Metallothionein as a biomarker for mercury in tissues of rat fed orally with cinnabar

Cinnabar, as one of the most widely used mineral drugs in traditional Chinese medicines, has been proven to have prominent curative effects in clinical use for more than 2000 years. But the safety and toxicity of the drug has been under constant debate in clinic usage. Metallothionein (MT) contains about 30% of cysteine in the molecule, and plays an important detoxification role against heavy metals. In this study, it was used as a biomarker to assess mercurial accumulation in rats fed orally with cinnabar. After feeding rats with cinnabar by gastric gavage at different dosages and at different times, the distribution of heavy metals (including mercury, copper and zinc) and MT was investigated among rat tissues, including liver, kidney, heart, brain, testis and blood. Metals and MT determinations were carried out using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP‐MS) and a modified mercury saturation assay technique respectively. The results indicated that mercury was easily accumulated in the tissues of rats exposed to cinnabar, especially in kidney. For example: at a feeding dosage of 5 g kg^?1 (bw) for 4 weeks, the mercury concentrations in kidney were 13, 8.7, 21.6 and 26 times those in liver, testis, brain and heart respectively; and at 2.5 g kg^?1 (bw) for 2 weeks, the mercury concentrations in kidney were 21, 2.1, 3 and 21 times those in liver, testis, brain and heart respectively. In addition, mercury in kidney and liver of all cinnabar groups was significantly higher than that of the control group (P < 0.01). A high positive correlation observed between MT concentrations and mercury levels in both liver and kidney (R² = 0.9299, P < 0.02 for liver; R² = 0.9923, P < 0.0008 for kidney) indicated that MT could be used as a biomarker for mercury in tissues. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Numerical analysis of the rotating viscous flow approaching a solid sphere

A numerical simulation is performed to investigate the flow induced by a sphere moving along the axis of a rotating cylindrical container filled with the viscous fluid. Three‐dimensional incompressible Navier–Stokes equations are solved using a finite element method. The objective of this study is to examine the feature of waves generated by the Coriolis force at moderate Rossby numbers and that to what extent the Taylor–Proudman theorem is valid for the viscous rotating flow at small Rossby number and large Reynolds number. Calculations have been undertaken at the Rossby numbers (R_o) of 1 and 0.02 and the Reynolds numbers (R_e) of 200 and 500. When R_o=O(1), inertia waves are exhibited in the rotating flow past a sphere. The effects of the Reynolds number and the ratio of the radius of the sphere and that of the rotating cylinder on the flow structure are examined. When R_o ? 1, as predicted by the Taylor–Proudman theorem for inviscid flow, the so‐called ‘Taylor column’ is also generated in the viscous fluid flow after an evolutionary course of vortical flow structures. The initial evolution and final formation of the ‘Taylor column’ are exhibited. According to the present calculation, it has been verified that major theoretical statement about the rotating flow of the inviscid fluid may still approximately predict the rotating flow structure of the viscous fluid in a certain regime of the Reynolds number. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Kinetic theories and mesoscopic models for solutions of nonhomogeneous liquid crystal polymers

We present a systematic derivation of hydrodynamic theories for nonhomogeneous nematic liquid crystal polymers (LCPs) by approximating the molecules as rigid ellipsoids, which can be either uniaxial molecules (spheroids) or biaxial ones. The short range interaction is assumed to be dominated by the excluded volume effect. Additional molecular properties with ellipsoidal molecules, e.g., a dipole–dipole interaction in extended nematics and chiral molecular structure in cholesterics, are accounted for through additional intermolecular potentials. Long-range molecular interaction is implemented through an averaged mean-field potential characterized by interaction functions. The extra elastic stress tensor is calculated using an extended virtual work principle consistent with conservation of angular momentum on the material volume, whereas the extra viscous stress is obtained by Batchelor’s volume averaging method. In the isothermal case, the theories are shown to satisfy the second law of thermodynamics, i.e., they admit positive production of entropy or energy dissipation. In the case of cholesterics, the kinetic theory reduces to the Leslie–Ericksen theory in the limit of weak translational diffusion, weak long range interaction, and weak flow.     

ICF研究中的Rayleigh-Taylor不稳定性实验用靶

 概述了当前研究Rayleigh-Taylor不稳定性增长实验所用的靶型情况。从实验用靶来看，调制靶的设计正从平面向立体发展，出现了球形和柱形等新靶形，制备手段包括精密机械微加工、激光束、电子束和离子束加工、半导体工艺和微米纳米技术加工等。根据对国外新靶型的研究，结合国内工艺条件和实验需求，对国内可能采用的靶型进行了研究探索。     

πNN过程对Gottfried求和规则破坏的贡献

指出在计算πNN过程对核子结构函数的贡献时,将反冲核子视为物理核子更为合理.对Gottfried求和规则破坏、对质子中海夸克分布u和d不对称u(x)–d(x)等方面的贡献给出了详细的计算,与已有实验进行比较.结果表明π介子交换不是导致这一破坏以及影响核子结构函数的效应的惟一来源.     

Lanthanide Complexes for Oligomerization of Phenyl Isocyanate

IntroductionThestudyonthereactivitiesoflanthanidecomplexesto wardisocyanateshasattractedmuchattention .Ithasbeenre portedthatlanthanidealkoxides,1anddivalentdiaza pentadi enyllanthanidecomplexes2 canbeusedasthesinglecompo nentinitiatorsforisocyanatespolymerization .Recentlyourre searchgrouphasalsofoundthatlanthanoceneamide ,3diva lentaryloxideofsamarium4 ,5anddivalentsamarocene6 areallactivefortheoligomerizationofphenylisocyanate,andtheactivespeciesforthesethreesystemswereallsuccessfullyisolat…     

Strong limit-point classification of singular Hamiltonian expressions

Strong limit-point criteria for singular Hamiltonian differential expressions with complex coefficients are obtained. The main results are extensions of the previous results due to Everitt, Giertz, and Weidmann for scalar differential expressions.

     

Classical Limit of Expectation Values in a Wave Packet Involving Few Stationary States

Expectation values of physical quantities in a wave packet involving few stationary states in an infinite square well are calculated. Explicit results show that the expectation values in the classical limit go over to the corresponding classical quantity in the form of the arithmetic mean (in mathematical term, the Fejér's average) of the partial Fourier series converging to the classical quantity. The number of the stationary states is that of the partial Fourer series in the Fejér's average. The quantum uncertainty is then demonstrated to have a classical counterpart.     

Nonparametric estimation of distributions with categorical and continuous data

In this paper we consider the problem of estimating an unknown joint distribution which is defined over mixed discrete and continuous variables. A nonparametric kernel approach is proposed with smoothing parameters obtained from the cross-validated minimization of the estimator's integrated squared error. We derive the rate of convergence of the cross-validated smoothing parameters to their ‘benchmark’ optimal values, and we also establish the asymptotic normality of the resulting nonparametric kernel density estimator. Monte Carlo simulations illustrate that the proposed estimator performs substantially better than the conventional nonparametric frequency estimator in a range of settings. The simulations also demonstrate that the proposed approach does not suffer from known limitations of the likelihood cross-validation method which breaks down with commonly used kernels when the continuous variables are drawn from fat-tailed distributions. An empirical application demonstrates that the proposed method can yield superior predictions relative to commonly used parametric models.