Biodegradable polymers: An update

The use of polymeric materials for the administration of pharmaceuticals, and as biomedical devices has increased dramatically. This review focuses on synthetic biodegradable polymers of current interest for medical use, based on ester and anhydride bonds. Special attention is given to factors affecting biodegradation, including: polymer structure, morphology, molecular weight, radiation, and chemical treatment, as well as the effects of drugs and plasticizers added to the polymer mass. The toxicity and biocompatibility of the polymers and their current and future applications in medicine are also briefly reviewed.     

Instrumentation and methodological oxygen-activation logging system for oil and gas wells

An instrumentation and methodological system for oil- and gas-well logging by means of oxygen activation by radiation from a small generator with 14-MeV neutrons is described. The results of preliminary experimental investigations of an operating model using real geophysical objects are presented. It is shown that the method of oxygen activation with in-well neutron generators based on vacuum accelerator tubes with triggering frequency 10–20 Hz and gas-filled tubes with triggering frequency 300–1000 Hz is possible in principle, and the special features of the implementation of the method are described.Translated from Atomnaya Énergiya, Vol. 97, No. 5, pp. 355–361, November, 2004.     

Change in the stoichiometric composition of deuterium and tritium in neutron-forming targets of accelerator neutron tubes with a laser ion source

Translated from Atomnaya Énergiya, Vol. 65, No. 3, pp. 221–222, September, 1988.     

Acceleration of Dusty Plasma Flow in Azimuthal Electric and Radial Magnetic Fields

Technical Physics Letters - In the framework of the model of cold hydrodynamics, acceleration of the flow of dusty plasma in azimuthal electric and radial magnetic fields has been studied. The...     

Influence of laser pulse parameters on characteristics of a source of multicharged metal ions based on laser-induced medium-power spark discharge

The dynamics of laser-induced vacuum spark discharge with storage energy not exceeding 25 J has been studied in a broad range of laser pulse energies and power densities. It is shown that, using discharge-initiating laser pulse of nanosecond duration, it is possible to obtain stable single pinching of cathode jet plasma at a storage voltage above 10 kV. Plasma pinching is accompanied by the generation of a beam of multicharged ions of the cathode material (aluminum) up to Al⁸⁺. The maximum energies of ions obey the scaling relation E _max = 5ZeU ₀ that has been obtained previously for a low-voltage discharge. An increase in the laser pulse energy leads to growth of the average beam charge and a sharp decrease in the ion energy.     

Autonomous agents and human cultures in the trust–revenge game

Autonomous agents developed by experts are embedded with the capability to interact well with people from different cultures. When designing expert agents intended to interact with autonomous agents developed by non-game theory agents (NGTE), it is beneficial to obtain insights on the behavior of these NGTE agents. Is the behavior of these NGTE agents similar to human behavior from different cultures? This is an important question as such a quality would allow an expert agent interacting with NGTE agents to model them using the same methods that are used to model humans from different cultures. To study this point, we evaluated NGTE agents behavior using a game called the Trust–Revenge game, which is known in social science for capturing different human tendencies. The Trust–Revenge game has a unique subgame-perfect equilibrium strategy profile, however, very rarely do people follow it. We compared the behavior of autonomous agents to the actions of several human demographic groups—one of which is similar to the designers of the autonomous agents. We claim that autonomous agents are similar to human players from various cultures. This enables the use of approaches, developed for handling cultural diversity among humans, to be applied for interaction with NGTE agents. This paper also analyzes additional aspects of autonomous agents behavior and whether composing autonomous agents affects human behavior.