Classical dynamics of anyons and the quantum spectrum

1. NS-398 (N-[2-cyclohexyloxy-4-nitrophenyl] methanesulfonamide) is a new non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) with analgesic and antipyretic effects. 2. The anti-inflammatory potency of NS-398 in rat carrageenin-induced edema was as potent as that of indomethacin and 8 times more potent than diclofenac. In rat adjuvant arthritis, NS-398 showed a therapeutic effect comparable to that seen with loxoprofen but less than that seen with indomethacin and diclofenac. 3. The analgesic potency of NS-398 in rat adjuvant arthritic pain was much the same as that of indomethacin, and was about 3-5 times higher than that of diclofenac and loxoprofen. In the Randall-Selitto method in rats, NS-398 was 2-7 times as potent as loxoprofen, diclofenac and indomethacin. In acetic acid-induced writhing in mice, NS-398 was equipotent to indomethacin and diclofenac. 4. In LPS-induced fever in rats, NS-398 was 1.5-4.5 times as potent as loxoprofen and indomethacin, but less potent than diclofenac. 5. NS-398 produced little gastric ulceration in doses of up to 1000 mg/kg, while reference drugs produced distinct stomach lesions in doses of 10-30 mg/kg. 6. NS-398 inhibited prostaglandin (PG) endoperoxide synthase from sheep seminal vesicle microsomes less potent than that of ibuprofen.     

Invited Paper: Depth reproducibility of multiview depth‐fused 3‐D display

Abstract— A multi‐view depth‐fused 3‐D (DFD) display that provides smooth motion parallax for wide viewing angles is proposed. A conventional DFD display consists of a stack of two transparent emitting screens. It can produce motion parallax for small changes in observation angle, but its viewing zone is rather narrow due to the split images it provides in inclined views. On the other hand, even though multi‐view 3‐D displays have a wide viewing angle, motion parallax in them is discrete, depending on the number of views they show. By applying a stacked structure to multi‐view 3‐D displays, a wide‐viewing‐angle 3‐D display with smooth motion parallax was fabricated. Experimental results confirmed the viewing‐zone connection of DFD displays while the calculated results show the feasibility of stacked multi‐view displays.     

A challenge towards next-generation research infrastructure for advanced life science

Recently, life scientists have expressed a strong need for computational power sufficient to complete their analyses within a realistic time as well as for a computational power capable of seamlessly retrieving biological data of interest from multiple and diverse bio-related databases for their research infrastructure. This need implies that life science strongly requires the benefits of advanced IT. In Japan, the Biogrid project has been promoted since 2002 toward the establishment of a next-generation research infrastructure for advanced life science. In this paper, the Biogrid strategy toward these ends is detailed along with the role and mission imposed on the Biogrid project. In addition, we present the current status of the development of the project as well as the future issues to be tackled. Haruki Nakamura, Ph.D.: He is Professor of Protein Informatics at Institute for Protein Research, Osaka University. He received his B.S., M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo in 1975, 1977 and 1980 respectively. His research field is Biophysics and Bioinformatics, and has so far developed several original algorithms in the computational analyses of protein electrostatic features and folding dynamics. He is also a head of PDBj (Protein Data Bank Japan) to manage and develop the protein structure database, collaborating with RCSB (Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics) in USA and MSD-EBI (Macromolecular Structure Database at the European Bioinformatics Institute) in EU. Susumu Date, Ph.D.: He is Assistant Professor of the Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Osaka University. He received his B.E., M.E. and Ph.D. degrees from Osaka University in 1997, 2000 and 2002, respectively. His research field is computer science and his current research interests include application of Grid computing and related information technologies to life sciences. He is a member of IEEE CS and IPSJ. Hideo Matsuda, Ph.D.: He is Professor of the Department of Bioinformatic Engineering, the Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Osaka University. He received his B.S., M.Eng. and Ph.D. degrees from Kobe University in 1982, 1984 and 1987 respectively. For M.Eng. and Ph.D. degrees, he majored in computer science. His research interests include computational analysis of genomic sequences. He has been involved in the FANTOM (Functional Annotation of Mouse) Project for the functional annotation of RIKEN mouse full-length cDNA sequences. He is a member of ISCB, IEEE CS and ACM. Shinji Shimojo, Ph.D.: He received M.E. and Ph.D. degrees from Osaka University in 1983 and 1986 respectively. He was an Assistant Professor with the Department of Information and Computer Sciences, Faculty of Engineering Science at Osaka University from 1986, and an Associate Professor with Computation Center from 1991 to 1998. During the period, he also worked as a visiting researcher at the University of California, Irvine for a year. He has been Professor with Cybermedia Center (then Computation Center) at Osaka University since 1998. His current research work focus on a wide variety of multimedia applications, peer-to-peer communication networks, ubiquitous network systems and Grid technologies. He is a member of ACM, IEEE and IEICE.     

Effect of process parameters on electromagnetic impact welding of aluminum sheets

Electromagnetic forming of aluminum sheets has been studied in detail by many researchers due to its advantages of increased formability and reduced springback. The feasibility of electromagnetic impact welding of aluminum sheets has been established, but the effect of process parameters on the weld strength has not been reported. The present study investigates the effect of parameters such as energy, standoff distance and coil geometry on the shearing strength and the width of the weld achieved by electromagnetic impact welding of aluminum sheets. A study has been carried out to characterize the effectiveness of the process of welding two aluminum sheets of same chemical composition and of 1 mm thickness. The results of the microstructure and shearing strength tests are reported in this paper. The shearing strength and the width of the weld are found to increase with an increase in discharge energy. Further, when the geometry of the coil is changed from rectangular shape to tapered shape, it gives higher shearing strength. The standoff distance has an optimum value that gives maximum shearing strength and width of the weld. If the standoff distance is varied on either side of its optimum value the shearing strength and the width of the weld reduce.     

Evaluation of interfacial properties between carbon fibres and semicrystalline thermoplastic matrices in single-fibre composites

The interfacial properties between pitch-based carbon fibre and semicrystalline thermoplastic matrices have been investigated by using the fragmentation test on single-fibre composites. For this purpose, fibres with seven different degrees of surface oxidation were prepared. From the fragmentation test, it was found that oxidization of carbon fibre reduces the fibre fragment length. Further, the length is also influenced by the nature of resin used as matrix. The morphology of crystallites formed on the fibres has been studied. Based on these results, the interfacial properties of carbon fibre and thermoplastic resins are discussed.     

Neuroscience instrumentation and distributed analysis of brain activity data: a case for eScience on global Grids

The distribution of knowledge (by scientists) and data sources (advanced scientific instruments), and the need for large‐scale computational resources for analyzing massive scientific data are two major problems commonly observed in scientific disciplines. Two popular scientific disciplines of this nature are brain science and high‐energy physics. The analysis of brain‐activity data gathered from the MEG (magnetoencephalography) instrument is an important research topic in medical science since it helps doctors in identifying symptoms of diseases. The data needs to be analyzed exhaustively to efficiently diagnose and analyze brain functions and requires access to large‐scale computational resources. The potential platform for solving such resource intensive applications is the Grid. This paper presents the design and development of MEG data analysis system by leveraging Grid technologies, primarily Nimrod‐G, Gridbus, and Globus. It describes the composition of the neuroscience (brain‐activity analysis) application as parameter‐sweep application and its on‐demand deployment on global Grids for distributed execution. The results of economic‐based scheduling of analysis jobs for three different optimizations scenarios on the world‐wide Grid testbed resources are presented along with their graphical visualization. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Inorganic materials for optical data storage

Recyclable holographic (optical) storage in inorganic materials is nowadays possible due to the advent of laser. Various performance parameters of the state-of-the-art of optical storage are discussed in detail with reference to the well-established case of ferroelectric lithium niobate (LiNbO₃). Various physicochemical techniques are employed in understanding the microscopic mechanisms responsible for optical storage in LiNbO₃. A short summary of other inorganic materials capable of holographic storage is also presented.     

Propagation of plastic waves in a long rod with consideration given to temperature rise

The strain and temperature distributions along a long rod subjected to a longitudinal impact at a high strain level are investigated using Malvern's linear strain-rate dependent theory with consideration being given to the temperature rise caused by the plastic work. The results show that a steeply decreasing part of strain appears near the impacted end and the region is followed by an uniform-strain (strain-plateau) one along the rod, and that the formation and growth of the uniform-strain region depends on the strain-hardening sensitivity of the rod. The computed profile of the temperature distribution is similar to that of the strain distribution. However, the growth of a uniform-temperature region (temperature plateau) is much slower that that of the strain plateau.     

Mode Matching Analysis of Propagation Characteristics for Dielectric Ridge Guide with Triangular and Trapezoidal Profiles*

Leaky characteristics of dielectric ridge guide with triangular and trapezoidal cross section are analyzed by a method that combines the mode matching procedure with the staircase approximation and multimode microwave network theory. Our emphasis in this paper is on the parametric effects of cross section profile on leakage and propagation properties of the ridge guide. Some numeral results with their explanations are given for practical reference.