Studies on applications of lypolytic enzymes in detergency II. Evaluation of adaptability of various kinds of lipases in practical laundry conditions

Journal of the American Oil Chemists' Society - Kinetic parameter of hydrolysis, degree of hydrolysis, pH and temperature characteristics and positional specificity of hydrolysis of seven kinds...     

On the Limitation of Net Algorithm for Enumerating Isomeric Structures of Giant Fullerenes

Application of our net algorithm to the generation of all possible IPR isomers for giant fullerenes C_n, n=102 to 120, missed nine out of 39,621 possible structures. Analysis revealed that the omission of too small and too large cap triangles was the reason. Within the range of fullerenes studied, the missed structures are of high-energy and do not affect the distribution of significantly low-energy isomers.     

Correlates and prognosis in relation to intellectual dysfunction in a community-residing elderly population

To estimate the risk factors for intellectual dysfunction and examine its prognosis in a community-residing (non-institutionalized) elderly population, a randomly selected sample of 1,473 elderly people aged 65 years and over living in S city, Osaka Prefecture, was studied in October 1992, and data were obtained from 1,383, a response rate of 93.9%. A cohort of 1,383 was followed for 42 months and follow-up was completed for 1,300 (94.0%). The main results were as follows: 1) The prevalence of intellectual dysfunction did not differ significantly between sexes, and there was an increasing prevalence of intellectual dysfunction with age in both sexes. The prevalence of severe intellectual dysfunction was found to increase highly at age 85 and over. 2) By univariate analysis, odds ratios for age older than 75 years, low Activities of Daily Living (ADL), urinary and fecal incontinence, and no participation in social activities were significantly higher than 1 in any level of mild, moderate, and severe intellectual dysfunction. In the multivariate analysis using logistic regression, age older than 75 years and urinary and fecal incontinence showed significant higher odds ratios than 1 for severe intellectual dysfunction, and low ADL and treatment for hypertension also showed significant higher odds ratios than 1 for moderate intellectual dysfunction. 3) From analysis using the Kaplan-Meier method, the cumulative survival rates decreased with a decline in intellectual functioning in both age groups of 65-74 and 75 years and older. 4) Application of the Cox proportional hazards model resulted in adjusted hazard ratio for severe intellectual dysfunction of 1.79 (95% confidence interval, 1.02-3.12), controlling for other factors such as sex, age, general health status, incontinence and social activities.     

Relationship between crystallinity and device characteristics of In‐Sn‐Zn oxide

We have reported that the transistors having the c‐axis‐aligned crystalline (CAAC) In‐Ga‐Zn oxide (IGZO) show good performance. Recently, In‐Sn‐Zn Oxide (ITZO) has attracted much attention because of its high electron mobility, as well as IGZO. However, it has been reported that ITZO field effect transistors (FET) tend to have positive Vth (normally‐on characteristics) and poor reliability compared with IGZO‐FETs. We have reported that high‐performance and high‐reliability OS‐FETs can be fabricated by using CAAC‐IGZO, which has high crystallinity and has no clear grain boundaries, as an active layer. Therefore, we have fabricated CAAC‐ITZO thin films to improve performance of ITZO‐FETs by using CAAC‐ITZO as an active layer. In addition, FETs employing CAAC‐ITZO have better characteristics and reliability than FETs using nano‐crystal ITZO. Furthermore, constant photocurrent method (CPM) measurement was carried out in order to estimate density of deep‐level defect states caused by oxygen vacancies in oxide semiconductors. The results show that CAAC‐ITZO has lower density of deep‐level defect states than nano‐crystal ITZO. We attribute the improvement in reliability of ITZO‐FETs to a decrease in deep‐level defect states of an ITZO active layer, as is the case with IGZO.     

SPIDER: An availability-aware framework for the service function chain placement in distributed scenarios

The network function virtualization (NFV) paradigm replaces hardware-dependent network functions by virtual network functions (VNFs) that can be deployed in commodity hardware, including legacy servers. Consequently, the use of NFV is expected to reduce operating and capital expenses, as well as improve service deployment operation and management flexibility. For many use cases, the VNFs must be visited and invoked following a specific order of execution in order to compose a complete network service, named service function chain (SFC). Nonetheless, despite the benefits from NFV and SFC virtualization technologies, their introduction must not harm network performance and service availability. On the one hand, redundancy is seen by network service planners as a mechanism well established to combat availability issues. At same time, there is a goal to optimize resource utilization in order to reduce operational expenditure. In this article, we share our experience in the design use of a framework, named SPIDER, focused on SFC placement that considers the network infrastructure condition and the required SFC availability to define the placement strategy. The SPIDER monitors the status of infrastructure nodes and links and defines which servers the VNFs should be placed on and the number of redundant replicas needed. We present a proof-of-concept of SPIDER using Kubernetes to launch the VNFs as containers. We also use Kubernetes to forward the traffic between the VNFs, composing the service chain. We perform experiments to evaluate the runtime of SPIDER and the SFC delay under different network conditions.     

Current-induced domain nucleation in ferromagnet

A key mechanism of the current-induced magnetization dynamics is the spin torque from a spin polarized current (spin current), which couples to spatial gradient of magnetization. Recently, it was pointed out that a large spin current applied to a uniform ferromagnet leads to a spin-wave instability. In this paper, we show that such instability is absent in a state containing a domain wall. This may indicate that nucleation of magnetic domains occurs above a certain critical spin current. This scenario is supported by an explicit energy comparison between the uniformly magnetized state and the domain-wall state under spin current.     

Proposal of resilience assessment by focusing on pliability

Resilience is a concept which presents the strength of mind necessary to adopt the difficulties and to recover from negative psychological state. The assessment for resilience has been assessed by using interview and questionnaire which depend on subjectivity of participants. Though the objective assessment for resilience is expected to advance the biofeedback treatment, neither effective method nor instrument have been developed. Then this study focuses on the pliability as one of aspects of resilience and experimentally verifies whether it becomes a novel index for resilience or not.     

Current Pumping from Spin Dynamics

We show theoretically that charge and spin currents arise from spin dynamics in the presence of the spin–orbit interaction. The dominant calculation is the inverse spin Hall effect, namely the spin current pumped from precession of local spins is converted into the charge current by the spin–orbit interaction. The conversion mechanism is explained based on the conservation laws of charge and spin.     

A high-performance cross-current type cycloconverter-fed inductionmotor drive system

Making use of the latest techniques, the authors have successfully developed a cross-current-type cycloconverter-fed, squirrel-cage induction motor drive system, which far exceeds DC drive systems over a wide range from zero speed to high speed. It is best suited for tandem cold mill main and various other large-scale rolling mills