Structure and function of the yeast vacuole and its role in autophagy

The vacuole of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae plays an important role in pH- and ion-homeostasis, and is used as a storage compartment for ions. Another important function of the vacuole, especially during nutrient limitation, is the bulk degradation of proteins and even whole organelles. To carry these proteins into the vacuolar lumen, sophisticated transport pathways have evolved. In this review, starvation-induced autophagy and its relationship to the specific cytoplasm to vacuole targeting (cvt-) pathway of proaminopeptidase I is discussed. A further topic is the specific vacuolar uptake and degradation of peroxisomes in Pichia pastoris cells via micro- and macroautophagy.     

Eigenvalue equations and numerical analysis of a coaxial cavitywith misaligned inner rod

Based on the Helmholtz equation, the superposition of cylindrical wave functions, and coordinates transformation, the eigenvalue equation is derived rigorously for a coaxial gyrotron cavity with a misaligned inner rod. It is shown that, due to the existence of the structural misalignment, any single normal mode of a perfect coaxial structure (i.e., without misalignment) no longer simultaneously satisfies both the outer and inner boundary conditions; consequently, the superposition of cylindrical wave functions must be taken into account. A numerical approach of solving the eigenvalue equation is proposed in this paper. As a practical application, analysis is given to the higher mode coaxial cavity employed in a 140-GHz/1.5-MW gyrotron device at the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany. Result shows that the eigenvalue of the operating mode in a misaligned coaxial cavity is affected noticeably by the structural misalignment     

Observation of Mode Patterns for High Purity Mode Operation in the Submillimeter Wave Gyrotron FU VA

Operation tests of a cavity designed for high purity mode operation of the submillimeter wave gyrotron FU VA has been carried out successfully. The observed emission patterns of several cavity modes appear very pure and are compared with calculated results. High purity mode operation has the advantage of making the conversion to Gaussian-like beams more efficient.     

Fast frequency-step-tunable high-power gyrotron withhybrid-magnet-system

The TE_22,6 1 MW gyrotron operated at Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (FZK) at frequencies between 114 and 166 GHz has been investigated with respect to the fast-frequency tunability in the frequency range from 132 to 147 GHz. For that purpose, the gyrotron has been equipped with a special hybrid-magnet system consisting of superconducting (sc) magnets in the cryostat and additional normal conducting (nc) copper magnets with a fast time constant. Some special problems due to the magnetic coupling between the different magnets were investigated by calculation and experiment. Making use of these investigations some different current regulation systems for the nc magnets were implemented and tested experimentally. Finally a step-tuning operation between the modes from TE_20,6 to TE_24,6 in time steps of 1 s has been achieved     

Effective Cavity Length of Gyrotrons

Megawatt-class gyrotron oscillators for electron cyclotron heating and non-inductive current drive (ECH&CD) in magnetically confined thermonuclear fusion plasmas have relatively low cavity quality factors in the range of 1000 to 2000. The effective length of their cavities cannot be simply deduced from the cavity electric field profile, since this has by far not a Gaussian shape. The present paper presents a novel method to estimate the effective length of a gyrotron cavity just from the eigenvalue of the operating TE_m,n mode, the cavity radius and the exact oscillation frequency which may be numerically computed or precisely measured. This effective cavity length then can be taken to calculate the Fresnel parameter in order to confirm that the cavity is not too short so that the transverse structure of any mode in the cavity is the same as that of the corresponding mode in a long circular waveguide with the same diameter.     

Observation of Mode Patterns for High Purity Mode Operation in the Submillimeter Wave Gyrotron FU VA

Operation tests of a cavity designed for high purity mode operation of the submillimeter wave gyrotron FU VA has been carried out successfully. The observed emission patterns of several cavity modes appear very pure and are compared with calculated results. High purity mode operation has the advantage of making the conversion to Gaussian-like beams more efficient.     

Analysis of Transmission Characteristics for Single and Double Disk Windows

The work reports about window design studies for both the JET EP ECRH project and the ASDEX-Upgrade ECRH system. Detailed calculations of the millimeter wave transmission characteristics for conventional single-disk windows, for frequency tunable double-disk windows and for ultra-broadband Brewster windows have been performed. The geometry of the window units has been optimized in order to obtain a suitable transmission characteristic, i.e. power reflection less than ?20 dB within a frequency bandwidth of about 1 GHz around the chosen frequencies. In particular the influence of mechanical tolerances on the transmission characteristic has been investigated in order to specify the mechanical dimensions of the CVD-diamond disks and the window unit. In case of a Brewster window, the thickness has been optimized to get low power reflection over a wide angles range around the Brewster angle.     

Visualisation of UF resin on MDF fibre by XPS imaging

Using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) will distinguish urea formaldehyde (UF) resin on the surface of medium density fibreboard (MDF) fibre. High spatial resolution XPS imaging was employed to 2-dimensionally map the presence and concentration of carbon and nitrogen on pressed MDF fibre. Using image analysis routines, composite XPS images of fibre and UF resin were produced for laboratory and commercially prepared MDF panels using the C1s and N1s peaks respectively. Results showed that MDF could be analysed directly, and the presence of UF resin features imaged on fibre was comparable to UF resin characterised by confocal microscopy. Due to low surface nitrogen contents, the XPS imaging instrument was necessarily operated at a low resolution, and with a relatively small field of view. This may make the XPS imaging method less attractive for visualising UF resin on wood fibre compared to other microscopy techniques.     

Ku-band high-power lowpass filter with spurious rejection

A Ku-band high-power lowpass filter with spurious passband suppression up to 40 GHz is proposed in rectangular waveguide technology. The new design consists of a conventional E-plane corrugated lowpass filter cascaded with a quasi-periodic structure tuned to reject the undesired spurious passbands. This new design technique allows the minimum gap of the original corrugated filter to be kept wide enough to permit high-power operation     

Development of Output Windows for High-Power Long-Pulse Gyrotrons and EC Wave Applications

Electron cyclotron heating (ECH) is one of the main candidates for heating and current drive on ITER (170 GHz) and W7-X (140 GHz). High unit power (1 MW or greater) and high efficiency single-mode continuous-wave (CW) gyrotrons are under development in order to reduce significantly the systems costs. Face-cooled double-disk sapphire and silicon nitride windows (FC-75 liquid cooling), cryogenically edge-cooled single-disk sapphire (liquid nitrogen, liquid neon or liquid helium cooling) and silicon (230 K refrigerator cooling) windows, water-edge-cooled single-disk CVD-diamond windows and water-cooled distributed windows are being investigated in order to solve the window problem. A water-cooled window has two very important advantages; it employs a cheap and effective coolant and it is compact and probably more reliable than other solutions and thus can also be easily used as a torus window. The present paper summarizes the development status of high-power millimeter-wave windows with emphasis on CVD diamond.