A New Fluorogenic Probe for the Detection of endo‐β‐N‐Acetylglucosaminidase

We developed a fluorescence‐quenching‐based assay system to determine the hydrolysis activity of endo‐β‐N‐acetylglucosaminidases (ENGases). The pentasaccharide derivative 1 was labeled with an N‐methylanthraniloyl group as a reporter dye at the non‐reducing end and with a 2,4‐dinitrophenyl group as a quencher molecule at the reducing end. This derivative is hydrolyzed by ENGase, resulting in an increase in fluorescence intensity. Thus, the fluorescence signal is directly proportional to the amount of the tetrasaccharide derivative, hence allowing ENGase activity to be evaluated easily and quantitatively. Using this system, we succeeded in measuring the hydrolysis activities of ENGases and thus the inhibitory activities of known inhibitors. We confirmed that this assay system is suitable for high‐throughput screening for potential inhibitors of human ENGase that might serve as therapeutic agents for the treatment of N‐glycanase 1 (NGLY1) deficiency.     

PbTiO3–PbO–SiO2 Glass-Ceramic Thin Film by a Sol–Gel Process

PbTiO₃(PT)-PbO-SiO₂ glass-ceramic thin films were pro-duced by a sol-gel process. The crystallization of PT oc-curred at ∼700°C and was higher than that in PT-PbO-B₂ O₃ sol-gel glass-ceramics. A pinhole-free thin film was obtained by a rapid thermal annealing process when the designed glass-forming phase content in the thin film was >24 vol%. The measured dielectric constants of the films fairly agreed with the predicted values, based on a parallel mixing model. The dielectric constant was 219 and the di-electric loss was 0.04 in the 0.6PT-0.4(PbO-SiO₂) film that was fired at 700°C.     

木材经催化热分解向BTX和合成燃料的转化

以废木材生物质的有效利用为目的,使用粉粒流化床反应器,对3种木材进行了催化热分解实验,以4种催化效果不同的粒子作为流化床内的流化介质来考察催化热分解过程中介质颗粒、反应气体和热分解温度对产物分布的影响.木材的挥发性物质在700K时就已几乎分解出来,挥发性物质中的轻质芳香烃碳氢化合物（苯、甲苯、二甲苯和萘：BTXN）的收率随着热分解温度的升高而增加,1173K下达到3.1%（质量分数）,daf.在氢气气氛下,当作为流化介质颗粒Zn(3%,质量分数)/HZSM-5催化剂对木材进行催化热分解时,853K下可得到6.1%, daf的轻质芳香烃碳氢化合物的收率(BTX 5.5%,daf、萘0.6%,daf).而在活性很高的NiMo-A加氢催化剂下,在863K时,催化热分解产物几乎全为甲烷.     

Traversable Region Estimation for Mobile Robots in an Outdoor Image

This paper describes a novel method to estimate appropriate traversable regions from an outdoor scene image. The traversable regions output by the proposed method reflect the common sense of people. For example, a candidate traversable region is “a paved road somewhat distant from the side ditch.” The input to the traversable region estimation is one color image. First, category is assigned to each pixel in the image. The categorization result is then input to the region estimator. Finally, the traversable region are estimated on the input image. An important aspect of this method is the application of two score functions in region estimation process. One score function places high value on categories selected as traversable paths by subjects. The other function places high value on categories that are not selected as traversable regions but are adjacent to categories with traversable paths. A combination of these two functions produces feasible estimation results. The effectiveness of the combined score functions was evaluated by experiments and a questionnaire.     

Co-crosslinking blend of incompatible polymers VI: Poly(vinyl chloride) toughened with polyethylene via a co-crosslinking technique

A binary blend which consists of two incompatible polymers such as poly(vinyl chloride) and polyethylene has been performed through a partial co-crosslinking reaction with peroxide to give a co-crosslinked blend with a uniform dispersion of small polyethylene particles and with an improved mechanical property. The results are obtained through the formation of a co-crosslinked product which acts as a potential solid phase dispersant as well as a well-bonded reinforcing interlayer on polyethylene particles uniformly dispersed in poly(vinyl chloride) matrix. The resulting blends (PVC/PE=10/90 wt) give carbon spherules of 0.5 to 1m diameter through pressure-carbonization at 650° C for 1 h.     

Contact force detection on a minute aperture mounted optical contact slider using an acoustic emission sensor

Advances in the digital network society require both higher density and higher transfer rates in all sorts of storage systems. Especially in optical recording, the trend toward higher density and larger capacity requires novel surface-recording technologies that can drastically diminish head-to-medium spacing, resulting in an improvement in spatial resolution and, finally, a higher recording density. To this end, we have already proposed a novel contact optical head slider that is able to almost cancel the suspension load by generating hydrodynamic pressure, thus realizing a lower net contact force. Evaluating the dynamic contact force is requisite in realizing its stable sliding operation and higher signal readout performance. In this study, a continuous acoustic emission (AE) signal was utilized to detect the dynamic contact force. AE signal modulation was compared with the applied out-of-plane acceleration on a medium generated by a spindle combined piezo-electric actuator. It was clarified that the detected AE modulation amplitude was approximately proportional to the applied acceleration, and that utilizing AE modulation will be a useful method for evaluating dynamic contact force.     

A Generic Implementation of Tree Skeletons

In data-parallel skeleton libraries, the implementation of skeletons is usually tightly-coupled with that of data structures. However, loose coupling between them like C++ STL will improve modularity and flexibility of skeletons and data structures. This flexibility is particularly valuable for tree skeletons. To achieve such loose coupling, we present an iterator-based interface of trees for tree skeletons. We have implemented tree skeletons on the basis of our interface; we present their design and implementation. This paper also reports the results of preliminary experiments.     

Large magnetoresistivity of sputtered Al-(O or N)-Bi alloys

Application of the sputtering technique to (Al₂O₃)_xBi_100–x and (AIN)_x Bi_100–x (x = 0 to 100%) has been found to result in the formation of a duplex material consisting of hexagonal bismuth particles dispersed finely and homogeneously in amorphous Al_xO_y and Al_xN_y matrices. The particle size and interparticle distance of the bismuth phase were about 5 to 140nm and 5 to 35 nm. The duplex alloys have high electrical resistivities ranging from 1.82 × 10³ to 3.16 × 10⁵ cm combined with a negative temperature-dependent resistivity of 148 to 342% of ₂₇₃. Furthermore, all the Al-O-Bi and Al-N-Bi alloys have been found to exhibit a positive magnetoresistive change and the maximum value, (H), at 4.2 K and 7.5T reaches 5.85 × 10⁴ cm for (Al-O)_65.7Bi_34.3 and 1.99 × 10⁵ cm for (Al-N)_69.7 Bi_30.3. The large magnetoresistivities are probably due to the unique sputtered structure consisting of metallic bismuth particles with a long mean free path of electrons embedded finely and homogeneously in amorphous Al_xO_y or Al_xN_y matrix, resulting in the large difference of the relaxation times (different mobilities) of electron carriers. It has thus been demonstrated that the oxide- or nitride-based composite materials exhibiting large magnetoresistivities, which cannot be achieved in metallic composite materials, are obtained by sputtering simultaneously Al₂O₃ or AIN and bismuth which is immiscible to aluminium.