INTRODUCTION Aluminium is a known neurotoxin and occupational exposure to aluminium has been implicated in neurological disease including Alzheimer's disease. Here we present the first comprehensive and unequivocal data demonstrating significantly elevated brain aluminium content in an individual occupationally exposed to aluminium. CASE PRESENTATION A 66-year-old Caucasian man who died with ...

Piezoelectric MEMS microspeakers are promising candidates for miniaturized speakers, such as in-ear applications. Using lead-free scandium doped aluminium nitride (ScAlN) thin film instead of lead zirconium titanate helps these speakers to be environmental friendly, CMOS compatible and potentially more linear. The piezoelectric coefficient ScAlN is higher than undoped AlN, which leads improved ...

Urinary excretion of aluminium after a successful transplant can reverse pre-transplant aluminium intoxication. We have evaluated the time course of urinary aluminium excretion and its correlation with several parameters of renal function and mineral metabolism in 49 patients (33 men and 16 women) with a wide range of pre-transplant serum aluminium concentrations, performing sequential determin...

density functional theory ,(dft) calculations have been performed to investigate the properties ofcarbon decorated (c-decorated) models of boron nitride (bn) nanocones. to this aim, the apex andtip of nanocone have been substituted by the carbon atoms to represent the c-decorated models. theresults indicated that dipole moments and energy gaps could reveal the effects of c-decorations onthe pro...

Horse spleen ferritin was found to bind aluminium poorly after equilibrium dialysis with buffered aluminium citrate solutions. Not more than 10 aluminium atoms/ferritin molecule were bound from a 25 microM-aluminium solution, pH 7.4, and the degree of binding was dependent on the method used to prepare the aluminium citrate solution. Up to 120 aluminium atoms/molecule were bound when ferritin i...

Aluminium balance studies were carried out on eight patients with various immunological disorders who were receiving plasma exchange with albumin solutions known to be contaminated with aluminium. Four patients with impaired renal function (creatinine clearance less than 50 ml/min) retained between 60% and 74% of the aluminium infused during a single plasma exchange. Transiliac bone biopsy spec...

It is of burgeoning importance that the human body burden of aluminium is understood and is measured. There are surprisingly few data to describe human excretion of systemic aluminium and almost no reliable data which relate to aluminium in sweat. We have measured the aluminium content of sweat in 20 healthy volunteers following mild exercise. The concentration of aluminium ranged from 329 to 5...

Near-field optical probe is the key element of a near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) system. The key innovation in the first two NSOM experiments (Pohl et al., 1984; Lewis et al., 1984) is the fabrications of a sub-wavelength optical aperture at the apex of a sharply pointed transparent probe tip with a thin metal coating. This paper discusses the routine use of focussed ion beam (FIB...

High power light emitting diodes (LEDs) suffer from heating effects that have a detrimental impact on the devices characteristics. The use of LED carriers with high thermal conductivity promotes extraction heat away junction. Different materials can be used for this purpose, such as alumina, aluminium nitride, and silicon. Diamond has also been gaining momentum demanding management applications...

Chronic renal failure leads to secondary hyperparathyroidism; the spontaneous evolution of this entity results in high bone remodelling. However, throughout the last decades we have learnt that several medical interventions, particularly those which involve a high degree of aluminium exposure, may change the evolution of secondary hyperparathyroidism, leading to other diseases such as aluminium...