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This paper presents the results of a numerical investigation of the gap influence on the turbine efficiency. The rotor-stator interaction in a (1/2)-stage turbine is simulated by solving the quasi-three-dimensional unsteady Euler/Navier-Stokes equations using a parallelized numerical algorithm. The reduced turnaround time and cost/MFLOP of the parallel code was crucial to complete the numerous run cases presented in this paper. The inter-row gap effect is evaluated for 4 gaps, 3 radial positions and 3 angular velocities. As expected, the results presented in this paper show that the efficiency increases and losses decrease while the gap size increases. The maximum efficiency location, however, corresponds to values of the gap size which may be too large for practical use (approximately inch). Fortunately, a local maximum efficiency and minimum losses location has been found at approximately 0.5 inches gap size. The efficiency variation near the local optimum is large, in some configurations being as high as 1.4 points for a gap size variation of only 0.076 inches. Data produced by the numerical simulations can be used to develop a design rule based on the inter-row gap size.

This paper introduces a coupling element to enhance the isolation between two closely packed antennas operating at the same frequency band. The proposed structure consists of two antenna elements and a coupling element which is located in between the two antenna elements. The idea is to use field cancellation to enhance isolation by putting a coupling element which artificially creates an additional coupling path between the antenna elements. To validate the idea, a design for a USB dongle MIMO antenna for the 2.4 GHz WLAN Band is presented. In this design, the antenna elements are etched on a compact low- cost FR4 PCB board with dimensions of 20 x 40 x 1.6 [mm.sup.3]. According to our measurement results, we can achieve more than 30 dB isolation between the antenna elements even though the two parallel individual planar inverted F antenna (PIFA) in the design share a solid ground plane with inter-antenna spacing (Center to Center) of less than 0.095[[lambda].sub.o] or edge to edge separations of just 3.6 mm (0.0294 [[lambda].sub.o]). Both simulation and measurement results are used to confirm the antenna isolation and performance. The method can also be applied to different types of antennas such as non-planar antennas. Parametric studies and current distribution for the design are also included to show how to tune the structure and control the isolation. Index Terms--Diversity antennas, multiple input and multiple output (MIMO), mutual coupling, planar inverted F antenna (PIFA), wireless communications.

New designs for compact reconfigurable antennas are introduced for mobile communication devices. The uniqueness of the antenna designs are that they allow various groups of their operating frequency bands to be selected electronically. In particular, each group of frequency bands, or mode, can be made to serve several different communication systems simultaneously. These systems may include various combinations of GSM, DCS, PCS, UMTS, Bluetooth, and wireless local-area network (LAN). Therefore, by electronically selecting different antenna modes, a variety of communication systems can be conveniently served by only one antenna. One advantage is that through the different operational modes, the total antenna volume can be reused, and therefore the overall antenna can be made compact. In these designs, the selection of the different modes is achieved by either i) switching different feeding locations of the antenna (switched feed) or ii) switching or breaking of the antenna's connection to the ground (switched ground). This paper demonstrates these two designs. For the first design of switched feed, it can support GSM, DCS, PCS, and UMTS. In the second design, the antenna makes use of a switched-ground technique, which can cover GSM,DCS, PCS, UMTS, Bluetooth, and 2.4 GHz wireless LAN. The designs are investigated when ideal switches and also various realistic active switches based on PIN diodes, GaAs field effect transistor, and MEMs configurations. The designs are verified through both numerical simulations and measurement of an experimental prototype. The results confirm good performance of the two multiband reconfigurable antenna designs. Index Terms--Planar inverted F-antenna (PIFA), reconfigurable antennas, volume reuse, wireless communications.

A simple ground plane structure that can reduce mutual coupling between closely-packed antenna elements is proposed and studied. The structure consists of a slitted pattern, without via's, etched onto a single ground plane and it is therefore low cost and straightforward to fabricate. It is found that isolations of more than -20 dB can be achieved between two parallel individual planar inverted-F antennas (PIFAs) sharing a common ground plane, with inter-antenna spacing (center to center) of 0.116 [[lambda].sub.o] and ground plane size 0.331 [[lambda].sup.2.sub.o]. At 2.31 GHz it is demonstrated that this translates into an edge to edge separation between antennas of just 10 mm. Similarly the structure can be applied to reduce mutual coupling between three or four radiating elements. In addition the mutual coupling between half wavelength patches and monopoles can also be reduced with the aid of the proposed ground plane structure. Results of parametric studies are also given in this paper. Both simulation and measurement results are used to confirm the suppression of mutual coupling between closely-packed antenna elements with our slitted ground plane. Index Terms--Monopole antennas, multiple input multiple output (MIMO), mutual coupling, patch antennas, PIFAs.

The Correction Notice from the International Journal of Molecular Sciences addresses concerns about the integrity of the peer-review process for the article "Immune Activation Following Irbesartan Treatment in a Colorectal Cancer Patient: A Case Study." A new independent reviewer was recruited, and the original reviewer's report was removed. The authors were not aware of any misconduct by the reviewer and did not include any inappropriate references suggested by them. The Academic Editor and authors have agreed on updates to the publication, and the Editorial Office appreciates the authors' collaboration during this process. [Extracted from the article]

Research has been conducted on the biosynthesis of the nonadride CP-225,917. Experiments include the dimerization of the C (sub)16 anhydride from the lauric and oxaloacetic acids condensation.

A capacitively loaded planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA) is proposed and studied. It is found that the capacitive load reduces the resonance length of the PIFA from [Lambda]/4 to less than [Lambda]/8. A design with a bandwidth of 178 MHz centered at 1.8 GHz is provided to demonstrate that compact antennas for mobile telephone handsets can be constructed using this approach. The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method is used in the study and experimental verification is also provided. Index Terms - FDTD methods, mobile antennas.