Quality and safety of maize (Zea mays L.) from Rondônia state storage units,Northern Brazil

The quality and safety of maize (Zea mays L.) from different grain storage units (GSUs), located in the main producing region of Rondônia State, Northern Brazil, were evaluated. Maize grains (n = 76) stored in four GSUs were collected from July to November 2014 and evaluated for grain damages, humidity, fungi and fumonisins (FBs) content. The climate conditions data were also obtained from plant growing to storage periods. Regarding the moisture content and water activity (a_w), these varied from 10.0% to 16.1% and 0.5 to 0.8, respectively. As expected, fungi spores were present in 94.8% of the samples, prevailing Fusarium genera, with a fungi colony maximum of 2.2 × 10⁴ CFU g^?1. Regarding FBs, 60.5% of the samples were contaminated, below Brazilian and United States maximum limits, but 9.2% had levels higher than the European legislation.     

Efficient photochromic transformation of a new fluorenyl diarylethene: one- and two-photon absorption spectroscopy

Efficient reversible phototransformation of a new diarylethene-fluorene derivative, 1,2-bis(5-(9,9-didecyl-7-nitro-9H-fluoren-2-yl)-2-methylthiophen-3-yl)cyclopent-1-ene (1), was demonstrated in organic media under low-intensity laser excitation. Linear photophysical characterization of 1 was performed at room temperature in solvents of different polarity and viscosity. Significantly, close to unity quantum yield for the cyclization reaction of 1 was shown in nonpolar solutions. The lifetimes of the excited states of the open (OF) and closed (CF) forms of 1 were measured by a femtosecond transient absorption technique, and corresponding values of ～0.7 and ～0.9 ps were shown in dichloromethane (DCM), respectively. Degenerate two-photon absorption (2PA) spectra of the OF and CF of 1 were obtained over a broad spectral range by the open aperture Z-scan method under 1 kHz femtosecond excitation. The values of 2PA cross sections of the OF in DCM (～50-70 GM) were found to increase up to 1 order of magnitude (～600 GM) after cyclization to the CF. The nature of cyclization and cylcoreversion processes were investigated by quantum chemistry with employment of DFT-based methods implemented in the Gaussian'09 program. The potential of 1 for application in optical data storage was shown using poly(methyl methacrylate)-doped films and two-photon fluorescence microscopy readout.     

Kinetics Study of the Hydrodechlorination of Chlorobenzene Catalyzed by Immobilized Copper Complexes

The hydrodechlorination of chlorobenzene to benzene and biphenyl was studied using poly(4-vinylpyridine)-immobilized Cu catalysts under CO in basic (NaOH, N(C₂H₅)₃ or Na(CH₃CO₂)) aqueous 2-ethoxyethanol medium. This Cu system also catalyzed the water gas shift reaction. The catalytic activities for hydrodechlorination of chlorobenzene to benzene were studied as functions of the reaction parameters (nature of the base, reaction time, [Cu], P(CO), T, and S/C). Among the different base studied activity is maximum for NaOH. The rate of benzene formation displays a first-order dependence on [Cu] over the range 1.25–12.50 wt%. This observation was interpreted in terms of the presence of active species having the same nuclearity. The catalytic activity towards benzene formation proved to be first order dependence on P(CO) over the range 5–35 atm. The kinetics behavior with respect to P(CO) leads to the proposal that CO addition to the catalytic species precedes the rate-limiting step. The catalytic activity proved to be non-linear in chlorobenzene/Cu content, over the range 50–400 molar ratio. The results suggest that the rate-limiting step is preceded by reversible oxidative addition of chlorobenzene to Cu immobilized species.     

Silicon Nitride Colloidal Probe Measurements: Interparticle Forces and the Role of Surface-Segment Interactions in Poly(acrylic acid) Adsorption from Aqueous Solution

Direct measurements of forces between silicon nitride surfaces in the presence of poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) are presented. The force-distance curves were obtained at pH > pH_iep with an atomic force microscopy (AFM) colloidal-probe technique using a novel spherical silicon nitride probe attached to the AFM cantilever. We found that PAA adsorbs onto the negatively charged silicon nitride surface, which results in an increased repulsive surface potential. The steric contribution to the interparticle repulsion is small and the layer conformation remains flat even at high surface potentials or high ionic strength. The general features of the stabilization of ceramic powders with PAA are discussed; we suggest that PAA adsorbs onto silicon nitride by sequential adsorption of neighboring segments ("zipping"), which results in a flat conformation. In contrast, the long-range steric force found in the ZrO₂/PAA system at pH > pH_iep arises because the stretched equilibrium bulk conformation of the highly charged polymer is preserved via the formation of strong, irreversible surface-segment bonds on adsorption.     

Temporal patterns of antihypertensive medication use among older adults, 1989 through 1992. An effect of the major clinical trials on clinical practice?

OBJECTIVE: To describe the changing patterns of antihypertensive medication use in the years immediately before and after the publication of the results of three major clinical trials of the treatment of hypertension in older adults. DESIGN: In this cohort study, adults 65 years or older were examined annually on four occasions between June 1989 and May 1992, and the use of antihypertensive medications was assessed by inventory at each visit. The four visits defined the boundaries of three study periods. For each study period, participants receiving antihypertensive therapy were either continuous users (n = 1667, 1643, and 1605, respectively) or starters (n = 157, 142, 120) of hypertensive therapy. The large clinical trials that convincingly proved the efficacy and safety of low-dose diuretic therapy in older adults were published during the latter parts of period 2 and the early parts of period 3. RESULTS: Among starters, the proportion initiating therapy on diuretics increased from 35.9% in period 2 to 47.5% in period 3, significantly so among women (P = .04). The proportions initiating other drugs displayed no significant trends. Among continuous users, the use of diuretics, beta-blockers, and vasodilators generally decreased over the 3-year period, while the use of calcium channel blockers and angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors increased significantly in each of the three periods (P < .05). The decline of 2.7% in the prevalence of diuretic use in period 1 abated during period 2 (1.8% decline), and it slowed significantly (P = .03) to almost a complete halt during period 3 (0.2% decline). The rate of increase in the use of calcium channel blockers slowed significantly (P = .01) between period 1 (+6.7%) and period 3 (+2.8%). CONCLUSIONS: Although other factors such as cost may have been important, the temporal trends in antihypertensive drug therapy coincided in time with and may have reflected in part the influence of the major clinical trials on the patterns of clinical practice.     

An intercomparison of CFD models to predict lean and non-uniform hydrogen mixture explosions

The paper describes an exercise on comparison of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models to predict deflagrations of a lean uniform hydrogen–air mixture and a mixture with hydrogen concentration gradient. The exercise was conducted within the work-package “Standard Benchmark Exercise Problem” of the EC funded Network of Excellence “Safety of Hydrogen as an Energy Carrier”, which seeks to provide necessary quality in the area of applied hydrogen safety simulations. The experiments on hydrogen–air mixture deflagrations in a closed 1.5 m in diameter and 5.7 m high cylindrical vessel were chosen as a benchmark problem to validate CFD codes and combustion models used for prediction of hazards in safety engineering. Simulations of two particular experiments with approximately the same amount of hydrogen were conducted: deflagration of a uniform 12.8% vol. hydrogen mixture and deflagration of a non-uniform hydrogen mixture, corresponding to an average 12.6 % vol. hydrogen concentration (27% at the top of the vessel, 2.5% at the bottom of the vessel) with ignition at the top of the vessel in both cases. The comparison of the simulation results for pressure and flame dynamics against the experimental data is reported.     

An inter-comparison exercise on CFD model capabilities to simulate hydrogen deflagrations in a tunnel

In the frame of the European Commission co-funded Network of Excellence HySafe (Hydrogen Safety as an Energy Carrier, www.hysafe.org), five organizations with significant experience in explosion modelling have performed numerical simulations of explosions of stoichiometric hydrogen–air mixtures in a 78.5 m long tunnel. The five organizations are the Karlsruhe Research Centre, GexCon AS, the Joint Research Centre, the Kurchatov Institute Research Centre and the University of Ulster. Five CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) codes with different turbulence and combustion models have been used in this Standard Benchmark Exercise Problem (SBEP). Since tunnels are semi-confined environments, hydrogen explosions in tunnels can potentially be critical accident scenarios from the point of view of the accident consequences and CFD methods are increasingly employed to assess explosions hazards in tunnels. The objective of the validation exercise is to assess the accuracy of the theoretical and numerical models by comparisons of the simulation results with the experimental data. A very good agreement between experiments and simulations was found in terms of maximum overpressures.     

Development of a model evaluation protocol for CFD analysis of hydrogen safety issues the SUSANA project

The “SUpport to SAfety aNAlysis of Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies (SUSANA)” project aims to support stakeholders using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) for safety engineering design and assessment of FCH systems and infrastructure through the development of a model evaluation protocol. The protocol covers all aspects of safety assessment modelling using CFD, from release, through dispersion to combustion (self-ignition, fires, deflagrations, detonations, and Deflagration to Detonation Transition - DDT) and not only aims to enable users to evaluate models but to inform them of the state of the art and best practices in numerical modelling. The paper gives an overview of the SUSANA project, including the main stages of the model evaluation protocol and some results from the on-going benchmarking activities.