Use of flavored cigarettes among older adolescent and adult smokers: United States, 2004--2005

Cigarettes with candy, fruit and alcohol flavors have been introduced in recent years as extensions to popular cigarette brands, raising concerns in the public health community that the enticing names, creative packaging, and intense flavorings of these products may be especially appealing to youth. This study used two national surveys to examine the prevalence of use of Camel Exotic Blends, Kool Smooth Fusion, and Salem Silver Label brands during 2004--2005 among older adolescents and young adult smokers aged 17-26 years and adult smokers aged > or =25 years. Overall use of any of these flavored brands in the past 30 days was 11.9% among smokers aged 17-26 years and 6.7% among smokers aged > or =25 years. A significant gradient in use was seen across age, with the highest rates of utilization among 17-year-old (22.8%) and 18-19-year-old smokers (21.7%) (p<.001). Uniquely flavored cigarette brands seem to be most attractive to the youngest smokers and should be prohibited.     

Assessing TBM performance in heterogeneous rock masses

Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment - A major challenge that TBM performance is requested to deal with for a successful and effective progress is tunnelling through lithologically...     

Visualising things. Perspectives on how to make things public through visualisation

In this paper, we will be discussing how visualisations can facilitate participatory processes by way of conveying issues of public concern as ‘things’. In the line of Latour’s plea to ‘make things public’, visualisations can be purposefully designed to trigger and encourage public debates concerning a wide range of issues. For this, we explore how a visualisation can be both transparent (i.e. visualising the complex entanglement of backstories of an issue) and readable. Specifically, we clarify the aspect of designing a readable visualisation of ‘things’. First, drawing from different fields of literature (i.e. Information Visualisation, Science and Technology Studies and Human-Computer-Interaction) we will articulate three main aspects of readability: engaging people to interact with a visualisation of complex issues, supporting sense making and encouraging reflection. Then, based on three empirical case studies, we indicate different design considerations in terms of engaging people to interact with a visualisation: contextualising a visualisation (via its location or medium), staging interaction and allowing people to provide their own perspective on the issue displayed. As a conclusion we propose a scenario that allows the visualisation to gradually become more transparent in support of its readability.     

Non‐Waste‐Wachsschalungen: Neuartige Präzisionsschalungen aus recycelbaren Industriewachsen

Non‐Waste wax formwork‐technology Today's possibilities to realize complex free‐form reinforced concrete shapes, curved walls and filigree details require a formwork technology which meets these challenges. High precision with maximum freedom of form is therefore an essential requirement for the formwork of this new, so‐called freeform architectures. Preconditions for this are the 3D digital design and manufacturing technologies, with their help formwork can be designed and manufactured in high precision and with many degrees of freedom in form. This paper describes a research approach using industrial waxes as formwork materials. Due to the nearly 100 % recyclability of the wax, this approach is an economical and ecological manufacturing process for customized free‐form‐members made of concrete.     

Compendium of photovoltaic degradation rates

Published data on photovoltaic (PV) degradation measurements were aggregated and re‐examined. The subject has seen an increased interest in recent years resulting in more than 11 000 degradation rates in almost 200 studies from 40 different countries. As studies have grown in number and size, we found an impact from sampling bias attributable to size and accuracy. Because of the correlational nature of this study we examined the data in several ways to minimize this bias. We found median degradation for x‐Si technologies in the 0.5–0.6%/year range with the mean in the 0.8–0.9%/year range. Hetero‐interface technology (HIT) and microcrystalline silicon (µc‐Si) technologies, although not as plentiful, exhibit degradation around 1%/year and resemble thin‐film products more closely than x‐Si. Several studies showing low degradation for copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) have emerged. Higher degradation for cadmium telluride (CdTe) has been reported, but these findings could reflect a convolution of less accurate studies and longer stabilization periods for some products. Significant deviations for beginning‐of‐life measurements with respect to nameplate rating have been documented over the last 35 years. Therefore, degradation rates that use nameplate rating as reference may be significantly impacted. Studies that used nameplate rating as reference but used solar simulators showed less variation than similar studies using outdoor measurements, even when accounting for different climates. This could be associated with confounding effects of measurement uncertainty and soiling that take place outdoors. Hotter climates and mounting configurations that lead to sustained higher temperatures may lead to higher degradation in some, but not all, products. Wear‐out non‐linearities for the worst performing modules have been documented in a few select studies that took multiple measurements of an ensemble of modules during the lifetime of the system. However, the majority of these modules exhibit a fairly linear decline. Modeling these non‐linearities, whether they occur at the beginning‐of‐life or end‐of‐life in the PV life cycle, has an important impact on the levelized cost of energy. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does arsenic in soil contribute to arsenic urinary concentrations in a French population living in a naturally arsenic contaminated area?

A cross sectional study using environmental and biological samples was implemented to assess the association between arsenic (As) concentrations in the environment and urinary As levels of residents living in an area where the soil is naturally As rich. As was measured in drinking water, atmospheric particulate matter, and soil and a geographic information system was used to assign environmental concentrations closest to the participants' dwellings and the sum of inorganic As and metabolites in urine samples. The only potential source of As environmental contamination was from soil with a range of 13-131 mg As/kg of dry matter. As(V) was the only species present among As extracted from the analyzed soil samples. The chemical extraction showed a poor mobility of As soil. There was no difference between child and teenager, and adult urinary As concentrations, though men had higher urinary As concentrations than women (p < 0.001).Given the important differences in lifestyle between 7-18 year olds, men, and women, these groups were analyzed separately. Whilst we were unable to find a stable model for the 7-18 year old group, for the adult men group we found that seafood consumption in the 3 days prior to the investigation (p = 0.02), and beer (p = 0.03) and wine consumption in the 4 days before the study, were associated with As urinary levels (μg/L). In adult women, creatinine was the only variable significantly associated with As urinary concentration (μg/L).The concentrations we measured in soils were variable and although high, only moderately so and no link between As concentrations in the soil and urinary As concentrations could be found for either men or women. Some individual factors explained half of the variability of adult men urinary As levels. The unexplained part of the variability should be searched notably in As mobility in soil and uncharacterized human behavior.     

Nonwetting,nonrolling, stain resistant polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane coated textiles

Cotton/polyester fabric surfaces were modified using nanostructured organic‐inorganic polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) molecules via solution dip coating. Surface wetting characteristics of coatings prepared from two chemically and structurally different POSS molecules, a closed cage fluorinated dodecatrifluoropropyl POSS (FL‐POSS) and an open cage nonfluorinated trisilanolphenyl POSS (Tsp‐POSS), were evaluated with time and compared with Teflon. Surface analysis, including Atomic Force Microscopy, SEM/EDAX, and NMR revealed the presence of POSS aggregates on the fabric surface leading to a spiky topography, high roughness, and hysteresis. POSS coated fabrics showed complete reversal of surface wetting characteristics with contact angles higher than the benchmark Teflon surface. Water contact angle measured as a function of time showed equivalent or better performance for POSS‐coated surfaces in comparison to Teflon. Furthermore, FL‐POSS coated fabric exhibited exceptional stain and acid resistance along with a 38% reduction in relative surface friction. Additionally, “nonsliding” and high surface adhesion behavior of water droplets on the FL‐POSS coated fabric are reported. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2010     

A comparison of seven filling to packing switchover methods for injection molding

The effectiveness of seven methods for controlling switchover from the filling to packing stage were investigated, including: (1) screw position, (2) injection time, (3) machine pressure, (4) nozzle pressure, (5) runner pressure near the sprue, (6) cavity pressure near the gate, and (7) cavity temperature at the end of flow. The activation threshold for each of the seven switchover methods was iteratively determined so as to produce similar part weights relative to a standard process. A design of experiments was implemented for each of the seven switchover methods that perturbs the process settings by an amount equal to six standard deviations of the standard process so as to replicate the expected long‐term process variation. The results suggest that conventional switchover methods (e.g., screw position) had lower short‐term variation, but other methods were more robust with respect to rejecting long‐term process variation. The merits of different dimensional measurements for quality control are also discussed relative to the society of the plastics industry (SPI) standard tolerances. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 50:2031–2043, 2010. © 2010 Society of Plastics Engineers