A comparative evaluation of two sensitive serum neutralization tests for bovine herpesvirus-1 antibodies

The need for frequent injections and monitoring, the possibility of multiple gestations, and the higher cost compared to clomiphene citrate, prevents many clinicians from using human menopausal gonadotrophin (HMG) for ovulation induction. A sequential medication regimen, in which HMG is taken after clomiphene, overcomes these problems. We retrospectively compared per cycle fecundity and birth rates in 119 cycles of clomiphene-HMG, 524 cycles of clomiphene alone, 57 cycles of HMG alone, and 79 cycles of concurrent HMG and clomiphene in patients receiving intra-uterine insemination (IUI), who were free of endometriosis or tubal disease. Per cycle fecundity for clomiphene-HMG was 22% [95% confidence interval (CI) 12-34%], double that of clomiphene alone (11%) (95% CI 8-14%) (P < 0.01), and equal to HMG alone (18%) (95% CI 7-29%) or HMG and clomiphene together (19%) (95% CI 10-28%). The multiple birth rate for clomiphene-HMG (7/21) equalled that for HMG alone (3/12) and HMG and clomiphene together (3/8). The average number of ampoules of HMG required [follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) 75 mIU, luteinizing hormone (LH) 75 mIU] was decreased by 65% from 24.5 +/- 1.0 for HMG or HMG and clomiphene together to 8.6 +/- 0.3 for clomiphene-HMG (P < 0.001). Per cycle fecundity was identical when one, two or three ampoules of HMG per day were administered after clomiphene. We conclude that ovulation induction with sequential clomiphene-HMG results in fecundity double that of clomiphene alone and equal to HMG alone or concurrent with clomiphene, thereby reducing the requirement for HMG.     

Investigation of the Possibility of Using UNK Superconducting Dipole Magnets for Producing Rapid-Cycling Magnetic Fields

The superconducting dipoles developed as part of the UNK project have reached a magnetic field 6 T at a rate of up to 0.8 T/sec. Experimental data are presented on the conditioning, rate dependences, and dynamic losses for magnets with two types of superconducting cable (zebra and oxide). Possible ways to decrease the heat release in a dipole operating in rapid-cycling magnetic fields are examined. The results of an analysis of heat release and temperature conditions are presented for a dipole with a winding made of improved current-carrying components.     

Galvanomagnetic properties of 3C-SiC epilayers grown on hexagonal SiC substrates

Epitaxial 3C-SiC films have been grown on 6H-SiC substrates by sublimation epitaxy in vacuum. The Hall effect in these heterostructures and their magnetoresistance have been measured in a temperature range from 1.4 to 300 K. At liquid-helium temperatures, the samples are characterized by low resistance and exhibit negative magnetoresistance in weak fields (～1 T). Analysis of the experimental results suggests that the low resistance of samples is most probably due to the metal-insulator transition in the epitaxial 3C-SiC films.     

Water soluble acrylamide polymers, 2. Aging and viscous flow of aqueous solutions of polyacrylamide and hydrolyzed polyacrylamide

The aging of aqueous solutions of polyacrylamide which appears experimentally as a decrease of solution viscosity and which is probably caused by microorganisms may be prevented by the addition of a small amount (0.02 wt.-%) of an antimicrobial agent such as sodium azide. Aluminium chloride causes a very strong decrease of the viscosity during a prolongated storing time. The addition of aluminium ions to the polymer solution leads to a complexing of amidic groups with aluminium cations and probably also to decrease of the dimensions of individual polymer coils. The viscous flow of aqueous solutions of polyacrylamide and hydrolyzed polyacrylamides was studied as a dependence of the shear gradient D on the shear stress τ and was described by the relation D = k · τⁿ, where k and n denote constants. Both constants depend on the polymer concentration, the degree of polymerization and the content of carboxylic groups in the polymer. The greatest deviations from the Newtonian behaviour were found in the range of molecular weights over 2 · 10⁶ g/mol and practically no deviations were observed for polyacrylamide with molecular weights below 1 · 10⁶ g/mol. The dependence of the viscosity on the shearing time at different shear rates (300, 600 and 1200 s^?1) which was observed in solutions of polyacrylamide, hydrolyzed polyacrylamide and poly-(N,N-dimethyl)-acrylamide was explained by an entanglement model.     

Securing Passive Objects in Mobile Ad-Hoc Peer-to-Peer Networks

Security and privacy in mobile ad-hoc peer-to-peer environments are hard to attain, especially when working with passive objects (without own processing power, e.g. RFID tags). This paper introduces a method for integrating such objects into a peer-to-peer environment without infrastructure components while providing a high level of privacy and security for peers interacting with objects. The integration is done by associating public keys to passive objects, which can be used by peers to validate proxies (peers additionally acting on behalf of objects). To overcome the problem of limited storage capacity on small embedded objects, ECC keys are used.     

Structure and transport properties of nanocarbon films prepared by sublimation on a 6H-SiC surface

The transport properties of nanocarbon layers on a 6H-SiC substrate, grown by vacuum sublimation, are studied. It is found that these layers consist of a graphene layer adjacent to the substrate and a multigraphene layer coated with a polycrystalline carbine-like phase. In this case, the magnetoresistance and Shubnikov-de-Haas oscillation curves exhibit features inherent to single-layer graphene. The resistance at low temperatures is demonstrated to increase with temperature, which also corresponds to the behavior of single-layer graphene (antilocalization). At the same time, the resistance decreased with temperature at higher temperatures, which corresponds to weak localization. We believe that the observed behavior can be explained by the parallel combination of contributions of single-layer graphene and multigraphene to the conductance.