Effects of randomization of partially hydrogenated corn oil on fatty acid and cholesterol absorption,and tissue lipid levels in rats

Randomization of partially hydrogenated corn oil containing approximately 45% oftrans octadecenoic acid only slightly, but not significantly, increased the lymphatic fatty acid absorption in rats. No effect of randomization was observed on cholesterol absorption. When rats were fed these fats at the 8.8% level (with 1.2% safflower oil) for three weeks, the concentrations of serum cholesterol, and serum and liver phospholipid were significantly higher in randomized fat than in control fat, which was composed of 9% high-oleic safflower oil and 1% palm oil. Liver cholesterol tended to be higher in randomized fat. In contrast, nonrandomized fat was not hyperlipidemic compared to control fat. Although the fatty acid composition of liver phospholipids suggested a possible interference oftrans fatty acid with the metabolism of linoleic acid to arachidonic acid, there was no effect of randomization. In the two hydrogenated fat groups,trans octadecenoic acid was incorporated and distributed similarly in adipose tissue triacylglycerol. These observations indicated that randomization of partially hydrogenated fat is not beneficial to various lipid parameters in rats.     

Thermal and hydraulic tests of test sections in the helium engineering demonstration loop

The helium engineering demonstration loop (HENDEL) has been constructed and operated to test the large-scale components of the high temperature engineering test reactor (HTTR) under simulated reactor operating conditions. The fuel stack test section (T₁) of HENDEL simulates the fuel stack of the HTTR core and is used to investigate thermal and hydraulic performance. Hot tests with 1000°C helium gas have been conducted using simulated fuel rods having uniform, exponential and cosine axial heat flux distributions. The test results agreed with previously proposed correlations, although the simulated fuel rods had various heat flux distributions and high heat flux rates.

The in-core structure test section (T₂) also was installed in the HENDEL to verify the performance of the core bottom structure of the HTTR. The tests show that good performance was obtained. Examination of the thermal mixing characteristics indicated that mixing started at the location where the hot helium gas flowed into the hot plenum and that complete mixing was achieved during the downward flow in the outlet hot gas duct. The seal performance testing indicated no change of the leakage flow rate after 4000 hours of operation. The temperature of the metal portion of the structure was below 500°C and uniform around circumferential cross-sections due to the good performance of the thermal insulation blocks.     

Phase equilibria in Fe-Cu-X (X: Co, Cr, Si, V) ternary systems

Phase equilibria on the Fe-Cu side in the Fe-Cu-X (X: Co, Cr, Si, V) system were experimentally determined over the temperature range of 1073–1273 K. Based on the present results and previous works, the thermodynamic assessments of the phase equilibria in the Fe-Cu-X system were evaluated using the Calculation of Phase Diagram (CALPHAD) method. The Gibbs energies (G) of the bcc, fcc, and liquid phases are described by the subregular solution model, and a set of thermodynamic parameters enable us to calculate various isothermal and vertical sections and the miscibility gaps of the solid and liquid phases.     

Studies on the toxicity of pulp and paper mill effluents—II. Mutagenicity of the extracts of the liver from spotted sea trout (Nibea mitsukurii)

Sediment samples collected at three different coastal points (Shinguu, Ooigawa and Tagonoura) were extracted with diethylether and then methanol. Each extract was separated into five fractions by high-speed liquid chromatography and they were submitted to mutagenic assay using B. subtilis and S. typhimurium and to GC-MS analysis.The ether fraction of sediment sample from Shinguu showed DNA damaging potency on B. subtilis and exhibited mutagenic effect on S. typhimurium TA 98, TA 100 and TA 1537. 2,4,6-Trichlorophenol, 3,4,5,6-tetrachloroguaiacol, dehydroabietic acid, pyrene and fluoranthene were mutagenic substances among 28 substances identified and tested.     

FTIR study on structural transformation of keratin films induced by stretching

Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) was employed to explore the structural transformation by stretching of the film composed of a keratin derivative. The derivative was prepared by S-carboxymethylation of the low-sulfur keratin of wool. The cast film was stretched to different ratios in ethanol/water (7:3 v/v). The amide infrared absorption bands of the derivative were changed by stretching the film. Curve analysis was undertaken to estimate the contribution of each peptide conformation to the amide II band at each stretching. The analysis shows that the stretching mainly causes the structural transformation from random coil to β-structure. Moreover, a transient state arises in the course of the transformation. In such a state, the part of random coil increases while that of β-structure decreases. The infrared dichroism of the film also supports the existence of the transient state. On curve analysis, only the α-structure was found to reverse the dichroism of the amide II band in the transient state. This result suggests that the crystalline phase of α-structure is rearranged. Such rearrangement results in inhibition of the transformation from random coil to β-structure.     

Effects of sense of direction on Internet skill and cognitive maps of the Web

The relationship of sense of direction in the real world to Internet use, as well as to cognitive maps of the Internet, was investigated. In Study 1, 28 participants were asked to draw a sketch map of the Internet. They also completed a questionnaire containing scales for measuring Internet usage, knowledge, and skill, and completed the Sense of Direction Questionnaire (SDQ-S), which is composed of two scales, awareness of orientation and memory for usual spatial behavior. In Study 2, 48 participants performed a modified sketch map task and completed the same questionnaires. Awareness of orientation improved the Internet skills of novices but not of experts. In addition, awareness of orientation affected the structure of the cognitive maps of the Internet. These results suggest that sense of direction in the real world influence skill with the Web for novice users.     

Evolutionary design of high signal integrity interconnection based on eye-diagram

Frequency of the digital signal in PCBs has remained at about 1 GHz, while that in VLSIs become more than several GHz. The frequency gap comes from signal integrity (SI) deterioration in PCB in GHz-domain. To overcome this problem, we have already proposed segmental transmission line, in which genetic algorithm is used to solve the combinatorial explosion problem in the design. In this paper, we propose a novel fitness based on the eye-diagram, which is widely and generally used for SI evaluation in the high-speed interconnection design field. And we also propose a high-speed eye-diagram calculation method based on virtual eye-diagram. This eye-diagram is constructed by superposing the single-shot pulse responses and can reduce the simulation time. The simulation experiments demonstrate that our proposed fitness increases the eye height and eye width by 3.07 and 1.06 times, respectively, compared with the conventional one.     

Development of a novel crossover of hybrid genetic algorithms for large-scale traveling salesman problems

This article proposes a novel crossover operator of hybrid genetic algorithms (HGAs) with a Lin-Kernighan (LK) heuristic for solving large-scale traveling salesman problems (TSPs). The proposed crossover, tentatively named sub-tour recombination crossover (SRX), collects many short sub-tours from both parents under some set of rules, and reconnects them to construct a new tour of the TSP. The method is evaluated from the viewpoint of tour quality and CPU time for ten well-known benchmarks, e.g., dj38, qa194, …, ch71009.tsp, in the TSP website of the Georgia Institute of Technology. We compare the SRX with three conventional crossover operators, a variant of the maximal preservative crossover operator (MPX3), a variant of the greedy sub-tour crossover operator (GSX2), and a variant of the edge recombination crossover operator (ERX6), and show that the SRX succeeded in finding a better solution and running faster than the conventional methods mentioned above.