Relaxation overview

The Snoek pendulum, which in the most general sense is a device to measure relaxations, has also been used to measure relaxation caused by tangential displacements at grain boundaries. This application has been the central concern of a distinguished Chinese physicist, Tingsui Ke, for all of the past 55 years. He was stimulated to this study by Clarence Zener, in 1945, and pursued the approach, first in Chicago and then in China. This exceptional fidelity to a powerful quantitative technique was recognised by a medal and an invitation to deliver an overview lecture in America, recently published shortly before his death (Ke 1999). 

Although blood pressure control follows Ohm s law and seems to be simple, it underlies a complex circuit of interrelated systems. Hence, numerous physiologic systems that have pleiotropic effects and interact in complex fashion have been found to modulate blood pressure. Because of their number and complexity it is beyond the scope of the current account to cover all mechanisms and feedback circuits involved in blood pressure control. Rather, an overview of the clinically most relevant ones is presented. These systems include the heart, the blood vessels, the extracellular volume, the kidneys, the nervous system, a variety of humoral factors, and molecular events at the cellular level. They are intertwined to maintain adequate tissue perfusion and nutrition. Normal blood pressure control can be related to cardiac output and the total peripheral resistance. The stroke volume and the heart rate determine cardiac output. Each cycle of cardiac contraction propels a bolus of about 70 ml blood into the systemic arterial system. As one example of the interaction of these multiple systems, the stroke volume is dependent in part on intravascular volume regulated by the kidneys as well as on myocardial contractility. The latter is, in turn, a complex function involving sympathetic and parasympathetic control of heart rate intrinsic activity of the cardiac conduction system complex membrane transport and cellular events requiring influx of calcium, which lead to myocardial fibre shortening and relaxation and affects the humoral substances (e.g., catecholamines) in stimulation heart rate and myocardial fibre tension. 

Several types of spin-lattice relaxation processes have been described in the literature [31]. Here a brief overview of some of the most important ones is given. The simplest spin-lattice process is the direct process in which a spin transition is accompanied by the creation or annihilation of a single phonon such that the electronic spin transition energy, A, is exchanged by the phonon energy, hcoq. Using the Debye model for the phonon spectrum, one finds for k T A that... 

Highly sophisticated pulse sequences have been developed for the extraction of the desired information from ID and multidimensional NMR spectra [172]. The same techniques can be used for high-resolution 1-NMR, s-NMR and NQR. Pulse experiments are commonly used for the measurement of relaxation times [173], for the study of diffusion processes [174] and for the investigation of chemical reactions [175]. Davies et al. [176] have described naming and proposed reporting of common NMR pulse sequences (IUPAC task group). An overview of pulse sequence experiments has been given [177],... 

In this chapter we shall concentrate on an overview of the physical relaxation processes relating to organic molecules, along with a simple kinetic analysis of these processes. More detailed accounts of the processes themselves will be covered in subsequent chapters. 

This chapter is an overview of what magnetic nuclear relaxation can bring to our knowledge of the actinide ions and their use in the nuclear industry. Most results are quite recent and the field is wide open. The author hopes this chapter will attract the attention of NMR specialists who should not be distraught by the experimental difficulties that always accompany the handling of radioactive materials. On the other hand, nuclear chemists and physicists will hopefully discover that NMRD is an interesting supplement to their favorite spectroscopic techniques. 

The properties of some widely used selective pulses are described, together with methods for calibration. The emphasis is on an overview of what may be expected from a given pulse shape in terms of selectivity, duration, quality of profile, sensitivity to relaxation, and range of applicability. 

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