Extrusion Freeforming of Millimeter-Wave Electromagnetic Bandgap (EBG) Photonic Crystals

Extrusion freeforming can be used for the rapid prototyping of millimeter-wave electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) structures. In this work, an alumina-polymer paste with a relatively high volatility solvent (propanol) was used and the characteristics of the ceramic paste, particularly the rheological features are described. The advantage of high volatility solvent is that the viscosity and elastic modulus of the paste are increased sharply as the solvent evaporates. Thus, the rigidity of the extruded filament is quickly increased as a small amount of solvent evaporates. Finally, by employing this procedure, different EBG structures such as 2-D, 3-D woodpile and aperiodic structures were fabricated and their bandgaps were measured. The experimental results show that extrusion freeforming is a relatively simple and easy method to fabricate these woodpile structures with a bandgap in the 90–110 GHz region.     

镁铝复合金属氧化物结构、催化性能及其在一步法制备醇醚醋酸酯中的应用

制备了镁铝复合金属氧化物(LDO), 并采用X-射线衍射(XRD)、低温氮吸附等分析手段研究了其晶体结构、孔隙结构、晶体形貌等特征. 同时, 将它应用于一步环氧化法合成丙二醇乙醚乙酸酯反应中, 探讨了其催化性能, 并对反应条件进行了优化.     

Cannflavin A and B, prenylated flavones from Cannabis sativa L

Two novel prenylated flavones, termed Cannflavin A and B, were isolated from the cannabinoid free ethanolic extract of Cannabis sativa L. Both compounds inhibited prostaglandin E2 production by human rheumatoid synovial cells in culture.     

Increased neurovirulence associated with a single nucleotide change in a noncoding region of the Sabin type 3 poliovaccine genome

Most of the small number of cases of poliomyelitis which occur in countries where Sabin's attenuated poliovirus vaccines are used are temporally associated with administration of vaccine and involve polioviruses of types 2 and 3 (ref. 1). Recent studies have provided convincing evidence that the Sabin type 2 and 3 viruses themselves may revert to a neurovirulent phenotype on passage in man. We report here that a point mutation in the 5' noncoding region of the genome of the poliovirus type 3 vaccine consistently reverts to wild type in strains isolated from cases of vaccine-associated poliomyelitis. Virus with this change is rapidly selected on passage through the human gastrointestinal tract. The change is associated with a demonstrable increase in the neurovirulence of the virus.     

On increasing the parallelism in numerical algorithms

Parallel algorithms have been designed for the past 20 years initially by parallelising existing sequential algorithms for many different parallel architectures. More recently parallel strategies have been identified and utilised resulting in many new parallel algorithms. However the analysis of such algorithms reveals that further strategies can be applied to increase the parallelism. One of these, i.e., increasing the computational capacity in each processing node can reduce the congestion/communication for shared memory/distributed memory multiprocessor systems and dramatically improve the performance of the algorithm. Two algorithms are identified and studied, i.e., the cyclic reduction method for solving large tridiagonal linear systems in which the odd/even sequence is increased to a ‘stride of 3’ or more resulting in an improved algorithm. Similarly the Gaussian Elimination method for solving linear systems in which one element is eliminated at a time can be adapted to parallel form in which two elements are simultaneously eliminated resulting in the Parallel Implicit Elimination (P.I.E.) method. Numerical results are presented to support the analyses.     

Solid Freeforming and Combinatorial Research

A view of manufacturing processes is presented in which five distinct categories are defined as casting, deformation, machining, joining, and solid freeforming. Solid freeforming is essentially biomimetic and shares problems of morphogenesis with natural processes. Our team in University of London has been exploring three mechanisms of solid freeforming. In dry powder deposition and direct ink-jet printing, the emphasis has turned to the problem of delivering a complex shape in which the three dimensional spatial arrangement of composition is delivered from the design file. In extrusion freeforming, the aim is to control microstructure at hierarchical levels also from the design file. The quest for 3-D functional gradients is satisfied by acoustic and ultrasonic dispensing and mixing of powders so that each layer can be patterned. These methods could be extended to deliver the complex patterns demanded by left-handed microwave metamaterials. Dry powder deposition and direct ink-jet printing are turning towards combinatorial methods in which multiple sample libraries are used to accelerate discovery. In turn, this paves the way for ‘autonomous research machines’ which steer their own search refinements in response to our requests for new materials. In this way, solid freeforming used for sample preparation can give an ‘arm’ to an intelligent machine so that it can conduct its own experimentation and learning; an idea that originated with Alan Turing in the late 1940s.