On the origin of strain softening during deformation of aluminum in torsion to large strains

An investigation of the evolution of the stress-strain curve during deformation in torsion has been carried out. The stress first increases to a narrow plateau, followed by a decrease in flow stress of about 20 pct until steady state is reached. In order to determine the factors that are responsible for the fall in flow stress, investigations of the microstructure and texture were made. The subgrain size was found to increase by about 20 pct corresponding to a fall in the flow stress of about 10 pct. The texture was found to change from a close to random texture at the peak of the flow stress to a texture mainly consisting of the components {001}〈110〉 and {112}〈110〉 at the strain where the stress-strain curve reaches the second steady state. A fall in the flow stress of about 5 pct could be ascribed to changes in texture occurring during deformation.     

Segmenting articular cartilage automatically using a voxel classification approach

We present a fully automatic method for articular cartilage segmentation from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) which we use as the foundation of a quantitative cartilage assessment. We evaluate our method by comparisons to manual segmentations by a radiologist and by examining the interscan reproducibility of the volume and area estimates. Training and evaluation of the method is performed on a data set consisting of 139 scans of knees with a status ranging from healthy to severely osteoarthritic. This is, to our knowledge, the only fully automatic cartilage segmentation method that has good agreement with manual segmentations, an interscan reproducibility as good as that of a human expert, and enables the separation between healthy and osteoarthritic populations. While high-field scanners offer high-quality imaging from which the articular cartilage have been evaluated extensively using manual and automated image analysis techniques, low-field scanners on the other hand produce lower quality images but to a fraction of the cost of their high-field counterpart. For low-field MRI, there is no well-established accuracy validation for quantitative cartilage estimates, but we show that differences between healthy and osteoarthritic populations are statistically significant using our cartilage volume and surface area estimates, which suggests that low-field MRI analysis can become a useful, affordable tool in clinical studies.     

Chemiluminescence of fish oils and its flavour quality

Sodium hypochlorite-induced and luminol-sensitised chemiluminescence (CL) of refined, high quality fish oils (FO) have been examined in order to evaluate a sensitive method to determine the flavour quality, ie the rancidity of the oils. Dispensing sodium hypochiorite (NaOCl) into emulsified FO caused a burst of CL and the counts of CL per mg FO increased with the amount of emulsification. The NaOCl induced burst of CL increased with the concentration of NaOCl. CL intensity increased with the temperature and was influenced by O₂ in the headspace of the cuvette located in the luminometer. The addition of luminol (Lm) to a concentration of 0.2 μM increased the NaOCl induced CL sevenfold. The deterioration of stored FO samples produced NaOCl induced Lm sensitised CL that increased with storage time and were correlated to the sensory scores. The performance of the CL analysis is simple and rapid (approximately 10 min). The Lm addition improved the sensitivity of NaOCl induced CL and the method is suitable for evaluating the rancidity of refined, high quality fish oils.     

Photoelastic constants of ADP

Though a number of authors have reported the photoelastic behaviour of ADP, there are discrepancies in the literature with regard to its photoelastic constants. In the present study all the static and dynamic data have been obtained again by repeating the experiments and the most acceptable values of the stress-optical and strain-optical constants are calculated by the method of least squares. The results are discussed in the light of earlier studies.The authors' grateful thanks are due to Dr Hans Jaffe of Clevite Corporation (Gould Inc), USA for kindly presenting the crystal blanks.     

Crystallography of directionally solidified magnesium alloy AZ91

The crystallographic direction of growth in directionally solidified magnesium alloy AZ91 has been studied by TEM and EBSP techniques in SEM. The main direction of growth is found to be . The dendrites have sixfold symmetry around the main direction, with secondary arms lying along the traces of the (0001), , and -planes, respectively. The secondary arms lying in the basal plane are crystallographically of the same type as the main direction: and .     

trans fatty acids. 4. Effects on fatty acid composition of colostrum and milk

trans Isometric fatty acids of partially hydrogenated fish oil (PHFO) consist oftrans 20∶1 andtrans 22∶1 in addition to thetrans isomers of 18∶1, which are abundant in hydrogenated vegetable oils, such as in partially hydrogenated soybean oil (PHSBO). The effects of dietarytrans fatty acids in PHFO and PHSBO on the fatty acid composition of milk were studied at 0 (colostrum) and 21 dayspostpartum in sows. The dietary fats were PHFO (28%trans), or PHSBO (36%trans) and lard. Sunflower seed oil (4%) was added to each diet. The fats were fed from three weeks of age throughout the lactation period of Experiment 1. In Experiment 2 PHFO or “fully” hydrogenated fish oil (HFO) (19%trans), in comparison with coconut oil (CF) (0%trans), was fed with two levels of dietary linoleic acid, 1 and 2.7% from conception throughout the lactation period. Feedingtrans-containing fats led to secretion oftrans fatty acids in the milk lipids. Levels oftrans 18∶1 andtrans 20∶1 in milk lipids, as percentages of totalcis+trans 18∶1 andcis+trans 20∶1, respectively, were about 60% of that of the dietary fats, with no significant differences between PHFO and PHSBO. The levels were similar for colostrum and milk. Feeding HFO gave relatively lesstrans 18∶1 andtrans 20∶1 fatty acids in milk lipids than did PHFO and PHSBO. Only low levels ofcis+trans 22∶1 were found in milk lipids. Feedingtrans-containing fat had no consistent effects on the level of polyenoic fatty acids but reduced the level of saturated fatty acids and increased the level ofcis+trans monoenoic fatty acids. Increasing the dietary level of linoleic acid had no effect on the secretion oftrans fatty acids but increased the level of linoleic acid in milk. The overall conclusion was that the effect of dietary fats containingtrans fatty acids on the fat content and the fatty acid composition of colostrum and milk in sows were moderate to minor.     

Comparison of lipid status in the hearts of piglets and rats on short term feeding of marine oils and rapeseed oils

A series of 4 experiments with piglets and one experiment with rats has been conducted to establish the cardiac lipid status of weanling (3 weeks old) male animals fed fats with different contents of docosenoic fatty acids. Experimental fats were rapeseed oil (RSO) (48.0% 22∶1), refined fish oil (RFO) (14.6% 22∶1), partially hydrogenated fish oil (PHFO) (14.3% 22∶1) and lard (0% 22∶1) combined with sunflower seed oil (SFO) in different proportions in diets with 21% total fat. Lipidosis could not be detected in piglets as increased heart weights, by chemical assay for myocardial contents of triglycerides, or by accumulation of docosenoic fatty acids or nonesterified fatty acids (NEFA). In rats, diets with RSO at a level of 16% increased myocardial triglyceride and docosenoic fatty acid contents about 7 times while the effect on cardiac NEFA was inconsistent. Histological examinations of the hearts revealed stainable intracellular fat droplets in some piglets fed 16% RSO for 8 to 13 days, but not after 2,4 and 6 and 16, 19 and 22 days of feeding. After 10 days of feeding, mild to moderate histological lipidosis was found in piglets fed diets containing 2% or more of 22∶1 fatty acids, with no significant difference between RSO, RFO and PHFO in this respect. The same diets in rats gave about 5 times more histological lipidosis than in piglets. This is attributed to a difference in species response, the rat reacting in a more pronounced manner than the piglet. The cardiac lipidosis no-effect level in piglets corresponded to a daily intake of docosenoic fatty acids of 0.4 g per kg body weight. Mild lipidosis was also found in a few animals on docosenoic acid-free diets.     

Dendritic solidification of magnesium alloy AZ91

The magnesium alloy AZ91 has been studied under different solidification conditions, to establish the details of the as-cast structure. The electron backscattered pattern (EBSP) technique has been used to determine the crystallographic directions of the dendrite stem and the secondary arms. Under unidirectional solidification conditions, two different stem directions were found: at a low temperature gradient and high growth velocity, the dendrites grew in a «11-20» direction, while at higher temperature gradients and lower growth velocities, the growth direction was (2245). Dendrites with «11-20» stems have arms in six directions around the stem, while dendrites with «22-45» stems have three secondary arm directions. The crystallographic directions of the secondary arms are the same as the two stem directions.     

Concentrations, biomagnification and spatial variation of organochlorine compounds in a pelagic food web in the northern part of the Baltic Sea

A computer program, BrainView, is presented which has been developed to reconstruct, visualize, and evaluate three dimensional (3D) biological and medical imaging data, such as images from histological sections, confocal microscopy, or magnetic resonance tomography. The program allows the simultaneous display of three orthogonal sectional planes, i.e. the horizontal, frontal, and sagittal planes, of reconstructed data and to move interactively through the brain to optimally assess the 3D data set. Furthermore, any arbitrary sectioning plane through a data set can be visualized. Implemented warping algorithms allow the geometric normalization of data sets of different animals, modalities or developmental stages as a preprocessing for the comparative evaluation of the data. For a quantitative analysis, data sets can be segmented based on equal grey levels and the corresponding equidensities were calculated. The program works on Apple-Macintosh computers and has a user-friendly graphical interface. The BrainView program is discussed in comparison to related programs.