Charged ultrafiltration membrane for permeation of proteins

Polyacrylonitrile-g-poly(N,N-dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate) was synthesized photochemically and quaternized. The positively charged membranes made from the quaternized graftcopolymer showed high ultrafiltration rate for water by adding poly(vinyl alcohol) to casting solution and washing it out after the casting. In buffered saline solution, the permeability of the membranes was very small at pH below isoelectric point of albumin but increased markedly at higher pH. On the other hand, the permeability for γ-globulin was very small and did not show any pH dependence.     

Influence of activated carbon pore structure on oxygen reduction at catalyst layers supported on rotating disk electrodes

Carbon materials are often used as catalyst supports, and for catalysts in electrodes of a polymer electrolyte fuel cell, carbon black has been used. Recently, it was found, however, that activated carbon could replace carbon black and besides, significantly improve the activity of the electrode catalyst layer for oxygen reduction. In the present study, to optimize the pore structure of activated carbon for further activity improvement, the influence of the pore structure on the activity was investigated using activated carbon of various specific surface areas and mean pore diameters. A catalyst layer was formed from activated carbon loaded with platinum and a polymer electrolyte. The activity of the layer was measured in an oxygen-saturated perchloric acid solution, supporting the layer on a rotating glassy carbon disk electrode. We found that increases in the specific surface area and mean pore diameter increased the activity and that the latter was more effective than the former mainly due to the enhanced mass-transfer in the pores; the catalyst layer formed from activated carbon with the largest mean pore diameter was the most active. Unless pores excessively develop and lose connections between particles, a large pore diameter is therefore desired for the fuel cell electrodes.     

Balanced corpus of contemporary written Japanese

The balanced corpus of contemporary written Japanese (BCCWJ) is Japan’s first 100 million words balanced corpus. It consists of three subcorpora (publication subcorpus, library subcorpus, and special-purpose subcorpus) and covers a wide range of text registers including books in general, magazines, newspapers, governmental white papers, best-selling books, an internet bulletin-board, a blog, school textbooks, minutes of the national diet, publicity newsletters of local governments, laws, and poetry verses. A random sampling technique is utilized whenever possible in order to maximize the representativeness of the corpus. The corpus is annotated in terms of dual POS analysis, document structure, and bibliographical information. The BCCWJ is currently accessible in three different ways including Chunagon a web-based interface to the dual POS analysis data. Lastly, results of some pilot evaluation of the corpus with respect to the textual diversity are reported. The analyses include POS distribution, word-class distribution, entropy of orthography, sentence length, and variation of the adjective predicate. High textual diversity is observed in all these analyses.     

The effect of the N-linked glycans on structural features and physicochemical functions of soybean β-conglycinin homotrimers

β-Conglycinin is a trimeric protein consisting of three subunits, α,α′,and β, which are N-glycosylated. The α and α′ subunits contain extension regions in addition to core regions common to all subunits. We purified homogeneous trimers consisting of only α, α′, or β from mutant soybean cultivars containing β-conglycinin lacking one or two subunits: α homotrimers from an α′-lacking mutant, α′ homotrimers from an α-lacking mutant, and β homotrimers from an α-and α′-lacking mutant. Structural features and physicochemical functions of the three homotrimers were examined and compared with those of recombinant homotrimers having no N-linked glycans. The native homotrimers have secondary structures very similar to those of the recombinant ones. In analogy with the recombinant homotrimers, the native ones exhibit different thermal stabilities from one another (β>α′>α), and the native α and α′ homotrimers exhibit better solubility, emulsifying ability, and heat-induced association than the native β homotrimer. Further, the N-linked glycans contribute to solubilities of the three subunits at low ionic strength (μ=0.08) and to the emulsifying ability of the native β homotrimer. N-Linked glycans also prevent heat-induced associations of the native α and α′ homotrimers but do not contribute to the secondary structure and the thermal stability of β-conglycinin.     

Cholesteryl ester compounds containing alkyl branched acyl groups — their preparations,properties and applications

Cholesterol having a reactive hydroxyl group at C₃-position can react with fatty acids to give the corresponding cholesteryl esters. Most of the natural cholesteryl esters consist of straight alkyl chain fatty acids with a high melting point. In oleochemistry it is well known that alkyl branched fatty acids, which are derived from petroleum or the fat and oil industry, have low melting points (mp.) and are chemically more stable if they are saturated acids. We designed alkyl branched fatty acid cholesteryl esters by means of common esterification and found some esters having a low mp. (mostly as a liquid). They had no irritative effect on both animal and human skin. They showed characteristic emulsification properties, namely the formation of either O/W or W/O emulsion coexistence together with other lipid components. Applying them onto human skin, they were able to penetrate towards the stratum corneum and improve the water-retaining ability and the barrier function of the stratum corneum. Based on these properties we have been applying the alkyl branched fatty acid cholesteryl ester, especially the methyl branched isostearic acid cholesteryl ester (IS-CE), to a shampoo and a rinse as hair cosmetics, skin care cosmetics and bath-additive products in the past decade.     

Radiation-induced polymerization of ethylene in pilot plant. III. Heavy-phase recycling process

Radiation-induced polymerization of ethylene using aqueous tert-butyl alcohol as medium was carried out in a large-scale pilot plant with a 50-liter central source-type reactor at a pressure of 105 to 395 kg/cm², temperature of 30° to 80°C, mean dose rate of 4.5 × 10⁴ to 1.9 × 10⁵ rads/hr, ethylene feed rate of 5.5 to 23.5 kg/hr, and medium feed rate of 21 to 102 l./hr. The space–time yield and molecular weight of the polymer were in the range of 4.7 to 16.8 g/l.-hr and 1.3 × 10⁴ to 8.9 × 10⁴, respectively. The space–time yield and molecular weight increased with mean residence time at 30°C, whereas at 80°C they became almost independent of the time. The space–time yield increased with pressure and dose rate, slightly decreased with temperature, and was maximum at ethylene molar fraction of 0.5. The polymer molecular weight increased with pressure and ethylene molar fraction, and decreased with dose rate and temperature. The total amount of deposited polymer on the reactor wall, source case wall, and scraping blades was usually less than 1 kg, which was negligibly small for the analysis of polymerization. Continuous discharge of the polymer slurry and production of fine-powder polyethylene were successfully carried out. In the central source-type reactor, a dose rate of 1.9 × 10⁵ rads/hr was obtained with a ⁶⁰Co source of ca. 12 kCi.     

Thermal stability of lamellar structure of PST crystal and lamellar boundary design for creep resistant TiAl alloy

The stability of lamellar structure is crucial for the creep resistance of TiAl alloys, but degradation of the lamellar structure is unavoidable at high temperatures. The degradation of the lamellar structure in PST crystals of Ti-48mol.%Al was studied during high temperature exposure (annealing and creep testing) to examine how to make a stable lamellar structure with high creep deformation resistance. Since the six orientation variants of γ lamellae are nucleated independently of the adjoining lamellae, pseudo twin and 120° rotational fault boundaries are most frequently observed at the initial stage of lamellar formation. The preferential removal of high energy (pseudo twin and 120° rotational fault) boundaries during the evolution of lamellar structure results in the highly probable appearance of a true twin boundary at a later stage of lamellar evolution. The coarsening of lamellar spacing and the spheroidization of the lamellae are the major degradation events occurring during creep deformation, and the migration of the lamellar boundaries brings both of them about. The lamellar structures of TiAl alloy contain four types of lamellar boundaries. The stability of the four types of boundaries decreases in the following order: γ/α₂ > true twin > pseudo twin > or=120° rotational fault boundaries. The γ/α₂ boundary has the highest stability (lowest mobility), and the high density of γ/α₂ boundaries is proposed to make a stable lamellar structure with good creep resistance. A material having the high density of γ/α₂ boundaries was produced through the heat treatment of a PST crystal in the α+γ two-phase regime. The excellent creep properties of the material were proven through creep tests of hard oriented PST crystals made of the material. This article is based on a presentation made in the 2002 Korea-US symposium on the “Phase Transformations of Nano-Materials,” organized as a special program of the 2002 Annual Meeting of the Korean Institute of Metals and Materials, held at Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea on October 25–26, 2002.     

Effects of blasting parameters on removability of residual grit

This article shows the quantitative evaluation of the residual grit on a blasted substrate, and the removability of the residual grit is examined. Carbon steel plates were blasted by white alumina grit with mean diameters of 338 to 1106 μm. The velocity and the number of grit particles were measured during blasting. The residual grit was removed from a substrate surface by the dissolution of the blasted substrate surface. A mixed acid solution was used as the dissolution solution. The residual grit weight was 7 to 17 g/m². The amount of the residual grit and the penetration depth of the embedded grit increased with increasing grit size. The penetration depth was 5 to 9% of the mean diameter of the grit. The residual grit weight and the penetration depth increased with the increase of the momentum of the grit particle. This article was originally published inBuilding on 100 Years of Success, Proceedings of the 2006 International Thermal Spray Conference (Seattle, WA), May 15–18, 2006, B.R. Marple, M.M. Hyland, Y.-Ch. Lau, R.S. Lima, and J. Voyer, Ed., ASM International, Materials Park, OH, 2006.     

Semi-autonomous serially connected multi-crawler robot for search and rescue

In this paper, we develop a semi-autonomous serially connected multi-crawler robot for search and rescue. In large-scale disasters, such as earthquakes and tornadoes, the application of rescue robots to search for survivors under rubble would be beneficial. Snake-like robots (robots composed of serially connected units) are an effective candidate for such robots. Their long body enables them to overcome obstacles, and they can move into narrow spaces because of their thin shape. However, conventional snake-like robots have significant problems with operability. The numerous degrees of freedom of their bodies require complex operation to overcome obstacles, and training is required for the operators. Thus, survivors or community members cannot operate conventional robots to search for victims, despite the availability of such rescue robots. Here, we address this problem and develop a semi-autonomous serially connected multi-crawler robot designed for non-trained operators, such as community members or rescued survivors. It can be controlled easily by a conventional two-channel user interface with levers for turning and straight line motion. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed mechanism, a prototype robot was developed and experiments were conducted. The results confirm that the proposed robot had both higher operability and higher mobility than conventional robots.     

Achieving evenhandedness in certified email system for contract signing

Certified email is a system which enables a sender to prove a receiver’s receipt of email. Such a system can be used for applications related to electronic commerce on the Internet. This paper considers a situation where a sender or a receiver wants to change his/her mind due to the change of mail content value (e.g., stock, auction, gambling) during the transaction. We point out that no traditional certified email systems have been designed for such a case, thus one of the participants can be at a disadvantage. To avoid this problem, we propose an evenhanded certified email system in which each participant can change his/her choice, either cancel or finish the transaction, at any time during the transaction.