Search results for "Particles"

Evaluation of the effects of titanium dioxide and aluminum oxide nanoparticles through tarsal contact exposure in the model insect Oncopeltus fasciat…

2019

Abstract Despite the increasing presence of metal nanoparticles in the biosphere as a consequence of their widespread use, knowledge about the impact of these nanoparticles on fauna, ecosystems and human health is far from completion. This is especially true for terrestrial invertebrates. Insects are environmentally exposed to nanoparticles by several ways, the ectopic contact being one of the most probable. The model insect Oncopeltus fasciatus, has been used in the present work for testing toxicity of nanoparticles present in a surface. Adverse effects of TiO2 nanoparticles and Al2O3 in nanoparticulated or bulk form on mortality, reproductive and embryonic developmental parameters have be…

Unveiling the distinctive role of titanium dioxide nanoparticles in aerobic sludge digestion.

2022

Abstract Aerobic digestion is considered to be a common process for the stabilization of waste activated sludge (WAS) in the small-sized wastewater treatment systems, while the broad application of titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2 NPs) results in their unavoidable existence in WAS aerobic digestion, with its role in aerobic sludge digestion being never documented. This study set up a series of aerobic sludge digesters to evaluate the previously unknown role of TiO2 NPs on the performance of the digesters. The volatile solids (VS) degradation percentage increased from 21.9 ± 0.6% to 26.9 ± 0.1% − 30.0 ± 0.3% with the different contents of TiO2 NPs (0, 1, 20 and 50 mg/L). Similarly, the t…

Time-dependent effects of polystyrene nanoparticles in brine shrimp Artemia franciscana at physiological, biochemical and molecular levels

2019

Micro- (<5 mm) and nanoplastics (<1 μm) are emerging threats for marine ecosystems worldwide. Brine shrimp Artemia is recognized as a suitable model among planktonic species for studying the impact of polystyrene nanoparticles (PS NPs) through short and long-term bioassays. Our study aims to evaluate the time-dependent effects of cationic amino-modified PS-NH (50 nm) in A. franciscana after short- (48 h) and long-term exposure (14 days). For this purpose, nauplii were exposed to a concentration range of PS-NH (0.1, 1, 3 and 10 μg/mL) in natural sea water (NSW), and physiological, biochemical and molecular responses were investigated. Short-term exposure to PS-NH caused a decrease in nauplii…

Technogenic Magnetic Particles in Alkaline Dusts from Power and Cement Plants

2012

During this study, we investigated the mineralogical characterization of technogenic magnetic particles (TMPs) contained in alkaline industrial dust and fly ash emitted by coal burning power plants and cement plants. The reaction of tested dust samples varied between values of pH 8 and pH 12. Their magnetic properties were characterized by measurement of magnetic susceptibility (χ), frequency dependence of magnetic susceptibility (χ(fd)), and temperature dependence of magnetic susceptibility. Mineralogical and geochemical analyses included scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectroscopy, microprobe analysis and X-ray diffraction. The TMPs in fly ash from hard coal combustio…

Modality and Injunctive in Homeric Greek: the case of counterfactual and epistemic constructions

Homeric unaugmented aorists and imperfects are the oldest verbal forms attested in Greek, which continue the so-called Indo-European ‘injunctives’. The latter were inflectionally underspecified as regards verbal categories such as tense or mood (Hoffmann 1967; Kiparsky 1968). Thus, the question arises as to how the attitude of the speaker towards the content of his utterance was expressed. The aim of this paper is to investigate the role of epistemic particles co-occurring with injunctives in the Iliad and the Odyssey, focusing in particular on past counterfactual constructions. Crosslinguistic studies have shown that such modal constructions reflect the universal semantic distinction betwe…

Modality and Injunctive in Homeric Greek: The role of epistemic particles and adverbs in counterfactual constructions

2020

Structurally, unaugmented aorists and imperfects belong to the oldest layer of verbal forms attested in Greek, which continue the so-called Indo-European ‘injunctive’. The latter was inflectionally underspecified as regards verbal categories such as tense or mood (Hoffmann 1967; Kiparsky 1968). Thus, the question arises as to how the attitude of the speaker toward the content of his utterance was expressed. The aim of this paper is to investigate the role of epistemic particles and adverbs co-occurring with injunctives in the Iliad and the Odyssey, focusing in particular on past counterfactual constructions. Crosslinguistic studies have shown that such modal constructions reflect the univer…

First Observation of an Attractive Interaction between a Proton and a Cascade Baryon

2019

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. This Letter presents the first experimental observation of the attractive strong interaction between a proton and a multistrange baryon (hyperon) Ξ−. The result is extracted from two-particle correlations of combined p−Ξ−⊕¯p−¯Ξ+ pairs measured in p−Pb collisions at √sNN=5.02  TeV at the LHC with ALICE. The measured correlation function is compared with the prediction obtained assuming only an attractive Coulomb interaction and a stand…

The dark side of curvature

2009

Geometrical tests such as the combination of the Hubble parameter H(z) and the angular diameter distance d(A)(z) can, in principle, break the degeneracy between the dark energy equation of state parameter w(z), and the spatial curvature Omega(k) in a direct, model-independent way. In practice, constraints on these quantities achievable from realistic experiments, such as those to be provided by Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) galaxy surveys in combination with CMB data, can resolve the cosmic confusion between the dark energy equation of state parameter and curvature only statistically and within a parameterized model for w(z). Combining measurements of both H(z) and d(A)(z) up to suffici…

Extended Skyrme Equation of State in asymmetric nuclear matter

2015

We present a new equation of state for infinite systems (symmetric, asymmetric, and neutron matter) based on an extended Skyrme functional that has been constrained by microscopic Brueckner-Bethe-Goldstone results. The resulting equation of state reproduces the main features of microscopic calculations very accurately and is compatible with recent measurements of two times Solar-mass neutron stars. We provide all necessary analytical expressions to facilitate a quick numerical implementation of quantities of astrophysical interest.

A new preprocessing and control board for the phase 2 electronics of AGATA experiment

2016

The electronics of AGATA HPGe segmented gamma ray detector faces a new challenge in the search of a bigger integration and cost reduction for the phase 2 of the experiment going beyond 45 crystals. This opportunity can be used to introduce a new architecture based on commercial standards while keeping backward compatibility with current electronics. In this sense, new FPGA devices and fast Ethernet links can be used to ease the preprocessing and control task and allowing for processor farms to distribute the processing load. At the same time, modularity should be a key feature of the design in the aim to make it upgradable in time and technology. This paper presents the design of a new prep…