Exaggerated Texture and Grain Growth in a Supperplastic SiAlON

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65254/1/j.1151-2916.1992.tb05497.x.pd

Pleiotropic Benefit of Monomeric and Oligomeric Flavanols on Vascular Health - A Randomized Controlled Clinical Pilot Study

BACKGROUND: Cardiovascular diseases are expanding to a major social-economic burden in the Western World and undermine man's deep desire for healthy ageing. Epidemiological studies suggest that flavanol-rich foods (e.g. grapes, wine, chocolate) sustain cardiovascular health. For an evidenced-based application, however, sound clinical data on their efficacy are strongly demanded. METHODS: In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled intervention study we supplemented 28 male smokers with 200 mg per day of monomeric and oligomeric flavanols (MOF) from grape seeds. At baseline, after 4 and 8 weeks we measured macro- and microvascular function and a cluster of systemic biomarkers for major pathological processes occurring in the vasculature: disturbances in lipid metabolism and cellular redox balance, and activation of inflammatory cells and platelets. RESULTS: In the MOF group serum total cholesterol and LDL decreased significantly (P ≤ 0.05) by 5% (n = 11) and 7% (n = 9), respectively in volunteers with elevated baseline levels. Additionally, after 8 weeks the ratio of glutathione to glutathione disulphide in erythrocytes rose from baseline by 22% (n = 15, P<0.05) in MOF supplemented subjects. We also observed that MOF supplementation exerts anti-inflammatory effects in blood towards ex vivo added bacterial endotoxin and significantly reduces expression of inflammatory genes in leukocytes. Conversely, alterations in macro- and microvascular function, platelet aggregation, plasma levels of nitric oxide surrogates, endothelin-1, C-reactive protein, fibrinogen, prostaglandin F2alpha, plasma antioxidant capacity and gene expression levels of antioxidant defense enzymes did not reach statistical significance after 8 weeks MOF supplementation. However, integrating all measured effects into a global, so-called vascular health index revealed a significant improvement of overall vascular health by MOF compared to placebo (P ≤ 0.05). CONCLUSION: Our integrative multi-biomarker approach unveiled the pleiotropic vascular health benefit of an 8 weeks supplementation with 200 mg/d MOF in humans. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00742287

Large Barkhausen Discontinuities of Die-Drawn Fe-Si-B Amorphous Wire

Magnetic properties and domain structure were investigated for die-drawn and subsequently annealed Fe-Si-B amorphous wires. It was found that the die-drawn wire has bamboo domain similar to that of the Co based wire with negative magnetostriction and looses the re-entrant flux reversal characteristic. It was also found that the wire recovers the re-entrant characteristic after annealing. The tension-annealed wire has clear shell and core domain structure and exhibits the re entrant characteristic with enhanced remanence. The surface bamboo domain layer as thin as 5 mu m was connected to the core domain by magnetization that changes direction continuously between two domains without domain wall. From the temperature dependence of a threshold field for the discontinuous flux jump, it is inferred that the re entrant characteristic is caused by the depinning of the reverse domain existing near the wire end due to demagnetizing effect

Large Barkhausen Discontinuities of Die-Drawn Fe-Si-B Amorphous Wire

Magnetic properties and domain structure were investigated for die-drawn and subsequently annealed Fe-Si-B amorphous wires. It was found that the die-drawn wire has bamboo domain similar to that of the Co based wire with negative magnetostriction and looses the re-entrant flux reversal characteristic. It was also found that the wire recovers the re-entrant characteristic after annealing. The tension-annealed wire has clear shell and core domain structure and exhibits the re entrant characteristic with enhanced remanence. The surface bamboo domain layer as thin as 5 mu m was connected to the core domain by magnetization that changes direction continuously between two domains without domain wall. From the temperature dependence of a threshold field for the discontinuous flux jump, it is inferred that the re entrant characteristic is caused by the depinning of the reverse domain existing near the wire end due to demagnetizing effect

Effect of stress on the bamboo domains and magnetization process of CoSiB amorphous wire

In this work we have studied the behavior of the bamboo domains under stress (sigma), tension (+ sigma) as well as compression (- sigma), with the aim of making the domain model of the negatively magnetostrictive (- lambda(5)) CoSiB wire clear. It is observed that the growth of the surface bamboo domains due to a has directivity depending on the orientation of the underlying core domain. In one orientation the black bamboo domain grows, while in the opposite orientation the white domain grows. From the stress behavior of the bamboo domains we have concluded that the domain model of - lambda(5) wire consists of two spiral domains of opposite rotation and proposed a new model