Precast concrete sandwich panels started being used as cladding for buildings, together with the rise of industrial prefabrication, during the mid-20th century. Since then, society and industry have become increasingly aware of energy efficiency in all fields, for both affordability and sustainability consciousness. As such, buildings have been subject to increasingly stringent requirements with the technology of sandwich panels kept continually at the forefront.
Nowadays, sandwich panels have reached the highest standards of functional performance as structural efficiency, flexibility in use, the speed as well as of aesthetic appeal. These combine in building construction with the well-known advantages of prefabrication; such as construction, quality consciousness, durability and sustainability. Sandwich panels have gained more and more important in their field, thus representing quite a significant application within the industry of prefabrication and an important share of the market.
The Commission ‘Prefabrication’ is keen to promote the development of all precast structural concrete products and to transfer the knowledge to practical design and construction. Now filling a strategic gap, by issuing this Guide to Good Practice, which includes design considerations, structural analysis, building physics, use of materials, manufacturing methods, equipment, field performance, and provides a comprehensive overview of the information currently available worldwide. The Commission is particularly proud that this document is a result of close cooperation with PCI and that it will be published by both fib and PCI. This cooperation started six years ago, first with comparing the different approaches to several issues, then progressively integrating up to producing common documents, like this one, that wasn’t yet treated in a specific Guide by either body.

http://docentes.fct.unl.pt/lblm/files/jiengchem-2017-54-341.pdf

This paper uses the combinatorics of Young tableaux to prove the plactic monoid of infinite rank does not satisfy a non-trivial identity, by showing that the plactic monoid of rank n cannot satisfy a non-trivial identity of length less than or equal to n. A new identity is then proven to hold for the monoid of n×n upper-triangular tropical matrices. Finally, a straightforward embedding is exhibited of the plactic monoid of rank 3 into the direct product of two copies of the monoid of 3×3 upper-triangular tropical matrices, giving a new proof that the plactic monoid of rank 3 satisfies a non-trivial identity.

AbstractThe behaviour of standard boltedsteel connections submitted to monotonic loads, through the use of numerical models, is presented in the current paper.The bolted connections allow speed up constructive processes in an increasingly competitive and globalized world in which the costs are a decisive factor in the development of a project. The use of computational tools in the analysis of bolted connections becomes determinant, mainly for new solutions or solutions less explored in terms of design codes.Throughout the years, bolted connections have been suffering transformations resulting from research activities performed by many authors. Rivets have been replaced by bolts, the main achievement being the pre-stressed bolts. Methodologies based on finite element analyses were proposed for double shear bolted connection. The non-linear behaviour of these connections is investigated and their performances are compared. In the numerical modelling of the bolted connection, linear elastic and elastoplastic analyzes reveal that there are two slip levels associated with local non-linearities caused by the contact pairs, which vary with clamping stresses.

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The class of finitely presented monoids defined by homogeneous (length-preserving) relations
is considered. The properties of admitting a finite complete rewriting system, having finite derivation type, being automatic, and being biautomatic, are investigated for monoids in this class. The first main result shows that for any possible combination of these properties and their negations there is a homoegenous monoid with exactly this combination of properties. We then extend this result to show that the same statement holds even if one restricts attention to the class of $n$-ary multihomogeneous monoids (meaning every side of every relation has fixed length $n$, and all relations are also content preserving).

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Neste artigo apresentam-se e analisam-se um conjunto de ensaios realizados em vigas de betão armado reforçadas com armaduras pós-instaladas de aço ou de FRP, incluindo os referentes a uma nova técnica (CREatE) desenvolvida na FCT NOVA. Os resultados experimentais permitiram concluir que a técnica CREatE possibilita aumentos de resistência e ductilidade consideráveis face às técnicas tradicionais.

Abstract The current chromatographic approaches used in protein purification are not keeping pace with the increasing biopharmaceutical market demand. With the upstream improvements, the bottleneck shifted towards the downstream process. New approaches rely in Anything But Chromatography methodologies and revisiting former techniques with a bioprocess perspective. Protein crystallization and precipitation methods are already implemented in the downstream process of diverse therapeutic biological macromolecules, overcoming the current chromatographic bottlenecks. Promising work is being developed in order to implement crystallization and precipitation in the purification pipeline of high value therapeutic molecules. This review focuses in the role of these two methodologies in current industrial purification processes, and highlights their potential implementation in the purification pipeline of high value therapeutic molecules, overcoming chromatographic holdups.

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The Late Triassic (Norian–early Rhaetian) Fleming Fjord Formation of central East Greenland preserves a diverse fossil fauna, including both body and trace fossils. Trackways of large quadrupedal archosaurs, although already reported in 1994 and mentioned in subsequent publications, are here described and figured in detail for the first time, based on photogrammetric data collected during fieldwork in 2012. Two trackways can be referred to Eosauropus, while a third, bipedal trackway may be referred to Evazoum, both of which have been considered to represent sauropodomorph dinosaur tracks. Both the Evazoum and the Eosauropus trackways are distinctly larger than other trackways referred to the respective ichnogenera. The trackmaker of the best preserved Eosauropus trackway is constrained using a synapomorphy-based approach. The quadrupedal posture, the entaxonic pes structure, and five weight-bearing digits indicate a derived sauropodiform trackmaker. Other features exhibited by the tracks, including the semi-digitigrade pes and the laterally deflected unguals, are commonly considered synapomorphies of more exclusive clades within Sauropoda. The present trackway documents an early acquisition of a eusauropod-like pes anatomy while retaining a well-developed claw on pedal digit IV, which is reduced in eusauropods. Although unequivocal evidence for sauropod dinosaurs is no older than the Early Jurassic, the present trackway provides evidence for a possible Triassic origin of the group.

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Bone grafting and surgical interventions related with orthopaedic disorders consist in a big business, generating large revenues worldwide every year. There is a need to replace the biomaterials that currently still dominate this market, i.e., autografts and allografts, due to their disadvantages, such as limited availability, need for additional surgeries and diseases transmission possibilities. The most promising replacement materials are biomaterials with bioactive properties, such as the calcium phosphate-based bioceramics group. The bioactivity of these materials, i.e., the rate at which they promote the growth and directly bond with the new host biological bone, can be enhanced through their electrical polarization.In the present work, the electrical polarization features of pure hydroxyapatite (Hap), pure β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) and biphasic hydroxyapatite/β-tricalcium phosphate composites (HTCP) were analyzed by measuring thermally stimulated depolarization currents (TSDC). The samples were thermoelectrically polarized at 500. °C under a DC electric field with a magnitude of 5. kV/cm. The biphasic samples were also polarized under electric fields with different magnitudes: 2, 3, 4 and 5. kV/cm. Additionally, the depolarization processes detected in the TSDC measurements were correlated with dielectric relaxation processes observed in impedance spectroscopy (IS) measurements.The results indicate that the β-TCP crystalline phase has a considerable higher ability to store electrical charge compared with the Hap phase. This indicates that it has a suitable composition and structure for ionic conduction and establishment of a large electric charge density, providing great potential for orthopaedic applications.

The Urban-Architect role in smart cities is a topic that has not received much attention from the scientific community. This article studies the work of the traditional responsible for thinking the cities, the Urban Architect. Under a critical proposition, aspects of this problematic are identified, which is in part nourished by the deficient action of these professionals.
The study was divided into two parts, the first one materialized through a bibliographical survey, in this section it is presented; 1 - a more detailed description of why this research work; 2 - a contextualisation of the transition of the scenarios is explained; 3 - the problematization and the reflection are raised for some reasons of the "disqualification" of the action of the architect-urbanist in the scene.
The second is based on the discussion between the authors and case studies; 4 - aspects are discussed and some characteristics are listed for "(re) framing" within the ideal scenario; 5 - four case studies are described: two smart cities built from scratch and two cities being transformed into smart cities; 6 - the limitations, conclusions and strands for future work are woven.