Steel Fiber Reinforced Concrete Characterization Based on a Magnetic Probe

Steel fiber reinforced concrete (SFRC) is a composite material which is becoming more and more widely employed in building construction, due to its improved resistance to cracking and crack propagation with respect to plain concrete. Its mechanical behavior strongly depends on the choice of the properties of the fibers and their volume fraction in the concrete mixture. As any material employed in building construction, testing the material “on the site” represents a very important task. Very often this requires employing non invasive and non destructive measurement methods which have to be implemented directly in-situ. In this paper a new method for the detection of fiber density and orientation is presented. It is based on the employment of a probe sensitive to the magnetic properties of the steel fibers. The performances of the method have been theoretically and experimentally analyzed as well as a comparison with the results obtained with a previously developed capacitive method is also presented

Parent "cocoon" immunization to prevent pertussis-related hospitalization in infants: The case of Piemonte in Italy

Pertussis incidence in Piemonte (Italy) is now at the lowest level ever reached (0.85 per 100,000 in 2010) but the disease is still endemic in infants (54 per 100,000 in 2005-2010). Parental "cocoon" immunization has been proposed in some countries (i.e. United States, France) as a measure to protect newborns from serious pertussis outcomes. We assessed the number needed to vaccinate (NNV) to prevent hospital admissions in infants (€100,000. The "cocoon" programme leads to net costs from a National Health Service (NHS) perspective (ROI<1). In contexts of low incidence and without reliable data on a high parent-attributable infant risk, the parental "cocoon" programme is poorly efficient and very resource intensive in preventing pertussis in infants

Single cell trapping and stretching in a femtosecond laser fabricated optofluidic chip

Single cell trapping and stretching in a femtosecond laser fabricated optofluidic chi

Trapping and stretching of single cells in an optofluidic chip fabricated by a femtosecond laser

Trapping and stretching of single cells in an optofluidic chip fabricated by a femtosecond lase

Dual-beam optical trapping of cells in an optofluidic device fabricated by femtosecond lasers

Dual-beam optical trapping of cells in an optofluidic device fabricated by femtosecond laser