Substitution of Synthetic Fibers by Bio-Based Fibers in a Structural Mortar

The use of bio-based material is now widespread in insulation concrete, for example hemp concrete. The bio-based materials in concrete provide many advantages: lightness, sound and thermal insulation, hydrothermal regulation while contributing to a reduction in the environmental impact due to the carbon capture during the plant growth. The development of materials incorporating plant is therefore an important objective for the construction. The next step will be to introduce bio-based materials in structural mortars and concretes. The project FIBRABETON proposes to substitute synthetic or metallic fibers by natural fibers in screed and slab. After a selection of biomass on the resources availability, separation and fractionation are the key step in processing to obtain technical natural fibers. Bulk fiber shaping and packaging methods for easy handling and transportation are tested. Then, functionalization of technical natural fibers by physical & chemical treatments to improve the durability with cement paste is carried out. The second step concerns the introduction of treated or not treated fibers in mortar and concrete formulations. The variation of the nature of the biomass, fibers shape and dosage in concrete are studied. The workability, the compressive strength and withdrawal resistance are measured in order to obtain the best formulation parameters. The evolution of properties over time is also evaluated. The project FIBRABETON is carried out with ESTP, FRD and Vicat and is subsidized by ADEME, Grand Est region and FEDER.

Sustainable Urban Transport—Why a Fast Investment in a Complete Cycling Network Is Most Profitable for a City

The development of safe cycling as a mode of transport is an important objective of the transformation towards sustainable mobility in European cities. A significant number of European cities are faced with the need to implement the assumptions of the European Green Deal, of which the promotion of sustainable urban transport is a part. The article presented a simulation of the Perfect Cycling City Model in real conditions that inspired the design of two scenarios for the fast development of bicycle routes in a key transport network area in Warsaw. Scenario 1 assumes building subsidiary bicycle routes and links between the main routes. In Scenario 2, the development of all optimal cycling links at the local level is assumed. An increase in cycling participation is expected in both scenarios. The comparison of projected costs of each scenario indicated that building a complete network of connections is more profitable in terms of increased cycling participation and could counter the dominance of private car use. For this to happen, measures encouraging individuals combined with improved safety and convenience of cycling around the city must be undertaken.

Specification of the Climate Character in the Study Area of Projected Hydric Reclamation

Hydrical reclamation of the residual pit of Most-Ležáky is part of the comprehensive revitalisation of the land affected in the past bymining activity with an area of 1264 ha. Thus, in terms of remediation and reclamation, the most appropriate way to reclaim theresidual pit, as one of the final stages of the long-term reclamation activities that have been going on in the area for more than half acentury, occurs under the given conditions. The Lake Most, our study area, was planned and created as a hydric recultivation of theformer surface Most-Ležáky mine located near the town of Most, in the foothills of the Ore Mountains, approximately 80 kilometersnorthwest of the capital of the Czech Republic - Prague. The Lake Most represents extensive hydric reclamation, which is unique in thesense that it does not have a natural inflow and runoff, therefore an artificial feeder from the Ohře River had to be built. The main goalof the ongoing research is to construct a mathematical model predicting the water balance of Lake Most. Therefore, it is important toseparate amount of water that is lost by the evaporation and amount of water that is lost into the subsoil. If we do not wish to use onlytemperature equations but more complex methods and equations to calculate evaporation instead, we need to have relative humidity,atmospheric pressure, wind speed, and daylight length values. In addition to the climatic data needed to calculate the evaporation,the amount of precipitation is needed to construct the balance equation of the area. An important objective in planning all hydricreclamations is to ensure their long-term sustainability, which is based on a detailed description of the study area's climate and localhydrological conditions. In our article we focus on assessing the evolution of climate in the area of this hydric reclamation. We haveprocessed a long-term series of measurements in monthly averages from the Kopisty meteostation data provided by the Institute ofAtmospheric Physics of the CAS.

Can Predictive Justice Improve the Predictability and Consistency of Judicial Decision-Making?

There has recently been talk of algorithms that predict decisions in legal cases being used by the judiciary to improve the predictability and consistency of judicial decision making. We argue that their use may minimise the error rate of decisions in the long run, but that this would require not only major technical advances but also major changes in legal thinking about what is the most important objective of judicial decision-making: optimising individual justice in a particular case or reducing errors in the long run. We further argue that if algorithmic decision predictors give any useful information in individual cases to judges at all, this is not in its predictions but in its explanations.

Evidence for a high-pressure isostructural transition in nitrogen

Understanding the high-pressure behaviors of diatomic molecules (H2, O2, N2, etc) is one of the most basic as well as important objective in high-pressure physics. Under high pressure diatomic molecule solids often exhibit rich crystal polymorphs. High-pressure isostructural transitions (HPIT) in solid hydrogen and oxygen, involving considerable technical challenges, have been experimentally documented, suggesting a possible prevailing pressure-driven molecular-symmetry breaking pathway. In spite of extensive efforts, however, HPIT in nitrogen has not been observed so far. Here we present a monoclinic-to-monoclinic isostructural phase transition (λ→λ’) in solid nitrogen at approximately 50 GPa accompanied with anomalies in lattice parameter, atomic volume and Raman vibron modes. Further ab initio calculations strongly confirmed the HPIT in nitrogen, showing the weak distortion of orientation and slight rotation in nitrogen molecules possibly drive the low-pressure phase, λ-N2, to an isostructural high-pressure phase, λ’-N2 without changing crystal symmetry. In addition, we probed in detail the phase stability and revisited the pressure-temperature (P-T) phase diagram of nitrogen, discovering a new high-pressure amorphous phase, η’-N2.

Niche difference determines coexistence and similar underlying processes in four ecological groups

Understanding how species interactions affect community composition is an important objective in ecology. Yet, the multitude of methods to study coexistence has hampered cross-community comparisons. Here, we standardized niche and fitness differences across 1018 species pairs to compare the processes driving composition and outcomes, among four community types (annual plant, perennial plant, phytoplankton, and bacteria/yeast). First, we show that niche differences are more important drivers of coexistence than fitness differences. Second, in all community types negative frequency dependence is the most frequent process. Finally, the outcome of species interactions differs among community types. Coexistence was the most frequent outcome for perennial plants and phytoplankton, while competitive exclusion was the most prevalent outcome in annual plants and bacteria/yeasts. Overall, our results show that niche and fitness differences can be used as a common currency that allow cross community comparisons to understand species coexistence.

Optimizing the Finance Structure of Capital at Commercial Organization

In conditions of limited finance resources building optimum finance structure of capital is considered the most important objective, as the availability of the necessary amount of own funds can provide finance sustainability of the organization, the potential to meet timely liabilities to creditors, finance and develop new lines of work. However, any resources (both borrowed and own) have value, as they can be invested into the profitable investment project. It is obvious that the finance structure of capital can influence indirectly the level of organization profit, as in other expenses interest costs or interests payable are shown. Therefore, it is necessary to build such a correlation of own and borrowed sources, which can provide the max profit for the enterprise. As tools for building such a correlation the article proposes methods of mathematic modeling and, namely, the correlation analysis to find the interconnection between the dependent variable, i.e. work profitability and different factors - a share of own and borrowed funds. On the basis of this interconnection regression equation was built, which allows us to find out how the amount of net profit changes with a certain correlation of own and borrowed resources. The analysis was carried out based on published finance reports of the limited company ‘Gazprom Bureniye'.

Artificial intelligence in cardiology: the debate continues

In 1955 when John McCarthy and his colleagues proposed their first study of artificial intelligence, they suggested that “every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it”. Whether that might ever be possible would depend on how we define intelligence, but what is indisputable is that new methods are needed to analyse and interpret the copious information provided by digital medical images, genomic databases, and biobanks. Technological advances have enabled applications of artificial intelligence (AI) including machine learning (ML) to be implemented into clinical practice, and their related scientific literature is exploding. Advocates argue enthusiastically that AI will transform many aspects of clinical cardiovascular medicine, while sceptics stress the importance of caution and the need for more evidence. This report summarises the main opposing arguments that were presented in a debate at the 2021 Congress of the European Society of Cardiology. AI is an advanced analytical technique that should be considered when conventional statistical methods are insufficient, but testing a hypothesis or solving a clinical problem—not finding another application for AI—remains the most important objective. AI and ML methods should be transparent and interpretable, if they are to be approved by regulators and trusted to provide support for clinical decisions. Physicians need to understand AI methods and collaborate with engineers. Few applications have yet been shown to have a positive impact on clinical outcomes, so investment in research is essential.

Neoadjuvant Therapy in Lung Cancer: What Is Most Important: Objective Response Rate or Major Pathological Response?

Lung cancer is the most fatal and frequently diagnosed malignant tumor. Neoadjuvant therapy is a promising approach for prolonging survival and increasing the chance of cure rates for patients with potentially resectable disease. Currently, many therapeutic alternatives, including chemotherapy, targeted therapy, and immunotherapy, are continually being explored to enrich the content of neoadjuvant therapy. However, neoadjuvant therapy remains to have no unified evaluation standards. Overall survival (OS) is the “gold standard” for evaluating the clinical benefit of cancer treatment, but it needs years for a reliable evaluation. Hence, researchers need to identify surrogate endpoints that can predict OS accurately and reliably without long follow-up periods. In this review, we describe the research progress of different neoadjuvant therapies and explore their response evaluation, aiming to identify stronger predictors of OS.

Comparison of Elbow Varus Torque During Interval Throwing Programs and Gameday Pitching in High School Baseball Pitchers (125)

Objectives: Completion of an interval throwing program (ITP) is a common benchmark for return to full competition following an injury to the dominant extremity of an overhead throwing athlete. While workload management for overhead athletes has evolved, the general structure of the ITP remains relatively unexamined. Furthermore, the daily and cumulative workload of ITPs is generally unknown. An ideal ITP would allow for a gradual increase in workload that eventually approximates, but does not exceed, workload measurements attained during competition. It is currently unknown if ITPs achieve this critically important objective. Therefore, the current study sought to 1) determine the daily and cumulative workload for common ITPs using elbow varus torque (EVT), and 2) compare EVT experienced during completion of ITPs to game pitching EVT values. Methods: A retrospective review identified high school pitchers with at least 50 throws at distances of 90, 120, 150, and 180 feet plus game pitches while wearing a MotusBASEBALL sensor. Averages for EVT per throw and torque per minute were calculated at each distance. Three throwing programs were created using a template of one phase at each distance with two steps per phase (Table 1). Programs varied only by number of throws per set (20, 25, and 30 throws for Programs A, B, and C, respectively). Total EVT for each step, phase, and program were calculated using average EVT values for each distance. Total torque for each step and program was converted to an average inning pitched equivalent (IPE) and maximum pitch count equivalent (MPE), respectively, using pitching EVT values and expected average pitch counts (16 pitches/inning and maximum 105 pitches/game). Results: 3,447 throws were analyzed from 7 pitchers with an average age of 16.7 yrs (0.8 yrs SD). EVT progressively increased with distance (range 36.9-45.5 N·m), comparable to game pitching (45.7 N·m). Average torque per minute was highest for 90 ft throws (193.4 N·m/min) and lowest for game pitches (125.0 N·m/min). Program A demonstrated the lowest range of IPE per step (2.0-3.7), and Program C had the highest range (3.0-5.6) (Figure 1). The phases of Program A never exceeded 1MPE. Program B exceeded this threshold after phase 1, and Program C exceeded 1MPE at every phase (Figure 2). Total program MPE ranged from 3.5 (Program A) to 5.2 (Program C). Conclusions: Performing long-toss throwing led to greater torque per minute compared to gameday pitching. Additionally, ITPs requiring 25 or more throws per set led to increased cumulative EVT, especially at distances greater than 150 ft, which can exceed typical values from gameday pitching. ITPs should be adjusted accordingly to encourage a slower pace of long-toss throws and less than 25 throws per set, especially at distances greater than 120 ft. Most ITPs currently recommend one rest day between steps. However, cumulative EVT at longer distances can exceed 5 IPE. Most pitch count rules require more than one rest day after a pitching outing that exceeds multiple innings pitched. Therefore, days off between steps and phases of an ITP should reflect these demands. We advocate for multiple days off between steps that require more than 3 IPE. Table 2 presents a novel ITP based on the findings of the current study.