Hysteresis of critical currents of superconducting bridges in low perpendicular magnetic fields

Hysteresis of critcal currentsI _c of superconducting bridges with In, Nb, and NbN has been studied in low perpendicular magnetic fields. Influences of bridge geometry, small field sweep, trapped flux, and bombardment of argon ions on the hysteresis were made clear. The experimental results suggest that the edge pinning and trapped flux in the bank of bridges are associated with the hysteresis. The peak value ofI _c of NbN bridges, as well as granular Al and In bridges reported before, in decreasing fields agrees with the calculated pair-breaking current. The origin of the hysteresis is discussed.     

Intelligent decision support systems for nuclear power plants in Japan

This paper describes the MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry) projects for decision support systems for NPPs in Japan. Main attention is paid to the new project of an advanced man-machine system for nuclear power plants, of which a conceptual design was initiated in 1984. Some of the aspects of the design and the outline of the prototype system are discussed.     

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-positive NK cell line YT, and ALL/LBL of NK-lineage

The YT cells, already known as natural killer (NK) line, were tested for Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). The simply maintained YT cells (YT-O) and the two different subclones showed and identical length of junctional DNA of terminal repeats in Southern blot with LMP-1 probe, indicating that the 3 had already been positive for EBV before subcloning. YT-O expressed limited amount of EBNA2 or LMP-1 mRNA, whereas the 2 subclones expressed abundant EBNA2 or LMP-1 mRNA in the Northern blot analysis with EBNA2 or LMP-1 probe. Thus, the ex vivo cells were positive for EBV, since the BL (Burkitt lymphoma) type EBV gene expression in the YT-O does not generally occur in in vitro infection. The remaining clinical record indicated that the lymphoma was extranodal (angiocentric lymphoma), involving mediastinum and liver, but not nodal or lymphoblastic lymphoma (LBL). Acute lymphoblastic lymphoma (ALL)/LBL of the NK-lineage has not been defined, although such neoplasms should exist. Since T- and NK-lineages are so close in immature stages of differentiation that ALL/LBL of NK may have been sorted into T-lineage. The phenotypic records of the T-ALL/LBL in our laboratory indicated that CD7+CD5+CD2- is much higher in incidence than CD7+CD5-CD2+. This may reflect the size difference of physiological populations of T- and NK-lineage cells. Furthermore, the latter is of CD45RO type in contrast to the rest of the early-thymic (pro-thymic) T-ALL/LBL groups of CD45RA type. A CD56+ case of 4 CD7+CD5-CD2+ cases have been published as a case of LBL of NK-lineage. It is necessary to scrutinize CD7+CD5-CD2+ cells in order to clarify the phenotype of neoplastic and physiological NK cells in immature stages.     

Self-organization of behavioral primitives as multiple attractor dynamics: A robot experiment

This paper investigates how behavior primitives are self-organized in a neural network model utilizing a distributed representation scheme. The model is characterized by so-called parametric biases which adaptively modulate the encoding of different behavior patterns in a single recurrent neural net (RNN). Our experiments, using a real robot arm, showed that a set of end-point and oscillatory behavior patterns are learned by self-organizing fixed points and limit cycle dynamics that form behavior primitives. It was also found that diverse novel behavior patterns can be generated by modulating the parametric biases arbitrarily. Our analysis showed that such diversity in behavior generation emerges because a nonlinear map is self-organized between the space of parametric biases and that of the behavior patterns. The origin of the observed nonlinearity from the distributed representation is discussed. This paper investigates how behavior primitives are self-organized in a neural network model utilizing a distributed representation scheme. Our robot experiments showed that a set of end-point and oscillatory behavior patterns are learned by self-organizing fixed points and limit cycle dynamics that form behavior primitives. It was also found that diverse novel behavior patterns, in addition to previously learned patterns, can be generated by taking advantage of nonlinear effects that emerge from the distributed representation.     

Evaluation of immunochromatography assay technique for detection of antibody to hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg)

A new immunochromatography assay (Dainascreen Ausab Dainabot) has been recently introduced for the detection of the presence of antibody to HBsAg. To evaluate the feasibility of using the Dainascreen Ausab, we carried out comparison tests with this method and PHA. In the test of 439 sera from HB vaccinees, inhabitants in Iki Island, Nagasaki Pref., patients with autoimmune diseases and with acute hepatitis B, 154 (31.2%) were positive by Dainascreen Ausab, 145 (29.4%) were positive by PHA and 145 (29.4%) were positive by both Dainascreen Ausab and PHA. Nine (1.8%) were positive by only Dainascreen and there were none positive by only PHA. A good correlation was observed between the titer of the antibody by this method and IMx. The anti-HBs assay by this method was able to be completed within 15 minutes and the procedure was very simple. The results indicate that the sensitivity of Dainascreen is superior to PHA and that it is easy to use.     

Emission characteristics of photoconductive antennas based on low-temperature-grown GaAs and semi-insulating GaAs

Terahertz radiation was generated with several designs of photoconductive antennas (three dipoles, a bow tie, and a coplanar strip line) fabricated on low-temperature-grown (LT) GaAs and semi-insulating (SI) GaAs, and the emission properties of the photoconductive antennas were compared with each other. The radiation spectrum of each antenna was characterized with the photoconductive sampling technique. The total radiation power was also measured by a bolometer for comparison of the relative radiation power. The radiation spectra of the LT-GaAs-based and SI-GaAs-based photoconductive antennas of the same design showed no significant difference. The pump-power dependencies of the radiation power showed saturation for higher pump intensities, which was more serious in SI-GaAs-based antennas than in LT-GaAs-based antennas. We attributed the origin of the saturation to the field screening of the photocarriers.     

Linamarin sensors: interference-based sensing of linamarin using linamarase and peroxidase

An interference-based linamarin sensor is developed. Horseradish peroxidase (HRP) is adsorbed on a pyrolytic graphite (PG) electrode, and then linamarase from cassava is cross-linked with glutaraldehyde on the electrode surface. The prepared bienzyme electrode is poised at -300 mV vs Ag/AgCl for 40 s to reduce dissolved O(2) to H(2)O(2) at the PG surface. The potential is then stepped to 0 mV, at which point the accumulated H(2)O(2) is reduced, though the O(2) reduction does not proceed. Since the H(2)O(2) reduction is catalyzed by HRP, the transient cathodic current is inhibited by cyanide, which is liberated from linamarin by linamarase. Therefore, the transient current is a function of the linamarin concentration. This sensor responds to 1 × 10(-5)-5 × 10(-3) M linamarin and can estimate a linamarin concentration of a cassava extract.     

Hybrid lubricant film with high bonding ratio and high coverage

Microsystem Technologies - A hybrid lubricant film was prepared from the perfluoropolyether (PFPE) lubricant (Moresco DDOH), with a single end group, and a PFPE film obtained by depositing the...     

Quantum Query Complexity of Almost All Functions with Fixed On-set Size

This paper considers the quantum query complexity of almost all functions in the set \({\mathcal{F}}_{N,M}\) of \({N}\)-variable Boolean functions with on-set size \({M (1\le M \le 2^{N}/2)}\), where the on-set size is the number of inputs on which the function is true. The main result is that, for all functions in \({\mathcal{F}}_{N,M}\) except its polynomially small fraction, the quantum query complexity is \({ \Theta\left(\frac{\log{M}}{c + \log{N} - \log\log{M}} + \sqrt{N}\right)}\) for a constant \({c > 0}\). This is quite different from the quantum query complexity of the hardest function in \({\mathcal{F}}_{N,M}\): \({\Theta\left(\sqrt{N\frac{\log{M}}{c + \log{N} - \log\log{M}}} + \sqrt{N}\right)}\). In contrast, almost all functions in \({\mathcal{F}}_{N,M}\) have the same randomized query complexity \({\Theta(N)}\) as the hardest one, up to a constant factor.