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To examine the antiadhesive effect of an alginate solution following tendon surgery, unilateral subtotal laceration of the flexor digitorum communis tendon was created in one hind limb while the other side was left intact in 32 Japanese white rabbits. The lesion was coated with alginate solution in 16 animals and not coated in the other 16. Degree of adhesion formation was assessed histologically and biomechanically by measuring the flexion angle of the first toe when the flexor digitorum tendon was pulled with a specified force at 4 weeks postoperatively. When compared with the control group, the alginate-treated group demonstrated significantly greater toe flexion, with less scar tissue formation at the repair site. Histologically, complete tendon healing with longitudinal remodeling of collagen fibers was observed in the alginate-treated group, while a random pattern of fibers was observed in the control group. Reduction in adhesion formation using alginate solution represents a novel strategy for the management of tendon injury and repair in the clinical setting.

An impurity transport model based on diffusivity and the radial convective velocity is proposed as a first approach to explain the differences in the time evolution of Al XII (0.776 nm), Al XI (55 nm) and Al X (33.3 nm) lines following Al-injection by laser blow-off between normal confinement discharges and high density H-mode (HDH) discharges. Both discharge types are in the collisional regime for impurities (central electron temperature is 0.4 keV and central density exceeds 10 20 m −3 ). In this model, the radial convective velocity is assumed to be determined by the radial electric field, as derived from the pressure gradient. The diffusivity coefficient is chosen to be constant in the plasma core but is significantly larger in the edge region, where it counteracts the high local values of the inward convective velocity. Under these conditions, the faster decay of aluminium in HDH discharges can be explained by the smaller negative electric field in the bulk plasma, and correspondingly smaller inward convective velocity, due to flattening of the density profiles.

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