Enhancement of nutraceutical properties of licorice callus cultures using sample pre-treatment strategy

Licorice is an herbal plant in the Leguminosae family, and its roots and rhizomes are used as sweeteners in food and confectionery products. Moreover, it has a distinct inflammatory activity. In the present study, a sample pre-treatment method to induce the deglycosylation of active metabolites in callus cultures of Glycyrrhiza inflata (GI) and Glycyrrhiza glabra (GG) was developed. The results of the method evaluation showed the biotransformation of ononin to formononetin, a rare flavonoid found in trace amounts in licorice. The magnitude of enhancement was 3- and 19-fold in the GI and GG samples, respectively. Moreover, the anti-inflammatory activity assay showed that the potency of the sample pre-treatment group was higher than that of the untreated group because it exerted an enhanced suppression of cyclo-oxygenase 2 (COX-2), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) gene expression. This is the first report on the anti-inflammatory activity of licorice callus, which has the potential to be utilised as a functional food for health promotion. These findings support the idea of using sample preparation to impart nutraceutical properties to plant products.     

Effect of Electron Correlation on Phonon Spectra in Cuprates

We examine theoretically the phonon dynamics in the electron-phonon-coupled systems. The model Hamiltonian is a one-dimensional Hubbard model where the hopping of electrons induces the electron-phonon coupling. The numerically exact diagonalization of the Hamiltonian with truncation of the total number of phonons is performed. We calculate the phonon excitation spectra and find that the softening of phonons occurs in insulating case, and a diffusive character appears in the metallic case. We also calculate the charge and spin excitation spectra and find that the dynamics of the phonon coupled with the hopping of electrons is affected by the low energy charge and spin excitations.     

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.     

Hydrothermal synthesis and in situ surface modification of boehmite nanoparticles in supercritical water

In situ surface modification of boehmite (AlOOH) nanoparticles during hydrothermal synthesis in supercritical water was examined by adding CH₃(CH₂)₄CHO and CH₃(CH₂)₅NH₂ as modifier reagents to the reactants. Changes in surface properties of the nanoparticles by surface modification was observed by FTIR, dispersion in solvents and TEM analyses, which demonstrated that reagents chemically binded onto the surface of the AlOOH nanoparticles. The results of SEM and TEM pictures show that the surface modification affects crystal growth and reduces the particle size and changes the morphology of the particles.     

Rates for intramolecular excimer formation of poly(α-methylstyrene) measured by using picosecond pulse radiolysis

Summary The rate constants for intramolecular excimer formation, k_DM, of poly(α-methylstyrene) with different molecular weight were determined by using picosecond pulse radiolysis. Values of k_DM for poly(α-methylstyrene) are a little smaller than those for polystyrene with nearly same molecular weight. It appears to be mainly due to steric hindrance by methyl substituent of main chain.     

A lightweight sensing method of tooth-touch sound for disabled person using remote controller

To support disabled people to use remote controllers, several biological signals are used. The tooth-touch is one of desirable biological signals. This is because it is the simple and natural human behavior. However, a sophisticated signal processing to extract only the tooth-touch sound is needed since the tooth-touch sound is mixed with the voice sound. This paper proposes a lightweight sensing method extracting the tooth-touch without a sophisticated signal processing to eliminate only voice sound from the sound wave in which tooth-touch and voice are mixed. Instead of the audible sound wave, proposal uses a shock wave (i.e., ultrasonic wave) which is generated when the upper tooth and the lower tooth hit each other. Using the shock wave generated to detect the tooth-touch, a trivial high-pass filter can eliminate only voice sound in the lower frequency domain than in the ultrasonic domain including the tooth-touch. Through a preliminary experiment that uses a conventional microphone and well-known digital high-pass filter, we show that the used electret microphone can sense the tooth-touch as ultrasonic wave and the high-pass filter can extract only tooth-touch. Then, we show some robustness of our method by using the sound waves including the voice and tooth-touch. In addition, we design the filtering hardware to implement a small and cheap system-on-chip achieving a real-time operation. Through the implementation of Field Programmable Gate Array, and the simulation, we show that our hardware is small and performs well for a real-time operation.     

Preparation of fine particles of carnegieite by a mist decomposition method

A mist of a hydrosol consisting of silica, alumina/NaAlO₂ and sodium hydroxide was produced by a supersonic atomization, and treated successively in three furnaces of different temperatures. The temperatures of the furnaces were adjusted for the evaporation of water, the dehydration and the crystallization of the mixed oxide, respectively. The spherical particles ( 0.5m) of carnegieite were found to be formed in a narrow composition range of the raw materials at temperatures of 650 to 900° C. The factors affecting the properties of the particles were investigated.     

Kinetics of the methanation of carbon dioxide over a supported Ni-La2O3 catalyst

The kinetics of the methanation of carbon dioxide was investigated using an alumina supported Ni-La₂O₂ catalyst in a differential and integral reactor. In the differential reactor the molar ratio of H₂ to CO₂ was varied from 0.6 to 30. In the integral reactor the rates were measured with up to 90% conversion. Both reactor tests were carried out at temperatures between 513 and 593 K. The experimental results were described by a Langmuir-Hinshelwood type equation. The kinetics can be explained by assuming equilibrium of dissociative carbon dioxide and hydrogen adsorption, and assuming hydrogenation of surface carbon as the rate determining step.     

Development of reel-to-reel microchip mounting system for fabrication of meter-long LED lighting tapes

We have developed a reel-to-reel microchip mounting system that continuously mounts LED chips and other microchips on meter-long flexible printed circuit board (PCB) tape for 1.2-m-long standard LED light tubes. Mounting microchips on meter-long PCBs is difficult because a large chip mounter is expensive and the chip positioning stage is difficult to move in a meter-wide area with an accuracy of hundreds of micrometers. Hence, we developed a new microchip mounting system that utilizes a small chip mounter and reel winding machines. The system repeatedly moves the long PCB tape by a certain length with the reel winding machines and mounts the chips on it. The PCB tape (which is 5 mm wide) is made by fabricating long PCB tapes which are 25 cm × 26.6 m through a roll-to-roll PCB process and slitting them into meter-long tapes. The reel-to-reel system repeatedly mounts chips by adjusting their positions through image processing of the copper wiring pattern on the PCBs. Our constructed system mounted 24 LED chips with a pitch of 5 cm with an accuracy of 0.082 mm to form a 1.2-m-long LED tape. The luminance of the tape is 12.4 lx at a distance of 1 m, which is the luminance of outdoor corridor lighting. Therefore, this system can be used for meter-long tape lighting.     

Observation of 3‐D Structure of Bubbles in a Fluidized Catalyst Bed

The interface area between the bubble and emulsion phases in a fluidized catalyst bed is one of the important parameters used to analyze and design the fluidized bed reactor. We used a fast‐scanning X‐ray CT system to observe the bubble shape and structure. We then obtained the transient 2‐dimensional cross sectional gas‐phase distribution in a fluidized catalyst bed. Using image‐processing techniques, pseudo 3‐dimensional images of the bubbles were reconstructed. The bubble structure was studied based on the 3‐dimensional images and the previously obtained results in a 2‐dimensional fluidized bed. It was found that the bubble shape was not spherical but complicated, and that the bubbles ascending in a fluidized catalyst bed consisted of some smaller bubbles.