High-throughput screening of improved protease inhibitors using a yeast cell surface display system and a yeast cell chip

Protease-targeted inhibitors have been promising pharmaceuticals. Here, we combined a yeast cell surface display system with a yeast cell chip for the high-throughput screening of protease inhibitors, and succeeded in improving the activity of a protease inhibitor.     

Present states and future prospect of fast ignition realization experiment (FIREX) with Gekko and LFEX Lasers at ILE

The fast ignition realization experiment (FIREX) project is progressing. The new short pulse laser system, LFEX laser, has been completely assembled and one of the four beamlets is now in operation. A fast-ignition experiment was performed using this single short pulse combined with the Gekko XII implosion laser. The energy of the GXII implosion laser was about 2 kJ and the pulse width was 1.5 ns. The energy of the LFEX laser was increased upto 800 J and two pulse durations 5 and 1.6 ps were compared. Targets were deuterated plastic shells with gold cones. It was found that the neutron yield was increased by a factor of 30 as a result of the fast electron-induced heating in LFEX 1.6 ps shot. The estimated coupling efficiency between the LFEX laser pulse and the compressed fuel was low (less than 5%). This may be due to pre-plasma formed by light arriving at the target before the main laser pulse. Further investigations and attempts to overcome these problems are now in progress.     

Facile and versatile method for preparing core–shell microspheres with controlled surface structures based on silica particles-monolayer

This paper introduces a facile method for preparing core–shell type particles composed of a polymer core and a controlled layer shell with inorganic particles such as SiO₂, TiO₂ and Fe₃O₄. This method can be characterized as a one-pot synthesis procedure based on self-assembling copolymerization. By choosing particle diameters and adjusting the chemical modification of inorganic shell components, the method enables precise control of a shell layer such as single, double and multi-layer structures.     

Optical hydrogen sensing method using temperature-sensitive luminophore on porous palladium

A new hydrogen sensing method of luminescence-based hydrogen sensors is presented. This method uses a porous palladium and temperature-sensitive luminophores of europium(III)thenoyltrifluoacetonate to selectively adsorbs hydrogen molecules that generates heat on the palladium surface. The luminophores translate this heat to the luminescent signal. This hydrogen sensing mechanism combines processes of hydrogen adsorption, thermal quenching, and excitation. The sensitivity of the resultant system is over 60 times better than that of the reflectance-based sensing system using a bulk palladium. The change in the luminescent signal increases as increasing the hydrogen concentration of the gas as well as the injection time.     

Increase of inductance ratio of flat type fault current limiter with high‐Tc superconducting disk

Fault current limiters (FCLs) are expected to reduce fault current and improve stability of power systems. A flat type fault current limiter consisting of the pancake primary winding and a high‐T_c superconducting (HTS) disk was proposed as a modified version of a conventional magnetic shield type of the FCL with the superconducting cylinder. The flat type FCL has the advantage of being manufactured smaller than the cylinder type FCL. It is pointed out, from a magnetic field analysis, that the volume of the flat type FCL is smaller than that of the cylinder type FCL with same magnitude of the limiting inductance. Further, the magnetic field analysis suggests that a high inductance ratio can be realized by radially enlarging both the primary winding and the HTS disk, stacking the FCL modules in layers and sandwiching the primary winding with superconducting disks. © 2006 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.