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Laser surface treatment is a promising technique to increase the adhesive strength of carbon fibres reinforced plastics joints. In this technique, the laser beam is adopted to remove ...the outer matrix layer up to the expose the underlying reinforcement. This study deals on the effect of laser treatment on the joint strength of CFRP laminate obtained by direct co-bonding. To this aim, laser treatments at different process conditions were performed on autoclave cured CFRP, adopting a pulsed Yb:YAG fiber laser. The obtained surfaces were characterized by microscopy. Single lap joints were obtained by infusion techniques by superposition of fresh laminates and laser treated laminates without any kind of adhesive. Untreated and sandpaper treated samples were adopted as reference specimens. After joints consolidation, mechanical tests were carried out; apparent shear strength was measured and post mortem analysis was performed. The results show that laser treatments allow the doubling of the apparent shear strength.
Maternal intake of vitamin D in pregnancy is a potentially modifiable but understudied risk factor for the development of asthma in children.
We investigated whether maternal vitamin D intake in ...pregnancy is associated with decreased risks of wheezing symptoms in young children.
Subjects were from a birth cohort recruited in utero with the primary objective of identifying associations between maternal diet during pregnancy and asthma and allergies in children. A random sample of 2000 healthy pregnant women was recruited while attending antenatal clinics at the Aberdeen Maternity Hospital, Scotland, at approximately 12 wk gestation. Maternal vitamin D intake was ascertained from a food-frequency questionnaire completed at 32 wk of gestation. The main outcome measures were wheezing symptoms, spirometry, bronchodilator response, atopic sensitization, and exhaled nitric oxide at 5 y.
Respiratory details through 5 y and maternal food-frequency-questionnaire data were available for 1212 children. In models adjusted for potential confounders, including the children's vitamin D intake, a comparison of the highest and lowest quintiles of maternal total vitamin D intake conferred lower risks for ever wheeze odds ratio (OR): 0.48; 95% CI: 0.25, 0.91, wheeze in the previous year (OR: 0.35; 95% CI: 0.15, 0.83), and persistent wheeze (OR: 0.33; 95% CI: 0.11, 0.98) in 5-y-old children. In addition, lower maternal total vitamin D intakes in pregnancy were also associated with decreased bronchodilator response (P = 0.04). No associations were observed between maternal vitamin D intakes and spirometry or exhaled nitric oxide concentrations.
Increasing maternal vitamin D intakes during pregnancy may decrease the risk of wheeze symptoms in early childhood.
New perspectives have arisen on basalt fibre applications due to the potential low cost of this material together with its good mechanical performance, in particular at high temperature. The idea to ...fill these fibres into a polymer matrix is relatively recent and could offer very interesting perspectives that have not yet been sufficiently investigated. In this work, with the principal aim of evaluating the possibility to replace glass fibres in most of their applications, mechanical tests were carried out on comparable E-glass and basalt fibre reinforced plastic laminates. The latter were cut by square plates fabricated through vacuum bag technology. The results obtained on the two laminates were compared showing a high performance of the basalt material in terms of young modulus, compressive and bending strength, impact force and energy. These good properties suggest possible applications of basalt fibres in fields where glass composites are nowadays largely applied. The short-beam strength tests confirmed what above said by denoting an interfacial adhesion similar to that between E-glass and epoxy matrix.
Objective: Personality traits are related to numerous health outcomes and health-related behaviors. To date, however, little is known about how personality traits are associated with dietary ...behavior, an important aspect of lifestyle in the current "toxic food environment." The present study investigated the associations of between Five-Factor Model personality traits, dietary patterns, and body mass index (BMI). Methods: The sample consisted of 1,091 members of Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 tested at age 70 years. Dietary patterns were measured using a detailed and validated food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Principal components analysis of the FFQ items identified four dietary dimensions, which were named 'Mediterranean style diet,' 'health aware diet,' 'convenience diet,' and 'sweet foods'. Personality traits were measured with NEO Five-Factor Inventory. The effects of childhood intelligence, education, and sex were controlled. Results: Endorsing the Mediterranean style diet dimension was associated with high Openness and Extraversion, and low Neuroticism. High scores on the health aware diet dimension were associated with high Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. Endorsing the convenience diet dimension was associated with low Openness and high Neuroticism. Preference for sweet foods was associated with low Openness. High BMI was associated with high scores on the convenience diet dimension and low Conscientiousness. Conclusions: Personality traits, especially Openness, are associated with dietary patterns in older age. The pattern of findings may indicate that, in older people, dietary habits may be less related to how controlled they are and more related to their levels of openness and emotional and social adjustment. Policy implications are discussed.
Significant evidence indicates that the failing heart is energy starved. During the development of heart failure, the capacity of the heart to utilize fatty acids, the chief fuel, is diminished. ...Identification of alternate pathways for myocardial fuel oxidation could unveil novel strategies to treat heart failure.
Quantitative mitochondrial proteomics was used to identify energy metabolic derangements that occur during the development of cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure in well-defined mouse models. As expected, the amounts of proteins involved in fatty acid utilization were downregulated in myocardial samples from the failing heart. Conversely, expression of β-hydroxybutyrate dehydrogenase 1, a key enzyme in the ketone oxidation pathway, was increased in the heart failure samples. Studies of relative oxidation in an isolated heart preparation using ex vivo nuclear magnetic resonance combined with targeted quantitative myocardial metabolomic profiling using mass spectrometry revealed that the hypertrophied and failing heart shifts to oxidizing ketone bodies as a fuel source in the context of reduced capacity to oxidize fatty acids. Distinct myocardial metabolomic signatures of ketone oxidation were identified.
These results indicate that the hypertrophied and failing heart shifts to ketone bodies as a significant fuel source for oxidative ATP production. Specific metabolite biosignatures of in vivo cardiac ketone utilization were identified. Future studies aimed at determining whether this fuel shift is adaptive or maladaptive could unveil new therapeutic strategies for heart failure.
OBJECTIVE:To assess the association between Mediterranean-type diet (MeDi) and change in brain MRI volumetric measures and mean cortical thickness across a 3-year period in older age (73–76 years).
...METHODS:We focused on 2 longitudinal brain volumes (total and gray matter; n = 401 and 398, respectively) plus a longitudinal measurement of cortical thickness (n = 323), for which the previous cross-sectional evidence of an association with the MeDi was strongest. Adherence to the MeDi was calculated from data gathered from a food frequency questionnaire at age 70, 3 years prior to the baseline imaging data collection.
RESULTS:In regression models adjusting for relevant demographic and physical health indicators, we found that lower adherence to the MeDi was associated with greater 3-year reduction in total brain volume (explaining 0.5% of variance, p < 0.05). This effect was half the size of the largest covariate effect (i.e., age). Cross-sectional associations between MeDi and baseline MRI measures in 562 participants were not significant. Targeted analyses of meat and fish consumption did not replicate previous associations with total brain volume or total gray matter volume.
CONCLUSIONS:Lower adherence to the MeDi in an older Scottish cohort is predictive of total brain atrophy over a 3-year interval. Fish and meat consumption does not drive this change, suggesting that other components of the MeDi or, possibly, all of its components in combination are responsible for the association.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence 4.0 (CC BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
The Survey of Sugar Intake among Children in Scotland was carried out in May to September 2006. The present study aimed to identify dietary patterns in school-aged children from the survey and ...investigate associations with socio-economic factors, obesity and physical activity. Habitual diet was assessed using the Scottish Collaborative Group FFQ. Height and weight were measured by trained fieldworkers. A total of 1233 FFQ were available for analysis. Dietary patterns were identified by age (5–11 and 12–17 years) and sex using principal components analysis. Associations between factor scores and socio-economic status, education level of the main food provider, physical activity levels and BMI category (based on UK 1990 charts) were examined. Three dietary patterns were identified in each age and sex group. ‘Healthier’ patterns loading highly for fruit and vegetables were significantly associated with higher socio-economic status and higher education levels of the main food provider whereas more ‘unhealthy’ patterns (‘snacks’ and ‘puddings’) were associated with lower socio-economic status and lower education levels of the main food provider. There was no consistent association between dietary patterns and BMI group or time spent in physical activity. However, inactivity (screen time) was inversely associated with ‘healthier’ patterns in all age and sex groups and positively associated with ‘puddings’ and ‘snacks’ in girls aged 5–11 years. Clear dietary patterns can be identified in school-age children in Scotland, which are consistently related to socio-economic factors and inactivity. This has implications for targeting health promotion at subgroups in terms of lifestyle changes required.
The present paper investigates the influence of laser cleaning of Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) surface when joining CFRP to Polycarbonate (PC) sheet by means of laser assisted Joining.
...Experimental tests were conducted to perform polycarbonate-CFRP (with epoxy matrix) joints. The laser cleaning treatment was carried out on CFRP laminate adopting a 30 W Q-switched Yb:YAG fibre laser. Laser assisted joining was performed adopting a continuous wave 200 W diode laser. Untreated samples were adopted as reference. Morphological analysis and single lap shear tests were conducted to characterize the joints. Infrared thermography (IRT) was carried out to determine the temperature distribution and variation during the joining process. ANalysis Of VAriance was applied to investigate the effect of the process parameters, (laser power, energy, and treatment) on the extension of the bonded area and the mechanical properties. The results show that laser pre-treatment enables a significant increase of the joint strength which is, under the optimal conditions, more than double than the reference samples: However, considering the apparent shear strength, the laser pre-treatment does not produce a significant advantage, as it mainly resulted in the enlargement of the bonded area.
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•Laser Assisted Direct Joining of CFRP laminate and Pc sheet was successfully carried out.•The ultimate tensile force (UTF) for a 40 mm in width joint was in the range 0.4–0.7 KN.•Laser cleaning was performed on CFRP prior to joining in order to increase the UTF.•Laser cleaned samples allows doubling the ultimate tensile force.
Peroxyacetic acid (PAA) is widely used as an antimicrobial in poultry processing. Recent salmonellosis outbreaks caused by Salmonella Infantis (SI) from chicken products and Salmonella Reading (SR) ...from turkey products have raised concerns about their enhanced resistance (compared to Salmonella Typhimurium ST) to commonly used antimicrobial interventions such as PAA. The objective of this research was to evaluate the efficacy of PAA against Salmonella serotypes (Typhimurium, Infantis and Reading), effect on product color and decomposition of PAA at different pH levels. Fresh chicken wings (0.45 kg) were inoculated with a cocktail (ca. 6 log CFU/mL) of nalidixic acid resistant ST, rifampicin resistant SI and kanamycin resistant SR. Inoculated chicken wings were immersed in PAA solutions (100 or 500 ppm; adjusted to either pH 8.5 or unadjusted natural pH) for either 10 s or 60 min to replicate treatments for chicken parts or whole carcasses, respectively. Treated chicken wings were rinsed in buffered peptone water (100 mL) containing sodium thiosulfate (0.1 %), serially diluted in peptone water supplemented with 200 ppm of nalidixic acid, rifampicin or kanamycin for enumeration of ST, SI, and SR respectively, and plated on APC Petrifilm. Immersion of chicken wings in 500 ppm PAA for 60 min resulted in greater microbial reductions (P ≤ 0.05) of ST, SI, SR of ca. Two log CFU/mL each, compared to 10 s treatment. Regardless of concentration and pH of PAA, increased exposure time (60 min vs. 10 s) resulted in greater reductions (P ≤ 0.05) of ST, SI, SR. ST was slightly more resistant to PAA solutions than S. Infantis and S. Reading (P ≤ 0.05) for all experimental conditions (PAA conc, pH, and exposure times). Faster decomposition of PAA (100 and 500 ppm) was observed at pH 8.5 compared to unadjusted, natural pH (P ≤ 0.05). Product color (lightness, L*) was not affected regardless of the PAA concentration, exposure time or the pH.
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