ALBERT

Description: Rapid growth in industrial development has raised the concern of proper disposal of the by-products generated in industries. Many of them may cause serious pollution to the air, land, and water if dumped in open landfills. Agricultural and municipal wastes also cause environmental issues if not managed properly. Besides, minimizing the carbon footprint has become a priority in every industry to slow down global warming and climate change effects. The use of supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) obtained from agricultural, industrial, municipal, and natural sources can decrease a significant amount of fossil fuel burning by reducing cement production and contribute to proper waste management. Also, SCMs can enhance desirable material properties like flowability, strength, and durability. Such materials may play a big role to meet the need of modern time for resilient construction. The effective application of SCMs in cement-based materials requires a clear understanding of their physical and chemical characteristics. Researchers studied how the flowability, strength, and durability properties of structural mortar change with the replacement of cement with different SCMs. Various experiments were conducted to examine the behavior of structural mortar in extreme conditions (e.g., high temperature). Many scholars have attempted to improve its performance with various treatment techniques. This article is an attempt to bring all the major findings of the recent relevant studies together, identify research gaps in the current state of knowledge on the utilization of SCMs in structural mortar, and give several recommendations for further study. The available results from recent studies have been reviewed, analyzed, and summarized in this article. A collection of the updated experimental findings will encourage and ease the use of various by-products and wastes as SCMs in structural mortar for sustainable construction.

Description: An effort is made in this work to appraise the surface characteristics of machined expandable polystyrene (EPS) with a novel 3D printed thermoplastic acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) tool. Linear grooves on EPS were made on a vertical milling machine that was modified to conduct experiments in the laboratory. The tests were designed as per the Taguchi L9 based factorial design of experimentation while varying process parameters such as depth of cut, spindle speed, and feed rate. The machining responses dimensional accuracy and surface roughness of the machined grooves were studied. Furthermore, the surface topography of the machined specimens was considered to investigate the mechanism of material removal in response to the processing conditions. Moreover, mathematical models developed for the prediction of the output responses showed a significant correlation with the experimental results. The results of the statistical study indicate that the surface roughness is influenced by the spindle speed and dimensional accuracy by the depth-of-cut. Overall, the findings of the experimental work advocated the feasibility of 3D printed thermoplastic tools for machining soft polymeric materials. It can become a useful alternative for mass and batch production.

Description: Current strategies for the treatment of superficial non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC) lesions include topical imoquimod, 5-fluorouracil, and photodynamic therapy. Although these treatments are effective, burning pain, blistering, and dermatitis have been reported as frequent side effects, making these therapies far from ideal. Plasmonic materials have been investigated for the induction of hyperthermia and use in cancer treatment. In this sense, the effectiveness of intratumorally and systemically injected gold nanorods (GnRs) in inducing cancer cell death upon near-infrared light irradiation has been confirmed. However, the in vivo long-term toxicity of these particles has not yet been fully documented. In the present manuscript, GnRs were included in a crosslinked polymeric film, evaluating their mechanical, swelling, and adhesion properties; moreover, their ability to heat up neonatal porcine skin (such as a skin model) upon irradiation was tested. Inclusion of GnRs into the films did not affect mechanical or swelling properties. GnRs were not released after film swelling, as they remained entrapped in the polymeric network; moreover, films did not adhere to porcine skin, altogether showing the enhanced biocompatibility of the material. GnR-loaded films were able to heat up the skin model over 40 °C, confirming the potential of this system for non-invasive local hyperthermia applications.

Description: The field of gene therapy has experienced an insurgence of attention for its widespread ability to regulate gene expression by targeting genomic DNA, messenger RNA, microRNA, and short-interfering RNA for treating malignant and non-malignant disorders. Numerous nucleic acid analogs have been developed to target coding or non-coding sequences of the human genome for gene regulation. However, broader clinical applications of nucleic acid analogs have been limited due to their poor cell or organ-specific delivery. To resolve these issues, non-viral vectors based on nanoparticles, liposomes, and polyplexes have been developed to date. This review is centered on non-viral vectors mainly comprising of cationic lipids and polymers for nucleic acid-based delivery for numerous gene therapy-based applications.

Description: The use of rubber granulate in the composition of asphalt mixtures, as well as the use of poroelastic layers, is indicated by many research centers as a factor with a positive effect on tire/road noise reduction. Attention is however paid to their lower structural durability compared to asphalt concrete (AC) or stone mastic asphalt (SMA). Stone mastic asphalt reducing tire/road noise (SMA LA) layers have also been recently used as low-noise road surfaces. The article presents the test results of viscoelastic properties of asphalt mixtures SMA8 LA, SMA8 LA containing 10%, 20%, and 30% of rubber granulate, with bitumen 50/70, bitumen 50/70 modified with styrene butadiene styrene (SBS) copolymer, crumb rubber, and mixtures with bitumen modified simultaneously with crumb rubber and SBS copolymer. The reference asphalt mixture was the porous asphalt (PA8). The presented results of water damage resistance, degradation resistance in the Cantabro abrasion loss test, stiffness modulus as a function of temperature and hysteresis loop proved that the amount of rubber granulate and the type of binder significantly affect the values of these parameters. Attention was paid to the possibility of using the results of uniaxial cyclic compression tests when determining the proportion of rubber granulate in SMA8 LA mixtures. Tests of hysteresis loops and stiffness modulus confirm much higher elasticity of SMA8 LA mixtures with rubber granulate as compared to mixtures without the addition of granulate.

Description: The plant “False Lily of the Valley”, Speirantha gardenii is restricted to south-east China and considered as an endemic plant. Due to its limited availability, this plant was less studied. Hence, this study is focused on its molecular studies, where we have sequenced the complete chloroplast genome of S. gardenii and this is the first report on the chloroplast genome sequence of Speirantha. The complete S. gardenii chloroplast genome is of 156,869 bp in length with 37.6% GC, which included a pair of inverted repeats (IRs) each of 26,437 bp that separated a large single-copy (LSC) region of 85,368 bp and a small single-copy (SSC) region of 18,627 bp. The chloroplast genome comprises 81 protein-coding genes, 30 tRNA and four rRNA unique genes. Furthermore, a total of 699 repeats and 805 simple-sequence repeats (SSRs) markers are identified in the genome. Additionally, KA/KS nucleotide substitution analysis showed that seven protein-coding genes have highly diverged and identified nine amino acid sites under potentially positive selection in these genes. Phylogenetic analyses suggest that S. gardenii species has a closer genetic relationship to the Reineckea, Rohdea and Convallaria genera. The present study will provide insights into developing a lineage-specific marker for genetic diversity and gene evolution studies in the Nolinoideae taxa.

Description: Sustainment issues associated with military helicopters have drawn attention to the growth of small cracks under a helicopter flight load spectrum. One particular issue is how to simplify (reduce) a measured spectrum to reduce the time and complexity of full-scale helicopter fatigue tests. Given the costs and the time scales associated with performing tests, a means of computationally assessing the effect of a reduced spectrum is desirable. Unfortunately, whilst there have been a number of studies into how to perform a damage tolerant assessment of helicopter structural parts there is currently no equivalent study into how to perform the durability analysis needed to determine the economic life of a helicopter component. To this end, the present paper describes a computational study into small crack growth in AA7075-T7351 under several (reduced) helicopter flight load spectra. This study reveals that the Hartman-Schijve (HS) variant of the NASGRO crack growth equation can reasonably accurately compute the growth of small naturally occurring cracks in AA7075-T7351 under several simplified variants of a measured Black Hawk flight load spectra.

Description: The objective of this paper is to establish the significance of the mycoremediation of contaminants such as Cd2+ to achieve sustainable and eco-friendly remediation methods. Industries such as electroplating, paint, leather tanning, etc. release an enormous amount of Cd2+ in wastewater, which can drastically affect our flora and fauna. Herein, we report on the in vitro bioadsorption of Cd2+ ions using fungal isolates obtained from different contaminated industrial sites. The detailed studies revealed that two fungal species, i.e., Trichoderma fasciculatum and Trichoderma longibrachiatum, were found to be most effective against the removal of Cd2+ when screened for Cd2+ tolerance on potato dextrose agar (PDA) in different concentrations. Detailed adsorption studies were conducted by exploring various experimental factors such as incubation time, temperature, pH, inoculum size, and Cd2+ salt concentrations. Based on optimum experimental conditions, T. fasciculatum exhibited approximately 67.10% removal, while T. longibrachiatum shows 76.25% removal of Cd2+ ions at pH 5.0, 120 h incubation time, at 30°C. The inoculum sizes for T. fasciculatum and T. longibrachiatum were 2.5% and 2.0%, respectively. Finally, the morphological changes due to Cd2+ accumulation were examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Further, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) spectroscopy reveals the presence of various functional groups (-CH, –C=O, NH and –OH), which seem to be responsible for the efficient binding of Cd2+ ions over the fungal surfaces.

Description: We describe an approach for modeling the filler network formation kinetics of particle-reinforced rubbery polymers—commonly called filler flocculation—that was developed by employing parallels between deformation effects in jammed particle systems and the influence of temperature on glass-forming materials. Experimental dynamic viscosity results were obtained concerning the strain-induced particle network breakdown and subsequent time-dependent reformation behavior for uncross-linked elastomers reinforced with carbon black and silica nanoparticles. Using a relaxation time function that depends on both actual dynamic strain amplitude and fictive (structural) strain, the model effectively represented the experimental data for three different levels of dynamic strain down-jump with a single set of parameters. This fictive strain model for filler networking is analogous to the established Tool–Narayanaswamy–Moynihan model for structural relaxation (physical aging) of nonequilibrium glasses. Compared to carbon black, precipitated silica particles without silane surface modification exhibited a greater overall extent of filler networking and showed more self-limiting behavior in terms of network formation kinetics in filled ethylene-propylene-diene rubber (EPDM). The EPDM compounds with silica or carbon black filler were stable during the dynamic shearing and recovery experiments at 160 °C, whereas irreversible dynamic modulus increases were noted when the polymer matrix was styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR), presumably due to branching/cross-linking of SBR in the rheometer. Care must be taken when measuring and interpreting the time-dependent filler networking in unsaturated elastomers at high temperatures.

Description: Technoeconomic analyses using established tools such as SuperPro Designer® require a level of detail that is typically unavailable at the early stage of process evaluation. To facilitate this, members of our group previously created a spreadsheet-based process modeling and technoeconomic platform explicitly aimed at joint fermentative‒catalytic biorefinery processes. In this work, we detail the reorganization and expansion of this model—ESTEA2 (Early State Technoeconomic Analysis, version 2), including detailed design and cost calculations for new unit operations. Furthermore, we describe ESTEA2 validation using ethanol and sorbic acid process. The results were compared with estimates from the literature, SuperPro Designer® (Version 8.5, Intelligen Inc., Scotch Plains, NJ, 2013), and other third-party process models. ESTEA2 can perform a technoeconomic analysis for a joint fermentative‒catalytic process with just 12 user-supplied inputs, which, when modeled in SuperPro Designer®, required approximately eight additional inputs such as equipment design configurations. With a reduced amount of user information, ESTEA2 provides results similar to those in the literature, and more sophisticated models (ca. 7%–11% different).