Influence of Reconstituted Dark and Light Chicken Muscle Myosin Filaments on the Morphology and Strength of Heat-Induced Gels

The morphological characteristics and heat-induced gel properties of filaments reconstituted from dark and light chicken muscle myosin by dialysis (slow filamentogenesis) and dilution (fast filamentogenesis) methods were studied. The solubility/turbidity properties of myosin isolated from dark and light muscles were quite similar at different pH values and temperatures, but the morphological characteristics of reconstituted filaments of dark and light myosin varied markedly, depending upon whether they were formed by dialysis or dilution.     

A MECHANISM FOR NON-NEWTONIAN FLOW OF MILK IN A CAPILLARY

The apparent viscosity of human milk, fresh cow's milk, homogenized milk, skim milk and oleic acid emulsion have been determined in a Maron-Belner type low shear capillary viscometer using capillaries of different radii combined with a photomicroscope. Photomicrographs of the flowing fluids have been obtained and analyzed by a densitometer. Each suspension examined showed different apparent viscosities and the viscosities depended also on capillary radius. This capillary radius effect was traced to migration of milk fat droplets during flow through the capillary. By assuming that the wall layer is composed of double layers in a flowing liquid in a capillary tube this radius effect may be attributed to geometric hindrance of the capillary wall against the thermal motion of fat droplets near the wall, Values of the wall thickness were calculated.     

Dielectric, Electromechanical, Optical, and Mechanical Properties of Lanthanum-Modified Lead Titanate Ceramics

Lanthanum-modified lead titanate ceramics with a tetragonality of c/a = 1.028 to 1.000 were hot-pressed and the dielectric, electromechanical, optical, and mechanical properties were investigated. With decreasing c/a , the Curie point, remnant polarization, coercive field, and electromechanical coupling factors decrease and the transmittance increases. The internal stress was measured using a microindentation technique by changing the indent load. The internal stress increases with increasing c/a in the tetragonal region and the value for the c/a =1.028 sample was 150 MN/m².     

A new stochastic neural network model and its application to grouping parts and tools in flexible manufacturing systems

Recently, some stochastic neural network models have been presented for the purpose of overcoming the defect that the deterministic neural network models do not have the ability to escape from a local optimal solution. However, the specification of the values of various parameters and weights in these stochastic neural network models is more complicated than that in the deterministic neural network models. In this paper, a new stochastic neural network model is proposed in order to reduce the complication of specifying the values of parameters and weights. For a practical purpose, the proposed model is applied to the problem of grouping parts and tools in flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs).     

An Investigation of Size‐Reduction Effects in High Power Density Boost Converters with a Magnetic Coupling

The dc–dc converter using integrated magnetic components that may achieve high power density has gained attention in environmentally friendly cars such as electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles. This paper focused on interleaved boost converters using close‐coupled inductors (CCIs) and loose‐coupled inductors (LCIs) that are the integrated magnetic components. Following, detailed electromagnetically analysis for these circuit types were conducted in order to calculate volume of inductors and capacitors that are occupied the large part of space in the converters. The total volume of inductors and capacitors in these circuits were demonstrated clearly through comparison with conventional circuits such as an interleaved boost converter and a single‐phase boost converter. As a result, it became clear that interleaved boost converter using LCIs was effective for miniaturization of total volume. Furthermore, duty ratio of the minimum volume of CCI method is different from the duty ratio of the minimum volume of LCI method.     

An interactive rendering system using hierarchical data structure for earth-scale clouds

This paper presents an interactive system for realistic visualization of earth-scale clouds. Realistic images can be generated at interactive frame rates while the viewpoint and the sunlight directions can be changed interactively. The realistic display of earth-scale clouds requires us to render large volume data representing the density distribution of the clouds. However, this is generally time-consuming and it is difficult to achieve the interactive performance, especially when the sunlight direction ca...     

Effects of docosahexaenoic acid or arachidonic acid supplementation on the behavior of cardiomyocytes derived from human pluripotent stem cells

Background: Human heart changes its energetic substrates from lactate and glucose to fatty acids during the neonatal period. Noticing the lack of fatty acids in media for the culture of cardiomyocytes derived from human pluripotent stem cells (hiPS-CM), researchers have supplemented mixtures of fatty acids to hiPS-CM and reported the enhancement in the maturation of hiPS-CM. In our previous studies, we separately supplemented two polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) or arachidonic acid (AA), to rat fetal cardiomyocytes and found that the supplementations upregulated the expressions of mRNAs for cardiomyocyte differentiation, fatty acid metabolism, and cellular adhesion. The enhancement in cellular contractility was attributed to the improvement in intercellular connection rather than a direct enhancement of the contractile force. Methods: This study reports the successive results of the effects of DHA or AA supplementation on hiPS-CM. In addition to the contractile force and mRNA measurements used in the previous study, we further investigated the effect of different cellular aggregations on the contractile force output by means of finite element analysis, measured glucose and fatty acids metabolites, and assessed cTNT and MLC2v expressions through immunofluorecsence evaluation. Results: It showed that the sole supplementation of albumin-conjugated DHA or AA can be taken up by hiPS-CM without other uptake-enhancing factors, and the supplementations may activate the CD36_­ERRγ metabolic pathway. DHA or AA supplementation increased the cellular contractile ratio on collagen gels and AA supplementation stimulated hiPS-CM aggregation to form cellular clusters. The enhancement effect on the hiPS-CM contractile force was modest since the increase in contractile force was not significant. AA supplementation was more effective than DHA supplementation because it significantly upregulated mRNA expressions of P300 and CD36. However, finite element analysis showed that the formation of clusters on a collagen gel attenuated the contractile force exerted by the gel on its surroundings. Conclusion: DHA and AA, as having been supplemented in infant formulas, have no direct and significant enhancement effect on the performance of the hiPS-CM when they were supplemented individually, although they were able to enter the cellular metabolic system. The AA supplementation showed some auxiliary effect on the maturation of hiPS-CM, which is worthy of further investigation under the consideration of membrane composition alteration and remodeling of membrane molecules.