Radiation detector made of a high-quality polycrystalline diamond

Radiation detector was made of a high-quality CVD polycrystalline diamond composed of frost column like structure diamond grains, and induced charge distribution spectra and drift velocities were measured by using alpha particles. As a result, the CVD polycrystalline achieved maximum induced charge of 83% of HP/HT type IIa diamond. Moreover, the CVD crystal had lower charge loss on electrons compared with the HP/HT type IIa diamond. Drift velocities of electrons and holes were v_e = 7.7 × 10⁴ and v_h = 7.3 × 10⁴cm/s at an electric field of 20 kV/cm, respectively. In addition, response function measurement for 14 MeV neutrons was carried out.     

Does mixed venous desaturation during a bed bath indicate cardiopulmonary decompensation in postoperative cardiac patients?]

The bed bath procedure consists of cleansing patients' body, passive position change, changing gown and making a bed. During the procedure, mixed venous desaturation was observed consistently in postoperative cardiac patients. We investigated the cause of the phenomenon in 22 patients undergoing cardiac surgery in their first postoperative day. The patients were breathing oxygen-enriched air via a Venturi mask. Cardiac index (CI), transluminal SvO2, arterial blood gas, Hb, DO2, VO2, FIO2, A-aDO2 and Qp/Qs were measured before and during the bed bath, while the patients were in the supine and left lateral position, respectively. Mean 8.5 +/- 1.5 minutes were required to complete the bed bath. During the bed bath, SvO2 decreased from 71 +/- 7% to 59 +/- 9% (P < 0.001), and returned to the baseline 6.5 +/- 7.4 minutes after the completion of the bed bath. VO2 increased markedly from 128 +/- 27 to 194 +/- 47 ml.min-1.m-2 (P < 0.001), while DO2 increased slightly from 480 +/- 91 to 513 +/- 110 ml.min-1.m-2 (P < 0.05). Among the determinants of DO2, CI increased slightly from 3.3 +/- 0.6 to 3.6 +/- 0.8 l.min-1.m-2, Hb remained unchanged and SaO2 decreased from 98.5 +/- 0.8 to 98.0 +/- 1.1%. FIO2 also decreased, while A-aDO2 and Qp/Qs remained unchanged. There was a negative correlation between VO2 change and SvO2 change, but no correlation between DO2 change and SvO2 change. There was a positive correlation between SaO2 change and SvO2 change, as well as between FIO2 change and SaO2 change. Therefore, the major cause of mixed venous desaturation was not the decreased DO2 or cardiopulmonary decompensation but the increased VO2 due to increased activity of the skeletal muscles. However, the decrease in SaO2 due to markedly increased O2 demand and the limited increase in CI might partially contribute to the marked decline in SvO2 through the limited increase in DO2.     

Mechanical role of reinforcement in seismic behavior of steel-strip reinforced earth wall

In the current design practices of steel-strip reinforced earth walls (SSREWs), the length of the reinforcing material is determined based on the equilibrium between the reinforcement tension and the earth pressure acting on the wall. Here, the resistance of the reinforcing material laid in the active failure zone (AFZ) is not considered. Moreover, the mechanical role of the reinforcing material against the integrity of the SSREW has not been sufficiently verified. Regarding the seismic stability of SSREW, although it is investigated by treating the entire reinforced earth wall as a rigid body, this inspection method is for gravity-retaining walls, and the difference in the seismic behavior between the SSREW and the rigid body is not clear. In this study, therefore, dynamic centrifuge model tests on 6 types of SSREWs were conducted to clarify the following items: (1) the basic earthquake behavior of a SSREW, (2) the mechanical role of the reinforcing material laid in the AFZ and (3) the mechanical role of the reinforcing material against the integrity of the SSREW. The results indicated that the reinforcing material laid in the AFZ can restrain the amount of deformation of the wall during earthquakes. Furthermore, the more stable the AFZ is, the smaller the maximum wall displacement will be.     

Physiological role of Ca2+-permeable nonselective cation channel in endothelin-1-induced contraction of rabbit aorta

The alpha-amylase of Streptomyces sp. IMD 2679 was subject to catabolite repression. Four different growth rates were achieved when the organism was grown at 40 degrees C and 55 degrees C in the presence and absence of cobalt, with an inverse relationship between alpha-amylase production and growth rate. Highest alpha-amylase yields (520 units/ml) were obtained at the lowest growth rate (0.062 h-1), at 40 degrees C in the absence of cobalt, while at the highest growth rate (0.35 h-1), at 55 degrees C in the presence of cobalt, alpha-amylase production was decreased to 150 units/ml. As growth rate increased, the rate of specific utilisation of the carbon source maltose also increased, from 46 to 123 micrograms maltose (mg biomass)-1 h-1. The pattern and levels of alpha-glucosidase (the enzyme degrading maltose) detected intracellularly in each case, indicate that growth rate effectively controls the rate of feeding of glucose to the cell, and thus catabolite repression.     

An efficient preconditioning scheme for plane-wave-based electronic structure calculations

We propose a preconditioning scheme for diagonalizing large Hamiltonian matrices arising in first-principles plane-wave pseudopotential calculations. The new scheme is based on the Neumann expansion for the inverse, shifted Hamiltonian from which only a nonlocal part is omitted. The preconditioner is applied to a gradient vector using the fast Fourier transformation technique. In the framework of the Davidson-type diagonalization algorithm, we have found the present preconditioning scheme to be more efficient than widely accepted diagonal scaling methods.     

Two types of vertically adsorbed 3-pyridinecarboxylate on Au(1 1 1), Au(1 0 0) and Au(1 1 0) electrodes

3-Pyridinecarboxylic acid (3-PC) adsorbed on low index face electrodes in NaF solution were investigated using in situ Fourier transform-infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and differential capacity measurements. Two types of vertically adsorbed 3-PC were confirmed on the electrodes, while flat-lying adsorbed species were not observed at the potentials measured. At negative potentials, 3-PC molecules adsorb vertically on the electrode via the lone pair electrons of the pyridine ring nitrogen atom, and at positive potentials, 3-PC adsorbs vertically via the two oxygen atoms of the carboxyl group.