In this contribution, in which the preliminary outcomes on the monitoring of the “Garisenda” Tower are discussed, there are also briefly presented the results already obtained from the monitoring of the “Asinelli” Tower, carried out a few years ago by the authors. The two medieval towers, recognized as the “twin towers” of Bologna, represent a remarkable symbol of the city and of Italian Architectural Heritage. The Asinelli Tower was built during the period 1109–1119. It rises to a height of 97.30 m above the ground, and shows a deviation from verticality of 2.38 m. The Garisenda Tower, built around the same time, is much smaller (48 m) but with a steeper leaning (3.22 m) due to an early and more marked subsidence of soil and foundation. The data collected during the AE monitoring period of the Asinelli Tower were analyzed to evaluate the damage progress in a certain region of the masonry structure and correlate it with other considered phenomena, such as the influence of vehicle traffic, seismic activity, and wind action. To arrive at a comprehensive and objective evaluation of the structural conditions of the Garisenda Tower, whose monitoring is still ongoing, the results obtained by the AE technique were supplemented with data obtained from other zones of the structure, subject to different stress–strain conditions or by means of other techniques. Thanks to this arrangement, the AE signals distribution is related to the data measured by optical cables and a seismometer to obtain an objective correlation between the actions generated by the environment and the tower damage. Full article

Olive oil is one of the most widely used oils in the world with economic importance for many countries. Olive oil extraction generates large amounts of solid (cake) and liquid waste (olive mill wastewater, OMW), which pose a chronic environmental problem due to their disposal of the produced wastes on the landfill and water recipients. Thus, the research community is in search of techniques, individually or in combination, in order to detoxify waste. The common treatment methods belong to a one-dimensional waste treatment approach, which is depollution. A practical way to overcome the financial obstacle of depollution is to develop treatment schemes that combine depollution with recovery of valuable ingredients, such as phenolics. The toxicity of this waste is mainly due to the high concentration of phenolic compounds, which, however, have strong antioxidant activity, turning OMW into an economical raw material for the recovery of bioactive compounds. Adsorption is generally considered to be the most effective and low-cost method for the removal of phenolics. So far, few studies have been carried out using sorbents for the removal of phenolics from OMW. However, the relatively high initial cost and the need for a costly regeneration system render common sorbents less economically viable. Thus, many researchers have focused their efforts on optimizing adsorption process by development of novel, low-cost adsorbents with high adsorptive capacity, originating from food industry byproducts (biosorbents). The objective of this work is to provide a comprehensive summary of the biosorbents used for OMW management. Full article

The changes in land surface temperature (LST) concerning time and space are mapped with the help of satellite remote sensing techniques. These measurements are used for determining several geophysical parameters including soil moisture, evapotranspiration, thermal inertia, and vegetation water stress. This study aims at calculating and analyzing the LST of manmade and natural features of Doon Valley, Uttarakhand, India. The study area includes the forest range of Doon Valley, agricultural areas, and urban settlements. Spaceborne multitemporal thermal bands of Landsat 8 were used to calculate the LST of various features of the study area. Split-window algorithm and emissivity-based algorithms were tested on the Landsat-8 data for LST calculation. The study also explored the effect of atmospheric correction on the temperature calculation. The land surface temperature determined using an emissivity based method that did not provide atmospheric correction was found to be less accurate as compared to the results by the split-window method. The LST for urban settlements is higher than the forest cover. A temporal analysis of the data shows an increase in the temperature for October 2018. The study shows the potential of the spaceborne thermal sensors for the multitemporal analysis of the LST measurement of manmade and natural features. Full article

The development of dental composites having antibacterial properties is one of the current trends in the restorative dentistry. It is justified by the need for the secondary caries reduction that is the main reason for dental restoration failure. In this field, the growing interest is associated with the development of quaternary ammonium monomers. In this study, we synthesized a novel urethane-dimethacrylate monomer containing two quaternary ammonium groups, via the three steps synthesis route. The synthesis procedure involved the transesterification of methyl methacrylate with the use of N-methyldiethanolamine, N-alkylation with the use of 1-bromohexadecane, and synthesis of urethane-dimethacrylate resin with the use of 2,4,4-trimethylhexamethylene diisocyanate. ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR, and ATR-FT IR analysis confirmed the chemical structure of the intermediate products and the structure of new urethane-dimethacrylate monomer. Full article

New silver(I) complex with thianthrene (tia), [Ag(NO₃)(tia)(H₂O)]_n, was synthesized by the reaction of AgNO₃ with an equimolar amount of tia in ethanol/dichloromethane (v/v 1:1) at room temperature, and characterized by NMR, IR and UV-Vis spectroscopy and single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. The antimicrobial activity of the synthesized complex was evaluated against the broad panel of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria and Candida spp. This complex showed significant activity toward important human pathogens Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus and Candida parapsilosis with minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) being 3.91 µg/mL. The interaction of [Ag(NO₃)(tia)(H₂O)]_n with calf thymus DNA (ct-DNA) and bovine serum albumin (BSA) was studied to evaluate the binding affinity towards these biomolecules for possible insights on the mode of antimicrobial activity. The binding affinity of the investigated complex to BSA is higher than that for DNA, indicating that proteins could be more favorable binding sites for this complex in comparison to the nucleic acids. Full article

Grapes are cultivated globally with the total area under vines reaching 7.4 million hectares in 2018, and the global wine market is expected to increase to USD 423 billion by the end of 2023. However, winemaking produces large quantities of by-products/wastes like grape pomace (GP; the residue of pressed grapes), wine lees (WL; the residue accumulating in vessels containing wine after fermentation), and vine shoots (VS; generated during the pruning season in the vineyard). Exploitation of agro-industrial side-streams, wastes, and residues, such as WL, GP, and VS, is an issue of vital importance to global good environmental governance. As WL and GP constitute valuable sources of nutrients and VS are a source of cellulose fibers, their use for novel products with applications in winemaking is of major importance. In the present study, the recent trends in sustainable exploitation of such by-products for application in winemaking are presented. WL consist mainly of ethanol, tartaric acid, and yeast cells, and it is usually used for the recovery of these bioactive compounds and as a nutrient supplement of lactic acid bacteria and yeasts growth. GP has been used for the recovery of phenolic compounds, as a substrate for alcohol production, and as fertilizer in the vineyard. New trends include its use for eliminating unwanted wine compounds (like ochratoxin A and pesticides) and as a sustainable fining agent of wines (in order to modify its sensory features such as astringency, bitterness, and mouthfeel). Finally, VS has been used as biochar and for nanocomposite film production. Full article

In this research, we investigate the minor chemical elements contained in the diesel particulate matter (DPM) exhaust emissions, generated by in-use diesel engine passenger vehicles. For this purpose, we apply a high-resolution optical emission spectroscopy technique, for precise spectrochemical analysis of diesel particulate matter. By means of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) analytical method, we qualitatively and quantitatively characterise detected minor chemical elements in DPM. Particulate matter samples were obtained from in-use diesel engine passenger vehicles of diverse types and models from major brand car producers in Europe. We analysed particulate matter, extracted from the exhaust manifold part, from vehicles, which are used in daily life environment. The LIBS technique has revealed the presence of minor chemical elements in DPM -silicon, nickel, titan, potassium, strontium, and molybdenum with diverse concentrations. Full article

Cities are major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) due to the high density of urbanization, numerous industrial centers, and intensive agricultural activities. This study focused on soil methane and radon gas measurements in the subsurface, as well as in the atmosphere. Measurements were conducted using new gas detection instrumentation and as low-cost devices for methane gas concentrations. Maximum soil radon gas concentration was observed to be approximately 1770 ± 582 Bq/m³ at a depth of 1 m below the ground surface. The soil comprised of 64.31% sand, 20.75% silt, and 14.94% clay, and 0.526 ppm of uranium. The maximum concentration of methane was about 0.06%, at a depth of 1 m into the soil, characterized by 83% sand, 8.96% silt, and 7.89% clay. Moreover, this study focused on a better understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of new soil gas detection technology. The results and findings of environmental data obtained from the soil gas survey were shared with the community, whose involvement was critical in the data acquisition process. Full article

Proteins represent one of the most important building blocks for most biological processes. Their biological mechanisms have been found to correlate significantly with their dynamics, which is commonly investigated through molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. However, important insights on protein dynamics and biological mechanisms have also been obtained via much simpler and computationally efficient calculations based on elastic lattice models (ELMs). The application of structural mechanics approaches, such as modal analysis, to the protein ELMs has allowed to find impressive results in terms of protein dynamics and vibrations. The low-frequency vibrations extracted from the protein ELM are usually found to occur within the terahertz (THz) frequency range and correlate fairly accurately with the observed functional motions. In this contribution, the global vibrations of lysozyme will be investigated by means of a finite element (FE) truss model, and we will show that there exists complete consistency between the proposed FE approach and one of the more well-known ELMs for protein dynamics, the anisotropic network model (ANM). The proposed truss model can consequently be seen as a simple method, easily accessible to the structural mechanics community members, to analyze protein vibrations and their connections with the biological activity. Full article

Blood is a liquid that transports oxygen and supplements to cells and diverts carbon dioxide and other byproducts. Red blood cells principally carry oxygen and gather carbon dioxide using hemoglobin. Hereditary disease of the blood comprises hemoglobinopathies, which is a significant common health issue in Bangladesh. Sickle cell disorder alludes to the gathering of hereditary issues described by the presence of sickle hemoglobin, sickliness, schistocytes, intense and ongoing tissue injury and blockage of the bloodstream by anomalously formed red cells. Schistocytes are additionally a critical marker of a perilous condition affecting a human patient. In the cutting-edge setting, only the most modern computerized cell counters flag their administrators if a schistocyte is identified and few of them can provide a schistocyte tally. By analyzing these issues, in this paper, we propose to create an automatic system that will allow blood cells to be separated very quickly, and with this, blood diseases can be also identified. Full article

Cardiovascular disease is the main worldwide reason for death. Cardiovascular diseases can cause the heartbeat to stop. If a person experiences a cardiac arrest, then direct treatments such as cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) with chest compressions and artificial ventilation along with defibrillation are methods to greatly improve the patient’s possibility of survival. Usually, CPR is completed manually. Manual CPR is carried out by applying external chest compressions followed by artificial ventilation. It helps to pump blood around the person’s body when their heart cannot do this job. This paper presents the development and analysis of a low-cost cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) device using locally available raw materials for the treatment of cardiac arrest patients. This CPR is automated, portable, and very user friendly. This is a very cost-effective product which people can easily afford to buy. The unit price of this CPR is USD 500. Full article

In this paper, the development of a smart Internet of Things (IoT)-based system to monitor and prevent household gas wastage is proposed. An IoT-based gas wastage monitoring system was developed. The system needs to be integrated with the cooker. There are sensors integrated with the system that will find out if the cooker is being used for cooking purposes or not. If it is found that the cooker is not in use, there is automated switching-off technique in the system to turn off the supply of gas. The system also includes a cloud storage feature. With the help of this cloud storage system, the use of gas per day for each user can be monitored. This process will help to detect the misuse of natural gas of each user at the end of the day. The system has been tested and it is working fine. In the future, more features will be added to this system. This system will help prevent the wastage of natural gas and save the country from depleting its stores of it. Full article

Structural health monitoring and nondestructive evaluation techniques are utilized to monitor wire breakage, and one of the prominent methods is to practice guided ultrasonic wave propagation and acoustic emission (AE) monitoring. In this paper, the numerical modeling of wave scattering by a structural discontinuity (pitting corrosion) in axisymmetric high strength steel wire-viscoelastic damped waveguide medium is performed to analyze the wave interaction by inhomogeneity. The hybrid standard three-dimensional finite element method and semi-analytical finite element method for numerical analysis of guided ultrasonic wave propagation is presented. The narrow-band excitation force with a center frequency of 0.2 MHz-AE signal characteristics are used to understand the wave interaction of the pitting corrosion (damage) in steel wire. Full article

Various types of heart diseases, including cardiac arrhythmia, myocardial infarction, and coronary artery disease, are one of the main reasons behind the causes of death around the world. It can be mitigated if we know the pulse rate and monitor it properly. However, constant monitoring can be expensive for the private sector and so we are proposing to solve the problem by the implementation of a wireless network based on Bluetooth. The pulse rate data is sent from Arduino Uno via Bluetooth to Smartphone and it can be analyzed by the user and sent it to an expert doctor with a low cost and more efficiently. This project identifies with a heartbeat rate estimation gadget, including a heartbeat rate sensor unit that distinguishes a client’s heartbeat rate, a sign preparing unit that receives and measures the sign produced from the sensor, and a remote sign sending unit that takes the sign from the handling unit and then communicates the sign to the arranged gadget. The sensor unit distinguishes the recurrence of the progress of blood thickness to get the pulse, carefully and productively finding the location of the pulse, participating in the method of remote transmission and accordingly, our motivation of advancing precision of identification and improving comfort of utilizing is accomplished. The model incorporates Arduino Uno, Pulse Rate Sensor, Bluetooth Board, Breadboard, USB link, and so forth.We communicate the information utilizing Bluetooth to Smartphone utilizing Pulse Rate Monitor circuit furnished with Arduino Uno. Full article

This research study aims to decompose bromocresol green (C₂₁H₁₄Br₄O₅S) using direct irradiation of a nonthermal atmospheric pressure plasma jet. The absorbance spectra of the bromocresol green solution were measured, as was its electrical conductivity and its pH before and after different durations of irradiation. The results showed that the lengths of conjugated systems in the molecular structure of bromocresol green decreased, and the bromocresol green solution was decolorized as a result of the decomposition of bromocresol green. This result indicates that cold atmospheric pressure plasma jet irradiation is capable of decomposing and can also be used for water purification. Full article

Manganese antimonide Mn_2−xM_xSb, where M is a 3d transition metal, is a prominent binary material due to its high Curie temperature and magnetocaloric properties accompanying the M-induced first-order phase transition for various compositions. In this work, we employed a modern ab initio approach to analyze the magnetic ground state and electronic structure of Mn₂Sb for various types of long-range ordering. In the electronic structure of Mn₂Sb, it was found to possess the semi-metallic properties with a gap in the minority spin projection. Full article

In this paper, we establish a graph imaging technique to manifest local stabilization within atomic systems of multiple levels. Specifically, we address the interrelation between local stabilization and image entropy. As an example, we consider the mutual interaction of two pair of pulses propagating in a double-$\Lambda$ configuration. Thus, we have two different sets of two pulses that share the same shape and phase, initially. The first (second) set belongs to lower (upper) -$\Lambda$ subsystems, respectively. The configuration of two pair of pulses is considered as a dynamical graph model with four nodes. The dynamic transition matrix describes the connectivity matrix in the static graph model. It is to be emphasized that the graph and its image have the same transition matrix. In particular, the graph model exposes the stabilization in terms of the singular-value decomposition of energies for the transition matrix, that is, irrespectively of the structure of the transition matrix. The image model of the graph displays the details of the matrix structure in terms of row and column probabilities. Therefore, it enables one to study conditional probabilities and mutual information inherent in the network of the graph. Furthermore, the graph imaging provides the main row/column contribution to the transition matrix in terms of image entropy. Our results show that image entropy exposes spatial dependence, which is irrelevant to graph entropy. Full article

The paper describes synthesis and the characterization of novel biodegradable betulin-based polyanhydrides, exhibiting anti-cancer activity. Polyanhydrides were obtained by a melt polycondensation of a disuccinate betulin (3,28-di-O-succinyl betulin) and sebacic acid with the use of acetic anhydride. Mentioned polyanhydrides were then thoroughly characterized by ¹H NMR and ¹³C NMR, size exclusion chromatography, differential scanning calorimetry and FT-IR spectroscopy. The content of sebacic acid in obtained copolymers was from 20 to 80 wt%. The use of sebacic acid as a comonomer increases the crystallinity of polymers. Under physiological conditions copolymers undergo hydrolytic degradation to betulin disuccinate, whose biological activity is known and confirmed and to sebacic acid approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in drug delivery systems. Polyanhydrides were also tested for cytostatic activity against a wide range of cancer cell lines (HeLa, A-549, U-87MG, KB and HepG2), proving its efficiency in inhibiting the growth of selected cell lines. Obtained polymers can be used as carriers in drug delivery system, in form of microspheres. Microspheres with diameter within the range of D_n = 15–30 µm were prepared by using emulsion (O/W) solvent evaporation method. Full article

One of the most aggressive attacks to which cement-based materials can be exposed is that produced by sulphate. During this attack, expansive products are formed, causing volumetric strains in hardened materials, which brings microcracking and the reduction of their strength and durability. The use of non-destructive techniques for characterizing the microstructure of cement-based materials, and for following the development of deleterious processes which can affect them, has become an important research field. Among them, non-linear ultrasonic (NLU) techniques have shown to be useful for evaluating the material degradation. The aim of this work is to study the possibility of using the NLU technique for the non-destructive evaluation of initial development of internal sulphate attack in cement-based materials. Cement pastes were prepared using ordinary Portland cement, to which an appropriate amount of calcium sulphate 2-hydrate was added during the setting for producing an internal attack in the samples. Furthermore, its effects in the microstructure have been followed with mercury intrusion porosimetry. The expansion and linear ultrasonic pulse velocity were also determined. The preliminary results indicate that the NLU technique could be useful for studying the development of sulphate attacks in the short-term, complementing the information provided by other techniques. Full article

The aim of the study was to understand the changes of ultrasound-wave speed (US) and acoustic emission (AE) as a result of soil loading and unloading. The soil was dune Sand, Poorly graded, i.e., “SP” according to the Unified Soil Classification System (USCS). Natural dune sand, as well as ‎its three extracted fractions as follows: 2.36–0.6, 0.6–0.3, and 0.3–0.075 mm, were studied. The dried sand ‎samples were studied using an oedometer instrument with simultaneous measurement of load and ‎stain level. The stress range was 0 to 143.5 kPa. Each sample was loaded and unloaded while measuring US p-wave speed and AE ‎activity (number of hits) at each loading and unloading stage. The results portray the difference in the behavior of the two studied phenomena. In the ‎stress increase branch, there is a gradual increase in p-wave speed and sharp excitation of AE activity, while in ‎the stress relaxation branch there is an abrupt decrease in p-wave speed and a minor excitation of AE signals. Full article

The goal of deep anomaly detection is to identify abnormal data by utilizing a deep neural network trained by a normal training dataset. In general, industrial visual anomaly detection problems distinguish normal and abnormal data through small morphological differences, such as cracks and stains. Nevertheless, most existing algorithms focus on capturing not morphological features, but semantic features of normal data. Therefore, they yield poor performance on real-world visual inspection, even though they show their superiority in simulations with representative image classification datasets. To solve this problem, we propose a novel deep anomaly detection method that encourages understanding of salient morphological features of normal data. The main idea behind our algorithm is to train a multi-class model to classify between dozens of morphological transformations applied to all the given data. To this end, the proposed algorithm utilizes a self-supervised learning strategy, which makes unsupervised learning straightforward. Additionally, we present a kernel size loss to enhance the proposed neural networks’ morphological feature representation power. This objective function is defined as the loss between predicted kernel size and label kernel size via morphologically transformed images with the label kernel. In all experiments on the industrial dataset, the proposed method demonstrates superior performance. For instance, in the MVTec anomaly detection task, our model achieved an area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) value of 72.92%, which is 8.74% higher than the semantic-feature-based deep anomaly detection. Full article

The antibiotic Ciprofloxacin HCl (CPH) is a representative example of pharmaceutical contaminants of emerging concern that are frequently released in wastewater effluents and can cause hazardous health effects. In this work, we investigated the potential of utilizing porous polymeric membranes incorporating metal nanoparticles for removing CPH from water. In this regard, polylactic acid/polyurethane membranes were impregnated in situ with single, binary, and tertiary systems of nanoparticles of cobalt, copper, and nickel, among others. Membranes loaded with cobalt exhibited the best performance among all the examined membranes. They yielded removal efficiencies above 80% at an initial CPH concentration range of 10–50 ppm and pH 6.5, thus exceeding those of the bare membranes by about 1.3 times under the same conditions. As confirmed by Brunauer, Emmet, and Teller (BET) analysis, the incorporation of cobalt nanoparticles into the mesoporous membranes increased their surface area and pore volume by 5 and 10 times, respectively. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) showed that cobalt nanoparticles had no catalytic influence on the dissociation of the membrane polymeric chains. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and zeta potential measurements suggested that binding could possibly occur via physical interactions along with catalytic degradation. Full article

Marine-extracted sulfated polysaccharides (SPs) have been the subject of myriad research since they are considered an eco-friendly source of biologically active compounds. Meanwhile, food and pharmaceutical industries are urgently producing natural sugar substitutes and antioxidants as alternatives to synthetic ones which are associated with cytotoxicity and safety issues. This study assesses the potential of using marine SPs obtained via the ultrasonic-assisted extraction of different marine species, to utilize them as antioxidant sugar substitutes. The carbohydrate, total phenolic contents and antioxidant activities were measured for SP extracts of the algal species of Ulva lactuca, Jania rubens and the marine plant mangrove Avicennia marina. These SPs were structurally elucidated by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopic and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analyses. The results revealed that SPs’ highest yield percent was obtained from Ulva lactuca, 5.50 ± 0.25%. The SPs of Avicennia marina had the highest carbohydrate content, 44 ± 1% and antioxidant activity, 78.85 ± 0.06 at the 100 μg/mL concentration and 89.50 ± 0.21 at the 250 μg/mL concentration. Meanwhile, the highest phenolic content was exhibited by algal SPs obtained from Jania rubens, 132.60 ± 2.50 mgGa/g. Results also showed that all extracts have potent antioxidant activity, while the highest antioxidant activity belonged to the SPs of Avicennia marina owing possibly to their balanced glucose and galactose contents as measured by HPLC. This work emphasizes the need to consider sulfated polysaccharides from marine sources for their antioxidant activity and to correlate it with their monosaccharide content to determine the effect of reducing sugar concentration on the antioxidant activity. Full article

This paper presents the synthesis and characterization of new polymeric materials in the form of composites with a luminescent filler using the photopolymerization methodology. In the synthesis of the composites, bisphenol A glycerolate (1 glycerol/phenol) diacrylate was used as a main monomer, whereas methyl methacrylate, N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone, and 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate were applied as reactive diluents. In the role of photoluminescent dopant, a previously synthesized photoluminescent copolymer, N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone witch 2,7-(2-hydroxy-3-methacryloyloxypropoxy)naphthalene, was used. The compositions were prepared with an increasing amount of filler: 0, 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10 wt%. As a result of the performed syntheses, 18 new compositions were obtained which generated green-yellow light after excitation by UV radiation. The influence of the increasing luminescent filler content on the selected properties of the composites was evaluated. The thermal and mechanical behaviors of the composites were determined by means of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and Shore D hardness. Moreover, the chemical structures of the polymeric materials were confirmed by the attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR/FT-IR) method. These results show that the incorporation of the photoluminescent copolymer into polymeric compositions can be method for obtaining functional materials for the production of special polymeric coatings or for the production of optical fiber sensors. Full article

Hydroxyapatites modified with metal ions are the main inorganic components of bone tissue that are approved for use as components for biocomposites and coatings for surgical implants. This study examined prototypes of functional materials for bone implants based on hydroxyapatite modified with zinc ions. Antibacterial activity and biocompatibility have been established. The studied materials have antimicrobial activity, the samples did not cause significant changes both in the internal organs and in the general condition of laboratory animals during the entire experiment. Full article