can be easily administered, (2): a multi-pronged approach, and (3): involve ST populations in the intervention.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>While there is a growing body of knowledge on the health needs of STs, there is a paucity of data on how we can address these needs. We provide suggestions on how to undertake future population health intervention research with ST populations and offer priority research avenues that will help to address our knowledge gap in this area.</p

Distinct Pathogenesis and Host Responses during Infection of C. elegans by P. aeruginosa and S. aureus

The genetically tractable model host Caenorhabditis elegans provides a valuable tool to dissect host-microbe interactions in vivo. Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus utilize virulence factors involved in human disease to infect and kill C. elegans. Despite much progress, virtually nothing is known regarding the cytopathology of infection and the proximate causes of nematode death. Using light and electron microscopy, we found that P. aeruginosa infection entails intestinal distention, accumulation of an unidentified extracellular matrix and P. aeruginosa-synthesized outer membrane vesicles in the gut lumen and on the apical surface of intestinal cells, the appearance of abnormal autophagosomes inside intestinal cells, and P. aeruginosa intracellular invasion of C. elegans. Importantly, heat-killed P. aeruginosa fails to elicit a significant host response, suggesting that the C. elegans response to P. aeruginosa is activated either by heat-labile signals or pathogen-induced damage. In contrast, S. aureus infection causes enterocyte effacement, intestinal epithelium destruction, and complete degradation of internal organs. S. aureus activates a strong transcriptional response in C. elegans intestinal epithelial cells, which aids host survival during infection and shares elements with human innate responses. The C. elegans genes induced in response to S. aureus are mostly distinct from those induced by P. aeruginosa. In contrast to P. aeruginosa, heat-killed S. aureus activates a similar response as live S. aureus, which appears to be independent of the single C. elegans Toll-Like Receptor (TLR) protein. These data suggest that the host response to S. aureus is possibly mediated by pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs). Because our data suggest that neither the P. aeruginosa nor the S. aureus–triggered response requires canonical TLR signaling, they imply the existence of unidentified mechanisms for pathogen detection in C. elegans, with potentially conserved roles also in mammals

Evidence for the decay BS0→K‾∗0μ+μ− {B}_S^0\to {\overline{K}}^{\ast 0}{\mu}^{+}{\mu}^{-}

International audienceA search for the decay ${B}_S^0\to {\overline{K}}^{\ast 0}{\mu}^{+}{\mu}^{-}$ is presented using data sets corresponding to 1.0, 2.0 and 1.6 fb$^{−1}$ of integrated luminosity collected during pp collisions with the LHCb experiment at centre-of-mass energies of 7, 8 and 13 TeV, respectively. An excess is found over the background-only hypothesis with a significance of 3.4 standard deviations. The branching fraction of the ${B}_S^0\to {\overline{K}}^{\ast 0}{\mu}^{+}{\mu}^{-}$ decay is determined to be $\mathrm{\mathcal{B}}\left({B}_s^0\to {\overline{K}}^{\ast 0}{\mu}^{+}{\mu}^{-}\right)=\left[2.9\pm 1.0\left(\mathrm{stat}\right)\pm 0.2\left(\mathrm{syst}\right)\pm 0.3\left(\mathrm{norm}\right)\right]\times {10}^{-8}$ , where the first and second uncertainties are statistical and systematic, respectively. The third uncertainty is due to limited knowledge of external parameters used to normalise the branching fraction measurement

EFFECT OF INTERACTION OF 2 ARBITRARILY ORIENTED CRACKS - APPLICATIONS .2.

The stress analysis for the problem of two arbitrarily oriented cracks is carried out in Part I. The problem is formulated using Kolossoff-Muskhelishvili's two complex stress function using the mapping technique and the Schwartz Alternative Method. As this is the most general geometry it has many particular cases. These cases are compared with the analytical solutions of other research workers such as Isida [10] in Part I, and Isida [5, 9], Gdoutos [6], Gupta et al. [7] and Viola [8] etc. in Part II. The present results are in good agreement with those of other research workers and the finite element method solutions used