Thermal Volumetric Analysis (TVA): A New Test Method of the Kinetics of Gas Emissions from Moulding Sands and Protective Coatings Heated by Liquid Alloy

Production of medium-sized and large castings is carried out in the sand moulds. The sand moulds, which components are made of moulding sand, the binder are different kinds of materials, the most common: moulding resins (furan, alkyd, phenolic, etc.). Internal surfaces of moulds, for increased thermal resistance, are usually covered by protective coatings. Liquid foundry alloys filling sand moulds produce intense heat, especially in layers adjacent to the cast. Under such conditions, the organic binders are burned or gasified. The resulting gases can penetrate the liquid causing the formation of defects such as blow-holes, pinholes, pitted skin, etc. The greater the intensity of the secretion of gases and the greater their volume (number), the more likely defects are created in castings. An important quality criterion of foundry resins is their tendency to emit gas. The authors developed the new test method, which allows to monitor the kinetics of gas emissions from the moulding sand and foundry coatings as a function of time and temperature (thermal volumetric analysis (TVA)). A number of studies were made for moulding sand with organic binders. Description of the research methodology and the presentation of results are the subject of the article

Complex regional pain syndrome : diagnosis and treatment at the very onset as the key to success? : a case report with implications for first contact doctors

The case report describes a 67-year-old man who suffered from a minor left ankle injury. Physical examination on day 12 revealed swelling of the foot, erythema on its dorsal surface as well as elevated temperature, hyperesthesia, hyperalgesia and allodynia of that area. The treatment included local application of dexamethasone and oral administration of meloxicam. Within a week the symptoms disappeared and one-year follow-up did not show their recurrence. The presented symptoms allowed diagnosis of the earliest stage of complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), which may be a disabling and difficult to treat adverse event. This report suggests that immediately introduced simple anti-inflammatory therapy may bring a quick and permanent recovery. Hence, first contact physicians should advise the patient to report such symptoms as burning pain of the injured area lasting for a few days and, if CRPS suspicion is justified by the results of physical examination, they should apply an anti-inflammatory treatment immediately

Wybrane problemy konstruowania gry wojennej

W artykule omówiono wybrane wątki konstruowania środowiska symulacyjnego, będącego integralną częścią komputerowej, interaktywnej gry wojennej GAMBIT. Na tle ogólnego schematu funkcjonowania gry opisane zostały mechanizmy synchronizacji procesów realizowanych przez serwer oraz sposób komunikowania się użytkowników z serwerem

CASTING OF Al-Si ALLOYS IN THE FULL-MOULD TECHNOLOGY. PROCESS CONDITIONS

A review of various technologies using expendable casting patterns made of expanded polystyrene is given in the paper. The results of our own investigations on implementing this technology at the pilot-plant scale – for the art castings series – were presented. The results of tests of materials and moulds applied in the full-mould technology were shown. Gas evolution tendencies of expanded polystyrenes and protective coatings were estimated. Gas evolutions were described as functions of the polystyrene heating temperature. The tests of protective coatings used in this technology were performed and strength (Rm), permeability (P), and gas evolution tendency of these coatings assessed. New solutions developed by the team of researchers were applied in testing coating strength, permeability, and the gas evolution tendency of expanded polystyrene. A good correlation between the results of coating properties and the obtained casting quality was found. Coatings, which were characterised by higher strengths and better permeability, allowedus to produce castings without surface or inner faults

User Requirements for Mission-Critical Application – The SECRICOM Case

The SECRICOM Project as a communication system for operational crisis management, requires paying significant attention to the requirements engineering phase. Any mistakes made during the requirements gathering phase may affect the subsequent software development phases, which creates excessive operational risks for the users of the system. These types of risks – as in any other critical systems – could have serious consequences, such as inefficiency of rescue actions and loss of lives. This article presents the requirements engineering process, which was defined and carried out for the needs of the SECRICOM project. It describes the system’s environment (the crisis management reference structure and the main organizational rules) and its impact on the developed. As a result, a requirements engineering process for SECRICOM is proposed. Finally, main points of gathered requirements are presented.W systemie SECRICOM, ze względu na tworzenie systemu komunikacji do operacyjnego zarządzania kryzysowego, szczególnie ważne było położenie szczególnego nacisku na etap gromadzenia wymagań. Błędy popełnione na etapie specyfikacji wymagań mogą rzutować na kolejne etapy wytwarzania systemu, co w rezultacie generuje nadmiarowe ryzyka dla użytkowników systemu. Ryzyka te – jak w przypadku innych systemów krytycznych – mogą spowodować poważne konsekwencje, w tym obniżenie skuteczności akcji ratunkowych, a nawet straty po stronie ludności. W artykule przedstawiono proces inżynierii wymagań, który zdefiniowano oraz przeprowadzono na potrzeby projektu SECRICOM. Przedstawiono środowisko systemu (zarówno referencyjną strukturę zarządzania kryzysowego, jak i główne zasady organizacji) oraz określono wpływ na budowany system. Na zakończenie przedstawiono główne wnioski z zebranych wymagań

Machine learning on the road to unlocking microbiota's potential for boosting immune checkpoint therapy

The intestinal microbiota is a complex and diverse ecological community that fulfills multiple functions and substantially impacts human health. Despite its plasticity, unfavorable conditions can cause perturbations leading to so-called dysbiosis, which have been connected to multiple diseases. Unfortunately, understanding the mechanisms underlying the crosstalk between those microorganisms and their host is proving to be difficult. Traditionally used bioinformatic tools have difficulties to fully exploit big data generated for this purpose by modern high throughput screens. Machine Learning (ML) may be a potential means of solving such problems, but it requires diligent application to allow for drawing valid conclusions. This is especially crucial as gaining insight into the mechanistic basis of microbial impact on human health is highly anticipated in numerous fields of study. This includes oncology, where growing amounts of studies implicate the gut ecosystems in both cancerogenesis and antineoplastic treatment outcomes. Based on these reports and first signs of clinical benefits related to microbiota modulation in human trials, hopes are rising for the development of microbiome-derived diagnostics and therapeutics. In this mini-review, we're inspecting analytical approaches used to uncover the role of gut microbiome in immune checkpoint therapy (ICT) with the use of shotgun metagenomic sequencing (SMS) data

Seamless Communication for Crises Management

SECRICOM is proposed as a collaborative research project aiming at development of a reference security platform for EU crisis management operations with two essential ambitions: (A) Solve or mitigate problems of contemporary crisis communication infrastructures (Tetra, GSM, Citizen Band, IP) such as poor interoperability of specialized communication means, vulnerability against tapping and misuse, lack of possibilities to recover from failures, inability to use alternative data carrier and high deployment and operational costs. (B) Add new smart functions to existing services which will make the communication more effective and helpful for users. Smart functions will be provided by distributed IT systems based on an agents’ infrastructure. Achieving these two project ambitions will allow creating a pervasive and trusted communication infrastructure fulfilling requirements of crisis management users and ready for immediate application

CMS physics technical design report : Addendum on high density QCD with heavy ions

Peer reviewe

Production of pions, kaons and protons in pp collisions at s=900\sqrt{s}=900 GeV with ALICE at the LHC

The production of $\pi^+$, $\pi^-$, $K^+$, $K^-$, p, and pbar at mid-rapidity has been measured in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 900$ GeV with the ALICE detector. Particle identification is performed using the specific energy loss in the inner tracking silicon detector and the time projection chamber. In addition, time-of-flight information is used to identify hadrons at higher momenta. Finally, the distinctive kink topology of the weak decay of charged kaons is used for an alternative measurement of the kaon transverse momentum ($p_{\rm T}$) spectra. Since these various particle identification tools give the best separation capabilities over different momentum ranges, the results are combined to extract spectra from $p_{\rm T}$ = 100 MeV/$c$ to 2.5 GeV/$c$. The measured spectra are further compared with QCD-inspired models which yield a poor description. The total yields and the mean $p_{\rm T}$ are compared with previous measurements, and the trends as a function of collision energy are discussed.Comment: 24 pages, 18 captioned figures, 5 tables, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/388