Mesopore development in PAN-ACF resulting from non-metal additives

The narrow pore-size distribution of activated carbon fibres (ACF) limits their application in the fields concerning larger molecules, such as liquid adsorption and catalyst support. On the addition of carbon particles and organic materials to polyacrylonitrile fibres, and after stabilizing and activating, the mesoporosity in the resultant ACF has been obviously increased. Among these additives, carbon black gives the best effect. With 1 wt% carbon black I in precursor and on activating at 880°C for 30 min, a mesoporosity of 48.2% (total pore volume 0.704 ml g-1, mesopore volume 0.340 ml g-1) has been obtained. The mechanism of mesopore formation is also discussed. This revised version was published online in November 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The cholinergic system in Alzheimer's disease

The past decade has witnessed an enormous increase in our knowledge of the variety and complexity of neuropathological and neurochemical changes in Alzheimer's disease. Although the disease is characterized by multiple deficits of neurotransmitters in the brain, this overview emphasizes the structural and neurochemical localization of the elements of the acetylcholine system (choline acetyltransferase, acetylcholinesterase, and muscarinic and nicotinic acetylcholine receptors) in the non-demented brain and in Alzheimer's disease brain samples. The results demonstrate a great variation in the distribution of acetylcholinesterase, choline acetyltransferase, and the nicotinic and muscarinic acetylcholine receptors in the different brain areas, nuclei and subnuclei. When stratification is present in certain brain regions (olfactory bulb, cortex, hippocampus, etc.), differences can be detected as regards the laminar distribution of the elements of the acetylcholine system. Alzheimer's disease involves a substantial loss of the elements of the cholinergic system. There is evidence that the most affected areas include the cortex, the entorhinal area, the hippocampus, the ventral striatum and the basal part of the forebrain. Other brain areas are less affected. The fact that the acetylcholine system, which plays a significant role in the memory function, is seriously impaired in Alzheimer's disease has accelerated work on the development of new drugs for treatment of the disease of the 20th century.     

Regional chemotherapy of liver tumors

In the absence of adequate autogenous vein for tibial artery bypass in limb salvage surgery, the use of prosthetic grafts with a distal anastomotic vein cuff or patch has shown promising results. Here, we describe how the Florester Internal Vessel Occluder (Meadox UK, Bedfordshire, UK) can facilitate the construction of a distal anastomotic vein cuff.     

Significance of chloride channel activation in the gamma-aminobutyric acid induced growth hormone secretion in the neonatal rat pituitary

Growth hormone (GH) secretion of the neonatal pituitary is stimulated by tau-aminobutyric acid (GABA) (1,2). Since in most cases GABA is known to act by increasing postsynaptic membrane permeability to chloride ions we tested the importance of chloride channel activation in the GH stimulatory effect of GABA in the neonatal pituitary. In the absence of chloride in the superfusion medium GABA was without effect on GH secretion of the neonatal pituitaries and its effect was attenuated by chloride channel inhibitors. The effect of growth hormone releasing hormone (GHRH) on GH secretion was attenuated in the chloride-free media, but it was not affected by simultaneous administration of chloride channel blockers. The present study indicates that GH stimulatory effect of GABA in the neonatal pituitaries might involve chloride channel activation probably resulting in secondary activation of calcium channels.     

Prognostic factors of early sequelae and fatal outcome of Japanese encephalitis

A clinical case control study to identify prognostic factors present at hospital admission associated with early sequelae and fatal outcome of acute Japanese encephalitis (JE) was carried out in Gusi county, Henan Province, central China from June to September 1991. A total of 70 patients with laboratory-confirmed acute JE were studied, of whom 3 cases died and 33 cases had neurological or psychiatric sequelae at the end of three months follow-up. The results showed that acute JE at younger age, with higher body temperature, high white cell count in CSF, and deep coma present at hospital admission were markers for unfavorable outcomes (sequelae or fatal). A history of the vaccination was not correlated with the early sequelae and fatal outcome of the disease. The paper suggests that early diagnosis and treatment and universal JE vaccination for all susceptible populations are keys for decreasing incidence of sequelae and fatal outcome of acute JE.     

A Progressive Radiosity Algorithm for Scenes Containing Curved Surfaces

Based on the theory of light energy transfer between two differential diffuse surface areas, a generalized radiosity approach is presented. Unlike the conventional radiosity method, curved surfaces are subdivided into triangular surface patches, radiosity is assummed to be vary across each triangular surface patch. By adopting linear interpolation scheme over each triangular surface patch, we have established a complete set of approximated radiosity equations. Their unknowns are radiosities of differential surface areas located at all vertices of surface patches. The generalized radiosity equation has also been extended to non-diffuse environments. Theoretical analysis and experimental results demonstrate the great potential of this method,     

Oxygen absorption kinetics in YBa2Cu3Ox

The oxygen absorption process in highly aligned YBa₂Cu₃O_x samples in air and in pure oxygen was studied at several constant temperatures. The process can be expressed in two steps, a chemical reaction controlled step and a diffusion controlled step. The kinetic equations are as follows respectively:

(1 − a_t) ln(1 − a_t) + a_t = k_Dt

The activation energy was calculated using an Arrhenius equation. The technical conditions of heat treatment for oxygen absorption of highly aligned YBa₂Cu₃O_x crystals are discussed.     

Two-dimensional singular vector elements for finite-elementanalysis

The finite-element method (FEM) exhibits a reduced convergence rate when used for the analysis of geometries containing sharp edges where the electromagnetic field is singular. The convergence of the method can be-improved by introducing singular elements that model analytically predicted singular behavior. A number of authors have developed singular elements that are compatible with the scalar FEM. In this paper, we propose a new singular element that is compatible with edge-based vector finite elements and can cope with any order of singularity while preserving the sparsity of the FEM equations. Edge-based singular elements more correctly model singular fields and thus require fewer unknowns, while avoiding the introduction of spurious modes in the numerical solution. Numerical results verify that the convergence of the FEM is significantly improved