Waughsteenberg8331

In a bid to develop paper bricks as alternative masonry units, unmodified banana fibers (UMBF) and alkaline (1 Molar aqueous sodium hydroxide) modified banana fibers (AMBF), fine sand, and ordinary Portland cement were blended with waste paper pulp. The fibers were introduced in varying proportions of 0, 0.5, 1.0 1.5, 2.0, and 2.5 wt% (by weight of the pulp) and curing was done for 28 and 56 days. Properties such as water and moisture absorption, compressive, flexural, and splitting tensile strengths, thermal conductivity, and specific heat capacity were appraised. The outcome of the examinations carried out revealed that water absorption rose with fiber loading while AMBF reinforced samples absorbed lesser water volume than UMBF reinforced samples; a feat occasioned by alkaline treatment of banana fiber. Moisture absorption increased with paper bricks doped with UMBF, while in the case of AMBF-paper bricks, property value was noted to depreciate with increment in AMBF proportion. Fiber loading resulted in improvement of compressive, flexural, and splitting tensile strengths and it was noted that AMBF reinforced samples performed better. The result of the thermal test showed that incorporation of UMBF led to depreciation in thermal conductivity while AMBF infusion in the bricks initiated increment in value. Opposite behaviour was observed for specific heat capacity as UMBF enhanced heat capacity while AMBF led to depreciation. Experimental trend analysis carried out indicates that curing length and alkaline modification of fiber were effective in maximizing the properties of paperbricks for masonry construction.We show that some key features of the behavior of mutual funds is accounted for by a stochastic model of proportional growth. We find that the negative dependence of the variance of funds' growth rates on size is well described by an approximate power law. We discover that during periods of crisis the volatility of the largest funds' growth rates increases with respect to mid-sized funds. Our result reveals that a lower and flatter slope provides relevant information on the structure of the system. We find that growth rates volatility poorly depends on the size of the funds, thus questioning the benefits of diversification achieved by larger funds. Our findings show that the slope of the size-variance relationship can be used as a synthetic indicator to monitor the intensity of instabilities and systemic risk in financial markets.This study explored the temporal variation, gas-particle partition, and potential origins of atmospheric speciated mercury at a remote island in the South China Sea. Two-year data of three mercury species was measured at the Taiping Island. Air masses were clustered into five transport routes (A-E) to resolve the potential origins of atmospheric mercury. Field measurement showed that the concentration of gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) (1.33 ± 0.52 ng/m3) was close to the GEM background level of Northern Hemisphere, while those of GOM and PHg were 13.39 ± 3.58 and 94.33 ± 30.25 pg/m3, respectively. Both regular and intensive samplings concluded a consistent trend of higher mercury level in winter and spring than that in summer and fall. GEM dominated atmospheric mercury in all seasons (86.2-98.5%), while the highest partition of particle-bound mercury (PHg) was observed in winter (13.8%). The highest GEM concentrations were observed for Route A originating from central China and western Taiwan Island, and followed by Routes D and E from the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia, while the lowest concentrations of GEM were observed for Routes B and C originating from North China, Korea, and Japan. Most importantly, high correlation of GEM versus levoglucosan and K+ in PM2.5 (r = 0.764 and 0.758, p  less then  0.01) confirmed that GEM was mainly emitted from biomass burning sources at the surrounding countries.Abatacept, an inhibitor of CD28 mediated T-cell activation, has been shown to be effective in controlling inflammation during rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, its effects on immune regulatory B and T cells (Bregs and Tregs) has not been fully explored. Thirty-one RA patients treated with abatacept for ≥ 6 months along with 31 RA patients treated with other modalities as well as 30 healthy controls were recruited. JAK inhibitor Of these 62 RA patient, 49 (79%) were females with a mean age of 54 ± 12 years and disease duration of 10 ± 6 years. The blood levels of Tregs and Bregs and their production of immunosuppressive cytokines, were determined using FACS analysis and Luminex Multiplex assay. Treatment with abatacept significantly enhanced the blood level of IL-35+ IL-10+ Bregs (P = 0.0007). Their levels were higher in the blood of remitted patients (DAS28-CRP  less then  2.6) compared to the unremitted ones (P = 0.0173), 6 months following abatacept treatment initiation. Moreover, abatacept treatment significantly enhanced the blood levels of LAG3+ conventional and unconventional Tregs of RA patients. This increase in the blood levels of Bregs and Tregs was accompanied with an elevated serum level of IL-35 and IFN-β in abatacept-treated patients. Therefore, Abatacept efficiency to achieve remittance in RA could be attributed, in part, to its ability to enhance immune regulatory cells, especially IL-135+ IL-10+ Bregs.Two computational methods based on the Ising model were implemented for studying temporal dynamic in co-authorship networks an interpretative for real networks and another for simulation via Monte Carlo. The objective of simulation networks is to evaluate if the Ising model describes in similar way the dynamic of the network and of the magnetic system, so that it can be found a generalized explanation to the behaviours observed in real networks. The scientific papers used for building the real networks were acquired from WoS core collection. The variables for each record took into account bibliographic references. The search equation for each network considered specific topics trying to obtain an advanced temporal evolution in terms of the addition of new nodes; that means 3 steps, a time to reach the interest of the scientific community, a gradual increase until reaching a peak and finally, a decreasing trend by losing of novelty. It is possible to conclude that both methods are consistent with each other, showing that the Ising model can predict behaviours such as the number and size of communities (or domains) according to the temporal distribution of new nodes.