Flax fibers were ground with a ball-mill and four fractions with different size ranges were collected by sieving. These were tested for water sorption, degree of polymerization (DP), copper number, hydroxyl number and analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and inverse gas chromatography (IGC). Significant differences were ...

Tarsal bone disintegration is characterised by fragmentation and progressive collapse of one or more tarsal bones. It occurs in 10% of leprosy patients, and is responsible for many severe foot deformities associated with this disease. The main cause is micro-traumata, but sensory impairment, sepsis and osteoporosis are predisposing factors. In this series of 400 consecutive patients the talus a...

3Department of Botany, Box 355325, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195 USA; 4Department of Biology, Life Sciences Consortium, and Institute of Molecular Evolutionary Genetics, Pennsylvania State University, 208 Mueller Lab, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802 USA; 5Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, Ohio State University, 1735 Neil Avenue, Columbus, Ohio 4...

I was very excited by the special issue on spiri[Uality in occupational therapy (A]OT, March 1997). Being a Christian myself, I believe that the therapist's ability [Q connect with the client on a spiriruallevel is imporrant. Howard and Howard's arricle, "Occupation as Spiritual Acrivity," pointed out that occuparional therapy's goal of using purposeful acrivity [Q bring meaning [Q treatment co...

In this essay, I argue that the seemingly indestructible concept of the community as a local, interacting assemblage of species has hindered progress toward understanding species richness at local to regional scales. I suggest that the distributions of species within a region reveal more about the processes that generate diversity patterns than does the co-occurrence of species at any given poi...