Assessing the Antimicrobial Activity of Polyisoprene Based Surfaces

There has been an intense research effort in the last decades in the field of biofouling prevention as it concerns many aspects of everyday life and causes problems to devices, the environment, and human health. Many different antifouling and antimicrobial materials have been developed to struggle against bacteria and other micro- and macro-organism attachment to different surfaces. However the “miracle solution” has still to be found. The research presented here concerns the synthesis of bio-based polymeric materials and the biological tests that showed their antifouling and, at the same time, antibacterial activity. The raw material used for the coating synthesis was natural rubber. The polyisoprene chains were fragmented to obtain oligomers, which had reactive chemical groups at their chain ends, therefore they could be modified to insert polymerizable and biocidal groups. Films were obtained by radical photopolymerization of the natural rubber derived oligomers and their structure was altered, in order to understand the mechanism of attachment inhibition and to increase the efficiency of the anti-biofouling action. The adhesion of three species of pathogenic bacteria and six strains of marine bacteria was studied. The coatings were able to inhibit bacterial attachment by contact, as it was verified that no detectable leaching of toxic molecules occurred.     

Temperature stability of a pure metakaolin based K-geopolymer: Part 2. Variations in the mesoporous network and its rehydration stability

The thermal behavior of a model MK-based K-geopolymer was investigated between room temperature and 1400°C in order to evaluate its potentiality for high-temperature applications. The purpose of our study was to monitor the behavior of a geopolymer during a temperature rise in order to better understand its variations with respect to temperature. The works from the present paper focus only changes in the porous network; it follows a first part devoted to variations in the mineral matrix. The results obtained here show that the geopolymer material preserves its porous integrity up to 800°C, while maintaining the reversibility of water exchanges corresponding to about 25 weight percent. Together with the results of part 1, the findings of this study allow us to affirm that geopolymer materials are only very little affected by temperatures up to 800°C, or even 900°C (keeping its mesoporous amorphous structure).     

Reconstruction of the Grenfell Tower fire – Part 4: Contribution to the understanding of fire propagation and behaviour during horizontal fire spread

The tragic events at Grenfell Tower in 2017, involving a combustible façade system, have raised concerns regarding the fire risk that these systems pose. In this series of articles, so far published, fire development inside the initial apartment has been investigated using an appropriate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. Several scenarios including different fire sources and ventilation conditions were addressed. Fire propagation through the window to the external façade and to higher apartments was modelled. This model was validated by comparing the numerical results with the visual observations reported in the Grenfell Inquiry. A CFD model of the complete east face of the Grenfell Tower was then created. This paper details CFD modelling of the complete Grenfell Tower façade during the late horizontal phase of fire spread. As the physics of lateral flame spread is different from that for upward flame spread, it is important to assess the validity of the model, thus far developed, for this configuration. Fire propagation over the whole façade is modelled and compared with observations from the real disaster. This provides a better understanding of its fire behaviour and of the contribution of architectural details and their impact on fire spread.     

A novel statistical generative model dedicated to face recognition

In this paper, a novel statistical generative model to describe a face is presented, and is applied to the face authentication task. Classical generative models used so far in face recognition, such as Gaussian Mixture Models (GMMs) and Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) for instance, are making strong assumptions on the observations derived from a face image. Indeed, such models usually assume that local observations are independent, which is obviously not the case in a face. The presented model hence proposes to encode relationships between salient facial features by using a static Bayesian Network. Since robustness against imprecisely located faces is of great concern in a real-world scenario, authentication results are presented using automatically localised faces. Experiments conducted on the XM2VTS and the BANCA databases showed that the proposed approach is suitable for this task, since it reaches state-of-the-art results. We compare our model to baseline appearance-based systems (Eigenfaces and Fisherfaces) but also to classical generative models, namely GMM, HMM and pseudo-2DHMM.     

Geopolymer assembly by emulsion templating: Emulsion stability and hardening mechanisms

This work investigates emulsion templating to synthesize hexadecane oil/geopolymer composites. In a system with hexadecane as the internal (dispersed) phase and an alkali activated continuous phase without added surfactant, adding aluminosilicate clay particles does not increase resistance against creaming or coalescence, while adding a surfactant (L35 or CTAB) stabilizes the solid-liquid interface. Infrared studies and rheological studies of the associated geopolymerization determined that the presence of the organic phase or surfactant has no significant effect on the geopolymerization kinetics, as determined by the change in time of the Si-O-T IR stretching frequency and the rheological moduli involved during the process. The stabilization of the organic template is reminiscent of Pickering emulsion even though we employ a much greater amount of inorganic material for geopolymer formation. Although the addition of surfactant has a significant effect on the behavior of the paste, the percolation of the network remains unmodified, highlighting the fact that the phenomenon is not dependent on viscosity. Finally, rheological measurements were used to obtain the mass fractal dimension of the as-made gel network, which is able to differentiate the interfacial effect between surfactant molecules with a slightly denser interphase when a cationic surfactant is used.     

Co(II)(l-proline)2(H2O)2 solid complex: Characterization,magnetic properties,and DFT computations. Preliminary studies of its use as oxygen scavenger in packaging films

A solid Co^II complex with l-proline as ligand was synthesized and fully characterized using spectroscopic studies, magnetic data, and DFT calculations. Dioxygen scavenging properties were investigated by UV/Vis spectroscopy and oxymetry techniques. The Co-proline system presented very interesting properties in matter of oxygen absorption capacity both in solution and incorporated in a polymer matrix.     

Frequency-domain identification of linear systems using arbitraryexcitations and a nonparametric noise model

Presents a generalized frequency domain identification method to identify single-input/single-output (SISO) systems combining two previously published extensions in one method: arbitrary but persistent excitations are allowed and a nonparametric noise model is extracted from the same data that are used to identify the system. The method is directly applicable to identification in feedback if an external persistently exciting reference signal is available     

Penetration of nanoparticles through fibrous filters perforated with defined pinholes

This paper presents experimental data for penetration of nanoparticles in the 4–30 nm size range through fibreglass filters perforated with defined pinholes at 5 and 15 cm/s. Results show that, when the filter is damaged, penetration increases with decreasing particle diameter. This lower performance is more significant for filters with high airflow resistance. A model explaining the experimental data has been designed based on balanced, laminar airflow inside the pinhole; these conditions were confirmed by detailed study. The experimental points agreed very closely with this model.     

Clinical Determination of Dry Body Weight

While nephrologists wait for the ideal, non invasive, inexpensive, precise, and reproducible tool to evaluate extracellular volume (ECV), they need to exert their clinical acumen in the quest of that holy grail, dry weight (DW). Estimation of DW using a clinical approach based on blood pressure (BP) and ECV is feasible and reliable as shown by successful experiences in various dialysis modes over more than three decades. But a need still exists to resolve difficulties associated with accurate assessment of BP (methods and circumstances of measurement, and the confounding effects of antihypertensive drugs) and ECV (evaluation of weight changes unrelated to ECV, lack of specificity and sensitivity of clinical symptoms, lag time, confusion in terminology). An essential point in clinical assessment of DW is that a normal BP is at the same time the target and the crucial index of DW achievement. For this reason, a trialand‐error “probe” process has to be used at intervals to make sure that the dry weight target point is correctly estimated. The various “non clinical” methods proposed for dry weight assessment increase the complexity and the cost of hemodialysis. They are, in the present state of things, more clinical research than practice tools. They do not replace clinical judgment.