Skeletonized hybrid liposomes

Summary Giant hybrid liposomes of polymerizable lipid and cholesterol were prepared by the hydration method and were polymerized by UV irradiation. The obtained giant liposomes were freeze-dried and washed with chloroform to skeletonize the frame structure of the polymerized membrane. The skeletonized liposomes were directly confirmed by scanning electron microscopy. The single-layered and fully spherical liposome frame were easily confirmed by the stereo-pair of the obtained micrographs.     

Fatigue behavior of medium-density polyethylene pipes

A round bar specimen and a square bar specimen cut out from medium-density polyethylene pipes with a notch were made and a fatigue test was conducted to cause a brittle fracture. The initiation and growth of a craze and crack at the tip of a notch was observed. In the range where loading cycles are few and displacement of the specimen does not increase, the craze prior to crack initiation occurs. Also, the effect of frequency was investigated. The pure creep failure and the fatigue failure at low frequency were compared. The lower the frequency, the smaller the reciprocal of the actual loading time T_f becomes. It is also found that this tensile fatigue test is a useful test method to assure the quality of pipes.     

Interactions oftrans-cinnamic acid,its related phenolic allelochemicals,and abscisic acid in seedling growth and seed germination of lettuce

Phenolic compounds have been identified as the most common allelochemicals produced by higher plants. Inhibitions of cinnamic acid, its related phenolic derivatives, and abscisic acid (ABA) on seedling growth and seed germination of lettuce were studied.trans-Cinnamic acid, ando-,m-, andp-coumaric acids inhibited the growth of etiolated seedlings of lettuce at concentrations higher than 10^–4 M and seed germination above 10^–3 M. Coumarin inhibited seedling growth and seed germination at 10^–5 M or above. Chlorogenic acid inhibited seedling growth above 10^–4 M, but did not inhibit seed germination at 10^–5–5×10^–3 M. Low concentrations (below 10^–3 M) of caffeic and ferulic acids promoted the elongation of hypocotyls, but higher concentrations (over 10^–3 M) inhibited seedling growth and seed germination. These phenolic compounds and abscisic acid had additive inhibitory effects both on seedling growth and seed germination. The inhibition on lettuce was reversed by caffeic and ferulic acids at concentrations lower than 10^–3 M except for the inhibition of germination by coumarin. These results suggest that in naturetrans-cinnamic acid,o-, m-, p-coumaric acids, coumarin, and chlorogenic acid inhibit plant growth regardless of their concentration. However, caffeic and ferulic acids can either promote or inhibit plant growth according to their concentration.     

Thermal Expansion of Solid Solutions in the ZrTiO4—In2O3—M2O5 (M = Sb, Ta) System

Axial and dilatometric thermal expansions and phase transformations were studied for solid solutions having the α-PbO₂ structure in the ZrTiO₄—In₂O₃—M₂O₅ (M = Sb, Ta) system with nominal formulas of Zr _x Ti _y In _z Sb _z O₄ and Zr _x Ti _y In _z Ta _z O₄ where x + y + 2 z = 2. With increased substitution of z , the cell volume increased, the difference in the b parameters at room temperature between those quenched from 1400° and 1000°C decreased, and the thermal expansion decreased. The axial thermal expansion of ZrTi _y In _z · Ta _z O₄ with z = 0.3 was almost identical with that of HfTiO₄, and those with z = 0.4 and z = 0.45 were smaller than that of HfTiO₄. Unit-cell volumes of these compound were compared with those of single oxides to make it clear that the unit-cell volume of ZrTiO₄ was small anomalously and to distinguish the normal and abnormal substitution systems. These results were explained by the working hypothesis proposed for these compounds.     

Aging and availability of binocular disparity and pictorial depth cues in 3D graphics contents

Some stereoblind observers do not perceive depth of 3D stimuli that depends on binocular disparity. These individuals, who have no disabilities, comprise over 5% of the general population. In addition, 17–30% of nonstereoblind young and young–middle people do not use disparity information in certain 3D environments, a phenomenon known as pseudo‐stereoblindness. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between aging and the proportion of pseudo‐stereoblindness in the general population. In an experiment, 134 nonstereoblind participants, ranging in age from 17 to 83 years, judged subjective depth of 3D stimuli containing binocular disparity and pictorial depth cues. Results showed that the proportion of pseudo‐stereoblindness among young (17–24 years old) and young–middle aged observers (25–39 years old) was 29%, in both cases. However, the proportion of pseudo‐stereoblind observers increased in older populations: 65% and 82% in the middle (40–54 years old) and senior (55–83 years old) age groups, respectively. These results suggest that a number of people, especially in elderly populations, have trouble perceiving depth from binocular disparity in 3D graphic contents despite their essential ability to use disparity information.     

Preparation and morphology of electrically conductive and transparent poly(vinylchloride)-polypyrrole composite films

Summary The chemical process of preparing poly(vinylchloride)-polypyrrole composite films with high electrical conductivity and transparency has been studied. Pyrrole has been diffused into the poly(vinylchloride) matrix in the swelling medium of n-hexane and acetone mixture. The oxidative polymerization of the diffused pyrrole in the binary solvent system of acetonitrile and methanol gives high conductivity of the polypyrrole as well as the good penetration of the oxidant into the PVC polymer matrix. The analytical testing of the composite film shows the formation of homogeneous mixture of polypyrrole and poly(vinylchloride) conductive layer within the 1.0m of thickness on the film surface. The transparency of the composite film showed about 50–60% at 500 nm. The electrical conductivity of the composite was about 20 s/cm.     

Chain-reaction solution update in MOEA/D and its effects on multi- and many-objective optimization

MOEA/D is one of the promising evolutionary algorithms for multi- and many-objective optimization. To improve the search performance of MOEA/D, this work focuses on the solution update method in the conventional MOEA/D and proposes its alternative, the chain-reaction solution update. The proposed method is designed to maintain and improve the variable (genetic) diversity in the population by avoiding duplication of solutions in the population. In addition, the proposed method determines the order of existing solutions to be updated depending on the location of each offspring in the objective space. Furthermore, when an existing solution in the population is replaced by a new offspring, the proposed method tries to reutilize the existing solution for other search directions by recursively performing the proposed chain-reaction update procedure. This work uses discrete knapsack and continuous WFG4 problems with 2–8 objectives. Experimental results using knapsack problems show the proposed chain-reaction update contributes to improving the search performance of MOEA/D by enhancing the diversity of solutions in the objective space. In addition, experimental results using WFG4 problems show that the search performance of MOEA/D can be further improved using the proposed method.     

Variable space diversity, crossover and mutation in MOEA solving many-objective knapsack problems

In this work, we analyze variable space diversity of Pareto optimal solutions (POS) and study the effectiveness of crossover and mutation operators in evolutionary many-objective optimization. First we examine the diversity of variables in the true POS on many-objective 0/1 knapsack problems with up to 20 items (bits), showing that variables in POS become noticeably diverse as we increase the number of objectives. We also verify the effectiveness of conventional two-point and uniform crossovers, Local Recombination that selects mating parents based on proximity in objective space, and two-point and uniform crossover operators which Controls the maximum number of Crossed Genes (CCG). We use NSGA-II, SPEA2, IBEA _??+? and MSOPS, which adopt different selection methods, and many-objective 0/1 knapsack problems with $n=\{100,250,500,750,\mbox{1,000}\}$ items (bits) and m?=?{2,4,6,8,10} objectives to verify the search performance of each crossover operator. Simulation results reveal that Local Recombination and CCG operators significantly improve search performance especially for NSGA-II and MSOPS, which have high diversity of genes in the population. Also, results show that CCG operators achieve higher search performance than Local Recombination for m?≥?4 objectives and that their effectiveness becomes larger as the number of objectives m increases. In addition, the contribution of CCG and mutation operators for the solutions search is analyzed and discussed.     

Market prediction using machine learning based on social media specific features

Artificial Life and Robotics - In recent years, unspecified messages posted on social media have significantly affected the price fluctuations of online-traded products, such as stocks and virtual...     

Chemical modification of group IV graphene analogs

Mono-elemental two-dimensional (2D) crystals (graphene, silicene, germanene, stanene, and so on), termed 2D-Xenes, have been brought to the forefront of scientific research. The stability and electronic properties of 2D-Xenes are main challenges in developing practical devices. Therefore, in this review, we focus on 2D free-standing group-IV graphene analogs (graphene quantum dots, silicane, and germanane) and the functionalization of these sheets with organic moieties, which could be handled under ambient conditions. We highlight the present results and future opportunities, functions and applications, and novel device concepts.