REPOSITORY > LATEST

Food, water, and sleep form the foundation of human needs, all of which are indispensable. However, unlike sleep, food and water have historically been beyond direct human control. Since ancient times, hunter-gatherers have migrated in search of these essential resources. The advent of agriculture marked a turning point, allowing humans …

A reduction in agricultural productivity associated with water scarcity and land degradation, combined with the growing world population and malnutrition highlights the need for new alternative food sources. In this challenging field, Spirulina microalgae emerges as a promising candidate thanks to its high nutritional value and beneficial effect on human …

Alkali activation is a chemical process in which aluminosilicate-rich materials that dissolve in basic media at room temperature form binding phases by polycondensation. Alkali-activated materials (AAM), also called geopolymers, are inorganic aluminosilicate-based materials produced mainly from fly ashes and metallurgical slags or clays with high Al and Si content and …

The potential toxicity of nanoparticles in our environment and consumer products is currently determined by costly and timely animal-based testing, which limits the rate of nanoparticle testing, causing a desperate need for alternative testing strategies. A promising alternative – mechanism-based prediction – employs a set of high-throughput cell-based tests that …

Medicine relies on imaging techniques such as ultrasound, magnetic resonance, computed tomography and histopathological image analysis because they provide valuable data needed for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases and injuries. Laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) is often used in research and for the advanced diagnosis and …

Gold miners (Artisanal and Small-Scale [ASGM]) operating in southwestern Ghana use exclusive mercury-gold amalgamation, cyanidation of gold-rich mercury-contaminated tailings, or a combination of both techniques during gold extraction; exposing water bodies within the catchment to mercury (Hg) and cyanide (CN) from mining discharged effluents. Additionally, sporadic CN spillage/leakage from Large …

Non-equilibrium atmospheric pressure plasmas are used in many areas, such as food and agriculture, plasma medicine, plasma surface modification, material synthesis and deposition. Because of their versatility, many plasma setups have been developed. Of greater interest are those that operate at atmospheric pressure, like atmospheric pressure plasma jets (APPJs). Regarding …

The process of protein folding describes the transition by which an unordered polypeptide chain attains its functional native three-dimensional structure. A detailed understanding of the principles which govern the protein folding, such as conformational preferences of amino acid residues, the neighbour residue effect and the solvent effects, remains an important …

An experimental set-up for the detection of scattered projectile ions was constructed at the external (in air) beamline of the Microanalytical Center at the Jožef Stefan Institute. The system is composed of a detector for the analysis of back-scattered projectiles, casually called the RBS detector, a precise positioning system and …

The sterilization efficiency of oxygen plasma was studied. Plasma was created in pure oxygen with an inductively coupled radiofrequency discharge. The discharge power was estimated to about 180 W. Plasma parameters were measured with a double Langmuir probe and a catalytic probe. Plasma parameters depended on pressure in the discharge …