Efficiency of repeated batch penicillin fermentation using two fermentors. Computer simulation and optimisation

Repeated batch operation using two fermentors (RBTF) to penicillin fermentation was demonstrated by computer simulation to improve productivity. Three operation modes were compared: chemostat, repeated batch operation using a single fermentor (RBSF) and RBTF; in each case account was made of the lag period before growth. The simulated fermentor performances were assessed on the basis of the penicillin productivity and concentration; the simulation was based on published batch fermentation data. It was shown that RBTF was superior to RBSF and chemostat. The advantage of RBTF increased as the lag period became greater.     

Application of gene gun for local-regional cancer

We studied the in vivo gene transfusion using a gene gun, formerly used in plants and culture cells. The hand-held type gene gun (Helios Gene Gun System) is simple and convenient for effective gene transfection in living animals. This method has some advantages in that there is no need for use of viral vector, independence on the cell cycle and local inducement of plural genes. There is a great possibility for application to local-regional cancer.     

Age-related changes in innervation in hypertrophic pyloric stenosis

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE: Recent reports have identified abnormal innervation of the circular muscle layer involving the fine intramuscular nerve fibers in hypertrophic pyloric stenous (HPS). HPS presenting after 3 months of age is rare. The aim of this study was to determine the distribution pattern of nerve fibers in the smooth muscle layers in HPS and correlate this with age at presentation. METHODS: Full-thickness pyloric muscle biopsy specimens were obtained from eight patients with HPS (five age 3 to 5 weeks, two age 3 months, and one age 7 months) and five controls with normal pylorus (age 5 days to 3 years). All specimens were stained with monoclonal antibody to the neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM) using immunohistochemistry. RESULTS: There were many NCAM-positive nerve fibers in the circular and longitudinal muscle layers in the controls. No NCAM positive nerve fibers were seen in the circular or longitudinal muscle layers in the five cases of HPS in which the patients were less than 5 weeks old. In the two cases in which the patients were 3 months old, occasional NCAM-positive nerve fibers were seen in the circular layer, and moderate numbers of NCAM positive fibers were seen in the longitudinal muscle layers. Moderate numbers of NCAM-positive nerve fibers in the circular muscle layer and many NCAM positive nerve fibers in the longitudinal muscle layers were identified in the 7-month-old HPS patient. CONCLUSIONS: The data suggest that the pyloric muscle lacks innervation in the young HPS infant. Whereas, at 3 months of age the hypertrophied pyloric muscle is partially innervated, and at 7 months of age the pyloric muscle has practically normal innervation.     

Communication network protocol for real-time distributed controland its LSI implementation

A new token-passing mechanism, priority token passing, which features real-time access and fast detection and recovery of transmission errors, is discussed in detail in comparison with standard token-passing protocols, and its large-scale integration (LSI)-oriented design concept is described. Priority token passing includes only a small performance overhead, due to its switching functions, which can change network topology from ring to broadcast medium. A token-holding node passes the token to another node after determining the successor through priority comparison. Errors occurring during token passing can, thus, be detected and corrected simply and promptly. Priority token passing has a simple hardware implementation, requiring only small additions to the frame control circuitry, and has a small implementation overhead. The priority token-passing protocol and two other important network communication functions, dual ring network reconfiguration and high-level data link control (HDLC) normal response mode-based message transmission, are designed as a single finite-state machine, and implemented into a compact LSI chip. This integrated instrument network (IINET) chip provides complete network communication services and requires only three additional external electronic components for operation     

Phase and amplitude comparison between experiment and calculation of ultrabroad-band pulses generated in a taper fiber

Using a cross-correlation frequency-resolved optical gating apparatus, the phases and amplitudes of ultrabroad-band optical pulses from a taper fiber have been measured for various input pulse peak powers. The measured waveforms have been compared with calculated waveforms using a finite-difference in the frequency domain method, in which no envelope approximations were used and the variation of the taper shape was taken into account. Excellent agreement between the measured and the calculated waveforms was obtained when the additional dispersion of a normal fiber and an objective was considered.     

Monte Carlo simulation of hydrogen absorption in palladium and palladium–silver alloys

A modified Monte Carlo (MC) simulation was performed to investigate the hydrogen absorption behavior in Pd and Pd–Ag alloys of the composition Pd_xAg_1−x (x=0.7–0.8) under H₂ pressure (0.1 MPa) at different temperatures. The present method employed can consider the dissociative adsorption of hydrogen molecule and the subsequent absorption of hydrogen atom by formalizing the relationship between the pressure of hydrogen molecule and hydrogen atom. The potential parameters were determined to reproduce the solution enthalpy of hydrogen in pure metals. The results are in good agreement with experimental findings as well as previous theoretical studies. We confirmed that our method is useful to simulate the absorption of hydrogen in metals and alloys.     

An image analyzing system using an artificial neural network forevaluating the parenchymal echo pattern of cirrhotic liver and chronichepatitis

To objectively evaluate the parenchymal echo pattern of cirrhotic liver and chronic hepatitis, the authors applied an image analyzing system (IAS) using a neural network. Autopsy specimens in a water tank (n=13) were used to examine the relationship between the diameter of the regenerative nodule and the coarse score (CS) calculated by IAS. CS was significantly correlated with the diameter of the regenerative nodule (p<0.0001, r=0.966). CS is considered to be useful for evaluating the coarseness of the parenchymal echo pattern     

Mechanical alloying in the Al-Bi alloy system

Mechanical alloying (MA) was carried out to investigate the MA behaviour of the immiscible Al-10, 30 at % Bi alloys. After the MA processing, the Al and Bi were finely and homogeneously alloyed. The Bi crystallite size decreased to 25 nm and 30 nm in the Al-10 at % Bi and Al-30 at % Bi alloys, respectively. By increasing the MA time, the hardness increased up to a value of 80 H _v, which is larger than that obtained from the rule of mixtures. The lattice parameter of Bi decreased by about 0.27%, which shows the formation of a non-equilibrium hcp Bi super-saturated solid solution. The extended solubility of Al in Bi was 1.9% in the Al-30 at % Bi alloy. Due to the extended solubility, depression of the melting temperature of hcp Bi was confirmed in the mechanically alloyed Al-Bi alloys. The maximum depression in the temperature was about 10 K. The measured values corresponded well with those estimated from the extrapolation of the solidus line.     

Soft-decision Viterbi decoding with diversity combining formulti-beam mobile satellite communication systems

Diversity combining methods for mobile satellite communication systems employing convolutional encoding and soft-decision Viterbi decoding are evaluated. Computer simulation clarifies that the pre-Viterbi-decoding maximal ratio combining method has better performance than other methods in Rician fading channels. The simulation results agree with the Pe (bit error probability) performance derived from the numerical analysis for slow fading using the approximate Pe performance of Viterbi decoding in AWGN (additive white Gaussian noise) channels and the probability density function of Rician fading. Applying this diversity method to the multi-beam mobile satellite communication systems, a satellite beam diversity reception scheme is proposed. A computer simulation result shows that the proposed scheme decreases the packet error rate of the control signals to less than 1/100 around the satellite beam boundary     

Relationship between the binding sites for an alpha-conotoxin and snake venom neurotoxins in the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor from Torpedo californica

Photoinduced cross-links between the iodinated Lys26-p-azidobenzoyl derivative of neurotoxin II from Naja naja oxiana cobra venom and nicotinic acetylcholine receptor from Torpedo californica (AChR) have been studied in the presence of alpha-conotoxin GI from the marine snail C. geographus. Preincubation of the AChR-enriched membranes with increasing concentrations of alpha-conotoxin GI protects first the gamma subunit from photolabelling and then the delta subunit, the IC50 values being 0.76 and 5.01 microM, respectively. The results obtained, in view of the relevant data in literature, demonstrate that the (alpha + gamma) site, which is the high affinity site for d-tubocurarine, has also a higher affinity for an alpha-conotoxin than the (alpha + delta) containing site. The latter has a somewhat higher affinity than the (alpha + gamma) site towards some naturally occurring snake venom alpha-neurotoxins or their derivatives.