Ein Japaner in Marburg

The heart of this article is the transmission of selected chapters from the Japanese bacteriologist Taichi Kitashima’s (1870–1956) autobiographical memoirs (in Japanese, Jiden) published in 1955, in which Kitashima reports on his stay in Marburg in a very personal and subjective way. Like other Japanese physicians of his generation, Kitashima spent several years in Germany in order to work with the serum researcher Emil von Behring and continued his education there. The contact came through Kitashima’s teacher Shibasaburô Kitasato, who had worked with Behring in Berlin on questions of immunology. The memoir gives insight into Behring’s laboratory work and his relation to his “subordinates”. The editors investigate to what extent Kitashima’s assessment, made from a distance of fifty years, of his stay in Germany as “wasted time” was accurate, given the advantages that arose from having been part of a vibrant European scientific community, including encounters in the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and why he cultivated his contacts with Germany and the Behring family during National Socialism.     

Redox‐Active Polymers Connecting Living Microbial Cells to an Extracellular Electrical Circuit

Microbial electrochemical systems in which metabolic electrons in living microbes have been extracted to or injected from an extracellular electrical circuit have attracted considerable attention as environmentally‐friendly energy conversion systems. Since general microbes cannot exchange electrons with extracellular solids, electron mediators are needed to connect living cells to an extracellular electrode. Although hydrophobic small molecules that can penetrate cell membranes are commonly used as electron mediators, they cannot be dissolved at high concentrations in aqueous media. The use of hydrophobic mediators in combination with small hydrophilic redox molecules can substantially increase the efficiency of the extracellular electron transfer process, but this method has side effects, in some cases, such as cytotoxicity and environmental pollution. In this Review, recently‐developed redox‐active polymers are highlighted as a new type of electron mediator that has less cytotoxicity than many conventional electron mediators. Owing to the design flexibility of polymer structures, important parameters that affect electron transport properties, such as redox potential, the balance of hydrophobicity and hydrophilicity, and electron conductivity, can be systematically regulated.     

Acoustic surface-wave filters without apodisation loss with electrodes with inclined apodisation

The letter reports a new apodisation of electrodes which provides surface-acoustic-wave filters capable of operation without apodisation loss and with sufficiently large stopband attenuation. The effectiveness of the apodisation was shown by experiments.     

Ultralong multimode optical fibre fault location using Raman optical time domain reflectometry

The OTDR technique using the stimulated Raman scattering effect (ROTDR) is applied to ultralong multimode optical fibre fault location. In experiment, Stokes light pulses at 1.6 ?m wavelength, which are the most advantageous for fault location, are used. It is shown that the multimode fibre break, more than 80 km long, is locatable, and fibre loss at 1.6 ?m is measurable by the ROTDR technique.     

Inhibition by a capsaicin antagonist (capsazepine) of capsaicin-induced swimming capacity increase in mice

We investigated the endurance swimming capacity of mice injected with CAP antagonist (capsazepine). The increase of endurance swimming capacity by the administration of CAP was significantly suppressed by the injection of capsazepine. At the same time, serum adrenaline secretion, which was induced by CAP, was depressed by capsazepine. These findings suggested that the increase in endurance swimming capacity by CAP was mediated by the CAP receptor.     

An adjustable-current swimming pool for the evaluation of endurance capacity of mice

A new forced-swimming apparatus for determining maximum swimming time in mice was devised for use in the evaluation of the endurance capacity of Std and ddY and CDF1 mice after various diet and drug treatments. With the apparatus, a water current is generated by circulating water with a pump in a swimming pool. A spout and suction slit were contrived to generate a constant current while the strength of the current is regulated by a valve. The decrease in the leg-kicking intervals of mice accompanying the increase in the current speed confirmed that the workload is adjustable by regulation of the current speed. Compared with the number of forelimb strokes, that of the hindlimb kicks was greater. The swimming time until fatigue was observed to decrease with increasing current speed in the two strains of mice. As biochemical indexes, the blood lactate and muscle glycogen levels corroborated the correlation between current speed and increase in workload. These results indicate that the apparatus employed in the present study is suitable for the evaluation of the endurance capacity of mice and that is useful for detecting the effects of dietary differences and drug pretreatments on this capacity.     

Impact of systemic depulsation on tissue perfusion and sympathetic nerve activity

BACKGROUND: We postulated that pathophysiologic processes under nonpulsatile circulation are related to the behavior of the sympathetic nerve activity that regulates tissue perfusion. METHODS: Pulsatile and nonpulsatile pumps were installed in parallel in the left heart bypass circuit of anesthetized goats (n = 9) so that pulsatile circulation could be converted to nonpulsatile circulation instantly. At 5 minutes before and after systemic depulsation, we measured hemodynamic indices, renal nerve activity, and regional blood flow of the brain, heart, and renal cortex. RESULTS: Renal nerve activity was significantly elevated after systemic depulsation (15.6 +/- 9.3 versus 19.4 +/- 9.8 microV), when mean aortic pressure remained almost constant. The renal cortical flow was significantly reduced after depulsation (3.61 +/- 1.23 versus 2.93 +/- 1.19 mL.min-1.g-1), whereas no significant difference was found in the regional blood flow of the brain or the heart. CONCLUSIONS: The significant reduction of renal cortical blood flow after systemic depulsation is associated with a significant increase in renal nerve activity. Our results suggest that increased renal nerve activity plays an important role in the reduction of renal function after systemic depulsation.     

The discrepancy between 99Tcm-ECD dynamic and static SPET images in patients with ischaemic lesions corresponds to reduced vasoreactivity to acetazolamide

We evaluated 99Tcm-N,N'-(1,2-ethylenediyl)bis-L-cysteine diethyl ester (99Tcm-ECD) dynamic and static SPET (single photon emission tomographic) images to examine 99Tcm-ECD kinetics under ischaemic cerebrovascular conditions. In 20 patients who showed arterial occlusion on magnetic resonance angiography, dynamic (0-10 min) and static (15-35 min) SPET images were acquired after the intravenous administration of 99Tcm-ECD. Thirteen of the patients had focal perfusion deficits that were more evident on the dynamic than on the static images; the other seven showed no such discrepancy. In those patients with a mismatch between the dynamic and static images, the extent corresponded to reduced vaso-reactivity to acetazolamide. Based on quantitative analysis of the ratio of tracer uptake in affected to that in unaffected areas, the patients with discrepant findings showed significantly different ratios on the dynamic and static images, whereas those with no such mismatch did not. Our results suggest that dynamic 99Tcm-ECD images provide circulatory information and that static images reflect a filling-in phenomenon of ECD metabolites in ischaemic lesions. 99Tcm-ECD dynamic and static SPET images offer an alternative method of detecting mild perfusion deficits without the need for acetazolamide challenge.     

Operation of power distribution systems by using a section management method

High-voltage power distribution systems are connected in a branch configuration so as to meet the need for highly reliable power service. When service is interrupted the faulty section is automatically isolated and the power supply is rerouted from an adjacent power distribution system thereby minimizing the service interruption area. The faulty section in the power distribution system is quickly located by means of time relays installed in the switchgears. The settings of those time relays, however, must be monitored constantly. For this reason, we have proposed a “section management method” which can supervise each section of the power distribution system. From this method, we developed a prototype automated distribution system for overall management of time relays through the use of internal software, facilities and customer feedback. This paper describes the section management of power distribution systems.