Evaluation of synergy during co-pyrolysis of torrefied sawdust, coal and paraffin. A kinetic and thermodynamic dataset.

This article aims to clarify and expand the information published in the article Evaluation of synergy during co-pyrolysis of torrefied sawdust, coal and paraffin. A kinetic and thermodynamic study, which evaluate kinetically and thermodynamically the existence of synergies during the co-pyrolysis of binary and ternary blends of coal, torrefied pine sawdust and paraffin. These materials were selected because they have been used before in the preparation of briquettes for the steel industry with good results. In order to facilitate the understanding and reproducibility of the main article, the following descriptions, dataset and figures have been provided: description and formulation of iso-conversional methods, some TGA curves and the standard deviation of the TG analysis, the activation energy of all the raw materials and their blends at different level of conversion using Friedman, Kissinger-Akahira-Sunose (KAS) and Flynn-Wall-Ozawa (FWO) methods, as well as, the linear plots for their calculations for the KAS and FWO models; also the thermodynamic parameters for pyrolysis of all the samples studied and the theoretical and experimental plots for prediction of solid state reaction mechanism using Criado method of several weights of paraffin are include.

Ethnic disparities and morbidity in the Province of Antwerp, Belgium.

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to identify geographical disparities in perinatal mortality and morbidity in the province of Antwerp, Belgium. We performed a retrospective cohort study from an existing database. Data included from 1 January , 2000 to 31 December, 2009 and including all deliveries in the Province of Antwerp, Belgium. Collected outcome measures : fetal death, early and late neonatal death, preterm birth, low birth weight. Outcomes were analyzed according to postal code of the pregnant women's address. RESULTS: A total of 167.246 deliveries in sixty postal codes were analyzed and statistically significant differences (p<0.001) between postal codes for all outcome measures except for early and late neonatal death were detected. Generally postal codes tend to have either high or low prevalences for all perinatal outcomes and two postal code zones had a significantly worse perinatal outcome on all fields. Major differences in perinatal outcome exist within the well-defined area of the relatively small province of Antwerp, Belgium. CONCLUSION: Perinatal outcome is strongly influenced by maternal postal code even within a relatively affluent European region demonstrating persistent health inequalities and suggesting further research is necessary to explain these differences and create interventions to diminish inequalities.

Kinetics of co-pyrolysis of sawdust, coal and tar.

Two coals, sawdust and coal tar were selected to prepare briquettes. Thermogravimetric analyses at three heating rates (i.e. 10, 20 and 30°C/min) and up to 1000°C were carried out with the briquette components. Four blends were prepared and the experimental decomposition profiles were compared with the calculated data taking into account the amount of each component in the blend. No interaction was found when comparing the experimental and calculated decomposition profiles of the blends. Isoconversional models OFW (Ozawa-Flynn-Wall) and KAS (Kissinger-Akahira-Sunose) were used to obtain the activation energies of the blend components. The activation energies obtained were introduced in the Coats-Redfern (CR) model to derive the pre-exponential factors. The thermal decomposition profiles calculated using the kinetic parameters were in good agreement with the experimental results in the case of the briquette components, but worse results were obtained in the case of the blends due to their greater complexity.

Metabolic labeling and protein linearization technology allow the study of proteins secreted by cultured cells in serum-containing media.

Supernatants from cell cultures (also called conditioned media, CMs) are commonly analyzed to study the pool of secreted proteins (secretome). To reduce the exogenous protein background, serum-free media are often used to obtain CMs. Serum deprivation, however, can severely affect cell viability and phenotype, including protein secretion. We present a strategy to analyze the proteins secreted by cells in fetal bovine serum-containing CMs, which combines the advantage of metabolic labeling and protein concentration linearization techniques. Incubation of CMs with a hexapeptide ligand library was used to reduce the dynamic range of the samples and led to the identification of 3 times more proteins than in untreated CM samples. Labeling with a deuterated amino acid was used to distinguish between cellular proteins and homologous bovine proteins contained in the medium. Application of the strategy to two breast cancer cell lines led to the identification of proteins secreted in different amounts and which could correlate with their varying degree of aggressiveness. Selected reaction monitoring (SRM)-based quantitation of three proteins of interest in the crude samples yielded data in good agreement with the results from concentration-equalized samples.