The European,Japanese and US protective helmet,gloves and boots for firefighters: thermoregulatory and psychological evaluations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the physiological and subjective responses of the European, Japanese (JPN) and US firefighters' helmet, gloves and boots for international standardisation. Three experimental conditions were evaluated (clothing mass: 9.4, 8.2 and 10.1 kg for the three conditions, respectively) at the air temperature of 32°C and 60% relative humidity. The results showed that there was no significant difference among the three conditions in oxygen consumption, heart rate, total sweat rate, rectal temperature and mean skin temperature, whereas peripheral temperatures and subjective perceptions were lower in the JPN condition than in the other conditions (P < 0.05). These results indicate that a 0.5-kg reduction in helmet mass and a 1.1-kg reduction in boot mass during exercise resulted in a significant decrease in head and leg temperatures and subjective perceptions, while a 1.9-kg reduction in total clothing mass had insignificant influences on the metabolic burden and overall body temperature.     

Synthesis of boron carbide powder from polyvinyl borate precursor

Polyvinyl borate (PVBO) was prepared by the condensation of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and boric acid, and used as a precursor for boron carbide. Boron carbide powder was synthesized by the pyrolysis of the PVBO precursor in air at 600 °C for 2 h, followed by heat treatment in Ar flow at 1300 °C for 5 h, which is a relatively low temperature compared with conventional carbothermal methods. Pyrolysis of the PVBO precursor resulted in submicron-size particles of B₂O₃ dispersed in a carbon matrix. In addition, the pyrolysis temperature governed the carbon content in the pyrolyzed product of the PVBO precursor, which led to the synthesis of crystalline boron carbide powder with little free carbon.     

Pervaporation separation of water/ethanol mixtures through polysaccharide membranes. II. The permselectivity of chitosan membrane

The separation of water/alcohol mixtures through chitosan membrane was investigated. The degree of the deacetylation of chitosan did not affect the selectivity of the membrane in the separation of the water/ethanol mixture. The selectivity of the chitosan membrane was affected by the specific salts such as CoSO₄, ZnSO₄, and MnSO₄ and it increased when the salts were present in the feed mixture or the membrane was pretreated with the salt solution. This behavior would be explained by the contraction of the “holes” produced by the thermal motion of polymer chains and this contraction would be correlated with the conformation change of chitosan molecule due to the formation of complexes with metal ions.     

A novel method for determining vitamin B1 in a wide variety of foodstuffs with or without polyphenols

Certain foodstuffs exhibit matrix interference effects on the vitamin B₁ analysis prescribed in the official methods of the European Union, AOAC International, and Japan. In this study, we demonstrated that one of the problematic polyphenols in green tea or cocoa was tannin. For these matrices, thiamine was found to interact with tannin in the extraction step and was thus removed by filtration as a residue. To resolve the matrix interference, we proposed lowering the pH of the extraction solution by adding hydrochloric acid after the enzyme reaction. High precision (2–3% RSDr) and good recovery (98.3–103%) were obtained with reference materials using the proposed method. We also confirmed the equivalence of the obtained data from the proposed method and the Japanese official method for nutritional labeling. From these results, the method was found to be effective for vitamin B₁ analysis regardless of the presence of interference matrices.     

Painting robot with multi-fingered hands and stereo vision

In this paper, we describe a painting robot with multi-fingered hands and stereo vision. The goal of this study is for the robot to reproduce the whole procedure involved in human painting. A painting action is divided into three phases: obtaining a 3D model, composing a picture model, and painting by a robot. In this system, various feedback techniques including computer vision and force sensors are used. As experiments, an apple and a human silhouette are painted on a canvas using this system.     

Extraction of essential interactions through multiple observations of human demonstrations

This paper describes a new approach on how to teach a robot everyday manipulation tasks under the "Learning from Observation" framework. In this approach, human demonstrations, which are made up of mutual interactions between a grasped object and an environmental object, are observed and a reusable manipulation task model is automatically generated. Most of the similar approaches so far assume that a demonstration can be well understood from a single demonstration. However, a single demonstration contains ambiguity, in that interactions which are essential to complete a task cannot be discerned without prior task dependent knowledge, which should be obtained from observation. To address these issues, a technique to integrate multiple observations of demonstrations is proposed. The demonstrations differ, but are virtually the same task. The shared interactions among all the demonstrations are considered to be essential and a task model is generated from their symbolic representations. Then, the relative trajectories corresponding to each essential interaction are generalized by calculating their mean and variance, and they are also stored in the task model, which is used to reproduce skilled behavior. This approach is examined by using a human-form robot, which successfully imitates human demonstrations of everyday tasks.     

Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. 4. Treatment and prognosis of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis

Mucinous gastric carcinoma is a rare pathologic subtype of gastric adenocarcinoma. Whether the mucin behaves aggressively as in mucinous colorectal carcinoma is still controversial. Most mucinous gastric carcinomas are diagnosed from surgical specimens. The mucinous gastric carcinoma in this case report was discovered preoperatively according to its characteristic presentation. An upper gastrointestinal endoscopic examination showed a round protruding tumor of greater than 4 cm in size on the mid-body of the stomach; it had an uneven, friable and shiny surface. The surface was coated with a sticky layer of mucin-like substance, which persisted even after the aspiration of the gastric juice. Endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) revealed a large heterogeneous hyperechoic tumor mass, originating from the mucosal and submucosal layers, on the body of the stomach. The mass was covered with a thick layer of hypoechoic amorphous substance. Hence, a mucin-producing tumor was suspected. Subsequent surgical biopsy proved the mass to be a moderately differentiated mucinous adenocarcinoma. This case illustrates the first endoscopic ultrasonographic report of an intraluminal mucin pool as a hypoechoic substance, which is quite different from the hyperechoic presentation of intramural mucin lakes. In preoperative evaluation, EUS is not only important for determining the depth of tumor invasion, but it is also useful in differentiating mucinous gastric carcinoma from nonmucinous gastric carcinoma.     

Electrical conductivity of well-exfoliated single-walled carbon nanotubes

Aqueous suspensions of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) with controlled degree of exfoliation were used to prepare conductive thin films. Controlled exfoliation was achieved by physical separation of SWCNT bundles using our previously established nanoplatelet-dispersion method. Thin film networks of individual SWCNTs produced with this approach exhibit universal conduction behavior indicative of an isotropic network of random resistors with nearly monodisperse bond conductance distribution. Networks made of partially exfoliated SWCNTs experience a significant shift in percolation threshold because of effective local alignment of individual SWCNTs into bundles. Bundling increases the conductivity of the SWCNTs at higher concentration because of low contact resistance electron transport between metallic SWCNTs. The most significant impact of bundling is the development of non-universal electrical scaling. These findings suggest that while individually exfoliated SWCNTs should be of substantial importance for electrical devices requiring small increases in electrical conductivity at low concentration, adequate control of bundling may enable or enhance performance for applications requiring higher conductivity.     

Detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in transbronchial biopsy specimens by polymerase chain reaction

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for the rapid detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis was used to test 30 clinical specimens (transbronchial biopsy specimens) from patients in whom tuberculosis was suspected on chest X-ray. In these patients, 15 cases were histologically diagnosed as tuberculosis. Among them, M. tuberculosis was detected in 8 specimens by PCR. Of 8 PCR positive specimens, 7 were also positive by smear and culture; the other was negative by smear and positive by culture. On the other hand, 15 cases were therapeutically diagnosed as the tuberculosis and these specimens showed negative results in neither PCR nor microbiological tests. We conclude that the PCR method is useful for rapid and direct detection of M. tuberculosis in transbronchial biopsy specimens.     

Spatial patterns of Ca2+ signals define intracellular distribution of a signaling by Ca2+/Calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II

Ca2+ plays a central role in cell signaling, and Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) is a major mediator of Ca2+ actions. The spatial distribution of intracellular Ca2+ signaling is not homogenous, rather it is dynamically organized, and it has been speculated that spatial patterns of Ca2+ signals may function as a form of cellular information transmitted to downstream molecules. To address this issue, we studied the intracellular distributions of the signalings by CaMKII and Ca2+ in the same astrocytes. The former was visualized by monitoring site-specific phosphorylation of a cytoskeletal protein vimentin, using site- and phosphorylation-specific antibodies, while the latter was examined by fura-2-based Ca2+ microscopy. Local Ca2+ signals induced vimentin phosphorylation by CaMKII localized in the same area. On the other hand, Ca2+ waves in astrocytes induced global phosphorylation of vimentin by CaMKII. A small population of vimentin filaments highly phosphorylated by CaMKII underwent structural alteration into short filaments at electron microscopic level. These results indicate that CaMKII transmits spatial patterns of Ca2+ signals to vimentin as cellular information. The possibility is discussed that spatial patterns of vimentin phosphorylation may be important for intracellular organization of vimentin filament networks.