Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in Northern Tasmania

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a rare and incurable form of rapidly progressive neurodegenerative disease. The disease is fatal, and most patients die within 1 year of diagnosis. Clinical features include progressive cognitive dysfunction, delusions or hallucinations, cerebellar ataxia, myoclonus, visual disturbances, extrapyramidal signs and eventually akinetic mutism. Most patients present with varied clinical presentation, hence making it difficult to diagnose at an early stage. We report five cases of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease presenting to a Tasmanian hospital in Australia over a period of 52 months. We highlight significant clinical features in all our patients including few atypical presentations, emphasise on relevant clinical biomarkers and illustrate characteristic abnormalities on electroencephalogram and neuroimaging.

Ground Rubber Tire / Thermoplastic Composites: Effect of Different Ground Rubber Tires

Thermoplastic composites containing different Ground Rubber Tire (GRT) materials, Linear Low Density Polyethylene (LLDPE) and, in some case, a coupling agent (IB‘E’, an ethylene glycidyl methacrylate copolymer) were prepared by melt blending. The impact energies of all the thermoplastic composites (normally containing 40 wt % GRT) were evaluated using an instrumented impact tester. The effects of the GRT particle-size, particle size distribution and shape, the mode of grinding, and the oxygen surface concentration were analyzed. The wet-ambient-ground GRT based composites show higher surface oxidation and give better impact energy than cryo-ground and normal air-ground GRT based composites. Smaller GRT particle size results in a small increase in the impact property of the composite and a greater influence on the melt processability of the composites. Of the different GRT surface modification techniques studied for improved composite interfacial adhesion and impact properties the composites from electron beam radiation treated GRT yield higher increases in impact energy in comparison to corona and plasma treated GRT based composites.

The Role of Functional Polymers in Ground Rubber Tire-Polyethylene Composite

The impact energies of different polyethylene-ground rubber tire (GRT) composites were investigated. All the thermoplastic composites were prepared on a Haake Buchler batch mixer and injection molded test specimens were tested on Rheometrics drop weight instrumented impact tester. Addition of small amounts of functional polymers increases the impact energy of the polyethylene-GRT composite as much as 60%. The percent improvement in the impact energy for linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) and the composites prepared from them is greater than for the corresponding high density polyethylene (HDPE) composites. Precoating of GRT particles with ethylene-acrylic acid (EAA) copolymers improves the impact energy of the composite, whereas precoating with the other functional polymers does not. An attempt has been made to identify the role of the functional polymers as to whether they act as toughening agents for the polyethylene matrix or coupling agent at the polyethylene-GRT interface. The results show the increase in impact energy resulting from the addition of styrene block copolymers is due to toughening of the polyethylene matrix while the reactive ethylene copolymers increase the impact energy by a coupling action with GRT.