Sustainable solutions for the construction sector: integration of secondary raw materials in the production cycle of concrete

The construction industry is one of the largest consumers of raw materials and energy and one of the highest contributor to green-houses gases emissions. In order to become more sustainable it needs to reduce the use of both raw materials and energy, thus lim-iting its environmental impact. Developing novel technologies to integrate secondary raw materials (i.e. lightweight recycled aggre-gates and alkali activated “cementless” binders - geopolymers) in the production cycle of concrete is an all-inclusive solution to im-prove both sustainability and cost-efficiency of construction industry. SUS-CON “SUStainable, Innovative and Energy-Efficiency CONcrete, based on the integration of all-waste materials” is an European project (duration 2012-2015), which aim was the inte-gration of secondary raw materials in the production cycle of concrete, thus resulting in innovative, sustainable and cost-effective building solutions. This paper presents the main outcomes related to the successful scaling-up of SUS-CON concrete solutions in traditional production plants. Two European industrial concrete producers have been involved, to design and produce both pre-cast components (blocks and panels) and ready-mixed concrete. Recycled polyurethane foams and mixed plastics were used as aggre-gates, PFA (Pulverized Fuel Ash, a by-product of coal fuelled power plants) and GGBS (Ground Granulated Blast furnace Slag, a by-product of iron and steel industries) as binders. Eventually, the installation of SUS-CON concrete solutions on real buildings has been demonstrated, with the construction of three mock-ups located in Europe (Spain, Turkey and Romania)

Multiuser dual-hop relaying over hybrid RF/FSO links

The performance of multiuser dual-hop relaying over mixed radio frequency/free-space optical (RF/FSO) links is investigated. RF links are used for the simultaneous data transmission from m single-antenna sources to the relay, which is equipped with n ≥ m receive antennas and a photo-aperture transmitter. The relay operates under the decode-and-forward protocol and utilizes the popular ordered V-BLAST technique to successively decode each user's transmitted stream. A common norm-based ordering approach is adopted, where the streams are decoded in an ascending order. After the V-BLAST decoding, the relay retransmits the initial information to the destination, which is equipped with a photo-detector, via a point-to-point FSO link in m consecutive timeslots. Analytical expressions for the end-to-end outage probability and average symbol error probability of each user are derived. Some engineering insights are manifested, such as the diversity order, the impact of the pointing error displacement on the FSO link and the severity on the turbulence-induced channel fading.

Resistance of alkali activated slag concretes to chloride environments based on chloride penetration measurements

ABSTRACT

One of the binder systems with low environmental footprint is alkali activated slag concretes (AASC), made by adding alkalis such as sodium hydroxide and sodium silicate to industrial by-products such as ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS). Whilst they have the similar behaviour as that of traditional cement systems in terms of strength and structural behaviour, AASC do exhibit superior performance in terms of abrasion and acid resistance and fire protection.
In this article, the authors focus their attention on chloride ingress into different grades of AASC. The mix variables in AASC included water-to-binder, binder to aggregate ratio, percentage of alkali and the SiO2/Na2O ratio (silica modulus, Ms). The first challenge is to get mixes for different range of workability (with slump values from 40mm to 240mm) and reasonable early age and long term compressive strength according to each one. Then the chloride diffusion and migration in those mixes were measured and compared with same normal concretes in the existed literature based on chloride penetration depth. Comparing the chloride ingress between tradition concretes and AASCs is worthwhile to prove the possibility of increasing concrete lifetime in proximity to sea and deciding while such concretes are practical for use. Findings show that compared to the PC concretes, the AAS concretes have lower rate of chloride ingress.

Resistance of alkali activated slag concretes to chloride environments

ABSTRACT: Researchers are focusing their attention on alternative binder systems using 100% supplementary cementitious materials as it allows better control over the microstructure formation and low to moderate environmental footprint. One such system being considered is alkali activated slag concretes (AASC), made by adding alkalis such as sodium hydroxide and sodium silicate to ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS). Whilst they have a similar behaviour as that of traditional cement systems in terms of strength and structural behaviour, AASC are reported to exhibit superior performance in terms of abrasion,acid resistance and fire protection.
In this article, the authors investigate chloride ingress into different grades of AASC. The mix variables in AASC included water to binder, and binder to aggregate ratio, percentage of alkali and the SiO2/Na2O ratio (silica modulus, Ms). The first challenge was to develop mixes for different range of workability (with slump values from 40mm to 240mm) and reasonable early age and long term compressive strength. Further chloride ingress into those mixes were assessed and compared with the data from normal concretes based on literature. Findings show that compared to the PC concretes, the AAS concretes have lower rate of chloride ingress.

Alkali-Activated Natural Pozzolan Concrete as New Construction Material

In the near future, geopolymers or alkali-activated cementitious materials will be used as new high-performance construction materials of low environmental impact with a reasonable cost. This material is a good candidate to partially replace ordinary portland cement (OPC) in concrete as a major construction material that plays an outstanding role in the construction industry of different structures. Geopolymer materials are inorganic polymers based on alumina and silica units; they are synthesized from a wide range of dehydroxylated alumina-silicate powders condensed with alkaline silicate in a highly alkaline environment. Geopolymeric materials can be produced from a wide range of alumina-silica, including natural products--such as natural pozzolan and metakaolin--or coproducts--such as fly ash (coal and lignite), oil fuel ash, blast furnace or steel slag, and silica fume--and provide a route toward sustainable development. Using lesser amounts of calcium-based raw materials, lower manufacturing temperature, and lower amounts of fuel result in reduced carbon emissions for geopolymer cement manufacture up to 22 to 72% in comparison with portland cement. A study has been done by the authors to investigate the intrinsic nature of different types of Iranian natural pozzolans to determine the activators and methods that could be used to produce a geopolymer concrete based on alkali-activated natural pozzolan (AANP) and optimize mixture design. The mechanical behavior and durability of these types of geopolymer concrete were investigated and compared with normal OPC concrete mixtures cast by the authors and also reported in the literature. This paper summarizes the main conclusions of the research regarding pozzolanic activity, activator properties, engineering and durability properties, applications and evaluation of carbon footprint, and cost for AANP concrete.

Stochastic Modeling of Reversible Biochemical Reaction-Diffusion Systems and High-Resolution Shock-Capturing Methods for Fluid Interfaces

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-08

Genometa - A Fast and Accurate Classifier for Short Metagenomic Shotgun Reads

Metagenomic studies use high-throughput sequence data to investigate microbial communities in situ. However, considerable challenges remain in the analysis of these data, particularly with regard to speed and reliable analysis of microbial species as opposed to higher level taxa such as phyla. We here present Genometa, a computationally undemanding graphical user interface program that enables identification of bacterial species and gene content from datasets generated by inexpensive high-throughput short read sequencing technologies. Our approach was first verified on two simulated metagenomic short read datasets, detecting 100% and 94% of the bacterial species included with few false positives or false negatives. Subsequent comparative benchmarking analysis against three popular metagenomic algorithms on an Illumina human gut dataset revealed Genometa to attribute the most reads to bacteria at species level (i.e. including all strains of that species) and demonstrate similar or better accuracy than the other programs. Lastly, speed was demonstrated to be many times that of BLAST due to the use of modern short read aligners. Our method is highly accurate if bacteria in the sample are represented by genomes in the reference sequence but cannot find species absent from the reference. This method is one of the most user-friendly and resource efficient approaches and is thus feasible for rapidly analysing millions of short reads on a personal computer.

Performance en fluage des assemblages antiglissement avec des surfaces métallisées dans les ponts en acier

Les éléments des ponts en acier sont exposés à de sévères conditions environnementales, tel l’épandage de sels déglaçant sur les routes. Ces éléments ont besoin d’un niveau suffisant de protection contre la corrosion afin de préserver leur intégrité à long terme. Une solution efficace, devenue populaire au Canada, est la métallisation. La métallisation est un revêtement anticorrosion formé par projection thermique de métal, généralement du zinc, sur la surface à protéger. La protection fournie au substrat d’acier est assurée par une barrière physique et une protection galvanique. Pour le calcul des assemblages boulonnés antiglissement, les codes de conception, tel le code Canadien sur le calcul des ponts routiers CAN/CSA S6-14, spécifient, en fonction des conditions des surfaces de contact désirées, un coefficient de glissement à utiliser. Actuellement, ces codes ne fournissent aucun coefficient de glissement entre deux surfaces métallisées. Donc, il est pratique courante pour les fabricants de ponts en acier de masquer les surfaces de contact des joints boulonnés avant de métalliser, ce qui est très couteux pour l’industrie puisque ce travail doit se faire manuellement. Récemment, des études ont évalué la résistance au glissement à court terme d’assemblages antiglissement ayant des surfaces de contact métallisées. Les résultats ont révélé une résistance au glissement supérieure aux assemblages sur acier nu grenaillés. Dans la présente recherche, la performance en fluage des assemblages antiglissement métallisés a été caractérisée pour s’assurer qu’une résistance en glissement de Classe B soit toujours valide à long terme. L’effet de la relaxation de la force de serrage sur la charge de glissement a aussi été évalué. Les résultats ont démontré une bonne performance en fluage. Aussi, les résultats ont révélé que la relaxation de la force de serrage n’a pas d’impact significatif sur la résistance au glissement des assemblages antiglissement métallisés. Les conclusions de cette étude pourraient bien influencer de futures révisions des codes de conception et avoir un impact sur l’industrie de l’acier en Amérique du Nord.Mots clés : Assemblage boulonné antiglissement, métallisation, pont routier en acier, fluage, relaxation

Investigating the Diabetic Brain: The Effects of Pioglitazone and Insulin on the Cellular Processes and Pathology of Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the sixth leading cause of death in the US. Some researchers refer to AD as “Type III Diabetes” because of reported glucose metabolism dysfunction. Preclinical studies suggest increasing insulin decreases AD pathology, although the mechanism remains unclear. To sensitize insulin signaling, this study activated Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor Gamma using intranasal co-administration of pioglitazone (PGZ) and insulin. This method targeted the site of action to reduce peripheral effects and to maximize impact in transgenic mice expressing AD pathology. Data from GC-MS fluxomics analysis suggested that PGZ+Insulin increased glucose metabolism in the brain. Immunohistochemistry with relevant antibodies was used to identify AD pathological markers in the subiculum, indicating that PGZ+Insulin decreased pathology compared to Insulin and Saline. This suggests that increasing glucose uptake in the brain alleviated AD pathology, further clarifying the role of insulin signaling in AD pathology.Gemstone

Fungi associated with foliar diseases of wild and cultivated rice (Oryza spp.) in northern Queensland

During surveys of wild and cultivated rice in northern Queensland in 2014 and 2015, 92 fungal isolates were obtained from plants that were afflicted by foliar diseases, including the rice blast pathogen, Pyricularia oryzae, and the brown spot pathogen, Bipolaris oryzae. Seven species of Curvularia were found, viz. Curvularia aeria, C. alcornii, C. asianensis, C. clavata, C. lunata, C. muehlenbeckiae and an undescribed species. To remove uncertainty about the identity of the host plants from which the fungi were isolated, a DNA barcoding strategy was developed using regions of the chloroplast genome. Pathogenicity tests using wild rice isolates of P. oryzae indicated that many local rice varieties are susceptible to infection.

Optimization of lipase production from yeasts strains isolated from olive mil wastewater

Dissertação submetida à Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências para a obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Microbiologia Aplicada.

Classification and clinical behavior of blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasms according to their maturation-associated immunophenotypic profile

Blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm (BPDCN) is a rare subtype of leukemia/lymphoma, whose diagnosis can be difficult to achieve due to its clinical and biological heterogeneity, as well as its overlapping features with other hematologic malignancies. In this study we investigated whether the association between the maturational stage of tumor cells and the clinico-biological and prognostic features of the disease, based on the analysis of 46 BPDCN cases classified into three maturation-associated subgroups on immunophenotypic grounds. Our results show that blasts from cases with an immature plasmacytoid dendritic cell (pDC) phenotype exhibit an uncommon CD56- phenotype, coexisting with CD34+ non-pDC tumor cells, typically in the absence of extramedullary (e.g. skin) disease at presentation. Conversely, patients with a more mature blast cell phenotype more frequently displayed skin/extramedullary involvement and spread into secondary lymphoid tissues. Despite the dismal outcome, acute lymphoblastic leukemia-type therapy (with central nervous system prophylaxis) and/or allogeneic stem cell transplantation appeared to be the only effective therapies. Overall, our findings indicate that the maturational profile of pDC blasts in BPDCN is highly heterogeneous and translates into a wide clinical spectrum -from acute leukemia to mature lymphoma-like behavior-, which may also lead to variable diagnosis and treatment.

Influência da temperatura de calcinação do fosfogesso no desempenho de cimentos supersulfatados

The supersulfated cement (CSS) basically consist of up to 90% blast furnace slag, 10-20% of a source of calcium sulfate and a small amount of alkali activator, covered by European standard EN 15743/2010. Because of this SSC are considered "green cement" low environmental impact. The source of calcium sulfate used in the preparation of CSS can be obtained from natural sources, such as gypsum or from alternative sources (industrial products), such as phosphogypsum. The phosphogypsum is a by-product of the fertilizer industry, used in the production of phosphoric acid. In this process the phosphate rock is treated with sulfuric acid to give as the major product phosphoric acid (H3PO4), gypsum and a small amount of hydrofluoric acid. The chemical composition of gypsum is basically calcium sulfate dihydrate (CaSO4.2H2O), similar to gypsum, because it can be used in this type of cement. To become anhydrous, the calcination of gypsum is necessary. The availability of the source of calcium sulfate to react with the slag is dependent on its solubility that is directly related to its calcination temperature. The solubility of the anhydrous gypsum decreases with increasing calcination temperature. This study investigated the influence of temperature of calcination of phosphogypsum on the performance of CSS. Samples were prepared with 10 and 20% of phosphogypsum calcinated at 350 to 650 ° C using KOH as an alkaline activator at three different concentrations (0.2, 0.5 and 0.8%). The results showed that all mortars presented the minimum values required by EN 15743/2010 for 7 and 28 days of hydration. In general CSS containing 10% phosphogypsum showed slightly better compressive strength results using a lower calcination temperature (350 °C) and curing all ages. The CSS containing 20% of calcined gypsum at 650 °C exhibit satisfactory compressive strenght at 28 days of hydration, but at later ages (56 to 90 days) it strongly reduced. This indicates that the calcination temperature of phosphogypsum has a strong influence on the performance of the CSS.

Transcriptional dynamics of the developing sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) fruit: sequencing, annotation and expression profiling of exocarp-associated genes

The exocarp, or skin, of fleshy fruit is a specialized tissue that protects the fruit, attracts seed dispersing fruit eaters, and has large economical relevance for fruit quality. Development of the exocarp involves regulated activities of many genes. This research analyzed global gene expression in the exocarp of developing sweet cherry (Prunus avium L., 'Regina'), a fruit crop species with little public genomic resources. A catalog of transcript models (contigs) representing expressed genes was constructed from de novo assembled short complementary DNA (cDNA) sequences generated from developing fruit between flowering and maturity at 14 time points. Expression levels in each sample were estimated for 34 695 contigs from numbers of reads mapping to each contig. Contigs were annotated functionally based on BLAST, gene ontology and InterProScan analyses. Coregulated genes were detected using partitional clustering of expression patterns. The results are discussed with emphasis on genes putatively involved in cuticle deposition, cell wall metabolism and sugar transport. The high temporal resolution of the expression patterns presented here reveals finely tuned developmental specialization of individual members of gene families. Moreover, the de novo assembled sweet cherry fruit transcriptome with 7760 full-length protein coding sequences and over 20 000 other, annotated cDNA sequences together with their developmental expression patterns is expected to accelerate molecular research on this important tree fruit crop.

PCR-Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) genes sequencing and phylogenetic analysis of clinical and environmental Aspergillus species associated with HIV-TB co infected patients in a hospital in Abeokuta, southwestern Nigeria.

Background: Aspergillosis has been identified as one of the hospital acquired infections but the contribution of water and inhouse air as possible sources of Aspergillus infection in immunocompromised individuals like HIV-TB patients have not been studied in any hospital setting in Nigeria. Objective: To identify and investigate genetic relationship between clinical and environmental Aspergillus species associated with HIV-TB co infected patients. Methods: DNA extraction, purification, amplification and sequencing of Internal Transcribed Spacer (ITS) genes were performed using standard protocols. Similarity search using BLAST on NCBI was used for species identification and MEGA 5.0 was used for phylogenetic analysis. Results: Analyses of sequenced ITS genes of selected fourteen (14) Aspergillus isolates identified in the GenBank database revealed Aspergillus niger (28.57%), Aspergillus tubingensis (7.14%), Aspergillus flavus (7.14%) and Aspergillus fumigatus (57.14%). Aspergillus in sputum of HIV patients were Aspergillus niger, A. fumigatus, A. tubingensis and A. flavus. Also, A. niger and A. fumigatus were identified from water and open-air. Phylogenetic analysis of sequences yielded genetic relatedness between clinical and environmental isolates. Conclusion: Water and air in health care settings in Nigeria are important sources of Aspergillus sp. for HIV-TB patients.