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In this research, we investigated the extent of the damage and the size of the large flaking holes on PEEK flat race tested in water under loads of 1400 N and 1500 N. Large flaking holes and cracks, after the first flaking layers separation were discussed using the position’s angles and depths from the cross section profiles. From the experimental results, all specimens were failed within 6.0 × 10 4 cycles under loads of 1400 N and 1500 N. The angles of damaged areas were larger than 100 degrees and the large flaking areas were concentrated near the center of the damage area. The maximum depths of the flaking holes ranged from about 200 μm to 450 μm and did not increase with increasing load. The difference in depths was very large and the angle locations were close. This means that the deep flaking holes did not originate from the same cracks and that multiple flaking holes occurred independently to cause the large-scaled flaking failures.

Stone relics are among the most important cultural heritages as they preserve a trove of cultural information of historical import. Many of these relics have sustained damage due to extensive periods weathering outdoor environment conditions causing different weathering patterns’, including cracking, fracture, blistering, efflorescence, peeling, flaking and exfoliation. Among the main environmental factors causing these types of decay are water, acids, temperature fluctuations, soluble salts, and microorganisms. To preserve these stone monuments, Extensive research efforts have been devoted toward protecting these artifacts from environmental deterioration. The present paper reviews the pros and cons as well as future development perspectives of inorganic, organic, inorganic/organic composites and biological protective materials for prevention of stone relics deterioration from physical, chemical, and biological factors, which indicates that inorganic/organic composites possess obvious advantages for preventing water deterioration. Which provide future development perspectives about the protective materials.

ObjectiveSalmon processing workers have various occupational dermal exposures including wet work (frequent contact with water, hand wash and prolonged use of gloves), contact with fish products, disinfectants, and detergents. However, knowledge regarding whether work within this industry may cause skin symptoms is limited. In this study, we aimed to investigate the prevalence of skin symptoms among workers in the salmon processing industry.Material and MethodsA total of 738 workers (664 processing workers and 74 office workers) from nine Norwegian salmon processing plants were included in a cross-sectional study. All completed a questionnaire comprising questions regarding work tasks and skin symptoms on hands during the past 12 months. Chi-squared tests or Fisher’s exact tests were used to identify significant difference in skin symptoms between the groups.ResultsProcessing workers had a higher prevalence of skin symptoms compared to office workers. We found a significant difference in prevalence of skin symptoms between processing workers and office workers for ‘redness’ (15% vs. 5%, p=0.03), ‘dry skin with scaling/flaking’ (21% vs. 8%, p=0.01), ‘tiny water blisters (vesicles)’ (7% vs. 0%, p=0.01), ‘burning, pricking, or stinging’ (8% vs. 1%, p=0.03) and ‘aching or pain’ (12% vs. 0%, p<0.001).We observed a non-significant elevated prevalence of skin symptoms among processing workers compared to office workers for: ‘fissures or cracks’ (19% vs. 10%), ‘weeping or crusts’ (5% vs. 1%), ‘papules’ (4% vs. 0%), ‘rapidly appearing itchy wheals/welts (urticaria)’ (7% vs. 1%), ‘itching’ (16% vs. 10%), and ‘tenderness’ (8% vs. 4%).ConclusionsSalmon processing workers had higher prevalence of skin symptoms on hands compared to office workers in the same industry. The study contributes to increased knowledge on skin symptoms among workers in the salmon processing industry.FundingThis project received funding from The Research Council of Norway (project code 302902) with additional funding from Helse Nord health trust (grant HNF 1345-17) and grants from Helse Vest health trust, and Haukeland University Hospital.AcknowledgementsWe thank the participants for giving consent to participate in the study and the salmon processing plants for their facilitation and support.

Stochastic resonance (SR), as a noise-enhanced signal processing tool, has been extensively investigated and widely applied to mechanical fault detection. However, mechanical degradation process is continuous where the current value of a mechanical state variable, e.g., vibration, is highly dependent on its previous values, and the widely used SR methods in mechanical fault detection, mainly focusing on integer-order SR, neglect the dependence among the values of the mechanical state variable and are unable to utilize such a dependence to enhance weak fault characteristics embedded in a signal that records the values of the mechanical state variable as time varies. Inspired by fractional-order derivative that characterizes memory-dependent properties and reflects the high dependence between current and previous values of the state variable of a system, a second-order SR method enhanced by fractional-order derivative is developed to enhance weak fault characteristics for mechanical fault detection by using strong background noise, which is able to utilize the dependence among the values of a mechanical state variable to enhance weak fault characteristics embedded in a signal. Numerical analyses show that output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) versus fractional order in the second-order bistable SR system induced by fractional-order derivative depicts a typical feature of SR. Even the second-order bistable SR system induced by fractional-order derivative is similar to the optimal moving filter by fine-tuning the system parameters and scaling factor. Experimental data including a bearing with slight flaking on the outer race and a gear with scuffing from wind turbine drivetrain are used to validate the feasibility of the proposed method. The experimental results indicate that the proposed method is able to not only suppress multiscale noise embedded in a signal but also enhance the benefits of noise to mechanical fault detection. In addition, the comparison with other advanced signal processing methods demonstrates that the proposed method outperforms the integer-order SR methods, even kurtogram and maximum correlated kurtosis deconvolution in extracting weak fault characteristics of machinery overwhelmed by strong background noise.

In the article the effect of fillers of various chemical nature on the corrosion resistance of polyester powder coatings in terms of flaking widths and corrosion expansion widths in accordance with DSTU ISO 4628-8: 2012 was reviewed. According to the results of studies, the effectiveness of the use of fillers to increase the corrosion resistance of the powder coating varies depending on the average particle size and crystalline form of the filler was found. As a rule, in order to receive a powder coating based decorative coating you should apply only one layer of paint, while liquid coatings require applying several layers; this increases the time of coating production. The powder coating can be easily utilized and recycled, thus the economic feasibility of production increases.

Cereals and legumes are important part of dietaries and contribute substantially to nutrient intake of human beings. They are significant source of energy, protein, dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals. Primary processing of cereals and legumes is an essential component of their preparation before use. For some grains, dehusking is an essential step, whereas for others, it could be milling the grain into flour. Grains are subjected to certain processing treatments to impart special characteristics and improve organoleptic properties such as expanded cereals. All these treatments result in alteration of their nutritional quality which could either be reduction in nutrients, phytochemicals and antinutrients or an improvement in digestibility or availability of nutrients. It is important to understand these changes occurring in grain nutritional quality on account of pre-processing treatments to select appropriate techniques to obtain maximum nutritional and health benefits. This review attempts to throw light on nutritional alterations occurring in grains due to pre-processing treatments.

Moniliformin (MON) is a widespread emerging mycotoxin often occurring in maize at significant levels. Few published studies investigated MON redistribution in maize-derived products for human consumption; to better understand this issue, 5 maize lots with different levels of MON contamination were processed following an industrial milling process to evaluate the redistribution of the mycotoxin in final products (grits), by-products destined to feed (bran and flour) and cleaning waste. MON was quantified by LC–MS/MS after the purification step through the SPE column; moreover, a confirmatory method based on MON derivatization with 1,2-diamino-4,5-dichlorobenzene was developed. Relevant MON reduction was obtained after sieve cleaning, scourer process, and optical sorting, achieving a decrement of the concentration level close to 70%. The following other milling procedures showed a limited reduction from cleaned maize to small and large grits; considering the entire industrial process, the reduction percentage of MON contamination in the final products was 80.9 ± 9.3% and 81.0 ± 6.7% for small and large grits, respectively. The flaking process showed a very limited reduction of MON, close to 10%. Considering the widespread of MON occurrence in maize, the study highlights the importance of cleaning steps to achieve a low risk of exposure for the consumer.

In the past decade, the early Acheulean before 1 Mya has been a focus of active research. Acheulean lithic assemblages have been shown to extend back to ∼1.75 Mya, and considerable advances in core reduction technologies are seen by 1.5 to 1.4 Mya. Here we report a bifacially flaked bone fragment (maximum dimension ∼13 cm) of a hippopotamus femur from the ∼1.4 Mya sediments of the Konso Formation in southern Ethiopia. The large number of flake scars and their distribution pattern, together with the high frequency of cone fractures, indicate anthropogenic flaking into handaxe-like form. Use-wear analyses show quasi-continuous alternate microflake scars, wear polish, edge rounding, and striae patches along an ∼5-cm-long edge toward the handaxe tip. The striae run predominantly oblique to the edge, with some perpendicular, on both the cortical and inner faces. The combined evidence is consistent with the use of this bone artifact in longitudinal motions, such as in cutting and/or sawing. This bone handaxe is the oldest known extensively flaked example from the Early Pleistocene. Despite scarcity of well-shaped bone tools, its presence at Konso shows that sophisticated flaking was practiced by ∼1.4 Mya, not only on a range of lithic materials, but also occasionally on bone, thus expanding the documented technological repertoire of African Early Pleistocene Homo.

The use of bone as raw material for implements is documented since the Early Pleistocene. Throughout the Early and Middle Pleistocene bone tool shaping was done by percussion flaking, the same technique used for knapping stone artifacts, although bone shaping was rare compared to stone tool flaking. Until recently the generally accepted idea was that early bone technology was essentially immediate and expedient, based on single-stage operations, using available bone fragments of large to medium size animals. Only Upper Paleolithic bone tools would involve several stages of manufacture with clear evidence of primary flaking or breaking of bone to produce the kind of fragments required for different kinds of tools. Our technological and taphonomic analysis of the bone assemblage of Castel di Guido, a Middle Pleistocene site in Italy, now dated by 40 Ar/ 39 Ar to about 400 ka, shows that this general idea is inexact. In spite of the fact that the number of bone bifaces at the site had been largely overestimated in previous publications, the number of verified, human-made bone tools is 98. This is the highest number of flaked bone tools made by pre-modern hominids published so far. Moreover the Castel di Guido bone assemblage is characterized by systematic production of standardized blanks (elephant diaphysis fragments) and clear diversity of tool types. Bone smoothers and intermediate pieces prove that some features of Aurignacian technology have roots that go beyond the late Mousterian, back to the Middle Pleistocene. Clearly the Castel di Guido hominids had done the first step in the process of increasing complexity of bone technology. We discuss the reasons why this innovation was not developed. The analysis of the lithic industry is done for comparison with the bone industry.