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- Compost (2)
- Fatigue crack propagation threshold (2)
- Sewage sludge (2)
- Soil (2)
- 13C-NMR (1)
- ASTM E647 (1)
- Adsorption-desorption (1)
- Atrazine (1)
- Bauteilauslegung (1)
- Brain (1)
Organisationseinheit der BAM
Objectives: Using a murine model of multiple sclerosis, we previously showed that repeated administration of gadopentetate dimeglumine led to retention of gadolinium (Gd) within cerebellar structures and that this process was enhanced with inflammation. This study aimed to compare the kinetics and retention profiles of Gd in inflamed and healthy brains after application of the macrocyclic Gd-based contrast agent (GBCA) gadobutrol or the linear GBCA gadopentetate. Moreover, potential Gd-induced neurotoxicity was investigated in living hippocampal slices ex vivo.
Materials and Methods: Mice at peak of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE; n = 29) and healthy control mice (HC; n = 24) were exposed to a cumulative dose of 20 mmol/kg bodyweight of either gadopentetate dimeglumine or gadobutrol (8 injections of 2.5 mmol/kg over 10 days). Magnetic resonance imaging (7 T) was performed at baseline as well as at day 1, 10, and 40 post final injection (pfi) of GBCAs. Mice were sacrificed after magnetic resonance imaging and brain and blood Gd content was assessed by laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma (ICP)-mass spectrometry (MS) and ICP-MS, respectively. In addition, using chronic organotypic hippocampal slice cultures, Gd-induced neurotoxicity was addressed in living brain tissue ex vivo, both under control or inflammatory (tumor necrosis factor α [TNF-α] at 50 ng/μL) conditions.
Results: Neuroinflammation promoted a significant decrease in T1 relaxation times after multiple injections of both GBCAs as shown by quantitative T1 mapping of EAE brains compared with HC. This corresponded to higher Gd retention within the EAE brains at 1, 10, and 40 days pfi as determined by laser ablation-ICP-MS. In inflamed cerebellum, in particular in the deep cerebellar nuclei (CN), elevated Gd retention was observed until day 40 after last gadopentetate application (CN: EAE vs HC, 55.06 ± 0.16 μM vs 30.44 ± 4.43 μM). In contrast, gadobutrol application led to a rather diffuse Gd content in the inflamed brains, which strongly diminished until day 40 (CN: EAE vs HC, 0.38 ± 0.08 μM vs 0.17 ± 0.03 μM). The analysis of cytotoxic effects of both GBCAs using living brain tissue revealed an elevated cell death rate after incubation with gadopentetate but not gadobutrol at 50 mM. The cytotoxic effect due to gadopentetate increased in the presence of the inflammatory mediator TNF-α (with vs without TNF-α, 3.15% ± 1.18% vs 2.17% ± 1.14%; P = 0.0345).
Conclusions: In the EAE model, neuroinflammation promoted increased Gd retention in the brain for both GBCAs. Whereas in the inflamed brains, efficient clearance of macrocyclic gadobutrol during the investigated time period was observed, the Gd retention after application of linear gadopentetate persisted over the entire observational period. Gadopentetate but not gadubutrol appeared to be neurotoxic in an ex vivo paradigm of neuronal inflammation.
The effects of long-term application of different organic amendments, as compared to mineral fertilizer, on Zn, Cu and Pb content and leachability in a luvisol derived from loess were assessed. The organic fertilizers, applied since 1962, were compost (COM) – from green organic household waste, sewage sludge (SLU) – from municipal water treatment facilities, farmyard manure (FYM) and the doses applied since 1997 were 90 t ha-1, 10 t ha-1 and 9 t ha-1, once in 3 years, respectively. The kinetics of metals extraction with 0.05 mol dm-3 EDTA at pH 6.0 has been studied. The two first-order reactions model was fitted to the kinetic data and allowed to distinguish two pools for each metal: a 'labile' fraction (Q1), quickly extracted with a rate constant k1, and a 'moderately labile' fraction (Q2), more slowly extracted, with a rate constant k2. Simultaneously, the pseudo-total metal contents in the soil samples were determined after digestion with aqua regia (3:1 HCl + HNO3). The obtained parameters Q1, k1, Q2, k2, for the kinetics of extraction of each metal in the three replicates of each fertilization mode, as well as the pseudo-total metal contents, were statistically analysed. COM and SLU application resulted in an increase of the total contents of Pb, Zn and Cu in soil. Further, the percentage of labile Zn and Pb also increased in consequence of the application of those amendments, particularly COM. The increase was more noticeable for Zn. FYM, despite not increasing the total content of Pb, Zn or Cu, did also have an effect on the leachability of Zn and Pb, increasing their labile fraction in soil. These results point to a potential risk of increasing metals mobility in soil, mainly Zn, associated to the use of organic amendments, particularly COM or SLU.
The robust determination of the threshold against fatigue crack propagation DKth is of paramount importance in fracture mechanics based fatigue assessment procedures. The standards ASTM E647 and ISO 12108 introduce operational definitions of DKth based on the crack propagation rate da/dN and suggest linear fits of logarithmic DK– da/dN test data to calculate DKth. Since these fits typically suffer from a poor representation of the actual curvature of the crack propagation curve, a method for evaluating DKth using a nonlinear function is proposed. It is shown that the proposed method reduces the artificial conservativeness induced by the evaluation method as well as the susceptibility to scatter in test data and the influence of test data density.
The impact of crack closure and environmental effects on the experimental determination of the fatigue crack propagation threshold is a major problem for the assessment of cyclically loaded components, especially at low stress ratios 𝑅. In this work, the influence of the experimental procedure and air humidity on d𝑎∕d𝑁 − 𝛥𝐾 data at different 𝑅 is discussed. Unlike the results at 𝑅 = −1, the threshold values obtained at 𝑅 ≈ 0.8, i.e. under negligible crack closure levels, show a very small scatter band regardless of the variation of the test parameters and environmental conditions.
The aim of this work was to investigate the effects of long-term application of different organic fertilizers (sewage sludge, farmyard manure, compost) as compared to mineral fertilizer on the structure of the soil organic matter. Capillary electrophoresis was employed for the quantification of monosaccharides and phenolic compounds, whereas NMR and FT-IR were used for the overall characterization of the soils organic matter. Application of farmyard manure results in a higher content of organic matter derived from angiosperms, suggested by the higher levels of syringic and vanillic phenols. Spectroscopic studies show an increase of lignin and lignin-like products in the organic matter of the soil, which may be derived from the cereal straw supplied with farmyard manure. According to spectroscopic analysis, 13C CPMAS-NMR and FT-IR spectra, higher contents of methylene groups ( CH2) from proteins and protein-like compounds, as well as higher levels of carbohydrates, were found in the soil supplied with compost. The monosaccharide (rhamnose, xylose, glucose, mannose, arabinose, fucose and galactose) content was not significantly influenced by the different organic fertilizers, suggesting that the type of amendment used does not affect any of these six studied monomers. Comparing the three organic amendments the most significant differences were observed after long-term application of farmyard manure, with an increase in lignin and lignin-like products in the soil organic matter, and compost, which appears to contribute to an increase of protein and protein-like, as well as carbohydrates content on soil organic matter. The knowledge of such changes can be essential to understand the sorption and bioavailability of pollutants, as well as establish/unestablish ways to recycling organic residues as organic fertilizers.
Die Anwendung bruchmechanischer Methoden zur schadenstoleranten Bauteilauslegung ist für zyklische Lasten im Bereich der Paris-Geraden Stand der Technik. Technisch relevant sind jedoch häufig geringere Lasten im Schwellenwertbereich der d𝑎/d𝑁-Δ𝐾-Kurve. Aufgrund des großen Einflusses von Rissschließeffekten ist dessen Bestimmung jedoch nicht nur aufwändig, sondern auch potenziell fehlerbehaftet. Die Bauteilauslegung erfolgt zweckmäßigerweise auf der Basis effektiver, d. h. rissschließkorrigierter Rissfortschrittsdaten. Von großer Bedeutung ist auch der intrinsische Schwellenwert, unterhalb dessen keine Risserweiterung mehr eintritt. In diesem Forschungsprojekt erfolgte eine Untersuchung des Einflusses verschiedener Prüfverfahren und Umgebungsbedingungen auf die Ermittlung des Schwellenwerts gegen Ermüdungsrissausbreitung Δ𝐾th. Es wurden statistisch abgesicherte Empfehlungen zur experimentellen Ermittlung des intrinsischen Schwellenwerts Δ𝐾th,eff abgeleitet. Dieser dient auch als Eingangsparameter einer weiterentwickelten Prozedur zur Bauteilauslegung auf der Basis bei einem Lastverhältnis von 𝑅 ≈ 0,8 ermittelter, effektiver, Rissfortschrittsdaten. Es zeigte sich, dass die bei einem Lastverhältnis von 𝑅 ≈ 0,8 in Laborluft bei höherer Prüffrequenzen (≥90 Hz) ermittelten Schwellenwerte eine konservative Abschätzung des intrinsischen Schwellenwerts erlaubten. Bei Lastverhältnissen 𝑅 ≪ 0,8 wurde ein teilweise stark ausgeprägter Einfluss extrinsischer Effekte auf das Rissfortschrittsverhalten festgestellt. Eine Untersuchung der Bruchflächen ergab Oxidschichtdicken in der Größenordnung mehrerer hundert Nanometer. Bei Reduktion der Prüffrequenz auf ≈55 Hz und Prüfung in feuchter Luft (60 % r.F. und 80 % r.F.) konnte auch bei 𝑅 = 0,8 Rissschließen beobachtet werden. Die weiterentwickelte Prozedur zur Bauteilauslegung auf Basis effektiver Rissfortschrittsdaten lieferte aber stets konservative Ergebnisse in einem tolerierbaren Fehlerbereich und ist deshalb zur Anwendung geeignet. Die im Projekt gewonnenen Erkenntnisse tragen zu einer robusten Bauteilauslegung auf bruchmechanischer Basis bei. Der stark reduzierte Versuchsumfang bei Nutzung effektiver Rissfortschrittsdaten gegenüber der Ermittlung von spannungsverhältnisabhängigen Rissfortschrittskurven beschleunigt und vereinfacht die Bauteilauslegung auf Basis bruchmechanischer Methoden.
Sorption of atrazine on soils subjected to three different organic amendments was measured using a batch equilibrium technique. A higher KF value (2.20 kg-1(mg L-1)-N) was obtained for soil fertilized with compost, which had a higher organic matter (OM) content. A correlation between the KFOC values and the percentage of aromatic carbon in OM was observed. The highest KFOC value was obtained for the soil with the highest aromatic content. Higher aromatic content results in higher hydrophobicity of OM, and hydrophobic interactions play a key role in binding of atrazine. On the other hand, the soil amended with farmyard manure had a higher content of carboxylic units, which could be responsible for hydrogen bonding between atrazine and OM. Dominance of hydrogen bonds compared to hydrophobic interactions can be responsible for the lower desorption capacity observed with the farmyard manure soil. The stronger hydrogen bonding can reduce the leaching of atrazine into drinking water resources and runoff to rivers and other surface waters.