Minipig urethra: a suitable animal model in vitro.

The study demonstrates that the minipig urethra is an appropriate animal model for in vitro experiments and therefore promising for long-term animal tests of artificial urinary sphincter systems in vivo. Freshly explanted porcine and minipig urethras were connected to a fluid reservoir that simulated the bladder pressure. This bladder pressure was adjusted by changing the water level (hydrostatic pressure).

The challenges in artificial muscle research to treat incontinence.

Sphincters to guarantee continence are in principal the simplest muscles, because only two states (closed and open) seem to be important. The healthy urinary sphincter, however, provides dynamic components. During the filling phase the increase in tonus prevents urinary loss.

Low-dimensional spin S = 1/2 system at the quantum critical limit: Na2V3O7.

We report the results of measurements of the dc susceptibility and the 23Na-NMR response of Na2V3O7, a recently synthesized, nonmetallic low dimensional spin system. Our results indicate that, upon reducing the temperature to below 100 K, the V4+ moments are gradually quenched, leaving only one moment out of nine active. The NMR data reveal a phase transition at very low temperatures.

LiVGe2O6, an anomalous quasi-1D, S = 1 system, as revealed by NMR.

We report the results of 7Li nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) studies of LiVGe2O6, a quasi-one-dimensional spin S = 1 model system, at low temperatures. Our data, including NMR spectra and the temperature dependence of the spin-lattice relaxation rate T-11, indicate that a first-order phase transition occurs at T(c) approximately 23 K. The NMR response of LiVGe2O6 below T(c) suggests that the ordered phase is antiferromagnetic and has unusual features.