Influence of acute and repeated interleukin-2 administration on spatial learning, locomotor activity, exploratory behaviors, and anxiety.

Interleukin-2 (IL-2), released from activated T cells, influences central neurochemical functioning, and IL-2 immunotherapy in cancer patients may provoke neuropsychiatric and cognitive disturbances. In this study, acute, systemic IL-2 did not influence Morris water-maze performance in mice. In contrast, chronic IL-2 impaired performance when the position of the escape platform varied over days but was without effect when the platform position was fixed. These effects could not be attributed to illness, because IL-1β, which induces marked malaise, did not influence water-maze performance. Chronic IL-2 produced modest reductions in exploration and approach to a novel stimulus, effects not seen after acute treatment, but did not influence spontaneous alternation performance or behavior in an elevated plus-maze test. Thus, repeated IL-2 may influence spatial working memory without affecting habituation/ attentional processes or anxiety. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bipolar plate design and fabrication using graphite reinforced composite laminate for proton exchange membrane fuel cells

A bipolar plate is designed to have high electric conductivity, low corrosion and good mechanical strength characteristics. The two most common materials adopted for bipolar plates are carbon and metal. The carbon bipolar plate has good electric conductivity and corrosion resistance but brittle. The metal bipolar plate has good mechanical strength, acceptable electrical conductivity but worse corrosion resistance. The main objective of this paper is to design and fabricate graphite composite laminate based PEMFC bipolar plate. A thermoset type phenolic resin is adopted as the matrix with a plain weave type woven graphite fiber cloth adopted as the composite laminate reinforcement. In the fabrication process, thermoset phenol-formaldehyde resin is first printed onto the plain-weave woven carbon fiber cloth and the waiting until air-dry as prepregs. Several layers of prepregs were then stacked into a mold and heated. The resin contained in the prepregs melted and cured into a composite laminate. The carbonization process is further conducted to increase the electric conductivity. The flow channels are carved and the bipolar plate is completely fabricated. The developed bipolar plates are assembled into a single cell PEMFC and tested. The composite bipolar plate performance with or without carbonization are also studied. The back side bipolar plate electric conductivity would also significantly affect the cell performance. Therefore, increasing the back side conductivity could increase the cell performance.     

Effects of Ni–TiO2 Pillared Clay–Montmorillonite Composites for Photocatalytic Enhancement Against Reactive Orange Under Visible Light

Journal of Inorganic and Organometallic Polymers and Materials - In this study, a composite material based on Ni–TiO2 Pillared Clay-Montmorillonite (Ni–TiO2/CMMT) was synthesized using...     

Psychogenic, neurogenic, and systemic stressor effects on plasma corticosterone and behavior: Mouse strain-dependent outcomes.

The effects of several stressors were assessed in inbred strains of mice, BALB/cByJ and C57BL/6ByJ, thought to be differentially reactive to stressors. Behavioral reactivity was greater in BALB/cByJ mice with respect to open-field emergence, step-down responding, response to a predator (rat) or to fox urine odor. Neurogenic insults (e.g., footshock, forced swim, restraint) and a systematic stressor (intraperitoneal interlukin-1β treatment) likewise provoked a greater rise of plasma corticisterone in the BALB/cByJ mice. Psychogenic stressors (e.g., novel open-field exposure, acoustic startle stimuli) also enhanced plasma corticosterone to a greater extent in BALB/cByJ mice, but such an outcome was not apparent following predator-related cues. In appears that whereas stressor reactivity and adrenal glucorticoid release may be exaggerated in BALB/cByJ mice, such effects may be dependent on the specific characteristic of the stressor situation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the possible causes of enhancement of the heterogeneous catalytic liquid-phase oxidation reaction of m-xylene by microwave radiation

The contribution of the heterogeneous component of the total conversion of m-xylene to the process of its heterogeneous catalytic liquid-phase oxidation has been studied, as this contribution is most clearly manifested in the case of microwave treatment. It has been shown that microwave irradiation shortens the induction period of the reaction taken to reach a steady state. It has been suggested that the observed increase in the generation rate of free m-xylyl radicals by microwave treatment is due to the appearance at the hydrocarbons/catalyst interface of local overheating regions whose temperature can exceed the weight-average temperature in the reaction space.     

Ion‐transport study in nanocomposite solid polymer electrolytes based on chitosan: Electrical and dielectric analysis

In this study, (1.1111 ? x)(0.9CS–0.1NaTf)? xAl₂O₃(0.02 ≤ x ≤ 0.1) [where CS is chitosan, NaTf is sodium triflate (NaCF₃SO₃), and Al₂O₃ is aluminum oxide] nanocomposite solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) films based on CS were prepared by a solution casting technique. X‐ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy analysis revealed that the alumina nanoparticles had a great effect on the structural and morphological behavior of the CS–NaTf (90:10) polymer electrolyte. An investigation of the electrical and dielectric parameters of the nanocomposite SPE films was conducted. Electrical impedance spectroscopy was carried out for this purpose. The relationships between the electrical and dielectric parameters were used to interpret and understand the ion‐conduction mechanism. We observed that the direct‐current conductivity (σ_dc) and dielectric constant followed the same trend with salt concentration. σ_dc versus temperature showed the Arrhenius and Vogel‐Fulcher‐Tammann (VTF) regions. The drops of σ_dc at high temperatures were observed for all of the samples. The ion relaxation dynamics were studied from Argand plots. For the first time, we confirmed the existence of a strong experimental relationship between the high‐frequency semicircle of the impedance plots and the high‐frequency dispersion regions of the alternating‐current conductivity (σ_ac). The dispersion regions of σ_ac were used to study the ion‐conduction mechanism. The behavior of the frequency exponent as a function of the temperature was used to interpret σ_dc versus the temperature. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 41774.     

Improved cycling stability of V2O5 modified spinel LiMn2O4 cathode at high cut-off voltage for lithium-ion batteries

Spinel lithium manganese oxide, LiMn₂O₄ coated with V₂O₅ layer (labeled as LMO-VO) has been developed and its electrochemical performances as cathode material for lithium-ion batteries has been evaluated at high cut-off voltage (>4.5 V vs. Li/Li⁺) and compared with pristine LiMn₂O₄ (labeled as LMO). The crystal structure investigations show that LMO-VO has longer Li–O bond length for fast Li-ion diffusion kinetic process. The scanning electron microscopy results indicate that LMO-VO has finer particles and the V₂O₅ layer has been successfully coated on the LMO surface uniformly. The highly conductive V₂O₅ coating layer enhances the ionic conductivity of the LMO cathode, as evidenced by the significant drop of R_ct value from the Nyquist plot. Under high operating voltage, the cell employed with coated LMO shows exceptional cycling performance in capacity retention and potential difference. After 300 cycles, the capacity retention per cycle has been boosted from 99.90% to 99.94% by adopting the V₂O₅ coating layer. In addition, surface coating with V₂O₅ stabilizes the potential difference at very minimal change for a longer period. This convincingly proves that the V₂O₅ coating layer not only protects against hydrofluoric acid (HF) attack and greatly restrains the increase of cell polarization at high voltage.