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    The devitrification of artificial fibers : a multimethodic approach to quantify the temperature-time onset of cancerogenic crystalline phases

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    A variety of artificial fibers extensively employed as lining in high-temperature apparatus may undergo a devitrification process that leads to significant changes in the chemical–physical properties of the materials. Among them, the crystallization of carcinogenic minerals, such as cristobalite, has already been documented for alumino-silicate ceramic fibers. Five fibrous samples with different compositions were treated over a wide range of temperatures (20–1500°C) and times (24–336 h) to investigate the rate and the crystalline phases that are formed as well their onset temperatures. The new phases were characterized by using a multimethodic approach: phase transformations were monitored together with thermal analysis and the new phases were investigated by using X-ray powder diffraction analysis. The crystalline:amorphous ratio was monitored by Rietveld refinement of X-ray diffraction data. Scanning electron microscopy was used to study the effect of heat treatments on the morphology of fibers, and the nanostructures were investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results show that the main crystalline phases are cristobalite, diopside, mullite, and zirconia. The onset of cristobalite was observed at temperature lower than that thermodynamically expected. The TEM analysis showed that protostructures were present in the material vitrified from sol-gel-derived products, which can act as crystallization nuclei. The study shows that the devitrification leads to health hazard due to the formation of inhalable powder of cancerogenic crystalline phases

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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