Active (anti-microbial) packaging was prepared using three different formulations; Auranta FV; Inbac-MDA and sodium octanoate at two concentrations (2.5 and 3.5 times their minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC, the lowest concentration that will inhibit the visible growth of the organisms) against Clostridium estertheticum, DSMZ 8809). Inoculated beef samples were packaged using the active pac...

This study evaluated the wear resistance and sealing property of endodontic temporary restoratives by means of functional stressing using a wear simulator. The pulp chamber of 28 extracted molars was opened and filled with cotton, and then the cavity was filled with a temporary material--Caviton, Temporary Pack, Neodyne-alpha, or TERM. Specimens were subjected to a wear test, and data for wear ...

Pack-off is a partially or complete blocking of the circulation flow in oil and gas drilling, which can lead to costly delays. Early detection and localization of a pack-off is crucial in order to take necessary actions avoiding downtime. This incident will affect physical friction parameters in the well. A model-based adaptive observer is used to estimate these friction parameters as well as f...

conclusions both the lukewarm-water-soaked gauze and the hot pack techniques had significant effects on postoperative urinary retention and significantly reduced the need for urinary catheterization. using these two simple and cost-effective techniques for managing postoperative urinary retention is recommended. results respectively, 59.5%, 71.4%, and 7.1% of patients in the hot pack, the soake...

BACKGROUND Plain packaging requires tobacco products to be sold in packs with a standard shape, method of opening and colour, leaving the brand name in a standard font and location. We ran a randomised controlled trial to investigate the impact of plain packaging on smoking behaviour and attitudes. METHODS In a parallel group randomised trial design, 128 daily smokers smoked cigarettes from t...

BACKGROUND In order to reduce fatal self-poisoning legislation was introduced in the UK in 1998 to restrict pack sizes of paracetamol sold in pharmacies (maximum 32 tablets) and non-pharmacy outlets (maximum 16 tablets), and in Ireland in 2001, but with smaller maximum pack sizes (24 and 12 tablets). Our aim was to determine whether this resulted in smaller overdoses of paracetamol in Ireland c...

In Inductive Logic Programming (ILP), several techniques have been introduced to improve the efficiency of query execution. One such technique is query pack execution. A set of queries with a common prefix, as it is generated by the refinement operator of a typical ILP system, can be executed faster after it is converted into a tree structure called a query pack. On the other hand, query transf...

The inconsistent characteristics of individual power batteries in a battery pack can seriously affect the performance and service life of the whole pack. Battery grouping is an effective approach for dealing with the inconsistency problem by grouping batteries with similar characteristics in the same battery pack. In actual production, the battery grouping process still relies on the traditiona...

Among various issues that high power application lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are encountered, thermal issues have received more attention because of their potential to degrade battery performance. In the present work, a lumped capacitance heat transfer model was developed in conjunction with a flow network approach to investigate thermal performance of a commercial-size Li-ion battery pack u...

Inductive logic programming systems usually send large numbers of queries to a database. The lattice structure from which these queries are typically selected causes many of these queries to be highly similar. As a consequence, independent execution of all queries may involve a lot of redundant computation. We propose a mechanism for executing a hierarchically structured set of queries (a \quer...