Nanotech filters remove office fumes

A new air purifier using sunlight and nanoparticles has been created to clean up dangerous pollutants – called volatile organic compounds - in the air of our offices and homes.

The nanomaterial could be used in air purifiers, or even be coated onto walls and windows, according the to research presented today as part of a showcase of young Australian scientists at the Australian Cooperative Research Centres national conference in Adelaide.

Fumes given off from common indoors items – including paint, photocopiers, office furnishings, carpet and plastics – contain volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Common VOCs are formaldehyde, benzene and toluene.

“Some of these compounds are highly toxic and can cause carcinoma,” said Ruh Ullah, doctoral student in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Curtin University in Western Australia.

The material contains nanoparticles of metal oxides, which, in the presence of light, water and oxygen, form hydroxyl radicals. These highly reactive radicals break down the VOCs in a reaction is called photocatalysis – producing harmless carbon dioxide, water and mineral salts.

“Contact between the VOCs and nanomaterials is very important for the reaction, so that’s why we used nanomaterials for enhanced surface area,” said Ullah.

Ullah trialled nanoparticles created from common earth-based elements, such as silver,Save up to 80% off Ceramic Tile and porcelain tiles. cobalt and tungsten, and from rare elements, such as tantalum, indium and niobium.

Tantalum oxide with added nitrogen is their best performing nanomaterial – it can break down up to 77% of toluene in a gas sample.

“Titanium dioxide is the most common nanomaterial currently commercially available, but it doesn’t work under light from fluorescent bulbs,” he said. The titanium dioxide works best under UV light – it does not work under indoor lighting and only removes 5% of VOCs under sunlight.

“The material we have prepared is capable of working under fluorescent light, and outside it can remove up to 77% of volatile organic compounds,” he said. Under indoor lighting, the new tantalum compound can remove up to 30% of VOCs and can be reused multiple times, unlike the titanium which is single-use.

Most current filters effective against VOCs require high temperature and pressures and use a lot of en energy, so they are not practical for public and residential spaces, according the researchers. Volatile organic compounds make up 31% of indoor air pollution in workplaces and homes.Online store for ceramic tiles by e-Ceramica group.

“The volatile organic compounds have a more severe effect in an indoor environment, as compared to an outdoor environment, and nowadays people spend more than 90% of their time indoors,” said Ullah.

“VOCs are often implicated in sick building syndrome when workers experience persistent ill-health, estimated to cost the Australian economy over $12 billion a year.”

The research is conducted with the Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment, which plans to liaise with industry to commercialise the research.

“We expect that the technology will be implemented in the next a few years,” said Shaobin Wang, the leader of the project at Curtin University.

Major league teams working on social media message

Bridget Houlihan rifled through her gift bag and pulled out a gray T-shirt with a circular Chicago Cubs emblem on the front and FOLLOWER emblazoned across the back, resting on a row of logos from the top social media websites. ``This is awesome,'' she said.

Baseball thinks Houlihan is pretty sweet, too, and major league teams like the Cubs are hoping to entice more fans like her to come out to the ballpark. Social media nights have become a common part of the promotional schedule, and some of the best ticket deals and giveaways can be found on Twitter and Facebook. Savvy franchises are trying to create the right mix online, part content and part business opportunity — keeping their followers engaged while also padding the bottom line.

Players such as Cincinnati Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips and Miami Marlins outfielder Logan Morrison are Twitter superstars, but devoted fans across the country also are responding to the personal touch provided by the teams' online presence.

Social media nights vary from ballpark to ballpark, but some aspects are fairly consistent. The Cubs offered specially priced tickets and put together contests for their online fans. They encouraged their Twitter followers to use the hashtag (hash)CubsSocial to mark their tweets throughout the night.

``I think it's going to be mandatory for all clubs to be not just involved in it, but go all-in, not just dip your toes in the water,'' said Jamie Ramsey,Let us help you save hundreds of dollars* with 3M Window Insulator Kits. who works in the Reds' media relations department and writes a blog for Major League Baseball's website. ``Teams are going to realize how important it is to help sell tickets, generate revenue and keep the fan base interested and engaged.

``I think it's still kind of new to everybody. Once teams realize how to master it and do what works for them, it's going to keep growing and become as important as your marketing department, your sales department.''

Houlihan, 33, of Chicago, attended the first social media night at Wrigley Field on Wednesday with her boyfriend, George Hayman, and his brother,You can find best china Precision injection molds manufacturers from here! Pete. She pounced on her phone when the Cubs announced a Twitter contest, and managed to post in time to win an autographed pack of the social media-themed cards that were part of the promotion.

``I think it's really awesome to put together events like this,'' Houlihan said. ``I've been going to social media events for several years now and I find it's the perfect way to network because you meet people through Twitter and then you go meet them in person and it gives an entree into what they like to talk about, things that you have in common.''

The Cubs put approximately 300 special bleacher tickets on sale for the promotion and sold each one. They are planning a second social media night for September.

Kevin Saghy, a public relations and marketing specialist for the Cubs who helps run their Twitter account, said the key to generating revenue in the field is content.

``If your focus is revenue and your content reflects that,Compare prices and buy all brands of solar panel for home power systems and by the pallet. I don't believe that's a wise strategy ... That's not why people are there,'' he said. ``They're there to converse. So we've taken the other approach where it's definitely a priority for us, it's something we track, and I can say from 2010 to last year, as we got more involved and offered better content on our platforms, we quadrupled our revenue. So we're up about 300 percent.''

Major league teams also are finding loads of intangible benefits to their social media presence, ranging from increased brand awareness all the way down to a connection with a single customer who leaves with a positive impression.

Saghy will monitor Twitter for Cubs fans celebrating their birthday or making their first trip to Wrigley Field, then put together a bag of free goodies to place under their seat before they arrive. The Indians have a designated social media suite at Progressive Field, and team president Mark Shapiro has stopped by to visit with fans and answer questions.

Several teams hold in-game scavenger hunts that award autographed memorabilia or team apparel,Chinese Plastic mould manufacturer in southeast of China. and some clubs put together contests that result in upgraded tickets for their online followers.

``From a business standpoint, we use social media mainly as a way to connect with fans, give them unique access and provide a different perspective,'' said Tom Garfinkel, the interim CEO of the San Diego Padres. ``Obviously, it can be used to communicate promotions and sell tickets, and we do that, to a lesser extent. We try very hard to maintain an authentic voice and make sure our followers are getting value from the content we are posting — not just being sold on something. We also use it to crowd-source ideas. It's a living focus group.''

Washington is putting together a tweet-up for July 3 that includes discounted tickets and a commemorative poster. There are plans for a player meet and greet and a Twitter request line for pregame ballpark music. But the most compelling aspect of the Nationals' promotion involves the location of tweet-up seats, which will improve as more fans RSVP for the game before tickets go on sale on June 22.

``It's about fan engagement and the ability then to be able to enter into that discussion, and not being too corporate, but helping lead and participate in that conversation,'' Nationals chief operating officer Andy Feffer said. ``Why? Because the social media platform is now an access point — to the club, to the players, to promotions, to ticket sales, to the story that's being told. And the story really lives now in the social media world. It's extended into that community more than it ever has before.Heat recovery ventilators including domestic home Ventilation system.''

Dan Migala, a founding partner of Property Consulting Group who worked for the Padres and has consulted for other major league teams, thinks social media will become even more important for sports teams in the future.

``I don't think that there's ever been a better time to be a fan than right now because for the first time really as a fan you have a two-way relationship with your favorite team,'' he said. ``For some teams that's a very exciting proposition and some, they're probably scared to death.

British Glamour Since 1950 – review

The V&A's new show, Ballgowns: British Glamour Since 1950,Every Mold Maker job on the web. an exhibition that also marks the reopening of its much-loved fashion galleries, is not for everyone. On my way in,Visit TE online for all of your Application Tooling Solutions including tools. I heard a man all but beg his wife not to drag him round it ("I thought this was a cultural expedition, not another bloody shopping trip!" he might have told her, had he not been practically mute with despair). Once inside, I couldn't help but notice that there was not a male of the species anywhere to be seen.

But if you like a properly made frock and hanker, even just a little, for the days when a big night out meant long,Renowned crystal mosaic Supplier and Exporter in China. silk gloves and a Dubonnet rather than T-shirts and cheap vodka, it will have you swooning with delight. Yes, you will feel unpleasantly covetous. Yes, you will wonder if you shouldn't, after all, lose a stone, or six. But these things will pass. Fifteen minutes in and your absorption in the way Norman Hartnell used corsetry or Zandra Rhodes quilting will be total. The world will shrink to the dimensions of a bodice or a buttonhole, a collar or a cuff.

Gallery 40 was originally a spectacular domed court, with architectural columns and ornate mosaic floors. The V&A's refurbishment has uncovered the mosaics and a grand staircase now sweeps the visitor up to a mezzanine gallery beneath the dome. The result is elegant and spacious; the mezzanine, circular and lofty, brings a couturier's showroom instantly to mind. But the gallery's lighting still feels excessively muted to me. Downstairs, I struggled to read the labels and if a dress is placed anywhere other than right at the front of a display case, it's impossible to see the craftsmanship involved.

Strange, too, that while dresses and suits from the permanent collection are shown alongside handbags and jewellery, hats and shoes, the ballgowns, temporarily visiting, have only outsize cardboard cutouts of accessories for company (though they're labelled as if they were real, bizarrely). Were the curators worried a brooch or stole would steal the gowns' thunder? Or is this a nod in the direction of the new austerity?

The finest of the dresses – the most beautiful and the best made – are also the oldest. I had a moment of pure buyer's lust (so bad my fingers tingled) in front of a citrine evening coat with voluminous fur cuffs by Norman Hartnell, from 1965. Hartnell, who designed both the Queen's wedding dress and her coronation gown, is thought of now as rather fusty, a lickspittle rather than an innovator. But at his best, his designs had an authentic drama: no wonder Edith Evans was a customer.

And perhaps Hartnell, the son of a Streatham publican, knew precisely what he was doing when it came to establishment commissions. A state evening dress designed for the Queen Mother in 1953 – a crinoline that recalls similar gowns in the paintings of Franz Winterhalter, it has a V-shaped neckline, floaty cap sleeves and a motif of tiny flowers – tells you a great deal about the woman who wore it. At once grand and girlish, it speaks both of entitlement and self-delusion; for a pretty dress, it's magnificently repulsive.If you are looking for offshore merchant account.

Hartnell isn't the only star in the downstairs gallery. Bellville Sassoon, the debs' favourite house, features strongly: there is a beautiful dress made for Princess Anne in 1968, comprising a buttercup skirt and an extravagant embroidered bodice in shades of brown and orange (a famous recycler of clothes, I do wonder why HRH got rid of this one); and a truly adorable gown of pale pink Swiss organza from the designers' Infanta collection, its pattern of tear-drop shaped embroidery and crystal drop beads offset by its superbly neat lines.

Sybil Connolly's 1966 leaf-green pleated skirt, embroidered white blouse and pink belt is a cool reinvention of the evening dress: daringly, it is made of cambric and linen. Connolly, who was Irish, isn't much remembered now, but Jackie Kennedy was among her clients. Sadly, though, this isn't a detail you'll find anywhere in the gallery. Background information is, it must be said, infuriatingly thin on the ground and the pathetic catalogue, which longs mostly to be Vogue, no help at all. Sweeping past Catherine Walker's "Elvis" dress for Diana, Princess of Wales – a novelty number I've always hated – and the hideous 80s creations of Victor Edelstein ("Let's just stick a giant bow... right here!"), we go upstairs to the contemporary gowns, to dresses worn on red carpets rather than in stately halls, and it's strangely anticlimactic.

For one thing, most of these have been lent by their designers; they were borrowed by the actresses and models who first wore them, rather than bought and loved and kept carefully in tissue and mothballs for a lucky daughter or niece. This makes them, in my eyes, so much less interesting. Their value is mostly monetary. They lack emotional history. Aesthetics have all too often been replaced by the need to draw a cheap kind of attention (though Giles Deacon's tumbling black silk dress from 2007 – it was inspired,Omega Plastics are leading plastic injection moulding and injection mould tooling specialists. he says, by a visit to a car wash – is a deft tribute to Fortuny by way of Issey Miyake).

For another – and this is much worse – they seem not truly to be of service to the bodies that inhabit them, however briefly. The curators note that Roland Mouret has spoken "eloquently" of the pressures of the red carpet, of the fact that a dress must withstand the pressure of flashbulbs from 360 degrees. And it's true that here in the gallery, on a mannequin, his peach asymmetric silk dress from 2010 is perfect from every angle, a feat of precision engineering. Only then you look at the photograph of Maggie Gyllenhaal in the same dress at the Golden Globes and it suits her not a bit. Would it suit anyone? I doubt it. The finest dresses are forgiving. Their artiface encompasses great kindness. But this one is unmerciful; it disdains every inconvenient body part. It seems – what a sign of the times! – hardly to have been designed for a woman at all.

British Glamour Since 1950 – review

The V&A's new show, Ballgowns: British Glamour Since 1950, an exhibition that also marks the reopening of its much-loved fashion galleries, is not for everyone. On my way in, I heard a man all but beg his wife not to drag him round it ("I thought this was a cultural expedition, not another bloody shopping trip!" he might have told her, had he not been practically mute with despair). Once inside, I couldn't help but notice that there was not a male of the species anywhere to be seen.

But if you like a properly made frock and hanker, even just a little, for the days when a big night out meant long, silk gloves and a Dubonnet rather than T-shirts and cheap vodka, it will have you swooning with delight. Yes, you will feel unpleasantly covetous. Yes, you will wonder if you shouldn't, after all, lose a stone, or six.Renowned crystal mosaic Supplier and Exporter in China. But these things will pass. Fifteen minutes in and your absorption in the way Norman Hartnell used corsetry or Zandra Rhodes quilting will be total. The world will shrink to the dimensions of a bodice or a buttonhole, a collar or a cuff.Professional Manufacturer for polished tiles.

Gallery 40 was originally a spectacular domed court, with architectural columns and ornate mosaic floors. The V&A's refurbishment has uncovered the mosaics and a grand staircase now sweeps the visitor up to a mezzanine gallery beneath the dome. The result is elegant and spacious; the mezzanine,Factory direct stone mosaic featuring marble mosaic floors. circular and lofty, brings a couturier's showroom instantly to mind. But the gallery's lighting still feels excessively muted to me. Downstairs, I struggled to read the labels and if a dress is placed anywhere other than right at the front of a display case, it's impossible to see the craftsmanship involved.

Strange, too, that while dresses and suits from the permanent collection are shown alongside handbags and jewellery, hats and shoes, the ballgowns, temporarily visiting, have only outsize cardboard cutouts of accessories for company (though they're labelled as if they were real, bizarrely). Were the curators worried a brooch or stole would steal the gowns' thunder? Or is this a nod in the direction of the new austerity?

The finest of the dresses – the most beautiful and the best made – are also the oldest. I had a moment of pure buyer's lust (so bad my fingers tingled) in front of a citrine evening coat with voluminous fur cuffs by Norman Hartnell, from 1965.Omega Plastics are leading plastic injection moulding and injection mould tooling specialists. Hartnell, who designed both the Queen's wedding dress and her coronation gown, is thought of now as rather fusty, a lickspittle rather than an innovator. But at his best, his designs had an authentic drama: no wonder Edith Evans was a customer.Build a "Floor tiles" by dragging the corners of a quadrilateral.

And perhaps Hartnell, the son of a Streatham publican, knew precisely what he was doing when it came to establishment commissions. A state evening dress designed for the Queen Mother in 1953 – a crinoline that recalls similar gowns in the paintings of Franz Winterhalter, it has a V-shaped neckline, floaty cap sleeves and a motif of tiny flowers – tells you a great deal about the woman who wore it. At once grand and girlish, it speaks both of entitlement and self-delusion; for a pretty dress, it's magnificently repulsive.

Hartnell isn't the only star in the downstairs gallery. Bellville Sassoon, the debs' favourite house, features strongly: there is a beautiful dress made for Princess Anne in 1968, comprising a buttercup skirt and an extravagant embroidered bodice in shades of brown and orange (a famous recycler of clothes, I do wonder why HRH got rid of this one); and a truly adorable gown of pale pink Swiss organza from the designers' Infanta collection, its pattern of tear-drop shaped embroidery and crystal drop beads offset by its superbly neat lines.

Sybil Connolly's 1966 leaf-green pleated skirt, embroidered white blouse and pink belt is a cool reinvention of the evening dress: daringly, it is made of cambric and linen. Connolly, who was Irish, isn't much remembered now, but Jackie Kennedy was among her clients. Sadly, though, this isn't a detail you'll find anywhere in the gallery. Background information is, it must be said, infuriatingly thin on the ground and the pathetic catalogue, which longs mostly to be Vogue, no help at all. Sweeping past Catherine Walker's "Elvis" dress for Diana, Princess of Wales – a novelty number I've always hated – and the hideous 80s creations of Victor Edelstein ("Let's just stick a giant bow... right here!"), we go upstairs to the contemporary gowns, to dresses worn on red carpets rather than in stately halls, and it's strangely anticlimactic.

How to resist Big Brother 2.0 — Don Tapscott

As the Net becomes the basis for commerce, work, entertainment, healthcare, learning and much human discourse,Build a "Floor tiles" by dragging the corners of a quadrilateral. each of us is leaving a trail of digital crumbs as we spend a growing portion of our day touching networks.Factory direct stone mosaic featuring marble mosaic floors.

The books, music and stocks you buy online, your pharmacy purchases, groceries scanned at the supermarket or bought online, your child’s research for a school project, the card reader at the parking lot, your car’s conversations with a database via satellite, the online publications you read, the shirt you purchase in a department store with your store card, the prescription drugs you buy — and the hundreds of other network transactions in a typical day — point to the problem.

Computers can inexpensively link and cross-reference such databases to slice,Distributes and manufactures RUBBER SHEET. dice and recompile information about individuals in hundreds of different ways. This makes these databases enormously attractive for government and corporations that are keen to know our whereabouts and activities.

George Orwell’s iconic text Nineteen Eighty-Four described the dystopian society where a totalitarian state rules in its own interests and everyone is under constant surveillance by authorities. This situation was often correctly alleged about the totalitarian East Bloc countries during the Cold War.

It is unfortunately increasingly true of Western democracies today. In the name of national security, governments are collecting real-time information from us,Features useful information about glass mosaic tiles. sampling phone calls, emails and social networks, and taking our biometrics at airports and a growing list of other places.

We have little idea what governments are doing with this flood of personal information. And the aftermath of 9/11 should remind us just how quickly our civil liberties can be undermined in the name of national security.

Recently the New York Times reported that: “Law enforcement tracking of cellphones, once the province mainly of federal agents, has become a powerful and widely used surveillance tool for local police officials, with hundreds of departments, large and small, often using it aggressively with little or no court oversight.”

The Times reports that this practice has become big business for cellphone companies, too, as carriers market a catalogue of “surveillance fees” to police departments to determine a suspect’s location, trace phone calls and texts, or provide other services. Sure, you could argue that it’s becoming difficult to restrict the information that governments can collect, and yes of course we need to be vigilant about how that information should be used. But we still need to resist attempts of governments to collect unnecessary information. We still need to fight for the basic privacy principle of “data minimization” — of limiting the information collected to clearly definable and socially helpful purposes.

There should be no tapping of phones or anything else without due process. If a government agency proposes setting up a video camera in your neighbourhood, you need to decide if the benefits of possible crime reduction outweigh the possible dangers of unknown governments being able to watch you constantly.

Or increasingly, governments want to collect biometrics information about you — like fingerprints, retinal scans and even DNA. We each need to make choices. Sometimes this benefits you with better government services or faster movement through airports. But what are the long-term implications should a government agency or individual become malevolent? The average person must be cautious and vigilant, and even resist the collection of unnecessary personal information.

To me, it’s not so likely that the future will resemble Orwell’s 1984,TRT (UK) has been investigating and producing solutions for indoor Tracking since 2000. or Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon prison, or an East Bloc police state during the Cold War. Those are dystopic models from another era that depended upon a single, all-knowing malevolent power seeking control.

The appropriate metaphor for the growing loss of privacy today is found in Frank Kafka’s The Trial: The central character awaits trial and judgment by an inscrutable bureaucracy for a crime that he is not told about, using evidence that is never revealed to him, in a process that is equally random and inscrutable.

In like manner, we, too, will be judged and sentenced in absentia by unknown public and private bureaucracies having access to our personal data. We will be the targets of social engineering, decisions, and discrimination, and we will never really know what or why.

In the private sector, companies want to know more and more about what makes each of us tick — our motivations, behaviour, attitudes and buying habits. The good news is that companies can give us highly customized services based on this intimate knowledge — and build trusting relationships. Sometimes it is great to have highly customized ads.