Carbon fibers (CFs) are considered promising composite materials for various applications. However, the high cost of CFs (as much as $26 per kg) limits their practical use in the automobile and energy industries. In this study, we developed a continuous stabilization process for manufacturing low-cost CFs. We employed a textile-grade polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fiber as a low-cost precursor and UV irradiation technique to shorten the thermal stabilization time. We confirmed that UV irradiation on the textile-grade PAN fibers could lower the initial thermal stabilization temperature and also lead to a higher reaction. These resulted in a shorter overall stabilization time and enhancement of the tensile properties of textilegrade PAN-based CFs. Our study found that only 70 min of stabilization time with UV irradiation was required to prepare textile-grade PAN-based low-cost CFs with a tensile strength of 2.37 ± 0.22GPa and tensile modulus of 249 ± 5 GPa.

Animal companionship is thought to make a positive contribution to health, health behaviors and the general well-being of older people. More specifically companion animal ownership is often proposed as a solution to the problem of loneliness and decreased sociality etc in later life and specific 'companion animal based' interventions have been developed to combat the problems of elderly people. The aim of this paper is to review the association between animal companionship and the problems of elderly people like as the decreased self-esteem and depression by exploring if companion animal ownership is a response to, or protection against, the problems of elderly people. We summarizes and analysis the current literatures about the effects of animal companionships on the self-esteem and depression of elderly people.

The purposes of this study were to investigate biomechanical variables of the lumbar spine for women who enjoy recreational exercises regularly, and to determine the factors that influence these variables. These variables were determined by the X-ray pictures of the lumbar area of 80 housewives who visited the department of rehabilitation at the Y Hospital from October 1997 to March 1998. The sacral inclination angle, the sacrohorizontal angle, the lumbosacral joint angle, and the lumbar lordotic angle were analysed. The t-test, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis were used to determine the significant differences and relationships among variables. The result were as follows: 1) There was a significant difference in the sacral inclination angle (p<0.01), the sacrohorizontal angle (p<0.05) and the lumbar lordotic angle (p<0.05) between the bilateral and the unilateral exercise group. 2) With the sacral inclination angle, the sacrohorizontal angle, the lumbosacral joint angle and the lumbar lordotic angle, correlation was found between the sacral inclination angle and the sacrohorizontal angle (p<0.01), the sacral inclination angle and the lumbosacral joint angle (p<0.05), the sacral inclination angle and the lumbar lordotic angle (p<0.05), and the sacrohorizontal angle and the lumbosacral joint angle (p<0.01). 3) In the bilateral exercise group, the sacral inclination angle correlated with age (p<0.01). The sacrohorizontal angle correlated with age (p<0.01) and exercise time (p<0.01). The lumbar lordotic angle correlated with age (p<0.05) and exercise duration (p<0.05). In the unilateral exercise group, the sacral inclination angle correlated with age (p<0.01), while the sacrohorizontal angle correlated with age (p<0.01) and exercise duration (p<0.05). The lumbar lordotic angle correlated with age (p<0.05).