A transmission electron microscope and electron diffraction study of carbon nanodisks

The pyrolytic Kvaerner carbon-black and hydrogen process yields industrial amounts of carbon nanodisks and nanocones. We here report on the first detailed transmission electron microscope and electron diffraction study of such carbon nanodisks. The carbon nanodisk rim thickness ranges from 5–6 nm to 60–70 nm, but most disks are 10–30 nm thick. In agreement with earlier reported results, we find that the disk diameters fall within the range from 500 to 4000 nm. Most nanodisks display six identical pairs of facets. The two associated interfacial angles are θ₁ = (22 ± 1)° and θ₂ = 60.0°−θ₁. The nanodisk fracture surfaces reveal that the nanodisks are multi-layered structures. When the incident electron beam is perpendicular to the plane of the nanodisk we find that the diffraction patterns consist of concentric and continuous rings, on top of which there are discrete sets of diffraction spots. These spots display six-fold rotational symmetry and are consistent with the diffraction patterns of graphite layers.     

Carbon nanocones: wall structure and morphology

Large-scale production of conical carbon nanostructures is possible through pyrolysis of hydrocarbons in a plasma torch process. The resulting carbon cones occur in five distinctly different forms, and disc-shaped particles are produced as well. The structure and properties of these carbon cones and discs have been relatively little explored until now. Here we characterize the structure of these particles using transmission electron microscopy, synchrotron x-ray and electron diffraction. The carbon nanocones are found to exhibit several interesting structural features; instead of having a uniform cross-section, the walls consist of a relatively thin inner graphite-like layer with a non-crystalline envelope, where the amount of the latter can be modified significantly by annealing. The cones appear with a well-defined faceting along the cone edge, demonstrating strict long-range atomic ordering; they also present occasional examples of symmetry breaking, such as two apexes appearing in the same carbon nanocone.     

Proteolytic activities of ventral muscle and intestinal content of North Sea herring (Clupea harengus) with full and emptied stomachs

The aim of the work was to examine the effect of allowing herring (Clupea harengus) to empty the stomachs prior to being taken on board the fishing vessels, on the proteolytic activities in extracts of ventral muscle and of intestinal content. The proteolytic activities were examined by gelatin zymography and by incubating the extracts with isolated myosin heavy chain (MHC) protein. Extracts from herring with full stomachs showed strong gelatinolytic and MHC degrading activities particularly in extracts from intestinal contents. Extracts from fish that had been allowed to empty their digestive system for 19 h had reduced activities, which was most noticeable in the ventral muscle extracts. The activities from the ventral muscle did not originate endogenously post-mortem, as shown by the fact that ice storage for 24 h of isolated ventral muscle did not display the activities, while ventral muscle extract from ice-stored whole fish for 24 h did.     

The Symmetric Table Addition Method for Accurate Function Approximation

This paper presents a high-speed method for computing elementary functions using parallel table lookups and multi-operand addition. Increasing the number of tables and inputs to the multi-operand adder significantly reduces the amount of memory required. Symmetry and leading zeros in the table coefficients are used to reduce the amount of memory even further. This method has a closed-form solution for the table entries and can be applied to any differentiable function. For 24-bit operands, it requires two to three orders of magnitude less memory than conventional table lookups.     

Monolayers of triaroylbenzene derivatives

Monolayers of triaroylbenzene derivatives bearing three octyl groups projecting away from the molecular core and terminated by hydroxyl, carboxylic acid, and methyl ester groups have been studied using surface pressure isotherm measurements and Brewster angle microscopy. The octyl derivative lacking a terminal hydrophilic group forms a monolayer of limited stability. The derivatives with hydrophilic end-groups on the octyl chains form stable monolayers. A reorientation at the water surface under compression from a ‘face-on’ to a distorted ‘edge-on’ arrangement appears likely. At intermediate molecular areas, a phase transition occurs and aggregate formation is observed. Studies of mixtures with methyl stearate exhibit a contrast inversion between the background phase and immiscible domains of methyl stearate supporting the concept of a reorientation of the triaroylbenzene derivatives during compression.     

Phase I study of topotecan in combination with cyclophosphamide in pediatric patients with malignant solid tumors: a Pediatric Oncology Group Study

Locally produced proinflammatory cytokines are likely to play a pathophysiological role in autoimmune thyroid disease. An important feature of the thyroid, not previously considered in cytokine actions, is the barrier created by the follicular epithelium, which secludes two lumenal autoantigens [thyroglobulin (Tg) and thyroperoxidase] from the extrafollicular space. We examined the influence of recombinant cytokines on the barrier function of human thyrocytes cultured as a tight and polarized monolayer in bicameral chambers. Whereas interleukin (IL)-6 (100 U/mL), interferon-gamma (100 U/mL), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (10 ng/mL), and transforming growth factor-beta1 (10 ng/mL) had no effects, exposure to IL-1alpha for 24-48 h reduced the transepithelial resistance from >1000 to <50 omega x cm2 and increased the paracellular flux of [3H]inulin and exogenous 125I-Tg. This response to IL-1alpha, which was dose dependent (1-1000 U/mL) and reversible, was accompanied by dramatic morphological changes of the epithelial junction complex, including aberrant localization of the tight junction protein zonula occludens-1. At the same time, IL-1alpha decreased the apical secretion of endogenous Tg and stimulated the basolateral release of a novel high-molecular-mass protein. We conclude that IL-1alpha reduces the thyroid epithelial barrier without signs of general cytotoxicity. The observation suggests a mechanism by which IL-1alpha may promote the exposure of hidden autoantigens to the immune system in thyroid autoimmunity.     

A paradigm for quality-of-service in wireless ad hoc networks using synchronous signaling and node states

Most limitations in mechanisms geared at achieving quality-of-service (QoS) in wireless ad hoc networking can be traced to solutions based on mapping wireless networks to a wireline paradigm of nodes and links. We contend that this paradigm is not appropriate since links are not physical entities and do not accurately represent the radio frequency (RF) media. Using the link abstraction makes arbitration of the use of the RF media cumbersome leaving only overprovisioning techniques to deliver QoS. In this paper, we argue that an appropriate paradigm should match the physics of the network. The critical resource is electromagnetic spectrum in a space; in turn, this results in a complex paradigm since the part of the spectrum-space that each node wants to use is unique to that node and its destination and will overlap with parts that other nodes may want to use creating interdependences among nodes. This paper describes protocol approaches for access and routing that seek solutions within this wireless paradigm. Access is arbitrated using synchronous signaling and topology is resolved through the dissemination of node states. This approach provides an intuitive framework that provides mechanisms that can be exploited to arbitrate RF media use and implement traffic engineering techniques to deliver QoS. Our proposed approach provides a novel way of tracking the state of the network that can serve as a unified state dissemination mechanism to simultaneously support routing, multicasting, and most QoS heuristics.     

Correlation between the onset age of Huntington's disease and length of the trinucleotide repeat in IT-15

Huntington's disease (HD) is an autosomal dominant disorder with a variable age of onset that is influenced by the sex of the affected parent. The recent recognition that HD is caused by an expanded triplet repeat suggests the possibility that the onset age may be predicted by the length of the repeat. This hypothesis was tested by assaying the length of the repeat in 114 individuals who were clinically diagnosed with HD and had a known onset age. Every individual had an expanded allele. The range was from 36 to 82 repeats (mean = 48.4 +/- 9.51) and larger than the normal range (6 to 31). The size of the expanded allele was correlated with the age of onset (r = -0.65 p < .0001). Despite the highly significant correlation, the repeat size explains less than half of the variance in onset age. Furthermore, the age of onset cannot be predicted from the size of the triplet repeat, particularly if the number of repeats is in the smaller end of the expanded range. If the repeat is < or = 50 triplets, the amount of variation in the age of onset explained by the length of the triplet repeat is less than 10%. As an illustration, the onset age of individuals with 39 repeats ranges from 30 to 65 years old. The sex of the affected parent had no effect in our sample beyond the effect of the length of the repeat. Affected offspring of affected fathers had longer repeats and a larger variance in allele size than offspring of affected mothers, perhaps reflecting greater instability in paternal transmission.