Continuous Sorption of Remazol Brilliant Orange 3R Using Caulerpa scalpelliformis Biochar

An ever increase in the utilization of water for domestic and industrial activities resulted in the depletion of fresh water. Water is being used in huge quantities for manufacturing and other activities. The toxic pollutants used in the industries get mixed with water and result in the degradation of water quality. Textile industries are considered as one of the major industries that release a huge quantity of wastewater. The dye used in the textile industries is not completely utilized in the dyeing process and gets mixed with water and reaches the environment. Caulerpa scalpelliformis, a novel sorbent, was used for the preparation of biochar and successive removal of dyes in a continuous operation. The operating conditions, namely, biochar bed depth, dye flow rate, and initial dye concentration, were investigated, and the experimental result was validated with the mathematical models.

Ethanol- and Methanol-Coordinated and Solvent-Free Dodecahydro closo-Dodecaborates of 3d Transition Metals and of Magnesium

Magnesium and 3d transition metals closo-borates were prepared by mechanosynthesis (ball milling) of the mixtures Na2B12H12 + MCl2 (M = Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Mg), followed by addition of ethanol or methanol and drying under dynamic vacuum. The dead mass of NaCl is partly removed by filtration. The crystal structures of solvent-coordinated and solvent-free closo-borates have been characterized by temperature dependent synchrotron radiation X-ray powder diffraction, ab initio calculations, thermal analysis and infrared spectroscopy. Various solvated complexes containing six, four, three, two or one solvent molecules were obtained by successive removal of the solvent until in most case the solvent-free metal closo-borates were obtained with the exception of Mg whose hypothetical crystal structure, however, could have its prototype in MnB12H12. The 3d transition metal closo-borates were studied in the view of their potential use as Na- or Li-ion battery electrodes in combination with Na or Li closo-borate solid electrolytes. The metal oxidation state (II) obtained in compounds presented here does not allow such application.

Tales from the Dark Side: Privacy Dark Strategies and Privacy Dark Patterns

Privacy strategies and privacy patterns are fundamental concepts of the privacy-by-design engineering approach. While they support a privacy-aware development process for IT systems, the concepts used by malicious, privacy-threatening parties are generally less understood and known. We argue that understanding the “dark side”, namely how personal data is abused, is of equal importance. In this paper, we introduce the concept of privacy dark strategies and privacy dark patterns and present a framework that collects, documents, and analyzes such malicious concepts. In addition, we investigate from a psychological perspective why privacy dark strategies are effective. The resulting framework allows for a better understanding of these dark concepts, fosters awareness, and supports the development of countermeasures. We aim to contribute to an easier detection and successive removal of such approaches from the Internet to the benefit of its users.

Determination of Stress Profiles in Expanded Austenite by Combining Successive Layer Removal and GI-XRD

The present work deals with the evaluation of the residual-stress profile in expanded-austenite by successive removal steps using GI-XRD. Preliminary results indicate stresses of several GPa's from 111 and 200 diffraction lines. These stresses appear largest for the 200 reflection. The strain-free lattice parameter decayed smoothly with depth, while for the compressive stress a maximum value is observed at some depth below the surface. Additionally a good agreement was found between the nitrogen profile determined with GDOES analysis and the strain-free lattice parameter from XRD.

Assessment of Tooth Structure using an Alternative Electrical Bioimpedance Spectroscopy Method

In the past few years bioimpedance has been used in many applications in dentistry, such as estimating the length of root canals and the physical properties of enamel. Despite the significant number of studies using bioimpedance to investigate the dental structure, many of them use only the real component of bioimpedance, i.e., the resistance, disregarding the information provided by the imaginary one, i.e., the reactance. Moreover, in different studies that investigate both parts of bioimpedance, the data are obtained by using single frequency or multifrequency methods based on sinusoidal sweep. The aim of this study was to investigate the use of an alternative bioimpedance spectroscopy (BIS) method based on step response in the assessment of tooth structure. To test the feasibility of the studied method we performed in vitro experiments that considered the successive removal of enamel layers of 22 healthy teeth, the accomplishment of the BIS method, and the estimate of bioimpedance parameter that were associated with the changes in the tooth structure. To deal with the variability of bioimpedance parameters a dental health index (DHI) is proposed. The findings include the behavior of bioimpedance parameters of intact teeth, as well as those associated with the successive removal of the enamel layer, and indicate that DHI is sensitive enough to detect changes of the enamel layer. The results point to the feasibility of the studied BIS method in evaluating tooth structure and that it might be used to assess dental health.