Matrix influence on the piezoelectric properties of piezoelectric ceramic/polymer composite exhibiting particle alignment

This study was addressed to the influence of an electric field strength applied at fabrication process and matrix properties, such as the dielectric constant and the Young's modulus, on “pseudo‐1‐3 piezoelectric ceramic/polymer composite” in order to further enhance the piezoelectricity of that. The pseudo‐1‐3 piezoelectric ceramic/polymer composite consists of linearly ordered piezoelectric ceramic particles in polymer material. Silicone gel, silicone rubber, urethane rubber, and poly‐methyl‐methacrylate, which exhibit different dielectric constants and Young's modulus, were used as matrices to evaluate the matrix influence. The piezoelectricity of the pseudo‐1‐3 piezoelectric ceramic/polymer composite was evaluated using the piezoelectric strain constant d₃₃. The d₃₃ is one of the indices of the piezoelectric properties for piezoelectric materials. As a result, it was confirmed that d₃₃ of the pseudo‐1‐3 piezoelectric ceramic/polymer composite increased with the increase of the electric filed strength applied at fabrication process, though, it reached a constant value at a certain strength value. Further it was confirmed that dielectric constant of the matrix had a small influence on d₃₃ of the pseudo‐1‐3 piezoelectric ceramic/polymer composite, however, in case of matrix of lower Young's modulus, d₃₃ was increase. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 41817.     

Stabilization of bioethanol recovery with silicone rubber‐coated ethanol‐permselective silicalite membranes by controlling the pH of acidic feed solution

In order to produce highly concentrated bioethanol by pervaporation using an ethanol‐permselective silicalite membrane, techniques to suppress adsorption of succinic acid, which is a chief by‐product of ethanol fermentation and causes the deterioration in pervaporation performance, onto the silicalite crystals was investigated. The amount adsorbed increased as the pH of the aqueous succinic acid solution decreased. The pervaporation performance also decreased with decreasing pH when the ternary mixtures of ethanol/water/succinic acid were separated. Using silicalite membranes individually coated with two types of silicone rubber, pervaporation performance was significantly improved in the pH range of 5 to 7, when compared with that of non‐coated silicalite membranes in ternary mixtures of ethanol/water/succinic acid. Moreover, when using a silicalite membrane double‐coated with the two types of silicone rubber, pervaporation performance was stabilized at lower pH values. In the separation of bioethanol by pervaporation using the double‐coated silicalite membrane, removal of accumulated substances having an ultraviolet absorption maximum at approximately 260 nm from the fermentation broth proved to be vital for efficient pervaporation. Copyright © 2005 Society of Chemical Industry     

Capturing Expert Knowledge for Supporting Design and Manufacturing of Injection Molds

Knowledge based approach is effective for renovating design and manufacturing processes. The objective of this paper is to investigate roles and usages of expert engineering knowledge in high-quality manufacturing, and to study a practical knowledge capturing method for realizing engineering support tools. An engineer oriented interface for a capturing method is proposed, and a flexible representation framework is studied for various types of expert knowledge. An integrated knowledge-based system has been developed for mold design support. The results have been evaluated by design and manufacturing of molds for cellular phones, and have shown substantial reduction of lead time for mold production.     

Free energy perturbation study on a Trp-binding mutant (Ser88 ->Cys) of the trp-repressor

The Ser⁸⁸Cys mutant of the trp-repressor showed a lower affinityfor the corepressor than the wild-type repressor [G = 1.7 ±0.3 kcal/mol, Chou and Matthews (1989) J. Biol. Chem., 264,18314–18319].A molecular dynamics/free energy cycle perturbation study wasperformed to understand the origin of the decreased affinity.A value (G = 1.58 ± 0.28 kcal/mol) comparable with theexperimental value was obtained by the simulation. Free energycomponent analysis revealed that destabilization of the vander Waals interaction between Ser⁸⁸ and Trp¹⁰⁹ (corepressor)mainly contributed to the decreased affinity of the mutant.The rotational transition of the hydroxyl (sulfhydryl) groupof Ser⁸⁸ (Cys⁸⁸) during the simulations affected the contributionsof Arg⁸⁴ and water to the free energy change in the aporepressorand those of Arg⁸⁴ and Trp ¹⁰⁹ to that in the holorepressor.However, the contributions from different residues compensatedeach other, and the total free energy changes were almost invariablein the various simulations.     

Pose-Invariant Facial Expression Recognition Using Variable-Intensity Templates

In this paper, we propose a method for pose-invariant facial expression recognition from monocular video sequences. The advantage of our method is that, unlike existing methods, our method uses a simple model, called the variable-intensity template, for describing different facial expressions. This makes it possible to prepare a model for each person with very little time and effort. Variable-intensity templates describe how the intensities of multiple points, defined in the vicinity of facial parts, vary with different facial expressions. By using this model in the framework of a particle filter, our method is capable of estimating facial poses and expressions simultaneously. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our method. A recognition rate of over 90% is achieved for all facial orientations, horizontal, vertical, and in-plane, in the range of ±40 degrees, ±20 degrees, and ±40 degrees from the frontal view, respectively. Electronic Supplementary Material  The online version of this article () contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Identification of the gene PaEMT1 for biosynthesis of mannosylerythritol lipids in the basidiomycetous yeast Pseudozyma antarctica

The yeast Pseudozyma antarctica produces a large amount of glycolipid biosurfactants known as mannosylerythritol lipids (MELs), which show not only excellent surface‐active properties but also versatile biochemical actions. To investigate the biosynthesis of MELs in the yeast, we recently reported expressed sequence tag (EST) analysis and estimated genes expressing under MEL production conditions. Among the genes, a contiguous sequence of 938 bp, PA_004, showed high sequence identity to the gene emt1, encoding an erythritol/mannose transferase of Ustilago maydis, which is essential for MEL biosynthesis. The predicted translation product of the extended PA_004 containing the two introns and a stop codon was aligned with Emt1 of U. maydis. The predicted amino acid sequence shared high identity (72%) with Emt1 of U. maydis, although the amino‐terminal was incomplete. To identify the gene as PaEMT1 encoding an erythritol/mannose transferase of P. antarctica, the gene‐disrupted strain was developed by the method for targeted gene disruption, using hygromycin B resistance as the selection marker. The obtained ΔPaEMT1 strain failed to produce MELs, while its growth was the same as that of the parental strain. The additional mannosylerythritol into culture allowed ΔPaEMT1 strain to form MELs regardless of the carbon source supplied, indicating a defect of the erythritol/mannose transferase activity. Furthermore, we found that MEL formation is associated with the morphology and low‐temperature tolerance of the yeast. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Biochemical characterization of horA-independent hop resistance mechanism in Lactobacillus brevis

We isolated a strain from hop-resistant Lactobacillus hrevis ABBC45, which had lost a plasmid (pRH45) harboring a putative hop resistance gene, horA. The hop resistance level of this horA-deficient strain, named ABBC45(C), was initially low but gradually induced by repeated growth in media containing progressively increasing levels of hop compounds. Although the hop resistance level was substantially lower than that of the hop-adapted wild type strain, hop-adapted ABBC45(C) (ABBC45(CR)) was still capable of growing in beer, suggesting ABBC45 possesses at least two hop resistance mechanisms. Hop resistance acquired by ABBC45(CR) gradually diminished to the pre-adapted level, when the strain was grown repeatedly in the absence of hop compounds. ABBC45(CR) was found to be cross-resistant to several structurally unrelated drugs, including ethidium bromide, daunomycin and nisin. In addition, ABBC45(CR) was shown to extrude ethidium in an energy-dependent manner, while ABBC45(C) did not show such activity. This indicates that the efflux pump was induced by adaptation to hop compounds. The efflux activity of ethidium was reduced by the addition of hop compounds, suggesting hop compounds are also the substrate of the efflux pump. It was also shown that the efflux activity was completely dissipated with the abolition of proton motive force (PMF). These results, taken together, suggest the hop resistance mechanism of ABBC45(C) is mediated by PMF-dependent multidrug efflux pump.