The Chaco leaf-cutting ant Atta vollenweideri is native to the clay-heavy soils of the Gran Chaco region in South America. Because of seasonal floods, colonies are regularly exposed to varying moisture across the soil profile, a factor that not only strongly influences workers' digging performance during nest building, but also determines the suitability of the soil for the rearing of the colon...

The wide use of thermoplastics has put higher demands on designers to conduct more accurate and increasingly sophisticated analysis of materials in order to ensure the performance of the molded parts under the end-use conditions characterized by varying humidity, temperature, and dynamic load or deformation. One of the key aspects in thermoplastic analysis is to apply correct material property ...

A study to determine the structure and activity relationships of various amine based CO2 absorbents was performed in which, the desorption of CO2 from saturated absorbent at 80 C and atmospheric pressure was measured to assess the initial desorption rate and desorption capacities at pseudo equilibrium. Evaluation of desorption capacity at 80 C will give a better understanding for more energy ef...

Mold growth in buildings has been shown to be associated with adverse health effects. The fungal and bacterial growth on moistened building materials has been studied, but little attention has been paid to the other organisms spawning in the damaged materials. We examined moist building materials for protozoa, concentrating on amoebae. Material samples (n = 124) from moisture-damaged buildings ...

Meat and bone meal (MBM), a product of the rendering industry, is a potential feedstock for numerous bio-based applications. Design of processing equipment for MBM is difficult due to MBM's bulk behaviors; it flows less easily than many other granular materials, and it tends to foul the surfaces of processing equipment. This study examines the major factors contributing to MBM's poor bulk behav...

With the strengthened regulation on the mandatory use of recycled aggregate, development of construction materials using recycled aggregate has recently increased. This study aimed to secure the performance of asphalt concrete mixture by developing recycled-modified asphalt using recycled basalt aggregate from the Jeju area. The strength of the basalt aggregate from the Jeju area used in this s...

BACKGROUND The chemical reaction of carbon dioxide absorbent and sevoflurane is known to produce compound A. However, carbon dioxide absorbents are not controlled by the Food and Drug Administration, but are treated as industrial products in some nations. Moreover, carbon dioxide absorbents differ in their capacities to produce compound A, because their chemical compositions differ. In this stu...

Absorbent-grade paper is a highly specialized product due to introduction of certain special characteristics, namely high water absorbency, castor oil penetration (COP), and porosity. Water absorbency is affected by the radius of capillaries within the paper. Likewise the COP is affected by pulp beating and by the degree of collapse of the paper structure during sheet pressing. Using 4% NaHCO3 ...

Most birds are able to sense ultraviolet (UV) visual signals. Ultraviolet wavelengths are used for plumage signaling and sexual selection among birds. The aim of our study was to determine if UV cues are also used for the process of food selection in wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo). We used avoidance conditioning to test the hypothesis that UV feeding cues can be used functionally for foragi...

In most studies, moisture sorption into amorphous foods is expressed as a change in the bulk moisture content, which does not provide detail on how a moisture front moves into the food. This study was targeted towards characterization of the moisture behavior in amorphous saccharide materials of different molecular weight (MW), glass transition temperature (Tg) and moisture content. Various sug...