1,067 research outputs found
Product Liability for Online Food Suppliers
No full textThe author has written a series of articles about the legal position of online food suppliers. This article is dedicated to the product liability of online food suppliers. The digitisation of the food chains requires, in the view of Van der Veer, a new and close examination of old product liability questions. The Internet could very well effect a shift in liability upwards or downwards in the food chain. In fact, the author concludes that all liability arrows are aimed at the online food retailer
Design and Experimental Testing of All Glass Sandwich Panels: An Experimental and Numerical Study for the Glass Floors of the Acropolis Museum
No full textThis paper describes the engineering steps taken in order to investigate the potential of glass sandwich elements, made of 2 glass skins separated by a glass core in the form of spacers, as a way to create planar elements with a high stiffness to weight ratio, reducing material consumption in structural glazing applications. The aim is to explore and evaluate the optical quality and the structural performance of those elements. In this research, 7 core topologies are explored in order to define which parameters influence the behaviour of a sandwich structure made completely with glass. From those topologies, one is chosen to be explored further. The said topology is optimised to make the panels more efficient in terms of stiffness and weight reduction. In order to determine the structural behaviour (strength, stiffness, failure modes) of the elements, 4-point bending tests are conducted on 9 specimens in total. Finally, in order to define the aesthetical and structural requirements of such a project, the replacement of the glass floors of the Acropolis Museum in Athens in Greece is used as a case study. The knowledge acquired through this process is used to optimise the panels of the new glass floors taking also into account other parameters related to transparent flooring e.g. optical quality, psychological factors, anti-slip resistance etcStructural Design & Mechanic
Online_Supp – Supplemental material for A pilot study of the utility of cerebrospinal fluid neurofilament light chain in differentiating neurodegenerative from psychiatric disorders: A ‘C-reactive protein’ for psychiatrists and neurologists?
No full textSupplemental material, Online_Supp for A pilot study of the utility of cerebrospinal fluid neurofilament light chain in differentiating neurodegenerative from psychiatric disorders: A ‘C-reactive protein’ for psychiatrists and neurologists? by Dhamidhu Eratne, Samantha M Loi, Nirbaanjot Walia, Sarah Farrand, Qiao-Xin Li, Shiji Varghese, Mark Walterfang, Andrew Evans, Ramon Mocellin, Kunal Dhiman, Veer Gupta, Charles B Malpas, Steven Collins, Colin L Masters and Dennis Velakoulis in Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry</p
Dematerialization of the Ruins: Glass as a Promising Restorative Material for the Consolidation of Historic Structures
No full textThis research investigates the potential of glass as a new design tool to highlight and safeguard our historic structures. Current restoration and conservation treatments with traditional materials bear the risk of conjecture between the original and new elements, whereas the high consolidation demands often result in visually invasive and irreversible solutions. Nowadays, aspects of materiality and aesthetics appear as integral parts of the restoration practices, indicating new materials and technologies in the form of ambiguous gestures rather than absolute and permanent manifestations that prevail over the historic structures. The inherent transparent properties render glass a distinct material that enables the simultaneous perception of the monument in both its original and ruinous state. The emerging technologies have set the ground for using glass in a structural way minimizing the need for substructure and maximizing transparency, while protecting the sensitive historic materials. The paper explores the feasibility of this concept addressing aspects of compatibility, reversibility and transparency, through a review of realized examples. Finally, a developed methodology relates the, available in the market today, glass products to the possible consolidation treatments in respect to the degree of intervention and representativeness, stressing the potential of using and considering glass as a promising restorative material.Applied MechanicsStructural Design & MechanicsOLD Structural Desig
Structural Strength of Laminated Glass
No full textThe subject area "structural strength of materials" is defined generally as а complex of strength characteristics of materials and structural elements, obtained under special mechanical tests. It is shown that these tests should take into account not only the physical and mechanical properties of the material, but technology, blank processing, sphere of application, the influence of shape and sizes of elements as well as of their specific loading and operating conditions. Methods for evaluating the structural strength of glass as a linearly elastic material with high sensitivity to technological defects and operational damage are discussed in the paper. Some results of the study of the strength of elements of architectural and bulletproof laminated glass are given. The sizes of technological defects such as cracks in large-sized building elements are determined on the basis of the results of tests of sheet glass plates on bending. The bending strength of sheet float glass with a thickness up to 10 mm reinforced with modification of the glass surface using various industrial technologies is considered. Some methods and results of experimental study the features of the change in the strength and rigidity of laminated armored glass under multiple ballistic tests are also presented.Structural Design & Mechanic
Insulin signaling: An opportunistic target to minify risk of Alzheimer's disease
No full textAlzheimer's disease (AD) is progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by accumulation of senile plaques, neurofibrillary tangles (NFT) and neurodegeneration. The diabetes mellitus (DM) is one of the risk factors for AD pathogenesis by impairment in insulin signaling and glucose metabolism in central as well as peripheral system. Insulin resistance, impaired glucose and lipid metabolism lead to the Aβ (Aβ) aggregation, Tau phosphorylation, mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, protein misfolding, memory impairment and also mark over Aβ transport through central to peripheral and vice versa. Several pathways, like enzymatic degradation of Aβ, forkhead box protein O1 (FOXO) signaling, insulin signaling shared common pathological mechanism for both AD and DM. Recent evidence showed that hyperinsulinemia and hyperglycemia affect the onset and progression of AD differently. Some researchers have suggested that hyperglycemia influences vascular tone, while hyperinsulinemia may underlie mitochondrial deficit. The objective of this review is to determine whether existing evidence support the concept that impairment in insulin signaling and glucose metabolism play an important role in pathogenesis of AD. In the first part of this review, we tried to explain the interconnecting link between AD and DM, whereas the second part includes more information on insulin resistance and its involvement in AD pathogenesis. In this review, we have focused more toward the AD treatment by targeting insulin signaling like anti-diabetic, antioxidant, nutraceuticals and dietary supplements. To date, more researches should be done in this field in order to explore the pathways in insulin signaling, which might ameliorate the treatment options and reduce the risk of AD due to DM
Innovative Glass Recipes Containing Industrial Waste Materials
No full textThe growth of the industrial production generates a high volume of waste materials. These products have a significant impact on the environment. Therefore, the valorization of industrial wastes, especially those produced in huge quantities, is an important social and ecological issue. Waste reuse and recycling could help to develop new products and aggregate value to materials that would have been previously discarded. Furthermore, it could reduce the consumption of natural resources and pollution. Blast furnace slag and fly ash are waste materials largely used in concrete production, mainly as an aggregate, and road construction, as porous asphalt and in other contexts. These wastes contain many elements that are also present in typical glass formulas, such as CaO, SiO2, Al2O3, and Fe2O3. However, these elements are highly refractory, and their presence in complex compositions leads to a high tendency to crystallize and to high working temperatures. For this reason, it is a challenge to get transparent materials at reasonable temperatures from these waste products. Glass is a material that allows large amounts of various elements in solution, and is suitable for assimilating the complex materials in its compositions. In this work, we produced transparent glass samples incorporating amounts up to 35% (in weight) of blast furnace slag or fly ash. The compositions were adjusted in order to allow for chemically durable glasses in relatively low melting temperature: the samples were successfully submitted to water durability tests and were obtained in melting temperatures between 1100°C and 1350°C, depending on the composition. The melting conditions were optimized in order to achieve a higher transparency. The optical, mechanical and thermal properties of the samples were measured and compared to the standard borosilicate and soda-lime glasses.Applied MechanicsStructural Design & MechanicsMaterials and EnvironmentOLD Structural Desig
Prediction of Strength for Inhomogeneous: Defective Glass Elements Based on the Sequential Partitioning of the Data and Weibull Statistical Distribution
No full textAn analytical approach based on the on the sequential partitioning of the data and Weibull Statistical Distribution for inhomogeneous - defective materials is proposed. It allows assessing the guaranteed strength of glass structures for the low probability of fracture with a higher degree of reliability. Parameters of equations for the piecewise linear approximation for Weibull statistical distribution have been defined on the example of processing of bending tests results for float glass. The advisability of using this approach to structural elements of different size is proved. It was shown that excluding the minimum values from the sample does not lead to the uni-modal distribution. A group of values, forming the lower branch of the distribution, appears again. Statistical analysis of the distribution curves made it possible to identify groups of defects, the technological removal of which would ensure an increase in the guaranteed level of strength. The results are the basis for solving optimization problems when you need to get a guaranteed level of strength for a given probability of fracture with minimal costs for glass element manufacture and treatment.Structural Design & Mechanic
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