Design of New Cardanol Derivative: Synthesis and Application as Potential Biobased Plasticizer for Poly(lactide)

A novel biobased plasticizer made of cardanol is designed for poly(lactide) (PLA). This cardanol‐derived plasticizer, i.e., methoxylated hydroxyethyl cardanol (MeCard), is synthesized through methoxylation of the double bonds on the side chain of cardanol, and characterized by ¹H NMR and mass spectrometry. The plasticization effect of MeCard on the molecular structure, morphology, thermal and mechanical properties of PLA is evaluated and compared to that of a commercial cardanol, i.e., hydroxyethyl cardanol (pCard). The plasticization efficiency of MeCard is demonstrated by a substantial decrease of the glass transition temperature and storage modulus together with a significant increase of the elongation at break as compared to neat PLA. Moreover, MeCard exhibits higher plasticization performance than pCard toward PLA. Such behavior is related to a higher miscibility and compatibility between PLA and MeCard thanks to the methoxylation of the double bonds on the side chain of cardanol as shown by SEM micrographs.

     

Automatic cataloguing of advertisement in magazines

Advertising activities are one of the main aspects of companies. Its global evaluation is an important index, not only within economic sectors, but also for public economic policies. The evaluation of the adverts is carried out by specialised companies, which deliver advertisement expenditure information. Their work consist in an exhaustive collection of adverts (e.g., all adverts from any media), and deliver information (integrated from every media) relevant for their clients. The delivered information can range from statistical data to bear witness of an advertisement campaign. Important quality indicators for the delivered information are the exhaustiveness, the delay of delivering and a correct identification of different versions of an advert. In this article, we present an advanced computer-aided system for collecting and delivering advertising information from magazines and daily press. The system provides computer-aided data validation and exploitation resources. Using computerised document image analysis and image database indexing and retrieval, the system is able to locate an advert in a page, extract relevant quality indicators and search the advert (or similar ones) in a database. This tool is configured as an intranet and offers resources for image data acquisition, storage/retrieval and advert quality indicators extraction, however, the key of the system is the underlying idea of incorporating computer-aided visual information management.The EU has funded the system construction within the program: European Take-up of essential Information Society Technologies, Integrated Machine Vision (EUTIST-IMV), task CV-AdControl. .     

New alginate foams: Box‐Behnken design of their manufacturing; fire retardant and thermal insulating properties

A new method for preparing alginate foams with progressive release of copper in the presence of sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS, foaming agent) has been designed. Copper acts as the ionotropic gelling agent through the reaction of copper carbonate with gluconolactone. The process does not require freeze‐drying contrarily to the conventional method used for preparing macroporous alginate foams. The new materials investigated in this study have remarkable thermal properties, including thermal conductivity lower than 0.041 W m^?1 K^?1 and low heat release (below 2 kJ g^?1), which allows labeling these foams self‐extinguishing materials. An experimental design methodology, based on a Box‐Behnken plan with three parameters and three levels, is successfully used for evaluating the impact of the amounts of alginate, SLS, and copper carbonate on the productivity, apparent density, and shrinking at air‐drying. It yielded an optimization of the process for the manufacturing of light, and stable/rigid insulating and thermally stable materials. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2018 , 135, 45868.     

Distraction and driving: Results from a case–control responsibility study of traffic crash injured drivers interviewed at the emergency room

Background

Use of cellular phones has been shown to be associated with crashes but many external distractions remain to be studied.

Objective

To assess the risk associated with diversion of attention due to unexpected events or secondary tasks at the wheel.

Design

Responsibility case–control study.

Setting

Adult emergency department of the Bordeaux University Hospital (France) from April 2010 to August 2011.

Participants

955 injured drivers presenting as a result of motor vehicle crash.

Main outcome measures

The main outcome variable was responsibility for the crash. Exposures were external distraction, alcohol use, psychotropic medicine use, and sleep deprivation. Potential confounders were sociodemographic and crash characteristics.

Results

Beyond classical risk factor found to be associated with responsibility, results showed that distracting events inside the vehicle (picking up an object), distraction due to driver activity (smoking) and distracting events occurring outside were associated with an increased probability of being at fault. These distraction-related factors accounted for 8% of injurious road crashes.

Limitations

Retrospective responsibility self-assessment.

Conclusions

Diverted attention may carry more risk than expected. Our results are supporting recent research efforts to detect periods of driving vulnerability related to inattention.     

Recycling of Water and Valuables in Steel Production

Steel production without water is impossible. Given the increasing water scarcity, SMS group is making great efforts to develop its ecoplants products and processes that are characterized by low energy and water consumption and recycling of valuables. The innovations presented here include process‐integrated solutions like the rotating descaler Piroscale® MAT and the ETL evaporator as well as end‐of‐pipe solutions such as the reclamation of valuables using the Ciroval® process or the recycling of water from cooling circuit blowdown, as implemented in the WEISS project.     

Determination of aldehydes as pentafluorobenzyl derivatives in grape pomace distillates by HS-SPME-GC/MS

This work describes an analytic method that quantifies aldehydes in grape pomace distillates (Orujo). Diluted samples were derivatised with O-(2,3,4,5,6-pentafluorobenzyl) hydroxylamine and then microextracted with a solid phase (SPME) for analysis by GC–MS. Twenty compounds, among them, short chain aldehydes having pungent notes (propanal, butanal, and Strecker aldehydes) and long chain aldehydes characterised by fatty odours were studied.