On the Use of Paper Sludge as Filler in Biocomposites for Injection Moulding.

The potential use of paper sludge (PS) as filler in the production of bio-composites based on poly lactic acid (PLA) and polybutylene adipate terephthalate (PBAT) was investigated. PS/PLA/PBAT composites, with addition of acetyl tributyl citrate (ATBC) as biobased plasticizer, were produced with PS loadings up to 30 wt.% by twin-screw extrusion followed by injection moulding. The composites were characterized by rheological measurements, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and mechanical tests (tensile and impact resistance) to study the effect of PS on the processability, thermal stability, crystallinity and mechanical performance of polymeric matrix. The optimized composites at higher PS content were successfully processed to produce pots for horticulture and, in view of this application, preliminary phytotoxicity tests were conducted using the germination test on Lepidium sativum L. seeds. Results revealed that developed composites up to 30 wt.% PS had good processability by extrusion and injection moulding showing that PS is a potential substitute of calcium carbonate as filler in the production of bio-composites, and the absence of phytotoxic effects showed the possibility of their use in the production of pots/items for applications in floriculture and/or horticulture.

Recovery of sulfur from sulfur-rich filter cakes in a rotary kiln: Process optimization.

In this work, sulfur recovery from sulfur-rich wastes deriving from sulfur filtration was investigated through laboratory experiments and full-scale tests in an industrial combustion rotary kiln, where elemental sulfur is converted to SO2 in a sulfuric acid production plant. Phase equilibria experiments carried out in the temperature range 1100-1400 °C and industrial scale tests demonstrated that temperature is the most important operating parameter in determining the recovery efficiency and the plant operability. The full-scale tests performed on the rotary kiln showed that, at operating temperatures around 1200 °C, a continuous sulfur recovery from the filter cakes was obtained with an average efficiency of 87% and a consequent reduction of about 70% of the solid waste material to be disposed as inert in landfills or used in cement/glass industries. The efficiency of sulfur recovery increases with the increasing operating temperature but, above 1300 °C, the melting of the residual Ca-Fe-Al-silicate phase and the eventual recrystallization at the kiln refractory walls occurred, causing a forced plant shutdown. The chemical-physical interaction between the sulfur-rich filter cake and different refractory materials was further investigated in the temperature range 1100-1300 °C. At the recommended operation temperatures of 1100-1200 °C, the interaction between the refractory material and the combustion ashes is negligible for all tested materials. Nonetheless, the use of Fe- and Cr-free refractory materials for the internal lining of the kiln must be preferred to minimize the deposition/adhesion of Ca-Fe-Al-silicates derived from combustion over long-term operation.

Estimation of optical properties of neuroendocrine pancreas tumor with double-integrating-sphere system and inverse Monte Carlo model.

The investigation of laser-tissue interaction is crucial for diagnostics and therapeutics. In particular, the estimation of tissue optical properties allows developing predictive models for defining organ-specific treatment planning tool. With regard to laser ablation (LA), optical properties are among the main responsible for the therapy efficacy, as they globally affect the heating process of the tissue, due to its capability to absorb and scatter laser energy. The recent introduction of LA for pancreatic tumor treatment in clinical studies has fostered the need to assess the laser-pancreas interaction and hence to find its optical properties in the wavelength of interest. This work aims at estimating optical properties (i.e., absorption, µ a , scattering, µ s , anisotropy, g, coefficients) of neuroendocrine pancreas tumor at 1064 nm. Experiments were performed using two popular sample storage methods; the optical properties of frozen and paraffin-embedded neuroendocrine tumor of the pancreas are estimated by employing a double-integrating-sphere system and inverse Monte Carlo algorithm. Results show that paraffin-embedded tissue is characterized by absorption and scattering coefficients significantly higher than frozen samples (µ a of 56 cm(-1) vs 0.9 cm(-1), µ s of 539 cm(-1) vs 130 cm(-1), respectively). Simulations show that such different optical features strongly influence the pancreas temperature distribution during LA. This result may affect the prediction of therapeutic outcome. Therefore, the choice of the appropriate preparation technique of samples for optical property estimation is crucial for the performances of the mathematical models which predict LA thermal outcome on the tissue and lead the selection of optimal LA settings.

Gentle Nearest Neighbors Boosting over Proper Scoring Rules.

Tailoring nearest neighbors algorithms to boosting is an important problem. Recent papers study an approach, UNN, which provably minimizes particular convex surrogates under weak assumptions. However, numerical issues make it necessary to experimentally tweak parts of the UNN algorithm, at the possible expense of the algorithm's convergence and performance. In this paper, we propose a lightweight Newton-Raphson alternative optimizing proper scoring rules from a very broad set, and establish formal convergence rates under the boosting framework that compete with those known for UNN. To the best of our knowledge, no such boosting-compliant convergence rates were previously known in the popular Gentle Adaboost's lineage. We provide experiments on a dozen domains, including Caltech and SUN computer vision databases, comparing our approach to major families including support vector machines, (Ada)boosting and stochastic gradient descent. They support three major conclusions: (i) GNNB significantly outperforms UNN, in terms of convergence rate and quality of the outputs, (ii) GNNB performs on par with or better than computationally intensive large margin approaches, (iii) on large domains that rule out those latter approaches for computational reasons, GNNB provides a simple and competitive contender to stochastic gradient descent. Experiments include a divide-and-conquer improvement of GNNB exploiting the link with proper scoring rules optimization.

Detection of auto-antibodies to DAT in the serum: interactions with DAT genotype and psycho-stimulant therapy for ADHD.

UNLABELLED: Interest is rising for auto-immune contribution in neuro-psychiatry. We evaluated the auto-antibodies against dopamine transporter (DAT aAbs) in 61 children (46 ADHD who met DSM-IV-TR criteria, 15 healthy controls). METHODS: ADHD patients were assigned, according to severity, either to a non-pharmacological therapy (NPT, N=32) or to a pharmacological treatment (PT, N=14) with methylphenidate (MPH). In ADHD children, blood samples were withdrawn twice, at recruitment (T0 basal) and after 6 weeks (T1); following 16 excluded subjects, DAT genotype was characterized (9-repeat or 10-repeat alleles; N=15 each). After 18 months of NPT or PT, some patients (carrying at least one 9-repeat allele) were blood sampled again (T2), for comparison with healthy controls (final n=8) RESULTS: Compared to NPT, basal DAT aAbs titers were higher within most severe patients (then assigned to PT), specifically if carrying a DAT 10/10 genotype. DAT aAbs levels of NPT group resulted highly correlated with distinct subscales of Conners' Parent/Teacher Scales (Rs>0.34), especially within DAT 10/10 genotype (Rs>0.53). While T1 titers were elevated over T0 baseline for NPT children, such an increase was not observed in PT patients carrying at least one 9-repeat allele, who also showed behavioral response to subchronic MPH. After 12-24 months of MPH exposure, DAT aAbs titers in PT subjects were comparable to those of healthy controls, while titers remained significantly elevated in NPT patients. Data warrant further research on serum DAT aAbs, which could be used to confirm ADHD diagnosis and/or to monitor therapeutic efficacy of MPH.