Morphologies and tensile properties of elastomer-modified epoxy and polycarbonate blended systems

The morphologies and tensile properties of an elastomer-modified epoxy (EME)/polycarbonate (PC) binary system and an EME/diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA)/PC ternary system were examined. In the EME system, a continuous elastomer-rich phase formed, while in the EME/DGEBA systems (unblended with PC), a continuous epoxy-rich phase formed. In both of these systems, two-phase structures were observed. In contrast, a microdispersed structure was observed when the PC was blended with either the EME or with the EME/DGEBA systems. It is suggested that blending of the epoxy with PC caused an increased solubility of the former into the elastomer phase. The tensile strength and tensile elongation of both the EME and EME/DGEBA systems were improved by blending with PC. In the EME/PC blend, the tensile elongation reached its maximum value (60%) at a PC content of approximately 10 p.h.r. (parts per hundred resin by weight), with this maximum being approximately one and a half times higher than that of the unblended EME. Tensile strength was also clearly increased by blending with small amounts of PC, but soon reached a steady value. In the EME/DGEBA/PC blends, the tensile properties were dependent on the weight ratio of EME to DGEBA. In the absence of PC, as this ratio increased, the tensile elongation also increased, while at the same time the tensile strength decreased. The tensile properties were also improved in this system, by blending with PC. From the results obtained, it was clear that the improvement in tensile properties was closely related to the changes in morphology. Therefore, blending of the PC induced a microdispersed structure and improved the elongation of the epoxy resin.     

Transvaginal ultrasonographic diagnosis of bladder-wall invasion in patients with cervical cancer

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the use of transvaginal ultrasonography for diagnosing invasion of the bladder by cervical cancer. METHODS: Twenty-one women with stages Ib-IIIb cervical cancer underwent radical hysterectomy or staging laparotomy. All had computed tomography (CT) scans and cystoscopic examinations, and five also underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). During transvaginal ultrasonography, a transvaginal transducer was inserted into the anterior fornix of the vagina and the bladder wall was studied in the sagittal plane. The moveability of the bladder wall was assessed by the ability of the bladder to slide along the uterine cervix when the probe was pushed up against the bladder from the anterior fornix. Moveability was considered to indicate an intact bladder wall. RESULTS: The accuracy of transvaginal ultrasonography was superior to that of the other methods for detecting bladder-wall invasion by cervical cancer. The accuracy was 95% for transvaginal ultrasonography, 76% for CT, 86% for cystoscopy, and 80% for MRI. CONCLUSION: Transvaginal ultrasonographic examination is useful for detecting invasion of the bladder wall by cervical cancer.     

Intraamniotic administration of an adenoviral vector for gene transfer to fetal sheep and mouse tissues

Replication-deficient adenoviruses have been used to transfer various genes of interest to mammalian tissues in vivo. Effective gene therapy for inborn genetic defects presenting with significant morbidity and mortality at birth will require correction of the defect prenatally. To test the hypothesis that intra-amniotically administered adenovirus transfers gene expression to fetal tissues, replication-deficient human type 5 adenovirus carrying the lacZ gene which encodes nuclear-targeted bacterial beta-galactosidase (Av1LacZ4) was instilled into the amniotic cavity of fetal sheep (10(10) to 1.5 x 10(11) pfu) and fetal mice (10(9) pfu) at 0.8 term gestation. Amniotic membranes and gastrointestinal and respiratory tract tissues were harvested after 3 d, bacterial beta-galactosidase activity was determined by 5-bromo-4-chloro-3-indoyl-beta-D-galactopyranoside (X-gal) enzyme-histochemistry, and tissue integrity was assessed in sections stained with hematoxylin and eosin. Bacterial beta-galactosidase activity was abundant in amniotic membranes and present in lower levels in esophagus, stomach, and small intestine as well as in conducting airways and pulmonary alveoli. To determine whether gene transfer by intraamniotic injection of adenovirus was dose-dependent, Av1Luc1, an adenoviral vector carrying the gene for luciferase (10(5)-10(9) pfu), was injected intraamniotically into fetal mice at 0.8 term gestation. Luciferase activity measured after 3 d in tissue homogenates of Av1Luc1-treated fetal mice revealed a linear dose response in amniotic membranes and gastrointestinal and respiratory tract organs. Intraamniotic administration of an adenoviral gene vector leads to expression of the transferred gene in amniotic membranes as well as in fetal gastrointestinal and respiratory tract tissues in a dose-dependent manner.     

Application of catastrophe theory to power systems

In recent publications dealing with nonlinear systems, nonlinearities existing in the systems under study have drawn much attention. Studies on the effects of nonlinearities in power systems are becoming an increasingly important part of the research on system stability. It is probable that heretofore undiscovered phenomena caused by the nonlinearities involved in load flow equations, generator swing equations and characteristics of control equipments and loads, etc., may be found. This paper presents a new Catastrophe Theory application to nonlinear power systems. Making use of the concept of Duffing's equation, it is shown that a Catastrophe Theory analogy can be used to interpret unstable phenomena caused by system nonlinearities from the viewpoint of oscillations. When considering system nonlinearities due to poor combinations of system parameters and periodic disturbances, there may exist the characteristic “jumps” in system ates that correspond to slow (quasi-dynamic) changes of the frequencies of periodic disturbances. With this Catastrophe Theory approach, a system bifurcation set can be identified to assess the unstable phenomena of power systems.     

Analysis of a possible reason for oscillation phenomena in adiesel-generator set through catastrophe theory

In this paper, a possible reason for oscillation phenomena in a diesel-generator set is investigated through digital and analog network simulations. The nonlinear simulations of a swing equation show sudden deviations in the amplitude of rotor angle oscillations, provided that there exist periodic fluctuations of mechanical inputs to the generator unit. This kind of oscillation, different from the one that is identified in linear resonance, is thought to be caused by system nonlinearities and ill-combination of system parameters. The results of the analog simulations show the occurrence of bifurcation phenomenon in a electrical power mode. An approximate nonlinear model of the swing equation is found to hold the form of Duffing's equation. From the viewpoint of Duffing's equation, an instability assessment method is proposed using a catastrophe theory analogy     

The TMS390C602A floating-point coprocessor for Sparc systems

A recent Sparc (scalable processor architecture) processor consists of a two-chip configuration, containing the TMS390C601 integer unit (IU) and the TMS390C602A floating-point unit (FPU). The second device, an innovative coprocessor that lets the processor execute single- or double-precision floating-point instructions concurrently with IU operations is described. Dedicated floating-point hardware in the FPU increases the performance of the system. Running at clock periods as small as 20 ns, the chip should deliver 5.5 million double-precision floating-point operations per second under the Linpack benchmark (50-MHz clock rate). The FPU provides single- and double-precision arithmetic functions: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, square root, compare, and convert. To minimize its math unit's latency, the FPU uses a highly parallel architecture requiring separate math units to optimize additions and multiplications. Traps stop the execution of a program to jump to software routine for handling data-dependent errors or to execute instructions not implemented in the hardware. Benchmark results are presented