Sex difference of multiple sclerosis in Japan

Sex differences in the clinical course of multiple sclerosis were investigated in 947 patients with multiple sclerosis collected from all over Japan through the nationwide survey undertaken by the Multiple Sclerosis Research Committee of Japan from 1972 through 1973. A course of remissions and exacerbations, more frequent involvement of optic nerves, and more severe motor and visual disability were present in a higher proportion of women than men. These features corresponded to those which have been considered to characterize Oriental multiple sclerosis patients.     

Delayed failure in silica glass

Stable crack-propagation behaviour in silica glass as a raw material for optical fibres is studied under static tensile stress in various environments such as distilled water, NaCl aqueous solution, air and dry nitrogen gas, and the influence of these environments is discussed. The crack-growth rate in distilled water is obtained qualitatively as a function of the stress intensity factor and temperature, and the activation energy of the cracking process is determined as 97.6 kcal mol^–1. The growth rate seems to be unaffected by Na⁺ and Cl^– ions in an NaCl acqueous solution, but is influenced significantly by the humidity in the atmosphere. In a dry atmosphere, the growth rate in Region II cannot be expressed as a single function of the stress intensity factor. A plot of the log of time to failure against the initial stress intensity factor reveals a linear relationship in the environments tested. The critical fracture stress of an optical fibre is evaluated taking account of the crack size on the basis of fracture mechanics concept.     

1.5 μm transmission experiment with distributed feedback laser

The paper reports an experiment which demonstrates the possibility of error-free transmission over 100 km without repeater, by using a single-mode fiber and a laser diode with distributed feedback emitting a single longitudinal mode at the wavelength 1.5 μm.     

TDMA Site Diversity Switching Experiments with Japanese CS

A site diversity switching experiment system for satellite earth links adopting PCM/PSK/TDMA is introduced. Results of downlink switching experiments using CS (30/20 GHz) are presented. Investigations of measuring time of signal quality for minimizing the diversity. switching error are made in point of Allan variance of bit error rate (BER) and of the defined switching error rate.     

The development of a diagnostic and monitoring system for vibrating pipe branches

This paper deals with a diagnostic and monitoring system for assessing the integrity of pipe branches, during the operation of the nuclear power plant. This system have been developed under the concept of “easy to use without any sophisticated analysis” and “portable”. The accuracy of the diagnosis is based on the model optimization subsystem, which automatically modifies the numerical vibration model so as to fit its natural frequency to the actual natural frequency. The information obtained by this system may be reflected to a maintenance program of the plant to assure more reliable operation of the plant.     

Video Scene Annotation Based on Web Social Activities

This article describes a mechanism to acquire the semantics of video content from the activities of Web communities that use a bulletin-board system and weblog tools to discuss video scenes.     

Efficient bioethanol production from xylose by recombinant saccharomyces cerevisiae requires high activity of xylose reductase and moderate xylulokinase activity

We varied the promoter strength of xylose reductase (XR) gene and the copy number of xylulokinase (XK) gene to determine how XR and XK activities affect the xylose-fermenting abilities of recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae expressing xylitol dehydrogenase (XDH). The most enhanced ethanol yield and lowered xylitol yield occurred in strain I-PGK/AUR, which has high activity of both XR and XDH and moderate XK activity.     

Lactose enhances cellulase production by the filamentous fungus Acremonium cellulolyticus

Acremonium cellulolyticus is a fungus that produces cellulase and has been exploited by enzyme industry. To promote cellulase production by A. cellulolyticus strain C-1, we evaluated the effects of the saccharides: Solka Floc (cellulose), soluble soybean polysaccharide (SSPS), pullulan, lactose, trehalose, sophorose, cellobiose, galactose, sorbose, lactobionic acid, and mixtures as carbon sources for cellulase production. Solka Floc with SSPS enhanced cellulase production. Lactose as the sole carbon source induced cellulase synthesis in this fungus, and the synergistic effects between lactose and Solka Floc was observed. Various enzyme activities and the protein composition of crude enzyme produced by cultures with or without addition of lactose were analyzed. The results showed that lactose addition greatly improves the production of various proteins with cellulase activity by A. cellulolyticus. To our knowledge, this is the first report on production of cellulases by lactose in the A. cellulolyticus.