Chronic eosinophilic pneumonia and difficult to control asthma

We report a case of typical chronic eosinophilic pneumonia (CEP), in a female of 27 years-old suffering bronchial asthma light. Although the initial answer to the treatment with steroids was satisfactory, the patient develop difficult to control asthma (DCA). DCA is a clinical situation which requires careful investigation of several potential factors which can be solved. We suggest a protocol of treatment for patients affected with DCA.     

Kinetics of phenol oxidation in a trickle bed reactor over active carbon catalyst

The wet air oxidation of phenol over a commercial active carbon catalyst was studied in a trickle bed reactor (TBR) in the temperature and oxygen partial pressure ranges of 120–160 °C and 0.1–0.2 MPa, respectively. The performance of the active carbon was compared in terms of phenol and COD destruction. The weight change of active carbon due to reaction was also measured. Finally, oxic phenol adsorption isotherms were assessed in batch conditions at 25, 125 and 160 °C. In order to use the conversion data obtained from the TBR for a kinetic study, special care was taken to check the kinetic control in the TBR experiments. Several kinetic models including power law or Langmuir–Hinshelwood expressions were considered to describe the catalytic oxidation of phenol over active carbon. The simple power law model with first order dependence on both phenol and oxygen concentration predicted satisfactorily the experimental data not only over the entire range of operating conditions studied, but also outside its validity range. Copyright © 2005 Society of Chemical Industry     

Mechanical properties of epoxy networks based on DGEBA and aliphatic amines

The mechanical properties of epoxy networks based on diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A epoxy resin cured with various linear aliphatic amines, such as ethylenediamine, diethylenetriamine, triethylenetetramine, tetraethylenepentamine, and cyclic amines such as 1‐(2‐aminoethyl)piperazine and isophorone diamine, were studied. General characteristics such as T_g, density, and packing density, were determined and related to the structure and funcionality of the curing agent. Dynamic mechanical spectra were used to study both the α and β relaxations. Tensile and the flexural tests were used to determine the Young's and flexural modulus, and fracture strength all in the glassy state. Furthermore, linear elastic fracture mechanics was used to determine K_IC. As a rule, isophorone diamine network presented the higher tensile and flexure modulus while 1‐(2‐aminoethyl)piperazine gave the highest toughness properties. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 2007     

A four year study to determine the optimal harvesting period for Tunisian Chemlali olives

Due to the importance of the stage of maturity on several olive pomological parameters and oil quality indices, and to the interest that Tunisian olive oil production has recently received, the optimal harvesting period for the main Tunisian olive cultivar, Chemlali, was assessed. For the first time, a four‐season crops study, carried out in three representative geographical areas, was focused on both olive fruit pomological parameters and oil chemical composition at different stages of maturity. The stage of maturity was the factor showing the highest influence on the major part of these parameters, followed by the crop year. To guarantee a reasonable fat content and a good chemical quality of oil, in particular a harmonious acidic composition, acceptable UV absorbance, and a content high of antioxidants, unsaponifiable matter and sterols, the optimal harvesting period for Chemlali olives would appears to be between the end of November to the middle of December, which corresponds to a maturity index between 2.5 and 3.5.     

铜浮选专家控制系统设计与应用

针对国内某选矿厂铜浮选工艺泡沫速率不稳定,精矿品位波动大,回收率不理想等特点,设计了一套浮选专家控制系统,该系统结合泡沫影像分析技术,在线品位分析技术,PID控制与模糊逻辑控制技术。系统架构简明合理,逻辑层次清晰有效,投入运行一段时间后,在不同原矿品位前提下,都能实现稳定泡沫速率,减少精矿品位波动,提高回收率等指标优化,同时药剂添加量也有明显减少。这表明该系统运行效果良好,值得应用推广。     

Influence of chemical structure of hardener on mechanical and adhesive properties of epoxy polymers

The mechanical and adhesive properties of epoxy formulations based on diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A cured with various aliphatic amines were evaluated in the glass state. Impact and uniaxial compression tests were used to determine the impact energy, elastic modulus and yield stress, respectively. The adhesion tests were carried out in steel–steel joints using single‐lap shear, T‐peel, and impact adhesive joints geometry. The better mechanical and adhesive behavior of the networks is obtained when exists high flexibility of chain between crosslink and/or high elastic modulus. The 1‐(2‐aminoethyl)piperazine epoxy network presents the best adhesive properties, high flexibility, and the largest impact energy. However, it possesses low elastic modulus and yield stress. Also, exhibits increases in peel strength and impact energy while reductions in lap shear strength. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2010     

Single-frame super-resolution in remote sensing: a practical overview

Image acquisition technology is improving very fast from a performance point of view. However, there are physical restrictions that can only be solved using software processing strategies. This is particularly true in the case of super resolution (SR) methodologies. SR techniques have found a fertile application field in airborne and space optical acquisition platforms. Single-frame SR methods may be advantageous for some remote-sensing platforms and acquisition time conditions. The contributions of this article are basically two: (1) to present an overview of single-frame SR methods, making a comparative analysis of their performance in different and challenging remote-sensing scenarios, and (2) to propose a new single-frame SR taxonomy, and a common validation strategy. Finally, we should emphasize that, on the one hand, this is the first time, to the best of our knowledge, that such a review and analysis of single SR methods is made in the framework of remote sensing, and, on the other hand, that the new single-frame SR taxonomy is aimed at shedding some light when classifying some types of single-frame SR methods.     

Different strategies to recover the activity of monomeric triosephosphate isomerase by directed evolution

A monomeric version of triosephosphate isomerase from Trypanosomabrucei, MonoTIM, has very low activity, and the same is truefor all of the additional monomeric variants so far constructed.Here, we subjected MonoTIM to directed evolution schemes toachieve an activity improvement. The construction of a suitablestrain for genetic selection provided an effective way to obtainactive catalysts from a diverse population of protein variants.We used this tool to identify active mutants from two differentstrategies of mutagenesis: random mutagenesis of the whole geneand randomization of loop 2. Both strategies converged in theisolation of mutations Ala43 to Pro and Thr44 to either Alaor Ser, when randomizing the entire gene or to Arg in the caseof randomization of loop 2. The kinetic characterization ofthe two more active mutants showed an increase of 11-fold ink_cat and a reduction of 4-fold in K_m for both of them, demonstratingthe sensitivity of the selection method. A small differencein growth rate is observed when both mutant genes are compared,which seems to be attributable to a difference in solubilityof the expressed proteins.