Vicenza International Courses on hemodialysis: Educational events where science meets clinical practice

International Vicenza Courses represent important educational events held yearly in the city of Palladio. Claudio Ronco organizes since 1982 international courses on peritoneal dialysis, hemodialysis and critical care nephrology. The faculty is outstanding and the content very informative and useful for beginners and for experts in the various fields. Every year the entire course is recorded in a DVD and the proceedings are available at the beginning of the course. Information can be obtained at http://www.vicenzanephrocourses.com .     

A High Speed VLSI Architecture for Handwriting Recognition

This article presents PAPRICA-3, a VLSI-oriented architecture for real-time processing of images and its implementation on HACRE, a high-speed, cascadable, 32-processors VLSI slice. The architecture is based on an array of programmable processing elements with the instruction set tailored to image processing, mathematical morphology, and neural networks emulation. Dedicated hardware features allow simultaneous image acquisition, processing, neural network emulation, and a straightforward interface with a hosting PC.HACRE has been fabricated and successfully tested at a clock frequency of 50 MHz. A board hosting up to four chips and providing a 33 MHz PCI interface has been manufactured and used to build BEATR IX, a system for the recognition of handwritten check amounts, by integrating image processing and neural network algorithms (on the board) with context analysis techniques (on the hosting PC).     

CORRELATION AND PREDICTION OF VLE OF WATER + CONGENER MIXTURES FOUND IN ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES USING AN ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK

Artificial neural networks have been used for the correlation and prediction of vapor-liquid equilibrium data of binary water mixtures found in alcoholic beverage production. The main interest of the study is the accurate modeling of the bubble pressure and concentration of congeners in the vapor phase (substances different from ethanol and water), considered to be an important enological parameter in the alcoholic industry. Nine binary water + congener mixtures were considered for analysis. Vapor-liquid equilibrium data of these systems were taken from the literature (333 data points for training and 111 data points for testing), the artificial neural network results were compared with available literature data, and the accuracy of the modeling is discussed. The study shows that the neural network model is a good alternative method for the estimation of phase equilibrium properties for this type of mixture.

Supplemental materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Chemical Engineering Communications to view the free supplemental file. http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=t713454788     

Fe modeling of the apparent spot technique in circular laser hardening

Circular laser hardening is the laser surface treatment used in the case of cylindrical workpieces. The single-track treatment is a particular case of circular laser hardening used when only one revolution of the workpiece is executed since the treatment of a narrow surface is required. As a result, an annular narrow hardening track is obtained. During the laser hardening, the initial and final parts of the workpiece are overlapped and treated twice. The main drawback of this treatment is the back-tempering effect focused on the overlapping zone. This phenomenon leads to a hardness decrease in the overlapping zone. To avoid this problem, a new technique called apparent spot (AS) was introduced by the authors. The aim of the AS technique is to increase in a fictitious way the dimensions of the laser spot. In the case of circular laser hardening, this technique results into a high-speed rotation (up to 1,000 rpm) of the cylindrical workpiece instead of the traditional low speed. So, a uniform hardening zone without overlapping and back tempering is obtained. However, despite these benefits, there is still a lack of knowledge about the physics of this treatment in particular referring to the thermal cycle that affects the workpiece. In order to enhance the knowledge of this technique in this work, the AS was modeled via the FE approach. DEFORM software was used to model the circular laser hardening process. The software was firstly validated by a comparison with experimental results. Once the software reliability was tested, a regression model was estimated to predict the surface temperature within the treatments. Good agreement was found between the prediction model and the numerical results.     

Removal of neutrophil gelatinase‐associated lipocalin by extracorporeal therapies

Neutrophil gelatinase‐associated lipocalin (NGAL) protein is an early biomarker for acute kidney injury (AKI). It is unknown if extracorporeal therapies (EC) have an effect on circulating NGAL levels. This study was designed to describe the kinetics of NGAL molecule in different EC techniques and to evaluate NGAL clearance in different operational conditions. A mock hemofiltration (HF) and hemoperfusion (HP) setup was used. NGAL was added to the blood reservoir and then measured at 30‐minute intervals from arterial, venous, and ultrafiltrate (UF) lines. Removal kinetics and NGAL sieving coefficient were calculated. In our experiments, baseline NGAL concentration averaged 452 μg/L. There was a consistent downward trend throughout the experiment. NGAL concentration in the UF was between 80 and 90 μg/L, though it showed a slight increase in the second hour. The sieving coefficient of NGAL ranged from 0.2 to 0.4 during HF and it appeared to increase with time, suggesting an initial effect of membrane adsorption. HP proved clearly that there was adsorption of NGAL by the membrane and the point of saturation occured at approximately 60 minutes from the start of circulation. Our evaluation demonstrates that NGAL can be adsorbed and ultrafiltrated with polysulfone membranes. This should be taken into consideration when using NGAL as an AKI biomarker in patients undergoing EC circulation.     

Experimental behaviour of reinforced concrete elements repaired with polymer-modified cementicious mortar

This paper presents the results of experimental tests on flexural behaviour of reinforced concrete beams repaired by polymer-modified mortar. Tests were repeated varying repair thickness, which included or did not include the steel reinforcement. Also the position of repair mortar was varied, as it was carried out either in the tension or compression region. Finally, the reinforcement ratios of beam sections were also varied. Results were compared with those from control beams, which were tested in non-damaged, non-repaired conditions. Thick repairs that include the longitudinal reinforcement can restore the load-bearing capacity and ductility of non-damaged control beams, whether they are applied in the tension or in the compression region. Thin repairs in tension, which substitute the concrete cover, but do not include the reinforcement, can even decrease the load bearing capacity and ductility of the beam, whereas thin repairs in compression are more effective than those in tension.