STRUCTURAL AND MECHANICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF DEFORMED POLYMER USING CONFOCAL RAMAN MICROSCOPY AND DSC

Polymers have various interesting properties, which depend largely on their inner structure. One way to influence the macroscopic behaviour is the deformation of the polymer chains, which effects the change in microstructure. For analyzing the microstructure of non-deformed and deformed polymer materials, Raman spectroscopy as well as differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) were used. In the present study we compare the results for crystallinity measurements of deformed polymers using both methods in order to characterize the differences in micro-structure due to deformation. The study is ongoing, and we present the results of the first tests

The global distribution of Bacillus anthracis and associated anthrax risk to humans, livestock and wildlife.

Bacillus anthracis is a spore-forming, Gram-positive bacterium responsible for anthrax, an acute infection that most significantly affects grazing livestock and wild ungulates, but also poses a threat to human health. The geographic extent of B. anthracis is poorly understood, despite multi-decade research on anthrax epizootic and epidemic dynamics; many countries have limited or inadequate surveillance systems, even within known endemic regions. Here, we compile a global occurrence dataset of human, livestock and wildlife anthrax outbreaks. With these records, we use boosted regression trees to produce a map of the global distribution of B. anthracis as a proxy for anthrax risk. We estimate that 1.83 billion people (95% credible interval (CI): 0.59-4.16 billion) live within regions of anthrax risk, but most of that population faces little occupational exposure. More informatively, a global total of 63.8 million poor livestock keepers (95% CI: 17.5-168.6 million) and 1.1 billion livestock (95% CI: 0.4-2.3 billion) live within vulnerable regions. Human and livestock vulnerability are both concentrated in rural rainfed systems throughout arid and temperate land across Eurasia, Africa and North America. We conclude by mapping where anthrax risk could disrupt sensitive conservation efforts for wild ungulates that coincide with anthrax-prone landscapes

Reprocessing of injection-molded magnetorheological elastomers based on TPE matrix

Nowadays, the magnetorheological elastomers (MREs) represent an important composite group with a wide range of applications. They are however predominantly typified by chemically cross-linked polymer matrices which makes them difficult to be reprocessed or recycled. Here, we demonstrate the concept of the MREs’ reprocessing for the first time. The thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) was adopted as a suitable matrix allowing the MRE production via injection-molding, while making them also reusable. Each processing iteration was accompanied by thermo-mechanical degradation causing the gradual TPE oxidation, decrease in the TPE molecular weight and a viscosity reduction of their melts. In the MREs, the unexpected processing-induced particle/matrix bonding was revealed, which promoted their stiffening. As a result, the magnetic field-induced particle mobility was limited decreasing the magnetorheological activity of the MREs by tens of percent per the processing cycle. We expect that the injection-molded TPE-based MREs could offer a new pathway for producing the smart engineering composites owing to the ability to be easily reprocessed. © 2019 Elsevier LtdEU Funds - OP Research, Development and Education [CZ.02.2.69/0.0/0.0/16_027/0008464]; Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, Czech Republic; Czech Science Foundation [17-24730S]; Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic Program NPU I [LO1504

Analysing the spatial patterns of livestock anthrax in Kazakhstan in relation to environmental factors: a comparison of local (Gi*) and morphology cluster statistics

We compared a local clustering and a cluster morphology statistic using anthrax outbreaks in large (cattle) and small (sheep and goats) domestic ruminants across Kazakhstan. The Getis-Ord (Gi*) statistic and a multidirectional optimal ecotope algorithm (AMOEBA) were compared using 1st, 2nd, and 3rd order Rook contiguity matrices. Multivariate statistical tests were used to evaluate the environmental signatures between clusters and non-clusters from the AMOEBA and Gi* tests. A logistic regression was used to define a risk surface for anthrax outbreaks and to compare agreement between clustering methodologies. Tests revealed differences in the spatial distribution of clusters as well as the total number of clusters in large ruminants for AMOEBA (n = 149) and for small ruminants (n = 9). In contrast, Gi* revealed fewer large ruminant clusters (n = 122) and more small ruminant clusters (n = 61). Significant environmental differences were found between groups using the Kruskall-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests. Logistic regression was used to model the presence/absence of anthrax outbreaks and define a risk surface for large ruminants to compare with cluster analyses. The model predicted 32.2% of the landscape as high risk. Approximately 75% of AMOEBA clusters corresponded to predicted high risk, compared with ~64% of Gi* clusters. In general, AMOEBA predicted more irregularly shaped clusters of outbreaks in both livestock groups, while Gi* tended to predicted larger, circular clusters. Here we provide an evaluation of both tests and a discussion of the use of each to detect environmental conditions associated with anthrax outbreak clusters in domestic livestock. These findings illustrate important differences in spatial statistical methods for defining local clusters and highlight the importance of selecting appropriate levels of data aggregation