Assessment of Bonelike® graft with a resorbable matrix using an animal model

Synthetic bone grafts have been developed to provide an alternative to autografts and allografts. Bonelike® is a patented synthetic osteoconductive bone graft that mimics the mineral composition of natural bone. In the present preliminary animal studies a user-friendly version of synthetic bone graft Bonelike® have been developed by using a resorbable matrix, Floseal®, as a vehicle and raloxifene hydrochloride as a therapeutic molecule, that is known to decrease osteoclast activity and therefore enhanced bone formation. From histological and scanning electron microscopy evaluations, the use of Bonelike® associated with Floseal® and raloxifene hydrochloride showed that new bone was rapidly apposed on implanted granules and also that the presence of the matrix and therapeutic molecule does not alter the proven highly osteoconductivity properties of Bonelike®. Therefore, this association may be one step-forward for the clinical applications of Bonelike® scaffolds since it is much more easy-to-handle when compared to granular materials.     

Ridge hypoplasia and ridge dissociation: minor physical anomalies in autistic children

Ten term newborns underwent CT of the brain 12-24 h following vacuum extractor delivery. Haemorrhage in the area of the tentorium was demonstrated in all of them, with similar findings in all cases. CT 1 week later demonstrated reabsorption of the blood without demonstrating any other brain pathology. Clinical and CT examination a year after delivery did not reveal any abnormality. The haemorrhage appears to be a benign condition.     

An Investigation into the Use of Water by Portuguese Industry

ABSTRACT

The continuous increase in water demand for various uses underlines the importance of supply problems in the general context of water resources management.

In this domain it would clearly be useful to collect and make available all the data currently stored on different paper supports and kept by several regional agencies. This would provide an immediate overview of tbe resources, and also permit forecasting the future demand for tbe various utilizations.

This paper describes a project involving a database to be used for groundwater resources management, conceived not only as a support for research activity, but also as a contribution to developing new and more efficient managementprocedures. The database has been designed to be used on a personal computer, with software readily available on the market.     

Index for quality control in anthropometric surveys

In an anthropometric measurement process, there are many factors which are error sources even if the observers are highly trained. Systematic or bias errors are possible and they are not clearly noticeable. In this work we propose two simple and adimensional indices to use in the quality control of anthropometric surveys.

Such indices are applicable only to a few anthropometric variables but the results found by this control can be an indication of the quality of the complete measurement process. The indices are defined as

and ses index is the same when the measures are obtained in sitting position. The observer must take those measurements again when the index values are higher than a selected threshold value before approving or rejecting the measure.

Relevance to industry

Anthropometric data are used in a wide variety of consumer products and in processes of industrial design. Wrong precision of data could cause problems in the industrial products. Those indices are useful to improve the accuracy and quality control of data.     

Neuro-evolutionary approach applied for optimizing the PEMFC performance

A multi-objective optimization strategy, based on stacked neural network–genetic algorithm (SNN–GA) hybrid approach, was applied to study the C/PBI content on a high temperature PEMFC performance. The operating conditions of PEMFC were correlated with power density and electrochemical active surface area for electrodes. The structure of the stack was determined in an optimal form related to the contribution of individual neural networks, after applying an interpolation based procedure. Multi-objective optimization using SNN as model and GA as solving procedure provides optimal working conditions which lead to a high PEMFC performance. Simulation results were in agreement with experimental data, both for model validation and system optimization (the C/PBI content in the range of 17–21%).     

Electricity production by integration of acidogenic fermentation of fruit juice wastewater and fuel cells

In this work, the potential application of bio-hydrogen in a fuel cell was studied. To do that an activated sludge was acclimatized to an acidogenic culture producing bio-hydrogen. Once reached the steady state, several batch experiments were carried out by feeding a synthetic fruit juice industry wastewater to the acidogenic culture. The bio-hydrogen yield obtained when this synthetic fruit juice industry wastewater was fed was 1403 mol H₂/mol hexose and the hydrogen percent in gas phase was 57%. In an average size fruit juice industry, this bio-hydrogen yield corresponds to a bio-hydrogen production of about 6000 mol H₂/d. In the subsequent stage, a synthetic bio-hydrogen stream with the same composition of the cleaned bio-hydrogen obtained in the acidogenic fermentation was fed as fuel in a Fuel Cell, obtaining very similar power and polarization curves than that obtained when feeding pure hydrogen, differences lower than 10%. These results showed that the hydrogen stream obtained by the acidogenic fermentation could be used to produce electricity in a high temperature PEMFC.     

Improving of Micro Porous Layer based on Advanced Carbon Materials for High Temperature Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Electrodes

This work reports the study of four different carbon materials for their application as carbon material in microporous layers for high temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells electrodes. The microporous layers were prepared with carbon black (a commercial one, Vulcan XC72), two different carbon nanofibers, CNF, (Ribbon and Platelet structure) and carbon nanospheres, all of them prepared in our lab. The microporous layers were characterized by XRD. The hydrophobicity, electrical conductivity, and permeability to different gases were also evaluated. The stability is an important issue to be overcome in the field of proton exchange membrane fuel cells. Thus, accelerated thermal and electrochemical degradation tests in phosphoric acid media were carried out to evaluate the stability of the different advanced materials tested under the same conditions. From all the performed essays, the carbon nanospheres were the best nano‐carbon materials because of the lower degradation degree shown by the microporous layer prepared with them and the good conductivity and permeability achieved, whereas CNF with a Platelet structure showed a low electrochemical stability due to their greater edge plane exposure which favors their corrosion.     

BACTERIAL MUTAGENICITY OF DICYCLOPENTA-FUSED PYRENE CONGENERS IN FVT-PYROLYSATES: PARTIAL COMBUSTION EXHAUST MIMICS

The mutagenicity response of well-characterized flash vacuum thermolysis (FVT) pyrolysates that contain cyclopenta[cd]pyrene (1) and 1-ethynylpyrene (1b) (pyrolysate I), the dicyclopentapyrene congeners dicyclopenta[cd,mn]- (2), dicyclopenta[cd,fg]- (3), or dicyclopenta[cd,jk]pyrene (4) and their related bis-ethynyl- (2b–4b) and monocyclopenta-ethynylpyrene (2a–4a) analogues (pyrolysates II–IV, respectively), or cyclopenta[cd]- (1) and the three dicyclopentapyrenes (2–4) (pyrolysate V), respectively, was assessed using the standard protocol outlined by Ames et al. (Salmonella typhimurium strain TA98 ± S9-mix 4% (v/v)). It is shown that the mutagenic activity of the pyrolysates deviates from the weighed sum of the activity of the individual pyrolysate constituents. Hence, FVT-pyrolysates are proposed as model mixtures, that is, as partial combustion exhaust mimics, to establish and evaluate interactions (additive, synergistic, or antagonistic effects) that may occur among the constituents and affect the global mutagenicity response.