A low cost-biomass, olive stone, was used as a carbon precursor to synthesize activated biochar. Experiments were carried by single step activation for two agents (steam and CO2) using bench scale high-pressure thermobalance. Temperature, pressure, flow rate holding time optimized according the highest adsorption capacity of biochar obtained. In this respect, conditions established at 900 °C 30...

The purpose of this study was to characterize olive core collection with amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers and fruit traits and to determine AFLP markers significantly associated with these fruit characters in olive. A total of 168 polymorphic AFLP markers generated by five primer combinations and nine fruit traits were used to characterize relationships between 18 olive cul...

Curling is a sport played on ice in which two teams each deliver 8 granite stones towards a target, or 'house'. It is the only sport in which the trajectory of the projectile can be influenced after it has been released by the athlete. This is achieved by sweeping the ice in front of the stone to change the stone-ice friction and thereby enable to stone to travel further, curl more or stay stra...

The use of biomasses that result from the agriculture and food industries in removing heavy metals from wastewaters is attracting increasing interest. We present a joined potentiometric and cross polarization magic angle spinning (CP-MAS) carbon-13 (13C) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) study on the interaction of olive stones with copper(II), nickel(II), and cadmium(II). The potentiometric mea...

To investigate the contribution of paternal alleles to the DNA content of olive oil, genetic analyses of olive DNA samples from fruits, leaves, and oil derived from the same tree (cv. Leccino) were carried out. DNA extracted from maternal tissues--leaves and flesh--from different fruits showed identical genetic profiles using a set of DNA markers. Additional simple sequence repeat (SSR) alleles...

A biomass agricultural waste material, olive stone (OS) was used for preparation of activated carbon (AC) by chemical activation using 50% phosphoric acid (PA5) carbonized at 800C and holding time 90 min (OSPA58).The prepared AC was used for sorption of La(III) ions from nitrate solution.The effect of various factors such as shaking time, pH, carbon dose, particle size and different temperature...

BACKGROUND It has previously been demonstrated that subcutaneous immunotherapy with allergoids positively affects clinical and immunological parameters even after 7 preseasonal injections. However, its effect on basophil activation remains unclear. We investigated the effect of preseasonal allergoid immunotherapy on basophils and concomitantly assessed its clinical and immunological efficacy in...

The article describes the making of an art piece combining stone sculpture and virtual water. The motivation for this art piece was to enrich the usual static format of a stone sculpture with a dynamic dimension. The dynamic dimension is attained with virtual water droplets running over the stone surface which behave as real water droplets. The 3-D surface of a specially carved stone sculpture ...