Preparation of octacalcium phosphate by the hydrolysis of α-tricalcium phosphate

A new simple method of preparation for the thermodynamically unstable octacalcium phosphate [Ca₈H₂(PO₄)₆·5H₂O; OCP] has been developed using the hydrolysis of -Ca₃(PO₄)₂ instead of the conventional hydrolysis of CaHPO₄·2H₂O. The hydrolysis experiments were carried out by treating an -Ca₃(PO₄)₂(1 g)-H₂O(50 m) suspension for 3 h at temperatures in the range 40 to 80° C and at pHs in the range 3 to 7.5. The formation of OCR was limited to within a narrow region between formation regions of other phosphates. Favourable conditions for OCP preparation were, for example, 70° C, pH4.5 to 5.0 and 60° C, pH5.0. Particles of OCP were composed of tight aggregates of strip-like microcrystals growing probably along the [0 0 1] and (1 0 0) plane of the OCP structure. Nearly stoichiometric OCP was obtained under the most suitable conditions with good reproducibility. Pyrolytic processes of OCP were approximately consistent with the data published so far. However, the temperatures of the appearance and disappearance of pyrolytic crystalline phases and ionic species deviated slightly from the published data. Thermal dehydration up to 150° C without destruction of OCP and decomposition reactions above 300° C resulted in changes in surface area and average pore radius of OCP.     

Further demonstration of the VRLA-type UltraBattery under medium-HEV duty and development of the flooded-type UltraBattery for micro-HEV applications

The UltraBattery has been invented by the CSIRO Energy Technology in Australia and has been developed and produced by the Furukawa Battery Co., Ltd., Japan. This battery is a hybrid energy storage device which combines a super capacitor and a lead-acid battery in single unit cells, taking the best from both technologies without the need of extra, expensive electronic controls. The capacitor enhances the power and lifespan of the lead-acid battery as it acts as a buffer during high-rate discharging and charging, thus enabling it to provide and absorb charge rapidly during vehicle acceleration and braking.The laboratory results of the prototype valve-regulated UltraBatteries show that the capacity, power, available energy, cold cranking and self-discharge of these batteries have met, or exceeded, all the respective performance targets set for both minimum and maximum power-assist HEVs. The cycling performance of the UltraBatteries under micro-, mild- and full-HEV duties is at least four times longer than that of the state-of-the-art lead-acid batteries. Importantly, the cycling performance of UltraBatteries is proven to be comparable or even better than that of the Ni-MH cells. On the other hand, the field trial of UltraBatteries in the Honda Insight HEV shows that the vehicle has surpassed 170,000 km and the batteries are still in a healthy condition. Furthermore, the UltraBatteries demonstrate very good acceptance of the charge from regenerative braking even at high state-of-charge, e.g., 70% during driving. Therefore, no equalization charge is required for the UltraBatteries during field trial. The HEV powered by UltraBatteries gives slightly higher fuel consumption (cf., 4.16 with 4.05 L/100 km) and CO₂ emissions (cf., 98.8 with 96 g km⁻¹) compared with that by Ni-MH cells. There are no differences in driving experience between the Honda Insight powered by UltraBatteries and by Ni-MH cells. Given such comparable performance, the UltraBattery pack costs considerably less – only 20–40% of that of the Ni-MH pack by one estimate. In parallel with the field trial, a similar 144-V valve-regulated UltraBattery pack was also evaluated under simulated medium-HEV duty in our laboratories.In this study, the laboratory performance of the 144-V valve-regulated UltraBattery pack under simulated medium-HEV duty and that of the recently developed flooded-type UltraBattery under micro-HEV duty will be discussed. The flooded-type UltraBattery is expected to be favorable to the micro-HEVs because of reduced cost compared with the equivalent valve-regulated counterpart.     

On the complexity of embedding planar graphs to minimize certain distance measures

We present polynomial-time algorithms for computing an embedding of a planar graph that minimizes the outerplanarity, or the width, or the radius, or some other measures of distance to the outer face. On the other hand, we show it is NP-hard to compute an embedding that minimizes the diameter of the dual graph.     

Block-Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing in Multi-Path Fading Channel

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is robust against multi-path interference due to using a lot of low symbol rate sub-carriers. In order to mitigate the degradation due to multi-path interference, guard time interval (GI) is inserted into each OFDM symbol. However, redundant allocation to GI leads to loss of effective transmission power. We propose the Block-OFDM which can reduce the GI overhead ratio per frame compared with conventional OFDM. In Block-OFDM system frequency domain equalization (FDE) is carried out in order to remove multi-path interference. We evaluated Block-OFDM performance in a frequency selective fading channel and compared with that of conventional OFDM. Ryohei Kimura received his B.E. and M.S degrees in communications engineering form Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, in 2001 and 2003, respectively. In 2003, he joined Panasonic Mobile Communications Co., Ltd. His current research interests include such mobile communication technologies as OFDM and MIMO (MLD), and the like. Akiyoshi Monma received his B.E. in communications engineering form Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, in 1998. In 1998, he joined Panasonic Mobile Communications Sendai R&D Lab. Co., Ltd. His current research interests include such mobile communication technologies as OFDM and PAPR reduction, and the like. Jinsong Duan received his B.E. and M.S. from Changsha Institute of Technology, China in 1987 and 1990. He received his Ph.D. from Osaka City University, Japan in 2000. From 2000–2003 he was with Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, where he engaged in research and development of WCDMA systems. From 2003, he joined Panasonic Mobile Communications Co., Ltd. His current interests include such mobile communication technologies as OFDM, MIMO, link adaptation, scheduling, and TDMA/FDMA/CDMA systems. Mitsuru Uesugi received his B.E. degree from Waseda University in 1986 and received his Ph.D degree from Tohoku University in 2004, respectively. He is a general manager in the Mobile Communication Technology Development Center of Panasonic Mobile Communications Co., Ltd. His current research interests include such mobile communication technologies as equalization, interference cancellation, modulation method, and the like.     

VRLA Ultrabattery for high-rate partial-state-of-charge operation

The objective of this study is to produce and test the hybrid valve-regulated Ultrabattery designed specifically for hybrid-electric vehicle duty, i.e., high-rate partial-state-of-charge operation. The Ultrabattery developed by CSIRO Energy Technology is a hybrid energy-storage device, which combines an asymmetric supercapacitor, and a lead-acid battery in one unit cells, taking the best from both technologies without the need for extra, expensive electronic controls. The capacitor will enhance the power and lifespan of the lead-acid battery as it acts as a buffer during high-rate discharging and charging. Consequently, this hybrid technology is able to provide and absorb charge rapidly during vehicle acceleration and braking. The work programme of this study is divided into two main parts, namely, field trial of prototype Ultrabatteries in a Honda Insight HEV and laboratory tests of prototype batteries. In this paper, the performance of prototype Ultrabatteries under different laboratory tests is reported.     

Detection of genetically modified organisms in foreign-made processed foods containing corn and potato

Investigations of the validity of labeling regarding genetically modified (GM) products were conducted using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods for foreign-made processed foods made from corn and potato purchased in the Tokyo area and in the USA. Several kinds of GM crops were detected in 12 of 32 samples of processed corn samples. More than two GM events for which safety reviews have been completed in Japan were simultaneously detected in 10 samples. GM events MON810 and Bt11 were most frequently detected in the samples by qualitative PCR methods. MON810 was detected in 11 of the 12 samples, and Bt11 was detected in 6 of the 12 samples. In addition, Roundup Ready soy was detected in one of the 12 samples. On the other hand, CBH351, for which the safety assessment was withdrawn in Japan, was not detected in any of the 12 samples. A trial quantitative analysis was performed on six of the GM maize qualitatively positive samples. The estimated amounts of GM maize in these samples ranged from 0.2 to 2.8%, except for one sample, which contained 24.1%. For this sample, the total amount found by event-specific quantitative analysis was 23.8%. Additionally, Roundup Ready soy was detected in one sample of 21 potato-processed foods, although GM potatoes were not detected in any sample.     

Bile canaliculi-like lumina in fibrolamellar carcinoma of the liver: a light- and electron-microscopic study and three-dimensional examination of serial sections

Fibrolamellar carcinoma (FLC) is a variant of hepatocellular carcinoma characterized by distinct pathological features. The presence of intracellular lumina resembling bile canaliculi was previously reported in tumor cells of FLC on electron microscopy. Using light microscopy, we describe the presence of intracellular lumina in FLC, which was resected from a 15-year-old Japanese girl, as round structures lined with a brush-like border. These lumina occasionally contained bile. Light microscopic examination of 1 micron thick serial sections of Epon-embedded tissue samples showed that the lumina were located in the intracellular space without any connection to the intercellular space. However, we also detected a small number of lumina that were lined by microvilli, which were present between adjacent tumor cells. Results suggest that the presence of the intracellular lumina in tumor cells probably represents a common histopathologic feature of FLC.     

Electrolytic Formation and Morphology of Biomimetic Apatite Coatings

Calcium-deficient apatite has been cathodically deposited on SUS stainless steel from an acidic calcium phosphate solution. The resulting apatite porous coatings were characterized morphologically, compositionally and structurally. The porous coatings were modified into dense coatings by immersion in an aqueous supersaturated calcium phosphate solution.     

Na<Superscript>+</Superscript>-fast ionic conducting glass-ceramics of silicophosphates

The Na⁺-fast ionic conducting glass-ceramics with Na₅YSi₄O₁₂ (N5)-type structure were successfully synthesized using the composition formula of Na_3+3x-y R_1-x P _y Si_3-y O₉ for a variety of rare earth ions, R, under the appropriate composition parameters. In the crystallization of N5-type glass-ceramics, its relatives (Na₃YSi₃O₉ (N3)- and Na₉YSi₆O₁₈ (N9)-type glass-ceramics) structurally belonging to the family of Na_24−3x Y _x Si₁₂O₃₆ were found to crystallize as the precursor phase at low temperatures. In order to produce N5 single phase glass-ceramics, the concentration of both phosphorus and rare earth was found important. The meaning of the composition was evaluated by thermodynamic and kinetic studies on the phase transformation of metastable N3 or N9 phases to stable N5 phase with Na⁺-fast ionic conductivity. The possible combinations of x and y became more limited for the crystallization of the fast ionic conducting phase as the ionic radius of R increased, while the Na⁺ conduction properties were more enhanced in the glass-ceramics of larger R. These results are discussed in view of the structure and the conduction mechanism. Also studied were the microstructural effects on the conduction properties, which were dependent upon the heating conditions of crystallization. These effects were understood in relation to the grain boundary conduction properties as well as the transmission electron microstructural morphology of grain boundaries.     

Investigation of false-positive reactions for CBH351 maize in screening PCR analysis

Examination for CBH351 maize was conducted by the qualitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method in maize grain and maize processed foods obtained in the Tokyo area. The numbers of samples possibly positive in the screening test were 7 of 22 (31.8%) for maize grain samples, 4 of 14 (28.6%) for semi-processed foods, 11 of 30 (36.7%) for canned products, 3 of 30 (10.0%) for maize snacks, 3 of 4 (75%) for tacos and 1 of 3 (33.3%) for tortillas. However, CBH351 maize was not detected in the confirmation test. Therefore, the results of the screening test were false-positive. Since the reaction might have been caused by the base sequences of the 3'-end of primers CaM03-5' and CBH02-3' used in the screening test, a new primer pair was designed. The PCR products obtained with the new primer pair TMC2-5'--TMS2-3' were specific for CBH351 and were not obtained with barley, wheat, rice, RRS, Bt11, or Event176. Thus, the new primer pair shows high specificity. CBH351 maize was detected from samples containing at least 0.05% CBH 351 maize DNA by using this primer pair.