Protective effects of melatonin against C beam irradiation-induced oxidative stress and DNA injury in the mouse brain

The purpose of this experiment was to estimate the protective effects of melatonin against radiation-induced brain damages in mice induced by heavy ion beams. Kun-Ming mice were randomly divided into five groups: normal control group, irradiation control group, and three different doses of melatonin (5, 10, and 20 mg/kg, i.p.) treated groups. Apart from the normal control group, the other four groups were exposed to whole-body 4.0 Gy carbon ion beam irradiation (approximately 0.5 Gy/min) after i.p. administration of normal saline or melatonin 1 h before irradiation. The oxidative redox status of brain tissue was assessed by measurement of malondiadehyde (MDA) levels, total superoxide dismutase (T-SOD), cytosolic superoxide dismutase (Cu/ZnSOD, SOD1) and mitochondrial superoxide dismutase (MnSOD, SOD2) activities at 8 h after irradiation. DNA damages were determined using the Comet assay and apoptosis and cell cycle distribution were detected by flow cytometric analyses. A dramatic dose-dependent decrease in MDA levels, tail moment, rates of tailing cells, and apoptosis, and a dose-dependent increase in T-SOD and SOD2 activities, in brain tissues in the melatonin-treated groups were detected compared with the irradiation only group. Furthermore, flow cytometric analysis demonstrated that the percentage of brain cells in the G0/G1 phase decreased significantly, while those in the S and G2/M stage increased dramatically, with mice pretreated with melatonin compared to the irradiation control group. These data indicate that melatonin has protective effects against irradiation-induced brain injury, and that its underlying protective mechanisms may relate to modulation of oxidative stress induced by heavy ionirradiation.     

Biological features of an early-maturity mutant of sweet sorghum induced by carbon ions irradiation and its genetic polymorphism

It is well known that heavy ions irradiation is characterized by a high linear energy transfer (LET) and relative biological effectiveness (RBE). These characters are believed to increase mutation frequency and mutation spectrum of plants or mammalian cells irradiated by heavy ions. Here we describe an early-maturity mutant of sweet sorghum induced by carbon ion irradiation. The growth period of this mutant was shortened by about 20 days compared to the wild type. The proline content of the mutant was increased by 11.05% while the malondialdehyde content was significantly lower than that of wild type. In addition, the RAPD analysis indicated that the percentage of polymorphism between the mutant KFJT-1 and the control KFJT-CK reached 5.26%. The gain of early-maturity might solve the problem in the northwest region of China where seeds of sweet sorghum cannot be mature because of early frost. The early-maturity mutant may be important for future space cultivation.     

Solitary,explosive and periodic solutions for electron acoustic solitary waves with non-thermal hot ions

A theoretical investigation has been made for electron acoustic waves propagating in a system of unmagnetized collisionless plasma consists of a cold electron fluid and ions with two different temperatures in which the hot ions obey the non-thermal distribution. The reductive perturbation method has been employed to derive the Korteweg–de Vries equation for small but finite amplitude electrostatic waves. It is found that the presence of the energetic population of non-thermal hot ions δ, initial normalized equilibrium density of low temperature ions μ and the ratio of temperatures of low temperature ions to high temperature ions β do not only significantly modify the basic properties of solitary structure, but also change the polarity of the solitary profiles. At the critical hot ions density, the KdV equation is not appropriate for describing the system. Hence, a new set of stretched coordinates is considered to derive the modified KdV equation. In the vicinity of the critical hot ions density, neither KdV nor modified KdV equation is appropriate for describing the electron acoustic waves. Therefore, a further modified KdV equation is derived. An algebraic method with computerized symbolic computation, which greatly exceeds the applicability of the existing tanh, extended tanh methods in obtaining a series of exact solutions of the various KdV-type equations, is used here. Numerical studies have been reveals different solutions e.g., bell-shaped solitary pulses, singular solitary “blowup” solutions, Jacobi elliptic doubly periodic wave, Weierstrass elliptic doubly periodic type solutions, in addition to explosive pulses. The results of the present investigation may be applicable to some plasma environments, such as Earth’s magnetotail region.     

An update about recent developments of the PHITS code

PHITS (Particle and Heavy-Ion Transport code System) is a general-purpose three-dimensional Monte Carlo code, developed and maintained by RIST, JAEA and KEK in Japan together with Sihver et al. at Chalmers in Sweden. PHITS can deal with the transports of all varieties of hadrons and heavy ions with energies up to around 100 GeV/nucleon, and in this paper the current status of PHITS is presented. We introduce a relativistically covariant version of JQMD, called R-JQMD, that features an improved ground state initialization algorithm, and we will present the introduction of electron and photon transport in PHITS using EGS5, which have increased the energy region for the photon and energy transport from up to around 3 GeV to up to several hundred GeV depending on the atomic number of the target. We show how the accuracy in dose and fluence calculations can be improved by using tabulated cross sections. Benchmarking of shielding and irradiation effects of high energy protons in different materials relevant for shielding of accelerator facilities is also presented. In particular, we show that PHITS can be used for estimating the dose received by aircrews and personnel in space. In recent years, many countries have issued regulations or recommendations to set annual dose limitations for aircrews. Since estimation of cosmic-ray spectra in the atmosphere is an essential issue for the evaluation of aviation doses, we have calculated these spectra using PHITS. The accuracy of the atmospheric propagation simulation of cosmic-ray performed by PHITS has been well verified by experimental cosmic-ray spectra taken under various conditions. Based on a comprehensive analysis of the simulation results, an analytical model called “PARMA” has been proposed for instantaneously estimating the atmospheric cosmic-ray spectra below the altitude of 20 km. We have also performed preliminary simulations of long-term dose distribution measurements at the ISS performed with the joint ESA-FSA experiment MATROSHKA-R (MTR-R) led by the Russian Federation Institute of Biomedical Problems (IMBP) and the ESA supported experiment MATROSHKA (MTR), led by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). For the purpose of examining the applicability of PHITS to the shielding design in space, the absorbed doses in a tissue equivalent water phantom inside an imaginary space vessel has been estimated for different shielding materials of different thicknesses. The results confirm previous results which indicate that PHITS is a suitable tool when performing shielding design studies of spacecrafts.     

中性聚合物键合剂的分子设计和合成

中性聚合物键合剂（ＮＰＢＡ）是美国ＫｉｍＣＳ发明的一种新助剂，它显著提高了ＮＥＰＥ推进剂的力学性能，根据有关专利和论文。介绍了降温相分离沉积包覆的原理，归纳了ＮＰＢＡ的分子设计方法和合成条件，而且举例进行了说明。     

从分子生物学思路理解中医治疗癌症思想

癌症是组织细胞受到外界物理的、化学的、生物的、心理性的、长时间多重刺激而引起细胞多种基因突变 ,使得细胞信息调节和控制系统紊乱 ,机体免疫功能失调 ,而导致细胞自主性增殖的病变。中医通过调整脏腑阴阳平衡及气血津液失调状态 ,对细胞组织产生长期的、多重的良性刺激 ,让突变基因逆转 ,使癌细胞逆转为正常细胞 ,并进行正常分化、凋亡 ,最终使癌组织退行 ,消失     

电荷交换离子对栅极系统束流影响的数值研究

采用二维网格质点法(PIC)计算离子在离子发动机栅极系统中的运动, 通过在模型中添加离子和中性粒子电荷交换的Monte Carlo碰撞模块, 得到了电荷交换离子在栅极周围的分布及电荷交换离子的运动规律.计算结果表明:考虑电荷交换离子后, 屏栅极电流较不考虑电荷交换离子情况时增大了1.42%, 所受影响不大, 加速栅极电流由0增大到主束流电流的1.41%.模拟结果表明:加速栅极下游较远处产生的电荷交换离子, 是造成加速栅极下游面腐蚀及加速栅极电流的主要原因.      

紫外辐照影响硅橡胶出气污染模型及效应研究

基于有机材料出气污染过程分析,并结合辐射化学有关理论,建立材料在紫外辐照后的分子污染模型;在ASTM E1559标准测试方法的基础上,以硅橡胶材料为污染源开展试验,测试其经过不同紫外辐照时间后的出气污染沉积量,并对辐照后材料表面的微观特性进行测试分析。根据沉积量测试结果对模型待定参数进行拟合,并结合微观测试结果,分析得到紫外辐照导致硅橡胶分子链中Si-O键以及Si-C键断裂,且部分小分子物质提前挥发,从而使得出气成分中小分子污染物含量下降,大分子污染物含量上升,并最终导致总污染量在前期有所下降,在后期显著增加。     

NC/NG共混体系的塑化行为

为了解硝化纤维素(NC)/硝化甘油(NG)塑化行为的实质,用动态流变学方法和红外光谱法对其塑化行为的宏观性质表现进行测量,并在此基础上通过分子动力学模拟揭示NC在塑化过程中的微观结构变化.结果表明,NC/NG共混体系的储能模量(G′)和损耗模量(G＂)随塑化时间逐渐增大,且G′逐渐接近并超过G”,二者最终趋于稳定,此过程中体系的某些与氢键有关的红外特征频率向低波数移动.分子动力学模拟表明,在NC/NG共混体系塑化过程中,NG分子的空间位阻作用使NC分子链自由体积增加;另一方面NG分子与NC分子形成的氢键替代了NC分子内氢键,使NC分子链内部作用力减弱,回转半径增大.