Development of green composite consists of woodchips, bamboo fibers and biodegradable adhesive

From the viewpoint of the effective utilization of waste wood, the green composite which is produced by solidifying woodchips has been developed [Miki M, Takakura N, Kanayama K, Yamaguchi K, Iizuka T. Effects of forming conditions on compaction characteristics of wood powders. Trans Jpn Soc Mech Eng C 2003;69(678):502–8 [in Japanese]; Miki M, Takakura N, Kanayama K, Yamaguchi K, Iizuka T. Effects of forming conditions on flow characteristics of wood powders. Trans Jpn Soc Mech Eng C 2003;69(679):766–72 [in Japanese]; Miki M, Takakura N, Iizuka T, Yamaguchi K, Kanayama K. Possibility and problems in injection moulding of wood powders. Trans Jpn Soc Mech Eng C 2004;70(698):2966–72 [in Japanese]]. Since the composite was solidified by the compressive load without the binder, it did not have the high strength and was very brittle, and it had no water resistance [Kinoshita H, Kaizu K, Koga K, Tokunaga H, Ikeda K. In: Proceeding of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers M& M2007; 2007. CD [in Japanese]]. In this study, to improve these defects, it was proposed that a biodegradable resin as an adhesive and bamboo fibers as reinforced fibers were applied to the woodchip composite. By using woodchips with two kinds of the particle size, bamboo fibers with three kinds of the length and the biodegradable adhesive, several kinds of specimens changed mixing ratio of those materials were produced by compression molding at the appropriate temperature. By examining the bending strength and impact strength of the composites, it was found that the high bending strength was obtained in the case where woodchips with the small particle size and long bamboo fibers were used, and the high impact strength was obtained in the case where woodchips with the large particle size and long bamboo fibers were used.     

Coagulation process of soymilk characterized by electrical impedance spectroscopy

Soymilk coagulation process is the most important step in tofu making. An experimental setup was developed to control the coagulation temperature and heating rate by ohmic heating and to perform impedance measurement in time-sharing mode. Soymilk coagulation process was characterized by electrical impedance spectroscopy. Frequency 10 kHz was chosen to analyze the coagulation process. Normalized conductivity was useful in determination of the endpoint of soymilk coagulation process. The coagulation process was considered as two successive first-order reactions. The rate constant in the first stage was 10 times higher than that in the second stage, both rate constants increased with coagulation temperature. The activation energy in the second stage was three times greater than that in the first stage. The successive reaction process was elucidated by using soymilk coagulation mechanism. The use of impedance measurement to analyze the coagulation process provides a basis for the control of soymilk coagulation process.     

Incremental Focus of Attention for Robust Vision-Based Tracking

We present the Incremental Focus of Attention (IFA) architecture for robust, adaptive, real-time motion tracking. IFA systems combine several visual search and vision-based tracking algorithms into a layered hierarchy. The architecture controls the transitions between layers and executes algorithms appropriate to the visual environment at hand: When conditions are good, tracking is accurate and precise; as conditions deteriorate, more robust, yet less accurate algorithms take over; when tracking is lost altogether, layers cooperate to perform a rapid search for the target and continue tracking.Implemented IFA systems are extremely robust to most common types of temporary visual disturbances. They resist minor visual perturbances and recover quickly after full occlusions, illumination changes, major distractions, and target disappearances. Analysis of the algorithm's recovery times are supported by simulation results and experiments on real data. In particular, examples show that recovery times after lost tracking depend primarily on the number of objects visually similar to the target in the field of view.     

Stacked Thiazole Orange Dyes in DNA Capable of Switching Emissive Behavior in Response to Structural Transitions

Functional nucleic acids with the capability of generating fluorescence in response to hybridization events, microenvironment or structural changes are valuable as structural probes and chemical sensors. We now demonstrate the enzyme-assisted preparation of nucleic acids possessing multiple thiazole orange (TO) dyes and their fluorescent behavior, that show a spectral change from the typical monomer emission to the excimer-type red-shifted emission. We found that the fluorescent response and emission wavelength of the TO dyes were dependent on both the state of the DNA structure (single- or double-stranded DNA) and the arrangement of the TO dyes. We showed that the fluorescent behavior of the TO dyes can be applied for the detection of RNA molecules, suggesting that our approach for preparing the fluorescent nucleic acids functionalized with multiple TO dyes could be useful to design a fluorescence bioimaging and detection technique of biomolecules.     

Microbial inspection of a Vietnamese hospital kitchen with reference to a Japanese hospital kitchen

This study aimed to assess food safety in a Vietnamese hospital kitchen with reference to a Japanese hospital, where hygiene management is well implemented. Microbial inspections, including general viable bacteria count, coliform, and Escherichia coli (E. coli) counts were conducted on 10 cookware items, facility equipment, and 14 cooked foods at the two hospital kitchens in Vietnam and Japan. The mean general viable bacteria counts found on cookware and equipment in the Vietnamese hospital kitchen were significantly higher than those in the Japanese kitchen. Furthermore, the frequencies of both general viable bacteria at more than 100 CFU/10 cm² and coliform/E. coli-positive were significantly higher in the Vietnamese kitchen than in the Japanese kitchen. Coliform bacteria and E. coli were detected in cooked foods in the Vietnamese, but not in the Japanese, hospital kitchen. In light of these results, some key points are suggested to improve the microbial safety status of hospital kitchens in Vietnam.     

Multiple pulmonary nodules in association with pyoderma gangrenosum

This report describes a patient with extensive pyoderma gangrenosum in whom there were co-existent lung abnormalities. The patient's X-ray showed peripherally sited multiple pulmonary lesions bilaterally. A lung biopsy showed chronic non-specific inflammatory changes with neutrophil and lymphocyte infiltration which were similar to the skin lesions. This case was diagnosed as multiple aseptic nodules in pyoderma gangrenosum. The pulmonary infiltrative shadows were controlled only with prednisolone treatment. Steroid therapy is considered to be the first choice to control pulmonary lesions of this disease.     

PRESENT STATUS OF POWDER TECHNOLOGY EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS AND RESEARCHES IN JAPAN

Tables to indicate the present status of powder technology educational programs in Japan are presented on the basis of a questionnaire style investigation by the Society of Powder Technology, Japan. Research activities in universities and research institutes are also included in the tables.

The activities of both the Society of Powder Technology and the Association of Powder Process Industry and Engineering in Japan are also introduced by explaining their organizations and annual events.     

Replication errors in hematological neoplasias: genomic instability in progression of disease is different among different types of leukemia

Genetic alteration, including genomic instability, is an ultimate step toward the malignant process. One approach to delineating replication errors in cancer cells is to determine the alterations of microsatellites, which are short, repeated nucleotide sequences existing throughout the genomes. We used a fluorescent system to assess microsatellite changes in seven loci (D2S123, D3S643, D5S107, LPL, D17S261, TP53, and D18S34) of 73 consecutive patients with various hematological neoplasias. De novo acute leukemia patients had a low frequency (<1%) of microsatellite alterations at each locus, and none of them demonstrated multiple microsatellite changes. In chronic myeloid leukemia patients, no microsatellite instability was detected in the chronic phase, whereas a relatively high frequency (25%) of multiple microsatellite changes was evident in the blastic phase, and half of these patients had multiple microsatellite changes. About 50% of the patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and post-MDS acute myeloid leukemia (post-MDS AML) had microsatellite alterations. We next compared microsatellite alterations in two different hematological phases (MDS and post-MDS AML phases); 5 of 11 patients with post-MDS AML had de novo appearance of microsatellite instability during disease progression. This indicates that genomic instability at multiple microsatellite loci could occur either before or after leukemic transformation in MDS patients. We concluded that genomic instability in chronic myeloid leukemia might be linked to blastic transformation in combination with cytogenetic changes. In contrast, MDS patients had replication errors as a relatively early genetic event as well as a late genetic event. These results suggest that the involvement of genomic instability in the progression of disease is different among various types of leukemia.