Fire safe,sustainable loose furnishing

The aim of this exploratory study has been to investigate the fire properties and environmental aspects of different upholstery material combinations, mainly for domestic applications. An analysis of the sustainability and circularity of selected textiles, along with lifecycle assessment, is used to qualitatively evaluate materials from an environmental perspective. The cone calorimeter was the primary tool used to screen 20 different material combinations from a fire performance perspective. It was found that textile covers of conventional fibres such as wool, cotton and polyester, can be improved by blending them with fire resistant speciality fibres. A new three‐dimensional web structure has been examined as an alternative padding material, showing preliminary promising fire properties with regard to ignition time, heat release rates and smoke production.     

A Case Report of Germline Compound Heterozygous Mutations in the BRCA1 Gene of an Ovarian and Breast Cancer Patient

The germline carrier of the BRCA1 pathogenic mutation has been well proven to confer an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer. Despite BRCA1 biallelic pathogenic mutations being extremely rare, they have been reported to be embryonically lethal or to cause Fanconi anemia (FA). Here we describe a patient who was a 48-year-old female identified with biallelic pathogenic mutations of the BRCA1 gene, with no or very subtle FA-features. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and breast cancer at the ages of 43 and 44 and had a strong family history of breast and gynecological cancers.     

Optimization of vacuum casting process parameters to enhance tensile strength of components using design of experiments approach

Vacuum casting is one of the widely used methods for small-volume production of plastic parts. The main challenge of this method is to choose the optimal w     

Multimedia content recommendation in social networks using mood tags and synonyms

Multimedia Systems - The preferences of Web information purchasers are changing. Cost-effectiveness (i.e., an emphasis on performance with respect to price) is becoming less regarded than...     

Multimodal sensing and active continuous closed‐loop feedback for achieving reliable manipulation in the outdoor physical world

The use of field robots can greatly decrease the amount of time, effort, and associated risk compared to if human workers were to carryout certain tasks such as disaster response. However, transportability and reliability remain two main issues for most current robot systems. To address the issue of transportability, we have developed a lightweight modularizable platform named AeroArm. To address the issue of reliability, we utilize a multimodal sensing approach, combining the use of multiple sensors and sensor types, and the use of different detection algorithms, as well as active continuous closed‐loop feedback to accurately estimate the state of the robot with respect to the environment. We used Challenge 2 of the 2017 Mohammed Bin Zayed International Robotics Competition as an example outdoor manipulation task, demonstrating the capabilities of our robot system and approach in achieving reliable performance in the fields, and ranked fifth place internationally in the competition.     

Quality enhancement of the abundant under‐valued crustacean,lobster krill (Munida spp.), during its chilled storage

Lobster krill (Munida genus) represents an under‐valued crustacean frequently caught on European fishing banks. In this work, its sensory, microbiological and biochemical qualities were evaluated during chilled storage. Additionally, the effects of a prestorage antimelanosic treatment consisting of soaking in sodium metabisulphite (SMB) solutions at two different concentrations (0.25% and 0.75%) were also studied. SMB prestorage treatment provided lobster specimens that still exhibited acceptable sensory quality after 10 days of storage, while control specimens were unacceptable at that time. SMB treatment also resulted in a significant (P < 0.05) inhibition of microbial growth, mainly of Enterobacteriaceae, psychrotrophes and proteolytic bacteria. Low lipid oxidation levels were observed for all batches; however, a significantly higher (P < 0.05) retention of polyunsaturated fatty acids was found in SMB‐treated lobster, especially in the 0.75% SMB batch. The results presented here open the way to the potential commercialisation of currently under‐utilised lobster krill as a chilled product.