Porphyrobacter tepidarius sp. nov., a moderately thermophilic aerobic photosynthetic bacterium isolated from a hot spring

BACKGROUND: The epidemic of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection led blood banks to initiate donation deferral criteria based on self-reported risk factors. However little information is available on the differences in reporting risk factors before and after HIV status is known. METHODS: Between April and July 1994, blood donors in a provincial hospital in northern. Thailand were interviewed at the time of donation, about their demographic characteristics and risk factors. All donors had agreed to learn their test results and were called back for post-test counselling and reinterview. RESULTS: HIV-positive blood donors were more likely to change from 'denying' to 'acknowledging' risk factors while HIV-negatives were more likely to change from 'acknowledging' to 'denying'. The differences between risk factors obtained before and after test results were known resulted in stronger, weaker or even opposite risk measures. CONCLUSION: The study results raise questions about the impact of the differences in reporting HIV-related risk factors by the donors on how effective donation deferral criteria can be developed.     

The Effect of Barley Adjuncts on Free Amino Nitrogen Contents in Wort

Free amino nitrogen (FAN) and other low‐molecular‐weight nitrogen compounds (LNC) are highly important as nutrients for yeast. Many different types of low‐malt beer exist around the world, some of which are produced with barley as an adjunct. In these cases, inhibitors contained in barley are known to influence the amount of LNC in wort. Accordingly, it is important to investigate which proteinase class is key in producing these compounds. By investigating the relationship between the FAN contained in wort produced from malt and barley (barley adjunct wort) and malt proteinase activity, it was found that cysteine proteinase and 1,10‐orthophenanthroline (O‐Phen)‐inhibitable metallo proteinases had a significant correlation to the barley adjunct wort FAN levels. In addition, the relationship between malting conditions and these proteinase activities was investigated and the conditions defined for maximal production of proteinases as follows: steeping degree, 50%; germination temperature, 12°C; germination days, 6 days; water spray, 3 times and concentration of gibberellic acid, 10 mg/kg (barley).     

Effects of genistein and staurosporine on angiotensin II-induced DNA synthesis, protein synthesis and mitogen-activated protein kinase activation in vascular smooth muscle cells

This study examines the effects of protein kinase inhibitors and activator on angiotensin II-induced DNA synthesis and protein synthesis of rat aortic smooth muscle cells. In quiescent confluent cells, angiotensin II induced a concentration-dependent increase in thymidine incorporation and leucine incorporation. The tyrosine kinase inhibitor genistein caused an inhibition of the angiotensin II-induced DNA synthesis but not of the agent-induced protein synthesis. The protein kinase C inhibitors staurosporine and calphostin C caused an inhibition of the angiotensin II-induced protein synthesis but not of the agent-induced DNA synthesis. The protein kinase C activator phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate stimulated protein synthesis. Angiotensin II stimulated mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinases and the angiotensin II-induced MAP kinase activation was inhibited by genistein but not by staurosporine. These findings suggest that angiotensin II-induced DNA synthesis is at least partly mediated via protein-tyrosine phosphorylation and angiotensin II-induced protein synthesis is at least partly mediated by activation of protein kinase C. It seems likely that MAP kinase activation is involved in DNA synthesis but not in protein synthesis induced by angiotensin II.     

护毛法回收的猪毛通过爆发性膨胀处理的溶解性

本文报导了通过爆发性膨胀增加猪毛溶解度的方法,从而使得保毛脱毛法所回收的猪毛能够得到更有效的利用。     

A note on the resistance to brittle fracture in various ceramic materials

The square of the ratio of the abraded bending strength, _d, to the unabraded bending strength, , is proposed as a measure of the resistance to crack propagation in ceramic materials. Data for various porcelains, glass-ceramics, and glasses showed that _d is essentially constant and that (_d/)² decreased rapidly with increase of the unabraded strength.     

Evolutionary synthesis method of energy integrated distillation separation process

A two-stage evolutionary method is developed to synthesize an optimal energy integrated distillation separation process: the search of the separation sequence, and the introduction of energy integration to the given separation sequence. For the former an evolutionary procedure first generating initial separation sequences and then evolving them is developed. For the latter an evolutionary procedure, first indicating the direction of the evolution by the thermodynamic analysis and then estimating it based on the objective function, is developed. An example problem of a five-component separation demonstrates the effectiveness of this proposed method.     

Temperature acceleration of CMOS IC operating life

We carried out the high temperature operating life test (HTOT) of CMOS ICs which include n-channel ROMs which were contaminated deliberately by leaving naked for a long time in the room ambient before moulding and got the bimodal failure distributions consisting of m = 0.3–0.5 and m = 2.6–3.3 parts in the Weibull chart.At the same time, the activation energy of 1.14 eV was obtained for m = 2.6–3.3 parts. In order to make clear the failure mechanism of the latter part, we made the test devices for detecting channel leakage current (abbrev. TEG) and checked the shift of leakage current and life acceleration due to temperature in HTOT. Then we found that leakage currents of TEGs have an incubation time, their activation energy was nearly equal to that of the CMOS ICs above and m = 2.6–3.3 for CMOS ICs were reasonably explained due to the gradient α of the logarithm of the median leakage current to that of time.Also we got a 40 times longer life for the same CMOS ICs coated with Si₃N₄ film instead of SiO₂. And finally, from these data, we could verify the cause of failure in CMOS ICs.     

Microstructures and bond strengths of plasma-sprayed hydroxyapatite coatings on porous titanium substrates

Hydroxyapatite (HA) coating was carried out by plasma spraying on bulk Ti substrates and porous Ti substrates having a Young’s modulus similar to that of human bone. The microstructures and bond strengths of HA coatings were investigated in this study. The HA coatings with thickness of 200–250 μ m were free from cracks at interfaces between the coating and Ti substrates. XRD analysis revealed that the HA powder used for plasma spraying had a highly crystallized apatite structure, while the HA coating contained several phases other than HA. The bond strength between the HA coating and the Ti substrates evaluated by standard bonding test (ASTM C633-01) were strongly affected by the failure behavior of the HA coating. A mechanism to explain the failure is discussed in terms of surface roughness of the plasma-sprayed HA coatings on the bulk and porous Ti substrates.