Ray-bound tracing for perfect and efficient anti-aliasing

A complete detection of whether aliasing occurs in a given pixel is possible by using the concept of bounded rays and raybound tracing. A coherent set of rays can be bounded by bounding both their origins (by a sphere) and directions (by a circle on a unit sphere). By tracing bounds of rays in a pixel, along the direction of reflection, refraction or to light sources, it is possible to obtain an upper bound on the degree of aliasing in the pixel. Ray bound tracing is possible against various shapes and with various shading algorithms.     

Ultrastructural study of the effects of cytochalasin D administration on the structure and acid trimetaphosphatase activity of osteoclast.

To determine the role of the cytoskeleton consisting of the microfilaments in osteoclasts, cytochalasin D (CD) conjugated with PBS was administered intravenously to rats at a dose of 1 mg/100 g b.w. Control rats were given only PBS. Then the osteoclasts in the metaphyses of the humeri were examined ultrastructurally, as well as acid trimetaphosphatase (TMPase) cytochemistry. The plasma calcium (Ca) concentrations before and after CD and calcitonin administration were also measured. CD administration first caused a prominent reduction of ruffled borders and spreading of clear zones associated with the occurrence of large pale vacuoles in adjacent cytoplasm. At 1 hr after CD administration, the osteoclasts mostly lacked both ruffled borders and clear zones, but still maintained a normal intracellular organization of cytoplasmic organelles. Morphometric analysis confirmed that CD administration resulted in about 70% reduction of both ruffled border and clear zone areas. TMPase secretion from osteoclasts towards the resorbing bone surfaces was strongly inhibited by CD administration. At 1 hr after administration, although CD caused a decrease of plasma Ca concentrations in 4 of 7 examined rats similar to that caused by calcitonin treatment, there was a slight increase of plasma Ca concentrations in the other 3 rats. These results suggest that the structure and bone-resorbing function of the ruffled border-clear zone complex of the osteoclast is highly regulated by cytoskeleton consisting of microfilaments containing F-actin.     

An efficient method to compute closest loadability limit in power systems

A closest loadability limit (CLL) is considered as a most reliable index in the assessment and enhancement of voltage stability of a power system. Two kinds of methods, the iterative method and the direct N‐R method, have been proposed so far, but the computation of CLL is known to be troublesome. The former method is quite time‐consuming and its convergence is sometimes distributed due to the existence of multiple local CLLs, while the latter method is hardly useful unless a very accurate initial condition is available. This paper proposes a new method to compute a CLL, consisting of three stages of computations. The first stage is to obtain a rough initial estimate of a CLL, where multiple local CLLs can be approximated by the multiple load flow solutions. The initial estimate is refined by the second stage computation based on a method similar to the conventional iterative method. The third stage is to obtain a direct solution by mean of the N‐R method. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated using IEEE 14, 30, 57, and 118 bus test systems. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 140(1): 57–67, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.1171     

Influence of water and sediment quality on benthic biota in an acidified river

Water and sediment quality and benthic biota were investigated in all seasons during three years in the River Akagawa that receives the effluent from a mine drainage treatment plant at its upstream site. The upper reaches kept the low pH, the comparatively high concentrations of metals and a large amount of iron deposited on the riverbed. The predominant macroinvertebrates were Protonemura sp., Capnidae, Nemoura sp. and Chironomidae in the upper and middle reaches. In the lowest reaches, the community structure of the macroinvertebrate changed into Chironomidae, Trichoptera (Hydropsychidae) and Ephemeroptera (Baetis sp.) as the pH was increased. From the results of multivariate analyses, it was found that the restoration of pH and attached algae and the increase in the concentrations of nutrients and organic matter promoted the inhabitation of Chironomidae and Hydropsychidae, whereas the dissolved metals in the river water inhibited the inhabitation of these families. Moreover, the sedimentation of metals would cause a severe damage to the inhabitation of Hydropsychidae compared with that of Chironomidae.     

Microstructural investigation of ceria-zirconia solid solution with oxygen vacancies

The microstructural change in CeO2-ZrO2 solid solution (Ce2Zr2O7 + x; 0 < or = x < or = 1) with an ordered arrangement of Ce and Zr associated with the absorption/release of oxygen was observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The oxidation of Ce2Zr2O7 was observed in TEM by electron diffraction analysis. The change in the electron diffraction pattern shows that Ce2Zr2O7 was easily oxidized in the TEM and that the oxidation was completed, giving an intermediate phase Ce2Zr2O7.5. Three different lattice images corresponding to x = 0, 0.5 and 1.0 were observed in high-resolution photographs of Ce2Zr2O7 + x. This difference in contrast image may be used for determining the local amount of oxygen absorbed.     

Dual-color operation of a laser diode under current and temperature control

We describe a novel method that operates a laser diode with dual colors. Our system requires no external optical parts but does require current and temperature control. We can use either a single color on a time-sharing basis or dual colors simultaneously. The difference between the wavelengths is -0.6 nm, which is as much as 10 times that generated by current control alone. Temporal stability of the generated two wavelengths and the response time of the wavelength change were confirmed through a number of experiments.     

Optimized design of temperature-insensitive optical waveguide coupler with 120-nm bandwidth using fluorinated polyimide

Method for designing optimized temperature-insensitive optical waveguide couplers by use of fluorinated polyimide is presented. Based on measured temperature and dispersion characteristics of fluorinated polyimide, a 3-dB waveguide coupler with a 120-nm bandwidth with minimal temperature variance is designed and verified through simulation based on three-dimensional beam propagation. The coupling ratio of the theoretical device is 50 +/- 0.7% in the waveband 1490 to approximately 1610 nm and the temperature range -10 to approximately 40 degrees C.     

In vivo noninvasive measurement of blood glucose by near-infrared diffuse-reflectance spectroscopy

This paper reports in situ noninvasive blood glucose monitoring by use of near-infrared (NIR) diffuse-reflectance spectroscopy. The NIR spectra of the human forearm were measured in vivo by using a pair of source and detector optical fibers separated by a distance of 0.65 mm on the skin surface. This optical geometry enables the selective measurement of dermis tissue spectra due to the skin's optical properties and reduces the interference noise arising from the stratum corneum. Oral glucose intake experiments were performed with six subjects (including a single subject with type I diabetes) whose NIR skin spectra were measured at the forearm. Partial least-squares regression (PLSR) analysis was carried out and calibration equations were obtained with each subject individually. Without exception among the six subjects, the regression coefficient vectors of their calibration models were similar to each other and had a positive peak at around 1600 nm, corresponding to the characteristic absorption peak of glucose. This result indicates that there is every possibility of glucose detection in skin tissue using our measurement system. We also found that there was a good correlation between the optically predicted values and the directly measured values of blood samples with individual subjects. The potential of noninvasive blood glucose monitoring using our methodology was demonstrated by the present study.     

Differentiation and function of osteoclasts cultured on bone and cartilage

We examined the differentiation and resorptive function of osteoclasts (OC) cultured on the slices of calcified bone, decalcified bone and hyaline cartilage, and found that OC differentiation depends on the co-cultured substratum, as well as osteoblast-derived factors. Bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMM) were formed from marrow cells of 5 week old ddY mice and cultured for 3 days on freeze-dried slices of calcified bone, decalcified bone or cartilage, all prepared from rabbit costal bone. BMM cultured on calcified bone slices exhibited tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP) activity and were structurally characterized by multinucleation and ruffled border development. However, on decalcified bone slices, BMM seldom became multinucleated and exhibited weak TRAP activity. BMM cultured on cartilage slices were mononuclear, devoid of TRAP activity and structurally resembled mononuclear phagocytes. In SEM observations of co-cultured slices, resorption lacunae were formed only on calcified bone slices, and not on slices of decalcified bone and cartilage. Our results, therefore, indicated that BMM could differentiate into functional OC only on calcified bone slices, suggesting a key role of calcified components in the bone matrix for the terminal OC differentiation. Then, we cultured BMM on the same slices with yeast particles. In cultures with yeast particles, BMM exhibited intense TRAP activity, developed a ruffled border-like structure and formed resorption lacunae even on decalcified bone and cartilage slices. Vacuolar-type H+-ATPase was strongly expressed along the ruffled border membranes of these OC. Only the BMM that had not incorporated yeast particles developed a ruffled border, whereas the BMM that had incorporated yeast particles did not become multinucleated and lacked a ruffled border structure. Thus, our results further suggest that, even on uncalcified substrata, the terminal differentiation of BMM into functional OC is induced by an unidentified external stimulus, which may be contained in the cell membrane of yeast particles.     

Component spatial pattern analysis of chemicals by use of two-dimensional electro-optic terahertz imaging

We demonstrate a method of chemical mapping by using the transillumination terahertz (THz) images obtained by two-dimensional electro-optic THz imaging. The images and spectral data were measured between 0.1 and 1.0 THz. An experimental sample consisting of three chemicals was prepared, with one in two concentrations. By introducing the component spatial pattern analysis based on the least-squares method, the chemical composition, spatial distribution, and difference in concentration were clearly determined.