sheets impact simulation for safety guards design experiments and correlation for fe explicit models of non alloy steel

Abstract In the last few years, some international standards for the safety of machine tools have been developed improving the ballistic protection of safety guards. The uncontrolled projection of parts of work piece or tools can often cause very dangerous perforations of the safety guards. In such a way specific experimental tests like the ones conducted in EU, have assured the possibility to write appendices of ISO standards for safety guards design of machine tools. These tests are based on impact between a particular standardized projectile, which exemplifies an impacting fragment of variable size and energy, and a flat plate placed in the trajectory of the projectile. The penetration or buckling of the target determines the non-suitability of a particular material of a given thickness, for the design and production of safety guards. However, these tests have following limitations: they are valid only for: a limited type of thickness and materials, a perpendicular impact with flat plates of about 500 mm x 500 mm and when the standardized penetrator is a cylinder with a prismatic head. Another limitation is based on design of real safety guards: difficulties in taking into account curved design of guards such as the ones typically used in the spindles of machine tools. Moreover, it is very difficult to take into account innovative materials different from the ones provided by the standards. It is also impossible to consider projected objects whose geometry is not regular, for example fragmented parts of tools, broken as a result of a wrong manoeuvre of the machine user. The focus of this paper is to give an overview of possible material models usable for FEM explicit virtual testing of safety guards. Correlation between experimental penetration of international standards and numerical tests will be presented as a proof of the possibility to implement reliable testing virtual procedures. It is possible to think of exploring the uncertainty of the standardized tests procedure due to, as an example, non-perpendicular impact of the projectile on the safety guard, using simulations

Prevalence of psychiatric disorders in thyroid diseased patients.

Several studies have underlined the high prevalence of psychiatric symptoms and disorders in thyroid diseases. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in 93 inpatients affected by different thyroid diseases during their lifetimes, by means of a standardized instrument, i.e., the Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-III-Revised, Upjohn Version (SCID-UP-R). The results showed higher rates of panic disorder, simple phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder and cyclothymia in thyroid patients than in the general population. These findings would suggest that the co-occurrence of psychiatric and thyroid diseases may be the result of common biochemical abnormalities

CDI/THREDDS interoperability in the SeaDataNet framework

Abstract. SeaDataNet is an EU funded project aiming to create and operate a pan-European, marine data infrastructure for managing the large and diverse datasets (i.e. temperature, salinity current, sea level, chemical, physical and biological properties) collected by the oceanographic fleets and the new automatic observation systems. In order to make the SeaDataNet system compliant with the INSPIRE Implementing Rules for discovery service, an ISO 19139 encoding of the SeaDataNet Common Data Index (CDI) metadata model was defined. Moreover, the problem of heterogeneous data sources has been addressed. In fact, a widely used system of SeaDataNet partners and oceanographic-marine community is THREDDS/OPeNDAP; this raises up the problem of federating into SeaDataNet framework THREDDS/OPeNDAP systems as well. In this paper we describe an interoperability framework to access resources (i.e. data and services) that are available through CDI and THREDDS/OPeNDAP services. The proposed solution implements a common catalog interface to discover and access the two heterogeneous resources in a common way. This catalog service is fully distributed and implements international standards as far as geospatial information discovery and query are concerned. The developed solution is called GI-cat and was experimented in the framework of the SeaDataNet European project

Small seed bank in grasslands and tree plantations in former grassland sites in the South Brazilian highlands

The soil seed bank can be an important source for vegetation regeneration, and data on the similarity between aboveground vegetation and the seed bank can provide information about successional pathways after disturbances or land‐use change. We conducted this study in natural grasslands in the subtropical highland region in southern Brazil. We evaluated the effect of silviculture on richness, density, and composition of the seed bank at former grassland sites converted to pine plantations 25 years ago. We worked at six grassland sites and three pine plantation sites and used the seedling emergence method. Seed bank density and richness in grasslands were lower than those reported in similar environments in other regions. Species richness and density varied considerably within each vegetation type; therefore, richness and density were not statistically significant, while composition varied among vegetation types. In terms of species, the pine plantation seed bank was a small subset of the grassland seed bank. Seeds of typical grassland species were missing in the pine plantation, but also had only low abundances in the grassland, and similarity of seed bank and vegetation were low (less than 20%). The low seed density found in this study, including in grasslands areas, indicates that regeneration of species from the soil seed bank likely is of a limited role for the maintenance of plant populations after disturbances in this system. Our data further suggest that natural regeneration after tree planting in grasslands is reduced due to seed limitation

INDOLE AMIDE DERIVATIVES: SYNTHESIS, STUCTURE-ACTIVITY RELATIONSHIPS AND MOLECULAR MODELLING STUDIES OF A NEW SERIES OF HISTAMINE H1-RECEPTOR ANTAGONISTS.

A number of indole amide derivatives bearing a basic side chain, in which the indole ring replaces the isoster benzimidazole nucleus typical of some well-known antihistamines, were prepared and tested for their H1-antihistaminic activity. The 1-benzyl-3-indolecarboxamides 32–42 showed antihistaminic (H1) activity (pA2 6–8); the 3-indolylglyoxylylamides 7–16 and the 2-indolecarboxamides 48–56 showed little or no activity. Insertion of the basic side chain of the active 3-indolecarboxamide derivatives into a piperazine ring (compounds 57–59) led to a dramatic loss of activity. All the active compounds proved to be competitive antagonists, since the values of the regression slope were not statistically different from 1. The most active compounds, 32, 33, 38–41, were also tested both in vitro for their anticholinergic activity and in vivo for their ability to antagonize histamine-induced cutaneous vascular permeability in rats. The biological results and the structure–activity relationships of the novel compounds are discussed in the light of molecular modelling studies, taking the molecule of astemizole as a model, and referring to proposed H1-receptor pharmacophore model

Tumour necrosis factor- α and transforming growth factor- β are significantly associated with better prognosis in non-small cell lung carcinoma: putative relation with BCL -2-mediated neovascularization

Recent in vivo and in vitro studies have demonstrated a wide spectrum of biologic activities of cytokines in the pathogenesis and progression of malignancy. Tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) have emerged as two of the many host-derived mediators that seem to interfere with both antiproliferative and tumorigenic effects in malignant tumours including lung cancer. However, their association with tumour prognosis or prognostic factors has not yet been completely clarified. In this study, we assessed TNF-α and TGF-β mRNA expression by RT-PCR technique in 61 NSCLC samples, demonstrating the presence of TNF-α and TGF-β mRNA in 55.74% and 45.9% of cases, respectively. We also evaluated the expression of the two distinct transmembrane TNF receptors. TNFR-I and TNFR-II, with a PCR-positive signal in 70.49% and 65.57% of cases, respectively. In 49 of the 61 cases, we evaluated the prognostic impact of the two growth-inhibiting factors using the Kaplan–Meier analysis. In the univariate analysis patients without nodal metastatic involvement (P = 0.02), less advanced tumour stage (P = 0.02) or TNF-α and TGF-β positive cancers (P = 0.01 and P = 0.03) showed a favourable prognosis in terms of overall survival. Since our previous studies demonstrated a significant association between NSCLC behaviour, neoangiogenesis and bcl -2 expression, we investigated the putative relation between TNF-α and TGF-β on the one hand, and vascular count (as a measure of tumour angiogenesis) and bcl -2 protein expression, on the other hand. Our results showed a significant direct association between TNF-α and bcl -2 (P = 0.05) and an inverse association between TNF-α and microvessel count (P = 0.03). Moreover, as previously demonstrated, we observed a significant inverse correlation between bcl -2 protein expression and vascular count (P = 0.05), suggesting that the favourable effect of TNF-α on clinical outcome may be related to a bcl -2-mediated low neovascular development. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaig

Inherited germline T790M mutation and somatic epidermal growth factor receptor mutations in non-small cell lung cancer patients.

Five cases of non-small cell lung cancer, associated with germline transmission of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-T790M mutation, have been reported1; these patients had family histories of lung cancer. The activity of gefitinib was tested in only two patients, who were both refractory to this drug.2 Herein, we describe a family of European descent in which two family members had non-small cell lung cancer associated with germline transmission of T790M mutation and who were treated with gefitinib