Dynamic Functional Unit Assignment for Low Power

A hardware method for functional unit assignment is presented, based on the principle that a functional unit's power consumption is approximated by the switching activity of its inputs. Since computing the Hamming distance of the inputs in hardware is expensive, only a portion of the inputs are examined. Integers often have many identical top bits, due to sign extension, and floating points often have many zeros in the least significant digits, due to the casting of integer values into floating point, and other reasons. The accuracy of these approximations is studied and the results are used to develop a simple, but effective, hardware scheme.     

Effect of swimming training on antioxidant enzymes in kidney of young and old mice

The current study was undertaken to investigate the effect of swimming training on the antioxidant enzyme system in kidney of young and old mice. Both young and old mice, aged 2 and 26 months old, respectively, were divided into the sedentary and swimming-trained groups. The trained mice underwent a 6-week swimming program (1 h/day, 5 days/week) in water at 35-36 degrees C. Cu,Zn-superoxide dismutase (Cu,Zn-SOD) activity was significantly decreased with aging but was not influenced by swimming training, such changes being similar to those noted for catalase activity rather than for glutathione peroxidase activity. After swimming training Mn-SOD activity increased significantly only in old mice but was unaffected by aging. Although neither aging nor swimming training had overt effect on the expression of Cu,Zn-SOD mRNA, the immunoreactive Cu,Zn-SOD content in young mice decreased significantly after the training. Meanwhile, Mn-SOD mRNA expression in old mice was reduced by half after swimming training, accompanied by a significant decrease in its immunoreactive content; unexpectedly, however, Mn-SOD content in young mice did not parallel its mRNA expression. These findings suggest that the antioxidant enzyme system in mouse kidney trends to be down-regulated with aging, and that swimming training fails to attenuate such reduced levels of the antioxidant enzymes.     

Hydrolysis of mercerized cotton fibers due to cellulase treatment

Cotton fibers mercerized under the relaxed state were hydrolyzed with crude cellulase. The mercerization treatment examined included ammonia treatment, sodium hydroxide treatment, and two combined treatments using ammonia and sodium hydroxide. Crystalline regions of the mercerized fibers were hydrolyzed in the first step of hydrolysis. In this step, ammonia treatment decreased the crystallite size to a great extent due to the hydrolysis of the cellulose III crystalline phase. Cellulase treatment rendered the crystallite surface highly accessible to water molecules. The crystalline phase was closely related to water sorption of cellulase‐treated fibers. The sequence of treatment had an influence on the fiber structure in the case of the combined mercerization treatment with ammonia and sodium hydroxide. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 78: 364–370, 2000     

Hydrolysis of cuprammonium rayon by endocellulases

The first step in the hydrolysis of cuprammonium rayon with endocellulases was examined and the results were compared with those of hydrolysis with a cellulase complex. Mechanical agitation during endocellulase treatment was effective for the separation of the oligomers from the substrate. The endocellulases removed the intermediately ordered regions in the disordered matrix. The crystalline regions were negligibly affected by the endocellulases, while the cellulase complex considerably deaggregated the surface of the crystallite. The endocellulases enhanced the brittleness of the fabric more than did the cellulase complex. It was assumed that the hydrolysis with the endocellulases proceeded without molecular deaggregation of the fiber. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 79: 2543–2547, 2001     

Reactive dye dyeability of cellulose fibers with cellulase treatment

Reactive dye dyeing was performed on cellulose fibers in combination with cellulase treatment. First, polynosic and cupra fibers were selected to discuss the saturation dye uptake of the previously cellulase-treated fibers. Cupra fiber exhibited a similar saturation dyeuptake dependence on weight loss, irrespective of dye species and the substantivity of the dyes. In the polynosic fiber, the saturation dye-uptake dependence on weight loss exhibited a minimum using a lower substantive dye and a maximum using a higher substantive dye. Comparative discussions of the saturation dye uptake based on X-ray and infrared measurements led to the assumption that a region dyeable with the higher substantive dye is created by the cellulase treatment of the polynosic fiber. This region is assumed to have some degree of order as shown by infrared spectroscopy. Next, cotton fiber, which is important from a practical viewpoint, is dyed and then hydrolyzed. It was found that the hydrolysis of cotton fiber dyed with a reactive monofunctional dye was retarded almost in the same manner as that dyed with Congo Red. The hydrolysis of cotton fiber dyed with dyes of higher substantivity and more bifunctional property was probably retarded to a greater extent compared to dyes of lower substantivity and less bifunctional property. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

A 1.6 Gbyte/s data transfer rate 8 Mb embedded DRAM

An 8 Mb embedded DRAM has been developed. The salient feature of this embedded DRAM is page fault tolerance. Accessing across different pages can be performed using a minimum column cycle. This feature is achieved by placing a data latch and a transfer gate between the bit line sense amplifier and the column select gate. This DRAM can be reconfigured as separated 2 Mb units when it is embedded as a macro cell of an ASIC library     

Quantitative analyses of topography and elasticity of living and fixed astrocytes

The topography and elasticity of living and fixed astrocytes cultured from the rat cerebra were studied quantitatively by atomic force microscopy (AFM). Ridge-like structures reflecting F-actin beneath the cell membrane were prominent in the contact-mode images of living astrocytes. Many of these ridges became unclear after fixation (2% glutaraldehyde). In addition, the ridge-like structures were invisible in the topography of living cells observed at zero-loading force in the force mapping mode, which is considered to show the real cell surface not pressed down by an AFM tip. The topography of fixed cells observed both in the contact mode and at zero-loading force in the force mapping mode was similar to that of living cells observed at zero-loading force in the force mapping mode, although some deformed areas were detected in the fixed cells. The elasticity map images of living astrocytes showed that the cell membrane above the nucleus was softer (2-3 kPa) than the surroundings, and that the cell membrane above F-actin was stiffer (10-20 kPa) than the surroundings. In the elasticity map images of fixed astrocytes, on the other hand, the elasticity of the cells was found to be relatively uniform (200-700 kPa) irrespective of the inner structures of cells. These results show that images observed by AFM should be carefully examined in consideration of the force introduced to specimens and the elasticity of specimens to find out the real surface topography.     

Microdomain structure of agar gels observed by mechanical-scanning probe microscopy

The inhomogeneous structure of agar gels was examined by means of mechanical-scanning probe microscopy. Several domains were observed in the elasticity images, while such domains could not be seen in the height images. The domain size decreased with increases in agar concentration. We found that the histograms of the logarithm of the local elastic modulus were described well by a single normal distribution. As the agar concentration increased, the peak values of the histograms increased, while the half-value width remained constant. These results imply that the gelation process of agar gels has a common mechanism, despite its complexity.     

Dc power system for mutual coupled large scale superconducting coils

The large helical device (LHD) is a fusion experimental facility which has a large scale mutually coupled superconducting coil system and it is now under operation at the National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS). This paper shows the design and the operation results of the dc power systems to drive these coils. First, the outline of the LHD and the power supplies are described. Next, a control system and the current controller for the power supplies are introduced. Finally, some experimental results are introduced.