Chemotherapy for stage IV NSCLC seems to have effectiveness for elderly patients and those with comorbid conditions that is similar to the efficacy seen in randomized trials containing mostly younger, highly selected patients. All suitable patients should be given the opportunity to consider palliative chemotherapy for metastatic NSCLC.

The densification behavior, microstructure, and electrical properties of ZnO-V2O5 ceramics were studied with V2O5 as the only additive ranging from 0.01 to 1.0 mol %. The addition of V2O5 to zinc oxide shows a tendency to enhance the densification rate and promote grain growth. However, a microstructure that consisted of anomalously grown grains was found for the specimens containing V2O5≥0.05 mol % when sintered at 1100 °C for 2 h. The x-ray diffraction and SEM-EDS microanalysis revealed that the sintered specimens had a two-phase microstructure, i.e., a vanadium-rich intergranular phase formed between ZnO grains. The formation of the grain boundary barrier layer was confirmed by the non-ohmic I-V behavior and the quick drop of apparent dielectric constant with increasing frequency of the ceramics. A nonlinearity coefficient of 2.4–2.8 was obtained at a current density of 10 mA/cm2 for a series ZnO-V2O5 ceramics, and a Schottky barrier height of 0.44–0.47 eV (at 25 °C) was determined from the I-V and C-V experimental data, based on the thermionic emission theory, and the model of back-to-back double Schottky barriers.

A soft/hard Fe/FePt bilayer with perpendicular magnetization was prepared on a glass substrate. Controlling the Fe layer thickness allowed modification of the hysteresis loops from rigid magnet with perpendicular magnetization to exchange-spring like magnet with parallel magnetization due to the nanoscale soft/hard interface coupling. For rigid magnetic films, the magnetization was reversed at a single switching field and interpreted by the two-spin model. In an exchange-spring like film, the in-plane magnetization reversal process was in two-steps and resulted from domain wall nucleation and propagation from the Fe layer into the FePt layer

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Mechanically alloyed magnets SmCox (x=6.0–11.0) have been prepared using starting materials of commercial SmCo5 and Co powders. X-ray diffraction data indicate that the equilibrium Sm2Co17 phase can be achieved in a nanocomposite Sm2Co17/Co system at x=8.5–11.0, while a Sm2Co17/SmCo5 structure occurs at x=6.0–8.0. The best magnetic properties obtained at x=10.0 are as follows: (BH)max=10.2 MGOe, Br=9.4 kG, Hc=4.0 kOe, and S=0.82. Wohlfarth’s remanence analysis indicates that the high remanence can be attributed to the intergranular interaction between neighboring cobalt and Sm2Co17 grains.