Prevention of Osteoporosis by Oral Administration of Phytate-Removed and Deamidated Soybean β-Conglycinin

Phytate-removed and deamidated soybean β-conglycinin (PrDS) prepared by ion-exchange resins was supplemented to be 4% in the diet administered to ovariectomized rats to investigate its preventive effect on osteoporosis. The apparent calcium absorption rate decreased following ovariectomy and was not replenished by oral administration of phytate-removed soybean β-conglycinin (PrS) or casein. On the other hand, administration of PrDS restored the calcium absorption rate to the same level as the sham group. Markers of bone resorption, such as serum parathyroid hormone (PTH) and urinary deoxypyridinoline (DPD), increased, and the bone mineral density and breaking stress decreased following ovariectomy. However, PrDS supplementation suppressed the changes caused by the decrease in calcium absorption from the small intestine. Therefore, PrDS supplementation shows promise for the prevention of postmenopausal osteoporosis.     

Cold-start performance of an ammonia-fueled spark ignition engine with an on-board fuel reformer

This work demonstrated the first-ever cold-start operation of an ammonia (NH₃)-fueled four-cylinder spark ignition engine with an on-board fuel reformer, applying autothermal reforming. In this system, an electrically heated NH₃-air mixture was provided to a reforming catalyst and approximately 3 s was found to elapse between the start of engine rotation and the onset of combustion. Stable fast idle operation in conjunction with a cold start was realized with a H₂-to-NH₃ molar ratio of 2:1. Nearly zero NH₃ emissions were achieved during cold start and fast idle until the engine warmed up, by adsorbing unburned NH₃ passing through a three-way catalyst before the catalyst was sufficiently warmed up. The NH₃ adsorption capacity of this system could be regenerated during the engine warm-up when the engine was running under lean conditions.     

‘Lipase and protease production of dairy Penicillium sp. on milk‐protein‐based solid substrates’

The lipolytic and proteolytic activity of Penicillium camemberti PC TT033 and Penicillium roqueforti PR G3, cultured on the whey solids or simulated cheese media, were compared under several pH reaction conditions. Lipolytic activity was higher when both strains had been cultured on the whey medium than on the simulated cheese medium, whereas proteolytic activity was less influenced by the culture medium. The relationship between the reaction pH and these enzyme activities was dependent on the culture medium, which suggested that the expression level and balance of isozyme rely on the culture substrate.     

Silicon based on-chip antenna using an LC resonator for near-field RF systems

This paper presents the silicon based on-chip antenna using a LC resonator. The proposed antenna consists of a stacked capacitor and a spiral inductor on silicon substrate. The spiral inductor structure without underpass was proposed for improvement the performance of the silicon based-antenna. The resonant frequency of the fabricated antenna was measured as 465 MHz. Its return loss was 23.4 dB at resonant frequency. The antenna has a gain of ?35.75 dBi due to small size and silicon substrate. However, the fabricated antenna has good performance in the near-field.     

Impact of Serum Chemerin Levels on Liver Functional Reserves and Platelet Counts in Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Obesity-related metabolic abnormalities, including adipokine imbalance and chronic inflammation, are involved in liver carcinogenesis. Chemerin, a novel adipokine, plays a critical role in adipogenesis, energy metabolism, and inflammation. We evaluated the impact of serum chemerin levels on liver functional reserves in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients and on the recurrence and prognosis of HCC. This study included 44 patients with any stage of HCC who underwent curative treatment at Gifu Municipal Hospital (Gifu, Japan) between 2006 and 2007. Recurrence-free survival and overall survival were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method. Serum albumin levels (Pearson’s correlation coefficient; r = 0.3110, p = 0.0399), platelet counts (r = 0.4159, p = 0.0050), and prothrombin times (r = 0.3775, p = 0.0115) were significantly correlated with serum chemerin levels in patients with HCC, and they were inversely correlated with Child-Pugh scores (r = −0.3732, p = 0.0126), serum alanine aminotransferase levels (r = −0.3864, p = 0.0105), and total bilirubin levels (r = −0.4023, p = 0.0068). Among these variables, a multiple comparison test identified that platelet counts and total bilirubin levels were associated with serum chemerin levels (p < 0.0083). No significant correlation was found between serum chemerin levels and recurrence-free survival (p = 0.3691) or overall survival (p = 0.7916). In HCC patients, serum chemerin concentrations were correlated with liver functional reserves and platelet counts, but not with recurrence or prognosis.     

Proposal of resilience assessment by focusing on pliability

Resilience is a concept which presents the strength of mind necessary to adopt the difficulties and to recover from negative psychological state. The assessment for resilience has been assessed by using interview and questionnaire which depend on subjectivity of participants. Though the objective assessment for resilience is expected to advance the biofeedback treatment, neither effective method nor instrument have been developed. Then this study focuses on the pliability as one of aspects of resilience and experimentally verifies whether it becomes a novel index for resilience or not.     

The Routineness of Routines: Measuring Rhythms of Media Interaction

The routines of information work are commonplace yet difficult to characterize. Although cognitive models have successfully characterized routine tasks within which there is little variation, a large body of ethnomethodological research has identified the inherent nonroutineness of routines in information work. We argue that work does not fall into discrete classes of routine versus nonroutine; rather, task performance lies on a continuum of routineness, and routineness metrics are important to the understanding of workplace multitasking.

In a study of 10 information workers shadowed for 3 whole working days each, we utilize the construct of working sphere to model projects/tasks as a network of humans and artifacts. Employing a statistical technique called T-pattern analysis, we derive measures of routineness from these real-world data. In terms of routineness, we show that information workers experience archetypes of working spheres. The results indicate that T-patterns of interactions with information and computational media are important indicators of facets of routineness and that these measures are correlated with workers' affective states. Our results are some of the first to demonstrate how regular temporal patterns of media interaction in tasks are related to stress. These results suggest that designs of systems to facilitate so-called routine work should consider the degrees to which a person's working spheres fall along varying facets of routineness.