The development and application of novel vegetable oils tailor‐made for specific human dietary needs

Conventional edible oils, such as sunflower, safflower, soya bean, rapeseed (canola) oils, were modified to obtain high‐oleic, low‐linoleic or even low‐linolenic oils. The aim was to develop salad, cooking and frying oils, that are very stable against lipid peroxidation. They are also suitable for margarine blends, as additives to cheeses and sausages, or even as feed components. Oils containing higher amounts of medium‐chain length or long‐chain polyunsaturated fish oil fatty acids are suitable as special dietetic oils or as nutraceuticals. High‐stearic oils are designed as trans‐fatty acid‐free substitutes for hydrogenated oils. New tailor‐made (designer) oils are thus a new series of vegetable oils suitable for edible purposes, where conventional oils are not suitable.     

Pervaporation properties of aromatic/nonaromatic hydrocarbons of crosslinked membranes of copolymers based on diethyl vinylbenzylphosphonate

Copoly(diethyl vinylbenzylphosphonate/hydroxyethyl methacrylate) [copoly(VBP–HEMA)] and copoly(diethyl vinylbenzylphosphonate/vinylbenzyl chloride) [copoly(VBP–VBC)] were prepared and their membranes crosslinked by a reaction of ethylene glycol diglycidyl ether and ethylene diamine with, respectively, hydroxyl and methylene chloride groups in their side chains. Pervaporation (PV) and sorption of benzene–n‐hexane (Bz–Hx), benzene–cyclohexane (Bz–Cx), and toluene–n‐octane (Tol–n‐Ot) mixtures were investigated. The membranes were in a rubbery state and preferentially permeable to aromatics. They had higher specific permeation flux and a lower PV separation factor compared with the crosslinked membranes of methacrylate copolymers with analogous pendant groups. They displayed better PV performance for Tol–n‐Ot. Sorption isotherms of Bz–Hx mixtures were represented by the Flory–Rehner model. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 87: 2177–2185, 2003     

Microstructure and dielectric response of (Ba,Sr)TiO3 filler-dispersed resin composites

Resin-matrix composites dispersing low-loss dielectric ceramic filler have received a considerable interest for high-frequency application, because of their good shape flexibility and controllable dielectric properties. In this study, (Ba,Sr)TiO₃-type ceramic particles have been synthesized by KCl molten salt method to serve as filler particle for resin-matrix dielectric composite. Dielectric measurement confirmed that the composite fabricated by tape-casting demonstrated two times higher dielectric constant of 50.4 than the other composites fabricated by direct-casting using a metal mold. Pore-size distribution as well as ceramic filler content was strongly correlated with the formation of electrical flux in the composites to enhance dielectric constant.     

Examining efficient instructional methods for computer-aided brush coating skill training system in elementary and secondary education

In recent Japan, many elementary and secondary school children strongly feel an awareness of resistance toward manufacturing class. It is considered as one of the aversion causes to science and engineering. We suspect that the shortage of teacher’s manufacturing experience is related to this background. So, the authors previously have developed a brush coating skill training system with a haptic device to improve the ability. In the skill training, historically, the instruction method while reproducing the video of trainee’s action has been considered to be effective. Thus, our developed system includes a software system to visualize the brush coating motion. This software system can record trainee’s brush coating motion and visualize the data in virtual three-dimensional space, so the advisor and the trainee can share his/her skill level and the wrong motion such as extra shaking and tilt by reproducing his/her past training data on a computer screen. In this paper, to improve the learning effectiveness of our brush coating skill training system, some kinds of instructional methods are designed, and the difference of the instructional methods is analyzed based on the proposed criteria. This paper performed some experiments with 10 college students who have less experience of brush coating. From the analysis results, the most effective instruction method was clarified.     

Organic dyes with oligo-n-hexylthiophene for dye-sensitized solar cells: Relation between chemical structure of donor and photovoltaic performance

Organic dyes with the oligohexylthiophene linkage having several donor parts, carbazole, indole, and indoline, were newly synthesized as sensitizers for dye-sensitized solar cells. The carbazole was most efficient donor moiety for DSSCs among these dyes with the oligothiophene linkage. Carbazole dyes were adsorbed with larger amount of molecules on the TiO₂ film than both indole dyes and indoline dyes. Therefore, both the V_OC and the electron lifetime of DSSCs with the carbazole dyes were highly observed. The decreasing of J_SC of DSSCs with indole and indoline dyes also caused by the reducing the adsorption amount of dyes.     

Observer-based robust control giving consideration to transient behaviour for linear systems with

In this paper, we present an observer-based controller design method which achieves performance robustness together with robust stability for linear multivariable systems with structured uncertainties. The performance robustness means that the deterioration of control performance is suppressed when we compare the transient behaviour for the uncertain system with a desired one generated by using the nominal system directly and at the same time excessive control input is avoided. In this approach, we adopt a similar way to the model-following technique and assume that the control law consists of a state feedback law for the nominal system and a compensation input for the purpose of preventing the error between the transient behaviour for the uncertain system and the desired one. The compensation input is additional modification term given by feedback form of an estimated error signal and is determined so that an upper bound of a quadratic cost function for the error system between the real trajectory for the plant and the desired one is minimized. We show that a condition for the existence of the compensation input which minimizes an upper bound of the quadratic cost function for the error system is given in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Finally, numerical examples are presented.     

Statistical Shape Model of the Liver and Its Application to Computer‐Aided Diagnosis of Liver Cirrhosis

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in statistical shape modeling of human anatomy. The statistical shape model can capture the morphological variations of human anatomy. Since liver cirrhosis will cause significant morphological changes, the authors propose a computer‐aided diagnosis method for liver cirrhosis based on statistical shape models. In the proposed method, the authors first construct a statistical shape model of the liver using 50 clinical CT datasets (25 sets of normal data and 25 sets of abnormal data). The authors apply the marching cubes algorithm to convert the segmented liver volume to a triangulated mesh surface containing 1000 vertex points. The coordinates of these vertex points are used to represent the 3D liver shape as a shape vector. After normalization and identification of correspondences between all datasets, principal component analysis (PCA) is employed to find the principal variation modes of the shape vectors. Then the authors propose a mode selection method based on class variations between the normal class and abnormal class. The authors found that the top two modes of class variations are most effective for the classification of normal and abnormal livers. The classification rate of abnormal livers and normal livers by the use of a simple linear discriminant function were 84% and 80%, respectively.     

Possible Biosynthetic Pathways for all <Emphasis Type="Italic">cis</Emphasis>-3,6,9,12,15,19,22,25,28-Hentriacontanonaene in Bacteria

A very long chain polyunsaturated hydrocarbon, hentriacontanonaene (C31:9), was detected in an eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA)-producing marine bacterium, which was isolated from the mid-latitude seashore of Hokkaido, Japan, and was tentatively identified as mesophilic Shewanella sp. strain osh08 from 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The geometry and position of the double bonds in this compound were determined physicochemically to be all cis at positions 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 19, 22, 25, and 28. Although C31:9 was detected in all of the seven EPA- or/and docosahexaenoic acid-producing bacteria tested, an EPA-deficient mutant (strain IK-1Δ8) of one of these bacteria had no C31:9. Strain IK-1Δ8 had defects in the pfaD gene, one of the five pfa genes responsible for the biosynthesis of EPA. Although Escherichia coli DH5α does not produce EPA or DHA inherently, cells transformed with the pfa genes responsible for the biosynthesis of EPA and DHA produced EPA and DHA, respectively, but not C31:9. These results suggest that the Pfa protein complex is involved in the biosynthesis of C31:9 and that pfa genes must not be the only genes responsible for the formation of C31:9. In this report, we determined for the first time the molecular structure of the C31:9 and discuss the possible biosynthetic pathways of this compound.     

Fluorescence-suppressed Raman technique for quantitative analysis of protein solution using a micro-Raman probe, the shifted excitation method, and partial least squares regression analysis

A practical Raman analyzing technique with suppression of the strong fluorescent background in order to obtain quantitative information is proposed in the present study. The technique is based on the shifted excitation method and partial least squares regression (PLSR) analysis. The Raman system consists of a single Raman spectrometer, a background-free electrically tunable Ti:Sapphire laser (BF-ETL), and a micro-Raman probe (MRP). The system allows one to obtain reliable shifted excitation Raman spectra with a simple operation. The PLSR analysis successfully provides quantitative information from the obtained spectra with the suppression of random noise including photon shot noise. The present study demonstrates that the technique is effective for extracting quantitative information concealed behind a fluorescent background that is more than 200 times stronger than the Raman signal.