Biotechnological process for producing black bean slurry without stachyose

Beans are important sources of proteins and other nutrients. However, stachyose and other oligosaccharides (RFOs) are present in this legume causing flatulence (H₂, CO₂ and CH₄), abdominal pain, and diarrhea. The problematic digestibility of these sugars in the small intestine is attributed to a lack of α-galactosidase, which is essential for the hydrolysis of α-1,6 linkages. The aim of the present work was to reduce the stachyose of black bean slurry by lactic acid fermentation using a selected Lactobacillus LPB56, an α-galactosidase producer. The bean slurry (6L) was fermented in a bioreactor with 1.3% (w/v) of CaCO₃, at 37 °C and 160 rpm. Bacterial cells increased from 2.4 × 10⁷ to 7.0 × 10⁸ CFU/mL, and the stachyose and other sugars were totally consumed after 18 h of fermentation. The maximum activity of α-galactosidase was 0.162 U/mL after 6 h. The fermentative process did not cause significant changes on the composition of the bean product.     

Carbonization behavior of coal tar pitch modified with benzoquinone

A soluble fraction of coal tar pitch (CP) in tetrahydrofuran (THF) was reacted with p-benzoquinone (BQ) at 160 and 180°C and followed by carbonization and graphitization. The reaction and carbonization behavior were monitored in-situ by using differential scanning calorimeter, high-temperature ¹H NMR and high-temperature ESR. The reactions of CP and BQ resulted in an increase in molecular weight with an increase in BQ concentration. Such molecular weight increases led to the formation of a less ordered structure due to the reduced mobility of the molecules. The relative order of the carbonized materials was determined by using polarized light microscope and X-ray diffraction. The molecular size of the precursor was recognized as an important factor in determining the morphology of carbon materials.     

Timing Synchronization Performance of Preamble Signal with Orthogonal Frequency Multiplexed Data Signal in the Presence of Frequency Offset

Wireless Personal Communications - Wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) has been applied to a very wide area of industry and has been used for today’s communication systems. Automatic control of...     

Examination and Linearization of Torque Control System for Direct Torque Controlled IPMSM

This paper examines the torque response based on direct torque control (DTC) for an interior permanent magnet synchronous motor. DTC with a PI controller for torque control is used in this paper. The relationship between the gains of the PI controller and the torque response is derived based on the transfer function of the torque control loop. In addition, this paper discusses the influence of the nonlinearity of the torque control loop on the torque response. It also proposes a linearization method for the torque control loop based on gain scheduling, and improvement of torque response is achieved. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by both simulation and experimental results.      

Synthesis of poly(<Emphasis Type=Italic>p</Emphasis>-phenyleneethynylene)s bearing oligo-ethylene glycols and their gas permeation properties

1,4-Diiodobenzenes bearing oligo-ethylene glycols [IRC₆H₂IR, R = OCH₂CH₂OCH₃ (1a), O(CH₂CH₂O)₂CH₃ (1b), O(CH₂CH₂O)₃CH₃ (1c)] were polymerized with 1,4-diethynylbenzene in the presence of Pd/Cu catalyst to afford poly(p-phenyleneethynylene)s bearing oligo-ethylene glycols (2a–c), respectively. Polymer 2a was insoluble in any solvents, but the other polymers (2b, 2c) were soluble in CHCl₃. The weight-average molecular weights of 2b and 2c were 5.4 × 10⁴ and 9.6 × 10⁴, respectively, and they gave free-standing membranes by solution-casting method. The densities of membranes of 2b and 2c were 1.26 and 1.22 g/cm³, respectively, and their carbon dioxide permeability coefficients were 12.9 and 13.5 barrers, respectively. The CO₂/N₂ separation factor of membrane of 2b was as large as 33.7. Membrane of 3b, which contains triethylene glycols, exhibited higher CO₂ permselectivity, and the CO₂/N₂ separation factor was 50.0.     

Disseminated intravascular coagulation in a case of adult onset Still's disease

We report a 82-year-old woman with adult onset Still's disease (AOSD), who presented with high fever, skin rash, swollen axillary lymph nodes, accelerated erythrocyte sedimentation rate, leukocytosis, abnormal liver function tests, hypoalbuminemia, negative antinuclear antibody and rheumatoid factor, and lack of renal involvement. Disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) was also diagnosed on admission. An antipyretic relieved high fever and DIC soon improved. Three years later, AOSD relapsed accompanied by hypercoagulation and hyperfibrinolysis. The patient developed subdural hematoma and DIC due to a brain contusion. High titers of serum soluble adhesion molecules and soluble thrombomodulin were noted on the first episode of DIC. These findings indicated that endothelial cells were damaged in AOSD complicated by DIC.     

Mover design and performance analysis of linear synchronous reluctance motor with multiflux barrier

A synchronous reluctance motor has many advantages because it has no permanent magnet, such as low back emf in high‐speed operation, maintaining performance in a high‐temperature environment, and so on. Therefore, many rotor constructions have been studied and developed. The rotor with multiflux barrier structure has the merit of easy construction and high performance. The linear synchronous reluctance motor has been developed. It is necessary to improve the performance of the mover design for industrial use, because of its low power factor. In this paper, we propose a novel configuration of mover for the linear synchronous reluctance motor, and examine the static characteristics of the motor with reluctance equalization design by means of the finite element method. From analytical results, it is demonstrated that the static characteristics of the linear synchronous reluctance motor are greatly improved by the reluctance equalization design at the iron layer in the mover. © 2002 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 138(4): 61–69, 2002; DOI 10.1002/eej.1139     

Effects of hydrogenation of petroleum pitch on mesophase formation

The effects of hydrogenation of petroleum pitch on mesophase formation have been studied in terms of the hydrogen donor (D _a) and acceptor (A _a) abilities of starting pitch, the temperature dependence of mesophase content, the thermal properties of the resultant mesophase pitches with differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and ¹³C-NMR spectra of the mesophase pitches in the liquid and solid states. Hydrogenation of petroleum-derived pitch causes a significant increase of (D _a) and a clear shift of the mesophase generation temperature to the hightemperature side. Measurement of the characteristics of molecular size for mesophase pitches using DSC has been successfully accomplished. The increase of D _a due to hydrogenation cause the production of mesophase having a smaller average molecular size and a more homogeneous molecular size distribution. The decrease of molecular size in the mesophase seems to cause the narrowing of the characteristic peak for mesophase around 180 p.p.m. in ¹³C-NMR spectra in the liquid state.