Ingestion of plasmalogen markedly increased plasmalogen levels of blood plasma in rats

Plasmalogens, a subclass of phospholipids, are widely distributed in human and animals, and are taken into the body as food. However, no data exist on the intestinal absorption or fate of ingested plasmalogen. Here, we determined whether dietary plasmalogen is absorbed and whether blood and tissue concentrations increased in normal male Wistar rats by using four separate experiments. Phospholipids containing more than 20 wt% of plasmalogen extracted from the bovine brain were incorporated into test diets (10–15 wt%). In experiment 1, we estimated the absorption rate by measuring the plasmalogen vinyl ether bonds remaining in the alimentary tract of rats after the ingestion of 2 g of test diet containing 91 μmol plasmalogen. The absorption rate of plasmalogen was nearly 80 mol% after 4 h, comparable to the total phospholipid content in the test diet. In experiment 2, we observed no degradation of the plasmalogen vinyl ether bonds under in vitro conditions simulating those of the stomach and small intestinal lumen. In experiment 3 we confirmed a comparable absorption (36 mol%) by using a closed loop of the upper small intestine in anesthetized rats 90 min after injecting a 10 wt% brain phospholipid emulsion. Feeding a test diet containing 10 wt% brain phospholipids for 7 d increased plasmalogen concentration threefold in blood plasma and by 25% in the liver; however, no increases were seen in blood cells, skeletal muscle, brain, lungs, kidneys, or adipose tissue (experiment 4). We concluded that dietary plasmalogen is absorbed from the intestine and contributes to a large increase in plasmalogen levels in blood plasma.     

Effect of heating temperature on dielectric properties of Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 [PZT] fibers

Ferroelectric Pb(Zr_0.53Ti_0.47)O₃ fibers were reproducibly fabricated by sol-gel technique using triethanolamine (TEA) complexed alkoxide. The phase transition from pyrochlore to perovskite took place about 400°C and a stable single perovskite phase was obtained at 550°C. PZT gel fibers spun through nozzle were heat-treated at 700°C, and at 1000°C for 1 h to certify the effect of heat-treatment temperature on the electrical properties. The PZT fibers had elliptical cross sections with diameter of 72 m–92 m, and dense microstructure was obtained by heating at 1000°C. In the PZT fibers heat-treated at 1000°C, a distinguishable relative permittivity peak and a pyroelectric current peak were observed at their Curie temperature. The P-E hysteresis loops of the crystalline PZT fibers were also observed.     

中国液态锂铅包层材料研究进展

液态锂铅包层是国际上普遍关注和最有发展潜力的聚变堆包层概念设计之一,而包层材料是液态锂铅包层的核心问题之一.目前,液态锂铅包层普遍选用低活化铁素体/马氏体钢(RAFM钢)作为结构材料,液态锂铅作为中子倍增剂及氚增殖剂.另外,部分设计采用了耐高温、电绝缘流道插件作为功能材料,以降低磁流体动力学效应及提高冷却剂出口温度(高于700℃).为适应液态包层的发展需求,中国科学院等离子体物理研究所FDS团队联合国内外相关研究单位,进行了具有中国自主知识产权的中国低活化马氏体钢(CLAM钢)及液态锂铅包层功能材料研发,并开展了锂铅热对流及强迫对流回路的设计、研制及腐蚀实验研究,以研究液态金属锂铅的流动特性及其与结构和功能材料的相容性.同时建立了聚变堆材料数据库平台,为促进中国聚变堆液态包层及材料技术的研究和发展提供数据支持.     

Preparation of porous sheet composite impregnated with TiO<Subscript>2</Subscript> photocatalyst by a papermaking technique

Titanium dioxide (TiO₂) powder-containing sheet composites, called TiO₂ sheet, were prepared by a papermaking technique, and their photocatalytic efficiency was investigated. The TiO₂ powders were homogeneously scattered over the fiber-mix networks tailored within the catalyst sheet. Under UV irradiation, the TiO₂ paper could decompose p-hydroxyacetophenone (p-HAP), although the degradation efficiency by the TiO₂ sheet was lower than that by the TiO₂ powder. Scanning electron microscopy revealed that coverage of the TiO₂ particles inside the sheet by alumina binder which was used to improve the sheet strength caused the deterioration of the photocatalytic performance. Internal addition of alumina binder made the TiO₂ sheet porous and such a TiO₂ sheet exhibited high photocatalytic performance equivalent to that of TiO₂ powder. The porous structure of TiO₂ sheet might contribute to effective transport of p-HAP to the surface of TiO₂ particles inside the sheet, resulting in high degradation performance. In addition, TiO₂ sheet prepared using TiO₂ sol showed higher photocatalytic efficiency than TiO₂ powder and it was indicated that the porous sheet structure might provide suitable conditions for TiO₂ catalysis for photodecomposition.     

Benchmarks for psychotherapy efficacy in adult major depression.

This study estimates pretreatment-posttreatment effect size benchmarks for the treatment of major depression in adults that may be useful in evaluating psychotherapy effectiveness in clinical practice. Treatment efficacy benchmarks for major depression were derived for 3 different types of outcome measures: the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (M. A. Hamilton, 1960, 1967), the Beck Depression Inventory (A. T. Beck, 1978; A. T. Beck & R. A. Steer, 1987), and an aggregation of low reactivity-low specificity measures. These benchmarks were further refined for 3 conditions: treatment completers, intent-to-treat samples, and natural history (wait-list) conditions. The study confirmed significant effects of outcome measure reactivity and specificity on the pretreatment-posttreatment effect sizes. The authors provide practical guidance in using these benchmarks to assess treatment effectiveness in clinical settings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Trunk motion control during the flight phase while hopping considering angular momentum of a humanoid

In previous studies, various stabilizing control methods for humanoids during the stance phase while hopping and running were proposed. Although these methods contribute to stability while hopping and running, it is possibility that the control during the flight phase could also affect the stability. In this study, we investigated whether the control during the flight phase can affect the stability of a humanoid while running. To achieve stable hopping, we developed a control system that accounts for the angular momentum of the whole body during the flight phase. In this system, the angular momentum generated by the motion of the lower body in each time interval is calculated during the flight phase, and the trunk joints are controlled to generate the angular momentum necessary to compensate for the deviation of the waist posture, which is used as the reference point for the motion coordinate system of the robot. Once the proposed control system was developed and simulated, we found that the hopping duration in the unconstrained state was extended.     

Informative patches sampling for image classification by utilizing bottom-up and top-down information

In image classification based on bag of visual words framework, image patches used for creating image representations affect the classification performance significantly. However, currently, patches are sampled mainly based on processing low-level image information or just extracted regularly or randomly. These methods are not effective, because patches extracted through these approaches are not necessarily discriminative for image categorization. In this paper, we propose to utilize both bottom-up information through processing low-level image information and top-down information through exploring statistical properties of training image grids to extract image patches. In the proposed work, an input image is divided into regular grids, each of which is evaluated based on its bottom-up information and/or top-down information. Subsequently, every grid is assigned a saliency value based on its evaluation result, so that a saliency map can be created for the image. Finally, patch sampling from the input image is performed on the basis of the obtained saliency map. Furthermore, we propose a method to fuse these two kinds of information. The proposed methods are evaluated on both object categories and scene categories. Experiment results demonstrate their effectiveness.     

Anode‐voltage‐control circuit for compensation of luminance deterioration

Abstract— An external driving circuit that has realized long lifetime, power‐consumption control, and peak luminance for organic light‐emitting diode (OLED) displays have been developed. This circuit realizes an effective method for constant‐anode‐voltage (CV) driving refered to as clamped inverter (CI) driving. The feature of CV driving is to achieve low‐power consumption compared with constant‐anode‐current (CC) driving and to control the power consumption and peak luminance according to the image because display luminance can be easily changed by controlling the anode voltage. On the other hand, CV driving has the problem that luminance deterioration appears to be serious compared with that of CC driving because the current of the OLED element decreases according to usage time. To cope with this, a lifetime compensation circuit that has increased the anode voltage so that it compensates for the luminance deterioration has been developed. This circuit can compensate not only the decrease in current but also the decrease in luminance at a constant current that CC driving cannot. However, increasing the anode voltage causes an increase in stress on the OLED element. The influence of stress on OLED lifetime was verified. As a result, it was confirmed that this circuit can extend the lifetime by 32% even if the anode voltage is increased, causing stress on the OLED structure.     

Development of a tiny neutron probe with an optical fibre for BNCT

We have developed a tiny neutron probe detector as a monitor of a thermal neutron flux for boron neutron capture therapy. The detector consists of an optical fibre and a small neutron probe. We have used a film-like ZnS(Ag) scintillator and a 6LiF neutron converter for the neutron probe. In order to improve the gamma-neutron discrimination ability, vacuum evaporation of 6LiF onto the ZnS(Ag) film has been done. In order to improve the neutron detection efficiency, we made use of a wavelength-shifting fibre as the probe material. The characteristics of the above two types of fibre probe detector have been evaluated experimentally.     

On-line neuro-expert monitoring system for Borssele Nuclear Power Plant

A new method for an on-line monitoring system for the nuclear power plants has been developed utilizing the neural networks and the expert system. The integration of them is expected to enhance a substantial potential of the functionality as operators support.

The recurrent neural network and the feed-forward neural network with adaptive learning are selected for the plant modeling and anomaly detection because of the high capability of modeling for dynamic behavior. The expert system is used as a decision agent, which works on the information space of both the neural networks and the human operators. The information of other sensory signals is also fed to the expert system, together with the outputs that the neural networks generate from the measured plant signals. The expert system can treat almost all known correlation between plant status patterns and operation modes as a priori set of rules.

From the off-line test at Borssele Nuclear Power Plant (PWR 480 MWe) in the Netherlands, it was shown that the neuro-expert system successfully monitored the plant status. The expert system worked satisfactorily in diagnosing the system status by using the outputs of the neural networks and a priori knowledge base from the PWR simulator. The electric power coefficient is simultaneously monitored from the measured reactive and active electric power signals.