Interpretation of thorium bioassay data

This study is a comparison between bioassay data of thorium-exposed workers from two different facilities. The first of these facilities is a monazite sand extraction plant. Isotopic equilibrium between²³²Th and²²⁸Th was not observed in excreta samples of these workers. The second facility is a gas mantle factory. An isotopic equilibrium between²³²Th and²²⁸Th was observed in excreta samples. Whole body counter measurements have indicated a very low intake of thorium through inhalation. As the concentration of thorium in feces was very high we concluded that the main pathway of entrance of the nuclide was ingestion, mainly via contamination through dirty hands.The comparison between the bioassay results of workers from the two facilities shows that the lack of Th isotopic equilibrium observed in the excretion from the workers at the monazite sand plant possibly occurred due to an additional Th intake by ingestion of contaminated fresh food. This is presumably because²²⁸Ra is more efficiently taken up from the soil by plants, in comparison to²²⁸Th or²³²Th, and subsequently,²²⁸Th grows in from its immediate parent,²²⁸Ra.     

Thermoluminescent properties of a Li2O-B2O3-Al2O3 glass system doped with CaF2 and Mn

A Li₂O-B₂O₃-Al₂O₃ glass system doped with CaF₂ and Mn was synthesized by fusion and its physical properties were investigated using thermoluminescence (TL) and differential thermal analysis (DTA) techniques. The TL glow curve peaks, resulting from this analysis, are characteristic of metastable levels intrinsic to CaF₂ crystals that have undergone γ-ray irradiation from a colbalt-60 (⁶⁰Co) source. This provides evidence of CaF₂ crystal formation in the glass system. Furthermore, the TL glow peak at about 480 K was stable at room temperature, sensitive to ⁶⁰Co γ-rays and showed good linearity with doses ranging from 3 Gy to approximately 100 Gy, and consequently could be used to quantify radiation doses. High quality synthesis of these crystals permits control of their thermoluminescent properties.     

Influence of drying processes on oxidative stability of ethyl corn biodiesel by differential scanning calorimetry

The influence of drying processes in the biodiesel oxidation was investigated by means of the oxidative induction time obtained from differential scanning calorimetry data. For this purpose, corn biodiesel was dried by different methods including: chemical (anhydrous sodium sulfate) and thermal (induction heating, heating under vacuum and with microwave irradiation). The drying efficiency was evaluated by monitoring IR absorption in the 3,500–3,200 cm⁻¹ range and by the AOCS Bc 2-49 method. In general, the oxidative induction times increased inversely to the heating degree, except that of microwave irradiation, which was selective to water evaporation and caused low impact over the unsaturation of biodiesel. The DSC technique was shown to be a powerful tool to evaluate with high level of differentiation the influence of the drying process on the oxidative stability of biodiesel.     

Resonant Raman scattering characterization of carbon nanotubes grown with different catalysts

Single-walled carbon nanotube samples produced in the presence of different combinations of metal catalysts have been studied by resonant Raman spectroscopy. The diameter distribution of different samples has been determined by analysis of the laser excitation energy dependence of the tangential modes associated with metallic nanotubes. These modes are resonantly enhanced over a narrow range of the exciting energies, which shifts for different samples. The Raman cross-section expression has been used to fit the experimental Raman excitation profiles. This procedure was used to determine the mean value and the width of the distribution of diameters within each sample.     

Analyticity properties and a convergent expansion for the inverse correlation length of the low-temperatured-dimensional Ising model

We show that the inverse correlation lengthm(z) of the truncated spin-spin correlation function of theZ ^d Ising model with + or — boundary conditions admits the representationm(z) = –(4d–4)ln z(1–_d1) + r(z) for smallz=e ^–, i.e., large inverse temperatures is ad-dependent analytic function atz = 0, already known in closed form ford = 1 and 2; ford = 3 b_n can be computed explicitly from a finite number of the Z^d limits of z = 0 Taylor series coefficients of the finite lattice correlation function at a finite number of points ofZ ^d.     

Gallium extraction by microemulsions

In this work, the use of microemulsion in the extraction of gallium, with Bayer process, has been studied. The studied microemulsion systems were: systems I and II, with saponified coconut oil (SCO) and 4-ethyl,1-methyl,7-octyl,8-hydroxyquinoleine (Kelex-100) as extractants. The extraction essays by microemulsion were carried out by applying an experimental planning method whose microemulsion points were prepared within an experimental domain favorable to the extraction. Gallium and aluminum extraction percentages, in each point, were evaluated via a statistical treatment of the data, with the use of variance analysis and mathematical models. In system I (SCO), percentages of extraction of 85.5% for gallium and 35.4% for aluminum were achieved; in system II (Kelex-100), the yields were 100% for gallium and 99.9% for aluminum. The reextraction study with sulfuric acid presented the same behavior for both systems, with efficiency depending upon the concentration of the acid, and allowing for a selective reextraction of gallium and aluminum.     

New Imatinib Derivatives with Antiproliferative Activity against A549 and K562 Cancer Cells

Tyrosine kinase enzymes are among the primary molecular targets for the treatment of some human neoplasms, such as those in lung cancer and chronic myeloid leukemia. Mutations in the enzyme domain can cause resistance and new inhibitors capable of circumventing these mutations are highly desired. The objective of this work was to synthesize and evaluate the antiproliferative ability of ten new analogs that contain isatins and the phenylamino-pyrimidine pyridine (PAPP) skeleton, the main pharmacophore group of imatinib. The 1,2,3-triazole core was used as a spacer in the derivatives through a click chemistry reaction and gave good yields. All the analogs were tested against A549 and K562 cells, lung cancer and chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) cell lines, respectively. In A549 cells, the 3,3-difluorinated compound (3a), the 5-chloro-3,3-difluorinated compound (3c) and the 5-bromo-3,3-difluorinated compound (3d) showed IC₅₀ values of 7.2, 6.4, and 7.3 μM, respectively, and were all more potent than imatinib (IC₅₀ of 65.4 μM). In K562 cells, the 3,3-difluoro-5-methylated compound (3b) decreased cell viability to 57.5% and, at 10 µM, showed an IC₅₀ value of 35.8 μM (imatinib, IC₅₀ = 0.08 μM). The results suggest that 3a, 3c, and 3d can be used as prototypes for the development of more potent and selective derivatives against lung cancer.     

Ultrasound speckle and equivalent scatterers

B-mode ultrasound images are characterised by the speckle artefact, which introduces fine-false structures whose apparent resolution is beyond the imaging system capabilities. Speckle presence is due to interference effects between overlapping echoes and its occurrence is related to a great number of randomly distributed structure scatterers within a resolution cell. Basing our analysis on linear system theory, we show that a dense random set of scatterers can be substituted by an equivalent one with a much smaller number of periodic scatterers. This new structure with regularly distributed scatterers is able to give rise to the same B-mode image and the same speckle pattern, for a given ultrasound pulse. This new approach helps the understanding of the deterministic nature of speckle and may reduce drastically the computing time in numerical simulations. Additionally, it can contribute to periodicity analysis used in tissue characterisation.