Vanadium sustainability in the context of innovative recycling and sourcing development.

This paper addresses the sustainability of vanadium, taking into account the current state-of-the-art related to primary and secondary sources, substitution, production, and market developments. Vanadium plays a critical role in several strategic industrial applications including steel production and probable widespread utilization in next-generation batteries. Confirming the importance of vanadium, the European Commission identified and formally registered this metal on the 2017 list of Critical Raw Materials for the European Union. The United States and Canada have also addressed the importance of this metal. Like the European economy, the American and Canadian economies rely on vanadium and are not globally independent. This recognized importance of vanadium is driving many efforts in academia and industry to develop technologies for the utilization of secondary vanadium resources using hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical techniques. In this paper, current efforts and their outcomes are summarized along with the most recent patents for vanadium recovery.

Supernova matter at subnuclear densities as a resonant Fermi gas: enhancement of neutrino rates.

At low energies nucleon-nucleon interactions are resonant and therefore supernova matter at subnuclear densities has many similarities to atomic gases with interactions dominated by a Feshbach resonance. We calculate the rates of neutrino processes involving nucleon-nucleon collisions and show that these are enhanced in mixtures of neutrons and protons at subnuclear densities due to the large scattering lengths. As a result, the rate for neutrino pair bremsstrahlung and absorption is significantly larger below 10(13) g cm(-3) compared to rates used in supernova simulations.

Neurodevelopmental outcome related to cerebral risk factors in children after neonatal arterial switch operation.

BACKGROUND: Neurodevelopmental outcome after neonatal arterial switch operation for complete transposition of the great arteries is an important topic needing prospective assessment. METHODS: A group of 33 unselected children (3.0 to 4.6 years) operated on as neonates with combined deep hypothermic circulatory arrest and low flow cardiopulmonary bypass and a control group of 32 age-matched healthy children (3.0 to 4.8 years) underwent evaluation of socioeconomic and clinical neurological status and a standardized test comprising all areas of child development. Results of patients were related to those of the control group, to population norms, and to preoperative, perioperative, and postoperative cerebral risk factors. RESULTS: Clinical neurological status was normal in 26 patients (78.8%) and reduced in 7 (21.2%). Complete developmental score and the subscores for motor function, visual perception, learning and memory, cognitive function, language, and socioemotional functions were not different compared to population norms. Compared to the patients, the children of the control group scored higher on tests of complete development, cognition, and language, but also on socioeconomic status. Complete developmental score and the scores for motor, cognitive, and language functions were weakly inversely related to the duration of circulatory arrest, but not to the duration of bypass. Cerebral risk factors such as serum levels of the neuron-specific enolase, perinatal acidosis, perinatal asphyxia, peri- and postoperative cardiocirculatory insufficiency, or clinical seizures were not correlated to the test results. CONCLUSIONS: Neonatal arterial switch operation with combined circulatory arrest and low flow bypass is associated with neurological impairment, but not with reduced development as assessed by formal testing of motor, cognitive, language, and behavioral functions. Perioperative serum level of the neuron-specific enolase is not a valid marker for later developmental impairment.

Molecular mimicry by Mycoplasma pneumoniae to evade the induction of adherence inhibiting antibodies.

Specific regions of adherence binding sites and epitopes of the P1 adhesin of Mycoplasma pneumoniae were synthesised as octapeptides and used as targets in a modified enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Acute phase and convalescent sera from 10 patients with M. pneumoniae infection were tested for antibody reactivity to these octapeptides. In convalescent sera, antibody activities were directed against octapeptides of the epitope regions, whereas no antibody activity was found in acute or convalescent sera to octapeptides of adherence-mediating binding sites could be explained partially from the results of cross-reactivity experiments with adherence-inhibiting anti-P1 adhesin monoclonal antibodies (MAbs). Two of these MAbs showed cross-reactions with intracellular antigens of eukaryotic cell lines in immunofluorescence microscopy experiments. The cross-reacting antigens were isolated and characterised as glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase and 2-phospho-D-glycerate hydrolyase. Antigenic mimicry of eukaryotic structures by functional sites of the P1 adhesin of M. pneumoniae may influence the pathogenesis of M. pneumoniae infection.