: Electromagnetic railguns are being considered for a number of potential Strategic Defense, Theater Missile Defense and tactical missile applications. Bore materials, particularly insulators, limit the performance and lifetime of current railguns. A program was undertaken to develop improved advanced ceramic insulators. The program aim was to: analytically determine the property goals required of bore insulators to meet railgun systems requirements; select and design initial candidate materials using micro-architectural tailoring; fabricate and test panels of the selected materials; iterate compositions and processing parameters to improve properties; and down-select to an optimal material and scale it up to a size required for near-term railguns. From the start of the program it was realized that ceramics alone possessed the necessary properties to meet the system requirements. Through a combination of mechanical and electrical tests a large number of ceramic materials were screened. Microstructurally toughened aluminum oxide based ceramics gave the best combination of mechanical and electrical properties. The addition of chromia to the base alumina-zirconia-yttria composition improved the electrical properties with no compromise in mechanical properties. The alumina-chromia material was successfully scaled up to 1.5 x 4 x 18 inch pieces, representative of large railgun bore insulators. These scaled up pieces also met the mechanical and electrical goal Properties for railgun insulator operation. The additional work required to produce and qualify these insulator materials for reliable and cost effective high-energy railgun utilization was recommended. Railguns, Electromagnetic, Aluminum oxide, Ceramics, launcher, Fracture toughness, Insulators, Bore materials, Hot pressing.

A propos d'une serie de 10 patients montrant la difficulte d'etablir un diagnostic de certitude sur les signes cliniques radiographiques et bronchoscopiques. Ceci represente une source d'erreur pour la prise en charge therapeutique et la classification de la tumeur

ticularly when the preparation contains povidone.Unfortunately, our patient died from complications of unnecessary treatment given because the unfamiliar molar units used to report the phenobarbitone concentration were misinterpreted.ADDENDUM-Since writing this report we have en- countered a further case of serious but eventually reversible respiratory failure in a 46 year old man after aspiration of Medicoal.I Anonymous.Repeated oral activated charcoal in acute poistning.

One hundred and five patients with inoperable non-small cell lung cancer were included in a randomized trial comparing the activity of vindesine as a single agent with the combination of vindesine and cisplatin. All patients were previously untreated and the majority (70%) had squamous carcinoma. The overall partial response rates in 88 evaluable patients were 7% for vindesine alone and 33% for the combined regime. There were no complete responders in either arm. The median survival of patients treated with vindesine and cisplatin was 11 months, compared with 4 months in those treated with vindesine alone (P = 0.008). Patients showing a partial or complete response to vindesine and cisplatin survived a median duration of 13 months, compared with 7 months for non-responders (P = 0.03). This survival benefit associated with the combination was particularly apparent for patients with ECOG performance status 0 or 1 (median survival greater than 18 months and 13 months respectively), locoregional disease (median survival 14 months) and squamous cell histology (median survival 13 months). Myelo-suppression was greater with the combination but was not a major treatment problem. Neurotoxicity, which was frequently dose-limiting, was of similar severity in both treatment groups. The results indicate that the combination of vindesine and cisplatin is superior to vindesine alone for remission induction in non-small cell lung cancer and confers a significant survival advantage compared with vindesine alone in patients with favourable prognostic factors.

The successful development of the RIGGATRONTM tokamak depends on the close coupling of analysis, design, materials/fabrication development and testing. Operating conditions in these compact, high-field copper alloy machines are considerably more severe than in conventional superconducting tokamaks. The design needs of the critical components, including the toroidal field coil, the ohmic heating coil, and the first wall/vacuum vessel have resulted in the development, testing and qualification of high-strength, high-conductivity copper alloys, new dielectric concepts and advanced fabrication techniques. Intensive materials property testing on conductor alloys and dielectric materials has led to the definition of specific design criteria for the relatively short lifetime RIGGATRON devices. To date, the key design and materials issues related to the construction of the FDX experimental machines have been resolved, and the program is moving into the design verification, subcomponent testing and prototype manufacturing stage.