Preparation of gold nanoparticles (GNP) aqueous suspensions by a new method involving Tiron

A new method is proposed to produce gold nanoparticles (GNP) by in situ reduction of a gold salt dissolved in water. The reducing agent used is Tiron instead of the citrate anion most often mentioned in literature. The influence of various parameters has been investigated, such as the content of Tiron with respect to that of the precursor of gold HAuCl₄, or the initial pH of the solution after mixing of reactants. It is shown that Tiron also exerts a positive influence as a dispersant, which impedes agglomeration of gold nanoparticles. The typical average size of GNP synthesized in the present work is close to 7 nm.     

Evaluation of constructed wetlands by wastewater purification ability and greenhouse gas emissions.

Domestic wastewater is a significant source of nitrogen and phosphorus, which cause lake eutrophication. Among the wastewater treatment technologies, constructed wetlands are a promising low-cost means of treating point and diffuse sources of domestic wastewater in rural areas. However, the sustainable operation of constructed wetland treatment systems depends upon a high rate conversion of organic and nitrogenous loading into their metabolic gaseous end products, such as N2O and CH4. In this study, we examined and compared the performance of three typical types of constructed wetlands: Free Water Surface (FWS), Subsurface Flow (SF) and Vertical Flow (VF) wetlands. Pollutant removal efficiency and N2O and CH4 emissions were assessed as measures of performance. We found that the pollutant removal rates and gas emissions measured in the wetlands exhibited clear seasonal changes, and these changes were closely associated with plant growth. VF wetlands exhibited stable removal of organic pollutants and NH3-N throughout the experiment regardless of season and showed great potential for CH4 adsorption. SF wetlands showed preferable T-N removal performance and a lower risk of greenhouse gas emissions than FWS wetlands. Soil oxidation reduction potential (ORP) analysis revealed that water flow structure and plant growth influenced constructed wetland oxygen transfer, and these variations resulted in seasonal changes of ORP distribution inside wetlands that were accompanied by fluctuations in pollutant removal and greenhouse gas emissions.     

Time‐averaged spatial profile of Xe excitation efficiency in PDPs

Abstract— The Xe excitation efficiency for various Xe content was analyzed by monitoring the panel luminance and IR emission intensity. It was found that dependences of the Xe excitation efficiency and luminous efficacy on the sustain voltage show almost the same tendency. A decrease for increasing sustaining voltage was found in a low‐Xe‐content panel and an increase was found in a high‐Xe‐content panel. A reduction in the effective electron temperature and a reduction in plasma saturation contribute to the efficacy improvement. The time‐averaged spatial profile of the Xe excitation efficiency in PDPs was investigated by measuring the distribution of IR and blue‐phosphor emissions. The results show that the Xe excitation efficiency is similar in the cathode and anode regions even though the spatial and time development of the discharge in these regions is very different. An extended theory that takes into account not only the radiative transition process but also the collisional de‐excitation process from Xe** to Xe* is proposed for investigating the pressure dependence of the Xe excitation efficiency. By using the proposed theory, it was found that Xe excitation efficiency increases, attains a maximum value at 30% Xe, then decreases as the Xe content is increased, when the rate coefficient of the collisional de‐excitation process is less than 1.0 × 10^?10 cm³/sec.     

Performance evaluation and effect of biogas circulation rate of a bubble column for biological desulfurization

Biological desulfurization using a bubble column reactor was investigated in a continuous biogas treatment. Rapid biogas circulation between the digester and the bubble column for biological desulfurization was used to stimulate the gas-liquid mass transfer of H(2)S. A positive correlation between the biogas circulation rate and H(2)S removal rate was observed. Moreover, the increase in the circulation rate stimulated the O(2) mass transfer, eventually translating into an increase in sulfate production from the oxidation of H(2)S. Throughout the continuous experiment, the reactor retained sufficient levels of sulfide-oxidizing bacteria. A comparison of the results of the continuous biogas treatment and batch tests suggests that the gas-liquid mass transfer rate of H(2)S was the rate-limiting step in the biological desulfurization in the reactor, indicating that the mass transfer efficiency of H(2)S needs to be improved to enhance the desulfurization performance.     

Quantification of dance movement by simultaneous measurement of body motion and biophysical information

The purpose of this research is a quantitative analysis of movement patterns of dance,which cannot be analyzed with a motion capture system alone,using simultaneous measurement of body motion and biophysical information.In this research,two kinds of same leg movement are captured by simultaneous measurement;one is a leg movement with given strength,the other is a leg movement without strength on condition of basic experiment using optical motion capture and electromyography (EMG) equipment in order to quantitatively analyze characteristics of leg movement.Also,we measured the motion of the traditional Japanese dance using the constructed system.We can visualize leg movement of Japanese dance by displaying a 3D CG character animation with motion data and EMG data.In addition,we expect that our research will help dancers and researchers on dance through giving new information on dance movement which cannot be analyzed with only motion capture.     

Direct Reprogramming and Induction of Human Dermal Fibroblasts to Differentiate into iPS-Derived Nucleus Pulposus-like Cells in 3D Culture

Intervertebral disc (IVD) diseases are common spinal disorders that cause neck or back pain in the presence or absence of an underlying neurological disorder. IVD diseases develop on the basis of degeneration, and there are no established treatments for degeneration. IVD diseases may therefore represent a candidate for the application of regenerative medicine, potentially employing normal human dermal fibroblasts (NHDFs) induced to differentiate into nucleus pulposus (NP) cells. Here, we used a three-dimensional culture system to demonstrate that ectopic expression of MYC, KLF4, NOTO, SOX5, SOX6, and SOX9 in NHDFs generated NP-like cells, detected using Safranin-O staining. Quantitative PCR, microarray analysis, and fluorescence-activated cell sorting revealed that the induced NP cells exhibited a fully differentiated phenotype. These findings may significantly contribute to the development of effective strategies for treating IVD diseases.     

Security of Practical BB84 Quantum Key Distribution

Abstract. We propose a proof of the security of a practical BB84 quantum key distribution protocol against enemies with unlimited computational power. The considered protocol uses interactive key distillation, and the proof holds for implementations using imperfect optical devices.     

Microbial community of anammox bacteria immobilized in polyethylene glycol gel carrier

Anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) is a recently discovered microbial pathway in the biological nitrogen cycle and a new cost-effective way to remove ammonium from wastewater. We have so far developed new immobilization technique that anammox bacteria entrapped in polyethylene glycol (PEG) gel carrier. However, fate and behavior of anammox bacteria in a gel carrier is not well understood. In the present study, we focused on the population changes of anammox bacteria in a gel carrier. Three specific primer sets were designed for real-time PCR. For quantification of anammox bacteria in a gel carrier, real-time PCR was performed. The anammox bacteria related to HPT-WU-N03 clone were increased the rate in anammox population, and found to be a major population of anammox bacteria in a gel carrier. Furthermore, from the results of nitrogen removal performance and quantification of anammox bacteria, the correlation coefficient between copy numbers of anammox bacteria and nitrogen conversion rate was calculated as 0.947 in total anammox population. This is the first report that population changes of anammox bacteria immobilized in a gel carrier were evaluated.     

Automated single nucleotide polymorphism typing using bead array in capillary tube

A low-cost and simple on-site technique for genotyping single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) was developed. The technique is based on allele-specific primer PCR and the recently developed bead arrays in a single tip technique. The performance of the method was verified by genotyping four SNPs that correlate with cardiovascular diseases.     

Two Step Timing Synchronization Scheme for OFDM Signal in General Purpose Processor Based Software Defined Radio Receiver

Software defined radio (SDR) is a technology that allows a single terminal to support various kinds of wireless systems by changing its software to reconfigure itself. A general purpose processor (GPP) based SDR receiver platform named Sora has been recently developed by Microsoft. In the GPP based SDR receiver, timing synchronization of an OFDM signal consumes a significant amount of computational resources in the GPP. In this paper, a timing synchronization scheme which uses delayed correlation and matched filtering for the GPP based SDR platform is evaluated. The two stage timing synchronization scheme reduces the computational complexity by limiting the timing range of matched filtering. The proposed scheme reduces the amount of data transmission between the memory and the GPP of the SDR platform. It is shown through an experiment that the proposed scheme reduces the number of cycles for timing synchronization by up to 30 %.