Effects of Diphenyl Dichalcogenides on the Radical Polymerization of Diethynyl Disulfide Derivative

Radical reaction of bis(4-prop-2-ynyloxyphenyl) disulfide (1) with 2,2′-azobis(isobutyronitrile) as an initiator provided a polymer with dithioalkene units (2). The ¹H and ¹³C NMR spectra of 2 showed that 2 had mainly E-form dithioalkene structure. The radical reactions of 1 and diphenyl diselenide (3) or diphenyl ditelluride (5) were also carried out. At higher temperature than 70 °C, polymers were obtained with less amount of AIBN than in the case of the homopolymerization of 1. Addition of 3 or 5 in the reaction mixture appeared to promote the radical reaction. Moreover, the obtained structure has high contents of thio-seleno alkene or thio-telluro alkene than expected, which is due to difference of the chalcogen radical reactivity and difference of capture ability of the dichalcogenide.

A novel adaptive beamformer for MEG source reconstruction effective when large background brain activities exist

This paper proposes a novel prewhitening eigenspace beamformer suitable for magnetoencephalogram (MEG) source reconstruction when large background brain activities exist. The prerequisite for the method is that control-state measurements, which contain only the contributions from the background interference, be available, and that the covariance matrix of the background interference can be obtained from such control-state measurements. The proposed method then uses this interference covariance matrix to remove the influence of the interference in the reconstruction obtained from the target measurements. A numerical example, as well as applications to two types of MEG data, demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

日本建材及相关产业政策动向——在首届中日建材及相关产业交流研讨会上的发言

日本经济目前正值好转的关键时期,美国及亚洲经济的好转推动了以民间需求为主导的持续型经济增长。企业收益得到改善,利润增长回升趋势稳定。一、建材及住宅设备产品的贸易动向虽然建材及住宅设备产业本来是当地生产、当地消费型产业,但自20世纪90年代中国实行改革开放政策以来     

Studies on heterogeneous degradation of polypropylene/talc composite: Effect of iron impurity on the degradation behavior

In this study, an effect of iron oxide (Fe₂O₃) impurity in talc on degradation behavior of polypropylene (PP)/talc composite was studied using a PP/Fe₂O₃ model composite sample. The thermal oxidative degradation was performed at 100°C. Although the degradation of a pure PP sample hardly occurred at such temperature, the existence of Fe₂O₃ induced the PP degradation. The degraded PP part was formed around the Fe₂O₃ grain in the PP/Fe₂O₃ sample. It was found from the optical microscope observation that the degraded PP was able to diffuse only within the PP amorphous part. The analysis of the oxidation distribution on the degraded PP surface was performed employing a scanning electron microscope/electron dispersive spectrometer. The result showed that the PP spots in the vicinity of the Fe₂O₃ grain were unoxidized during the initial degradation process, and the oxidized PP spots were located at around 6 μm distance from the Fe₂O₃ grain. It was concluded that the degradation was initiated microscopically away from the Fe₂O₃ grain so that the Fe₂O₃ had both the abilities to accelerate the decomposition of PP hydroperoxide compounds and to reduce the produced radical species into nonradical products. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2010     

Differential effects of obesity on acetoacetyl‐CoA synthetase gene in rat adipose tissues

In order to investigate the physiological role of the ketone body‐utilizing enzyme acetoacetyl‐CoA synthetase (AACS) in obesity‐induced metabolic derangements, we examined the mRNA levels of AACS and other lipogenic enzymes in white adipose tissues (WAT) in the different types of obesity, genetic (Zucker fatty) and high‐fat diet (HFD)‐induced obesity. Plasma ketone body levels and gene expression levels of AACS and acetyl‐CoA carboxylase‐2 (ACC‐2) in WAT were lower in Zucker fatty rats than in lean rats. On the contrary, in HFD‐induced obese rats, these levels were increased. Moreover, AACS mRNA expression was affected only in subcutaneous WAT by each type of obesity. Our data suggest that AACS mRNA expression is related to obesity‐induced alteration of plasma ketone body levels, and that AACS in subcutaneous WAT plays an important role in the regulation of lipogenesis and ketone body utilization in various obese conditions.     

Development of fixed-abrasive tool with spiral groove for decreasing the loading

The authors propose a fixed-abrasive tool with spiral groove on its surface, to eliminate or decrease the loading of swarf. The spiral groove, which is produced by a spiral wire wound around the tool, allows continuous evacuation of swarf and elongates the tool life. Through grinding experiments, it was confirmed that our spiral groove tool makes almost no loading of swarf while conventional fixed-abrasive tools easily make it. It was also shown that the spiral groove tool realizes a mirror finish even with ultra fine abrasive grains.     

Molecular breeding of Aspergillus kawachii overproducing cellulase and its application to brewing barley shochu

In order to improve fermentation of barley without addition of commercial cellulase, a white koji mold, Aspergillus kawachii IFO4308, was transformed with the egl1 gene encoding endoglucanase I (EGI) of Trichoderma viride and the endogenous cekA gene encoding endoglucanase (CekA). Transformants with egl1 under the control of the strong glaA promoter produced EGI in both submerged and solid-state cultures. However, the EGI produced in solid-state culture was unstable due to the acidic condition of this culture. A transformant N10 with two additional copies of the cekA gene exhibited endoglucanase activities against carboxymethyl-cellulose, which are 21- and 1.8-fold higher than that of the wild-type (wt) strain when the cells were cultivated in submerged and solid-state cultures, respectively. Cultivation of strain N10 in steamed barley for preparing koji followed by fermentation with Saccharomyces cerevisiae resulted in improved fermentation assessed based on higher productions of ethanol, amino acids, and organic acids, the reduction of residual sugar, and the low viscosity of barley mash. The overall fermentation result for the transformant carrying cekA was comparable with that for the wt strain using commercial cellulase. These results demonstrate that acquisition of only two-fold CekA activity by A. kawachii in the solid-state culture allows us to improve the brewing of barley shochu.     

Performance comparison of deep learning architectures for surgical instrument image removal in gastrointestinal endoscopic imaging

Artificial Life and Robotics - Endoscopic images typically contain several artifacts. The artifacts significantly impact image analysis result in computer-aided diagnosis. Convolutional neural...     

Image Interpolation Using Enhanced Multiresolution Critical-Point Filters

There are increasing demands for image interpolation in various fields such as virtual reality, computer animation, and video transmission. The critical-point filters (CPF) we have proposed previously enable completely automatic matching of two images. In our previous method, however, it has taken a long time to compute the optimal parameter values by iterative searches. This paper proposes an improved algorithm called the enhanced critical-point filters (ECPF) where the parameters are stably computed using together the inverse mapping from the destination to the source. It takes only a second to match images whose size is 64 × 64. The algorithm is also improved in its precision by directly handling color images while the previous algorithm has taken only the intensity value into account. We apply ECPF to keyframe interpolation of video sequences. We also apply ECPF to interpolating two different views of an object to generate any intermediate views. In this case, there are many constraints that can be used to determine the mapping between the images. We propose a method to use such constraints to improve the accuracy of the mappings. As the results, image-based pseudo-3D models are easily created from a set of views without any special devices.     

Synthesis of polystyrene/silica gel polymer hybrids by in-situ polymerization method

Summary. Homogeneous polystyrene and silica gel polymer hybrids were prepared by in-situ radical polymerization method. Styrene monomer was introduced into a sol-gel reaction mixture of tetramethoxysilane (TMOS) and the polymerization was initiated by Azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN), while sol-gel reaction of TMOS proceeded to form a silica gel. The homogeneity of the hybrids was found to be dependent on the amount of the acid catalyst. The homogeneity was confirmed quantitatively by measuring porosity of charred hybrids with nitrogen porosimetry method. It was found that polystyrene was dispersed at a nano-meter level in the silica gel matrix. Received: 8 July 1997/Revised: 29 July 1997/Accepted: 1 August 1997