Cylindrical Cloak with Axial Permittivity/Permeability Spatially Invariant

In order to reduce the difficulties in the experimental realizations of the cloak but still keep good performance of invisibility, we proposed a perfect cylindrical invisibility cloak with spatially invariant axial material parameters. The advantage of this kind of TE (or TM) cloak is that only rho and phi components of mu (or epsilon) are spatially variant, which makes it possible to realize perfect invisibility with two-dimensional (2D) magnetic (or electric) metamaterials. The effects of perturbations of the parameters on the performance of this cloak are quantitatively analyzed by scattering theory. Our work provides a simple and feasible solution to the experimental realization of cloaks with ideal parameters

Effects of degree distribution in mutual synchronization of neural networks

We study the effects of the degree distribution in mutual synchronization of two-layer neural networks. We carry out three coupling strategies: large-large coupling, random coupling, and small-small coupling. By computer simulations and analytical methods, we find that couplings between nodes with large degree play an important role in the synchronization. For large-large coupling, less couplings are needed for inducing synchronization for both random and scale-free networks. For random coupling, cutting couplings between nodes with large degree is very efficient for preventing neural systems from synchronization, especially when subnetworks are scale-free.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Administration of a novel penicillamine-bound membrane: a preventive and therapeutic treatment for abdominal adhesions

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Adhesions formation is a significant postsurgical complication. At present, there is no effective method for preventing adhesions formation <abbrgrp><abbr bid="B1">1</abbr></abbrgrp>, although barrier products such as Dextran (Dex) <abbrgrp><abbr bid="B2">2</abbr></abbrgrp> and sodium hyaluronate (SH) <abbrgrp><abbr bid="B3">3</abbr></abbrgrp> have proved the most clinically successful <abbrgrp><abbr bid="B4">4</abbr><abbr bid="B5">5</abbr><abbr bid="B6">6</abbr></abbrgrp>, This study is designed to investigate the preventive and therapeutic potential of a novel penicillamine-bound membrane for abdominal adhesions formation.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>150 rats were involved in the present study. All animals were randomly divided into 6 groups (1 vehicle group and 5 test groups respectively treated with dextran, sodium hyaluronate, penicillamine, penicillamine-bound membrane or non-penicillamine-bound membrane). The occurrence, grade and score of abdominal adhesions were compared between the different groups. The breaking strength of incision was compared between the vehicle group and the penicillamine, membrane with/without penicillamine - treated groups. Expression of collagen type I was compared between the vehicle and penicillamine-treated group. The occurrence of adhesions was compared between the Dextran (Dex), sodium hyaluronate (SH), penicillamine-treated group and membrane with or without penicillamine- treated groups.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Penicillamine and penicillamine-bound membrane had significant preventive effects on abdominal adhesions formation, better than dextran, sodium hyaluronate and non-penicillamine-bound membrane. However, neither of them influenced incision healing, although they insignificantly decreased the breaking strength of the incision. Penicillamine-bound membrane, which can be loaded locally and more efficaciously, shows greater advantages than penicillamine.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Penicillamine-bound membrane can be applied as an effective therapeutic intervention for abdominal adhesions with inconsequential side effects.</p