Behavior of Buried Flexible Pipe under High Fills and Design Implications

The existing design guidelines for buried flexible pipes are limited to depth up to 10?m. The increasing use of difficult terrains for infrastructure, landfills, and residential and industrial developments has prompted installation of drainage pipelines under 20–30?m high fills. This paper presents the behavior of an instrumented flexible pipe buried under a 47.1?m deep fill. For filling above 20?m, the measured vertical stress above the pipe exhibited a concave distribution, corresponding to 90 and 110% of the average vertical pressure at the center and edges of the pipe, respectively. The measured results suggest that a triangular lateral pressure distribution can lead to overly conservative and uneconomical results for high fills while Spangler’s analysis is unconservative. Based on the measured results, a revised vertical and lateral earth pressure diagram was proposed for the design of flexible pipe under high fills >20?m. This paper proposes closed-form analyses for estimating the moments and displacements of the pipe subjected to high fill earth pressures. These closed-form solutions agree well with the measured pipe displacements and strains.     

Therapeutic effects of prostacyclin analog on crescentic glomerulonephritis of rat

Prostacyclin (PGI2) is known to have a relaxative action on vascular smooth muscle, an inhibitory action against platelet activation and neutrophil function. Previous studies showed the preventive effects of PGI2 on lupus nephritis and Thy-1 nephritis, although the mechanism has not been clarified. Glomerular endothelial expression of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) is up-regulated in experimental and human glomerular diseases, and is known to facilitate leukocyte infiltration into the glomeruli, which ultimately induces the various glomerular injuries. In the present study, we evaluated the therapeutic effects of PGI2 on a rat model for crescentic glomerulonephritis and investigated its putative mechanism in relation to ICAM-1-mediated leukocyte recruitment. Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats were injected with nephrotoxic serum and received continuous intraperitoneal infusion of PGI2. PGI2 dramatically decreased proteinuria (123.0 +/- 18.8 vs. 31.6 +/- 4.5), crescent formation and deposition of fibrinogen in the glomeruli, while the deposition of rabbit IgG, rat IgG and rat C3 along the capillary walls was not changed. Furthermore, intraglomerular expression of ICAM-1 and infiltration of macrophages were significantly suppressed by administration with PGI2. In contrast, influx of CD4 or CD8 positive cells was not altered. The present results suggest that PGI2 shows the preventive effects on experimental crescentic glomerulonephritis by inhibiting intraglomerular coagulation and ICAM-1-mediated macrophage-glomerular endothelial cell adhesive pathway.     

Studies on dry spinning. I. Fundamental equations

One difficulty in analyzing the state of filament in the dry spinning process is that in the boundary conditions required to solve the equations of mass, momentum and energy which are derived on the consideration of balance with respect to infinitesimally small element are not given a priori. The equations which include these boundary conditions in themselves are derived by considering mass, momentum, and energy balances with respect to the entire cross section of filament. These additional macroscopic equations are simplified to a great extent by assuming the flat velocity profile through the cross section of filament. Besides, in the steady state, these macroscopic equations are modified to give the equations of average solvent content, spinning tension, cross-sectional area, and average temperature. When the spinning conditions are given and the physical constants are measured for a given polymer and solvent system, it becomes possible to calculate the state of filament by solving these microscopic and macroscopic equations simultaneously without resorting to actual spinning.     

Theory of powdered metal formation in electrochemistry—morphological instability in galvanostatic crystal growth under diffusion control

Following the presentation of the theory of powder formation in steady state electrocrystallization, some equations based on the linear instability theory in non-steady state deposition under diffusion control were derived; the galvanostatic case was then analysed using the theoretical equations obtained here.As a result, the dependences of powder growth and particle size on various physical parameters, such as current density, bulk concentration and temperature, were made quantitatively clear. Furthermore, a reliable basis was given to the induction time of powder formation which had formerly been liable to amibiguous discussion.     

Resistivity changes of heavily-boron-doped CVD-prepared polycrystalline silicon caused by thermal annealing

Heavily-boron-doped polycrystalline Si films were deposited at 600°C on thermally grown SiO₂ by the thermal decomposition of SiH₄-BCl₃-H₂ mixture. Resistivity changes with isochronal or sequential annealing were systematically examined. Temperature dependence of equilibrium saturation carrier concentration was determined at 800 ～ 1100°C. Since as-deposited polycrystalline Si is in the super-saturated state, carrier concentration decreases from the super-saturated to equilibrium saturation value by annealings over 700°C for poly Si doped with over 2 × 10²⁰ cm^?3 resulting in anomalous resistivity change. Carrier concentration changes reversibly between saturation values with sequential annealing and is determined by the last annealing temperature when the annealing time is long enough. Mobility increases with annealing temperature, however, less increase is found for heavily doped poly Si, which is attributed to the suppression of grain growth caused by electrically inactive Si-B compounds.     

Determination of magnetic anisotropy constants for bubble garnet epitaxial films using field orientation dependence in ferromagnetic resonances

Cubic magnetocrystalline anisotropy constant K₁ as well as uniaxial anisotropy constant K_u and gyromagnetic ratio γ are precisely determined for (111) magnetic garnet epitaxial films from measurements on FMR field orientation dependence. Strict FMR conditions are derived from total free energy expressions, where the differences between magnetization direction and applied field direction are taken into consideration. By applying magnetic field in (110) plane, FMR is measured to obtain the three best fitting parameters of K₁, K_u and γ. Present analysis is compared with Cronemeyer et al's analysis. Influence of sample misalignment on measurement accuracy is also presented. Similarly, for (110) garnet films with orthorhombic magnetic anisotropy, measurements are carried out for two crystallographic planes of (001) and (110), and the four best fitting parameters of K₁, K_u, δ and γ are determined.     

Chromosome translocation induced by the insertion of the URA blaster into the major repeat sequence (MRS) in Candida albicans

Electrophoretic karyotype studies have shown that clinical isolates of Candida albicans have extensive chromosome length polymorphisms. Chromosome translocation is one of the causes of karyotypic variation. Chromosome translocation events have been shown to occur very frequently at or near the major repeat sequence (MRS) on chromosomes. The MRS consists of the repeated sequences RB2, RPS and HOK, and the repeated sequences are considered to be the template for recombination. To investigate which element of the MRS is important for chromosome translocation, we constructed three cassettes, each containing a URA blaster and sequences homologous to one of the repeats, for insertion into the MRS region on the chromosomes. The ura3 strain STN22u2, which shows a stable, standard karyotype, was transformed with each construct. Insertion events with each cassette occurred at almost all chromosomes. Insertion into the RB2 repeat, but not into the RPS repeat, was accompanied by chromosome translocation in some transformants: chromosome translocations between chromosomes R and 7 and chromosomes 1 and 7 were found, as well as deletions of 7A and 7C from chromosome 7. We conclude that the insertion at the RB2 region may initiate chromosome translocation in C. albicans.     

Diversity control in ant colony optimization

Optimization inspired by cooperative food retrieval in ants has been unexpectedly successful and has been known as ant colony optimization (ACO) in recent years. One of the most important factors to improve the performance of the ACO algorithms is the complex trade-off between intensification and diversification. This article investigates the effects of controlling the diversity by adopting a simple mechanism for random selection in ACO. The results of computer experiments have shown that it can generate better solutions stably for the traveling salesmen problem than AS_rank which is known as one of the newest and best ACO algorithms by utilizing two types of diversity.     

Discrimination of psychoactive fungi (commonly called "magic mushrooms") based on the DNA sequence of the internal transcribed spacer region

'Magic mushrooms' (MMs) are psychoactive fungi containing the hallucinogenic compounds, psilocin (1) and psilocybin (2). Since June 6, 2002, these fungi have been regulated by the Narcotics and Psychotropics Control Law in Japan. Because there are many kinds of MMs and they are sold even as dry powders in local markets, it is very difficult to identify the original species of the MMs by morphological observation. Therefore, we investigated the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region in the ribosomal RNA gene of MMs obtained in Japanese markets to classify them by a genetic approach. Based on the size and nucleotide sequence of the ITS region amplified by PCR, tested MMs were classified into 6 groups. Furthermore, a comparison of the DNA sequences of the MMs with those of authentic samples or with those found in the databases (GenBank, EMBL and DDBJ) made it possible to identify the species of tested MMs. Analysis by LC revealed that psilocin (1) was contained at the highest level in Panaeolus cyanescens among the MMs, but was absent in the Amanita species.     

Roasting effects on the distribution of tocopherols and phospholipids within each structural part and section of soybeans

To clarify the effects of microwave roasting on the distribution of tocopherols and FA of phospholipids within soybeans, whole soybeans (Glycine max) were treated by microwave and further evaluted as compared to a raw sample. Tocopherol homologs, measured using HPLC, and phospholipid profiles, quantified with GC, were determined in the seed coat, the embryonic axis, and selections of cotyledons separated from three cultivars. The tocopherols were predominantly detected in the axis, followed by the cotyledons, and then very little in the coat. As much as 25% of the individual tocopherols originally present in the coat were lost at 12 min of roasting, whereas <25% was lost in the cotyledons and the axis after 20 min of roasting. The greatest rate of phospholipid loss (P<0.05) was observed in PE, followed by PC and PI, and their changing patterns were more pronounced in the coat than in the cotyledons or the axis. Thus, tocopherol content and phospholipid profiles change with microwave roasting according to tissue.