Chromium-Plated Steel Strip for Can Making

In laboratory researches and food packing tests, it has been shown that cold rolled steel strip, plated with a thickness of about 0–002 mil (0–05 μ) of chromium and coated with lacquer is a satisfactory material for cans. It is highly resistant to corrosion, especially to sulphur staining, and the lacquer coating remains firmly adherent. In food packing tests with it, the chromium content of the foodstuffs was no greater than it was with tinplate. The chromium plating line is similar in layout to an electrolytic tinning line, but insoluble electrodes are used and the electrolyte contains chromic and sulphuric acids. For high-speed operation with several plating tanks, special screening of part of the cathode is used to obtain a better lustre.     

Scalable,solvent-less de-bundling of single-wall carbon nanotube into elastomers for high conductive functionality

Composite fabrication techniques predominantly involve wet-synthetic protocols with organic solvents. While the resulting composite exhibits good electrical properties, their mass-production have been severely hindered due to use of excessive organic solvents. In contrast, dry-compounding methods are well-suited for industrialization but result in composites with lower electrical properties. This mutually exclusivity between (a) the fabrication process, (b) the composite properties and (c) the industrial scalability has been a major road-block for their commercialization. Addressing this obstacle, we report an electrically conductive polymer composite with long single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) as conductive fillers. The SWCNT/polymer composite possesses superior electrical properties to those achieved previously with other fillers or CNTs, obtained through dry-processes. The method involved efficient loosening of long SWCNT bundles through a biaxial shear force and subsequent kneading into the rubber matrix. The structural damage to SWCNTs was thereby minimized, as indicated by Raman spectroscopy and optical microscopy. Consequently, we achieved a SWCNT/polymer composite exhibiting ∼200 fold higher electrical conductivity than composite materials made by conventional dry-compounding methods. Finally, we demonstrate the industrial scalability of the process through the continuous, batch-production of the SWCNT-polyurethane composite sheet (12 m long and 60 mm wide) with uniform electrical conductivity (1.5 S/cm).     

Microbial communities in the garbage composting with rice hull as an amendment revealed by culture-dependent and -independent approaches

The diversity and succession of microbial communities during the garbage composting with rice hull as an amendment were studied by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) and clone library analysis of PCR-amplified 16S ribosomal DNA (rDNA) with universal primers. Based on temperature changes, the composting process could be divided into thermophilic, cooling-down, and maturing stages. The DGGE profiles and clone library analysis revealed that the microbial community drastically changed during the composting process from the thermophilic to the maturing stages. The dominant bacterial group changed from the phylum Firmicutes in the thermophilic stage to the phylum Bacteroidetes in the maturing stage. This change in microbial communities may be significant for the composting process. The diversity of cultivated bacteria isolated from samples taken at various stages of the composting process was low. A total of 87 isolates were classified as belonging to only four different groups. These groups were also detected in the DGGE profiles and by the clone library analysis. Our study indicated that a combination of culture-dependent and -independent approaches could be very useful for monitoring both bacterial diversity and the succession of communities during the composting process. This study would be beneficial for assessing the ecological consequences of disposal of organic waste.     

Effects of long-term ingestion of difructose anhydride III (DFA III) on intestinal bacteria and bile acid metabolism in humans

Changes in the intestinal microbiota of 10 human subjects with long-term ingestion of 3 g/d difructose anhydride III (DFA III; 4 persons, 2 months; 3 persons, 6 months; and 3 persons, 12 months) were examined by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE). According to the answers to questionnaires, the subjects were divided into two groups (constipated and normal). The DGGE profile was different for every individual and each subject had unique profiles of intestinal microbiota. In the DGGE profiles of constipated subjects, the intensities of bands related to Bacteroides spp. increased. Moreover, the DFA III-assimilating bacteria, Ruminococcus sp. were isolated from subjects who ingested DFA III for 12 months. These strains showed 95% similarity of their 16S rDNA sequences with that of Ruminococcus obeum ATCC 29174(T) (X85101) and produced large amounts of acetic acid. DFA III ingestion for 2 months tended to increase total organic acids in feces, and tended to decrease fecal pH and the secondary bile acid (SBA) ratio in total bile acids. The SBA ratio in total bile acids corresponded to fecal pH. The production of SBA was decreased by low pH in vitro. These results indicated that DFA III ingestion in humans tended to lower intestinal pH, inhibited bile acid 7alpha-dehydroxylation activities and also tended to decrease the SBA ratios in total bile acids. Moreover, as another cause for the decrease in the SBA ratio in total bile acids, it was suggested that the number of bile acid 7alpha-dehydroxylating bacteria were decreased by DFA III ingestion.     

Bio-based thermosetting bismaleimide resins using eugenol,bieugenol and eugenol novolac

5,5′-Bieugenol (BEG) and eugenol novolac (EGN) were synthesized by the oxidative coupling reaction of eugenol (EG) and the addition–condensation reaction of EG with formaldehyde, respectively. The EG, BEG and EGN were prepolymerized with 4,4′-bismaleimidediphenylmethane (BMI) at 180 °C and then compression-molded at finally 250 °C for 6 h to produce cured EG/BMI (EB), BEG/BMI (BB) and EGN/BMI (NB) resins with eugenol/maleimide unit ratios of 1/1, 1/2 and 1/3. The FT-IR analysis of EBs and ¹³C NMR analysis of the model reaction product of EG/N-phenylmaleimide (PMI) 1/3 at 200 °C for 12 h suggested that the ene reaction and subsequent Diels-Alder/ene reactions mainly occurred for EBs. The FT-IR analyses of BBs and NBs supported the occurrence of ene reaction and subsequent thermal addition copolymerization in a similar manner to the well-known curing reaction of 2,2′-diallylbisphenol A and BMI. The glass transition temperature (T_g) and 5% weight loss temperature (T₅) of the cured resin increased with increasing BMI content, and EB 1/3 showed the highest T_g 377 °C and T₅ 475 °C. The flexural strengths and moduli of EBs and NBs were higher than those of BBs, and EB 1/2 showed the most balanced flexural strength and modulus (84.5 MPa and 2.75 GPa). The FE-SEM analysis revealed that there is no phase separation for all the cured resins.     

Hierarchies based on the number of cooperating systems of three-dimensional finite automata

The question of whether processing three-dimensional digital patterns is much more difficult than two-dimensional ones is of great interest from both theoretical and practical standpoints. Recently, owing to advances in many application areas, such as computer vision, robotics, and so forth, it has become increasingly apparent that the study of three-dimensional pattern processing is of crucial importance. Thus, the study of three-dimensional automata as a computational model of three-dimensional pattern processing has become meaningful. This article introduces a cooperating system of three-dimensional finite automata as one model of three-dimensional automata. A cooperating system of three-dimensional finite automata consists of a finite number of three-dimensional finite automata and a three-dimensional input tape where these finite automata work independently (in parallel). Those finite automata whose input heads scan the same cell of the input tape can communicate with each other, i.e., every finite automaton is allowed to know the internal states of other finite automata on the cell it is scanning at the moment. In this article, we continue the study of cooperating systems of three-dimensional finite automata, and mainly investigate hierarchies based on the number of their cooperating systems.     

Polynomial-time learning of elementary formal systems

An elementary formal system (EFS) is a logic program consisting of definite clauses whose arguments have patterns instead of first-order terms. We investigate EFSs for polynomial-time PAC-learnability. A definite clause of an EFS is hereditary if every pattern in the body is a subword of a pattern in the head. With this new notion, we show that H-EFS(m, k, t, r) is polynomial-time learnable, which is the class of languages definable by EFSs consisting of at mostm hereditary definite clauses with predicate symbols of arity at mostr, wherek andt bound the number of variable occurrences in the head and the number of atoms in the body, respectively. The class defined by all finite unions of EFSs in H-EFS(m, k, t, r) is also polynomial-time learnable. We also show an interesting series ofNC-learnable classes of EFSs. As hardness results, the class of regular pattern languages is shown not polynomial-time learnable unlessRP=NP. Furthermore, the related problem of deciding whether there is a common subsequence which is consistent with given positive and negative examples is shownNP-complete. Satoru Miyano, Dr. Sci.: He is a Professor in Human Genome Center at the University of Tokyo. He obtained B.S. in 1977, M.S. in 1979, and Dr. Sci. degree all in Mathematics from Kyushu University. His current interests include bioinformatics, discovery science, computational complexity, computational learning. He has been organizing Genome Informatics Workshop Series since 1996 and has served for the chair/member of the program committee of many conferences in the area of Computer Science and Bioinformatics. He is on the Editorial Board of Theoretical Computer Science and the Chief Editor of Genome Informatics Series. Ayumi Shinohara, Dr. Sci.: He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Informatics at Kyushu University. He obtained B.S. in 1988 in Mathematics, M.S. in 1990 in Information Systems, and Dr. Sci. degree in 1994 all from Kyushu University. His current interests include discovery science, bioinformatics, and pattern matching algorithms. Takeshi Shinohara, Dr. Sci.: He is a Professor in the Department of Artificial Intelligence at Kyushu Institute of Technology. He obtained his B.S. in Mathematics from Kyoto University in 1980, and his Dr. Sci. degree from Kyushu University in 1986. His research interests are in Computational/Algorithmic Learning Theory, Information Retrieval, and Approximate Retrieval of Multimedia Data.     

A modeling study of ice–water processes for Lake Erie applying coupled ice-circulation models

A hydrodynamic model that includes ice processes and is optimized for parallel processing was configured for Lake Erie in order to study the ice–water coupling processes in the lake. A hindcast from April 2003 to December 2004 with hourly atmospheric forcing was conducted. The model reproduced the seasonal variation of ice cover, but the development of ice extent in January and its decay in March somewhat preceded the observations. Modeled lake circulation in ice-free seasons is consistent with previous studies for Lake Erie. Thermal structure of the lake was reasonably comparable to both satellite-derived observations and in-situ measurements, with mean differences ranging from − 2 °C to 4 °C, depending on the season. The impacts of ice–water stress coupling and basal melting of ice were examined based on numerical experiments. The results show that: 1) ice–water stress coupling significantly dampens the subjacent lake circulation in winter due to packed ice cover that slows down the surface water, and 2) basal melting of ice contributes to widespread ice cover in the lake. The demonstrated model validity could lead to further studies of ice–water processes in the lake, including interannual variation and impacts on ecosystems.     

Tribological Properties between Taut Hair Fibers in Wet Conditions: A New Shampoo Formulation for Eliminating Stick-Slip Friction

The tribological properties between taut hair fibers in wet conditions were investigated to evaluate the tangling/detangling performance of shampoo formulations during washing (particularly rinsing). A new setup for friction measurements between taut hair fibers was established. Using the setup, tribological properties of hair fibers treated with two shampoo formulations, whose tangling performances were different, were investigated. The base formulation for the shampoos was the same; the only difference was the type of amino-modified silicones used as conditioning agents. Shampoo (Sp) A (poor detangling performance) incudes water-insoluble silicone, and Sp B (excellent detangling performance) includes water-soluble silicone. The tribological behaviors between taut hair fibers treated with the diluted solutions of the Sp were very different; the Sp A-treated hair exhibited stick-slip sliding, whereas the Sp B-treated hair exhibited smooth sliding. This difference presumably comes from the different coacervation behaviors in the diluted solutions and resulting structure of conditioning film formed on hair surfaces. The smooth sliding (ideal for detangling) of Sp B-treated hair comes from the two-layer structure of the conditioning film on hair; positively charged amino-modified silicone dissolved in water adsorbed immediately on negatively charged hair surface, followed by the physical adsorption of coacervates on the adsorbed silicone layer. The outer coacervate layer is easily removed during sliding, and smooth sliding comes from the low friction of the silicone layer. The relationship between the type of amino-modified silicones, conditioning film formation on the surface, and tribological properties was discussed, which gives insights into designing Sp formulations with excellent detangling performance.     

Improvement in the oxidation resistance of TiAl by preoxidation in a TiO2-powder pack

The resistance of TiAl coupons to cyclic oxidation at 1300 K in a flow of purified oxygen under atmospheric pressure has been significantly improved by preoxidation. The preoxidation was performed by heating the specimens, buried in rutile powder and encapsuled in a silica tube under a vacuum of 1.3×10^–3 Pa, at 1200 K for 100ks. The scales formed by preoxidation are very adherent, and the mass changes are very small for at least up to 20 cycles (400 h) of subsequent oxidation. This excellent oxidation resistance is attributable to the formation of scales very rich in alumina by preoxidation under a very low oxygen partial pressure. A similarly good oxidation resistance was obtained when the specimens were buried in rutile powder and preoxidized in Ar gas under atmospheric pressure at 1300 K for 100 ks.