Endoscopic Observation of Tissue by Narrowband Illumination

We propose a new illumination method for a medical endoscope: narrow band imaging (NBI), in which the spectral bandwidth of the filtered light is narrowed. To confirm how the spectral specifications of the filtered light influence a reproduced image, an experiment was conducted observing the endoscopic images of the back mucosa of a human tongue. In addition, the effect of NBI on endoscopic images was investigated through preliminary clinical tests in colonoscopy and upper gastrointestinal endoscopy. It has been shown that NBI can enhance the capillary pattern and the crypt pattern on the mucosa. These patterns are useful features for diagnosing an early cancer.     

A New Method for Rotation and Brightness Invariant Pattern Recognition Based on Modified Multiple Circular Harmonic Expansions

A new method for rotation and brightness invariant pattern recognition was proposed by applying multiple circular harmonic expansions to the joint transform correlator. The amplitudes of the multiple orders of circular harmonic expansions made from a detecting image were synthetically modified to respond to the same auto-correlation peaks. These modified circular harmonic expansions were arranged in the input plane as reference patterns together with an arbitrary target pattern, and the correlation signals between them were calculated in the subtracted joint transform correlator. The fraction of the correlation-peak intensities between the target and the references were extracted as a new discrimination parameter. This new parameter performs pattern recognition under rotation and brightness invariance with good discriminability. Its high discriminability has been proved in computer simulations using the face image patterns of many individuals.     

Constructive and Destructive Two-Pulse Excitation Investigated with a White-Light Michelson Interferometer

Linear propagation of two pulses through methanol solution of aluminum phthalocyanine chloride is investigated using a modified white-light Michelson interferometer. The observed coherence time of the white light is 6 fs, and the separation between the two-excitation pulses is set to about 10 fs. The excitation is dependent on the phase-relation between the two pulses. We have observed an enhancement of the excitation when the two pulses are in-phase and strong suppression of the excitation when the two pulses are out of phase by π.     

Structural characterization of Acetobacter diazotropicus levansucrase by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry: identification of an N-terminal blocking group and a free-thiol cysteine residue

High-resolution matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry was used to characterize the primary structure of the levansucrase (EC 2.4.1.10) secreted by Acetobacter diazotropicus SRT4. The technique permitted not only the reading frame of this enzyme, the amino acid sequence of which was deduced from DNA, but also the elucidation of an N-terminal blocking group and the position of a disulfide bridge between Cys309 and Cys365 among the three Cys residues. A free cysteine (Cys127) was identified by modifying an intact molecule with a sulfhydryl reagent, 5-(octyldithio)-2-nitrobenzoic acid, under non-reducing conditions. In addition, the enzyme obtained by site-directed mutagenesis at Asp279 to Asn279 was also identified by the above methods. Post-source decay analysis of the tryptic peptide containing the mutation site unequivocally revealed an Asn residue at position 279.     

Thermal latency of novel chelating borate catalysts as latent catalysts for epoxy–phenolic resins

Novel quaternary ammonium bis(2‐oxybenzoyloxy)borate salts ( 1a – 1c ) or quaternary ammonium bis(1,2‐benzenedioxy)borate salts ( 2a and 2b ) with tetra‐n‐butylammonium (TBA⁺), tetra‐n‐octylammonium (TOA⁺), or bis(triphenylphosphoranylidene)ammonium (PNP⁺) cations were synthesized as latent catalysts of epoxy/phenol–novolac resins by the complexation between boric acid and salicylic acid or catechol, followed by neutralization with quaternary ammonium hydroxide. Polyaddition reactions of diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) and 4,4′‐bisphenol F (44BPF) or bisphenol F (BPF‐D) with the ammonium borates were investigated as model reactions of epoxy/phenol–novolac resin systems with respect to the thermal latency and storage stability of the catalyst. The polyaddition of DGEBA/44BPF with 1a – 1c in diglyme at 150 °C for 6 h proceeded up to 85–96% conversions and gave polymers with number‐average molecular weights of 4180–10,500, whereas the polyaddition at 80 °C for 6 h gave less than 8% conversions. However, the polyaddition with 2a containing TBA⁺ cation proceeded to only a 32% conversion at 150 °C for 6 h in diglyme and to a 64% conversion even at 180 °C for 6 h in triglyme and only gave low molecular weight oligomers, and no reaction proceeded in the polyaddition at 80 °C. However, polyaddition with 2b containing PNP⁺ cation proceeded up to a 96% conversion at 150 °C for 6 h in diglyme and gave a higher molecular weight polymer with a number‐average molecular weight of 8050, whereas the polyaddition at 80 °C for 6 h gave only a 5% conversion. The catalytic activity of ammonium borates 1a – 1c and 2a and 2b depended on the borate anion structure: 1a and 1c with bis(2‐oxybenzoyloxy)borate anion revealed higher activity than 2a and 2b with bis(1,2‐benzenedioxy)borate anion, respectively. In comparison with tetra‐n‐butylammonium bromide (TBAB) as a conventional ammonium salt or tetra‐n‐butylammonium tetrakis(benzoyloxy)borate (TBA‐TBB), 1a – 1c and 2b revealed better thermal latency. The catalytic activity of ammonium borates also depended on the bulkiness of the ammonium cation, and the order of activity was 1c (PNP⁺) > 1b (TOA⁺) ≧ 1a (TBA⁺) and 2b (PNP⁺) > 2a (TBA⁺). The storage stability of DGEBA/BPF‐D with the ammonium borate catalysts 1a – 1c and 2a and 2b in bulk at 40 °C was much better than that with TBAB and TBA‐TBB. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 40: 2702–2716, 2002     

Synthesis and properties of polydiene and polypentenamer having formyl or hydroxymethyl groups and their photosensitive derivatives

cis-1,4-Polybutadiene and polypentenamer having pendant functional groups such as formyl, aldoxime, hydroxymethyl, or cinnamoyloxymethyl groups have been prepared, and some of their properties were investigated in terms of structural effect on physical properties of these polymers. cis-1, 4-Polybutadiene and polypentenamer having a different content of formyl group were prepared by the hydroformylation reaction with rhodium catalyst under mild conditions. The pendant formyl group was reduced to a hydroxymethyl group by using various reducing agents such as sodium borohydride or sodium trimethoxyborohydride which were effective to avoid a crosslinking reaction among the formyl groups. Glass transition temperature of polypentenamer having hydroxymethyl groups increased with increasing the content of the hydroxymethyl groups in the polymer. Cinnamoyl group was introduced into the polypentenamer having hydroxymethyl groups by reacting with cinnamoyl chloride so as to prepare a photosensitive rubber. The relationships between the photosensitivity of the cinnamoylated polypentenamer and the mobility of polymer main chains have been elucidated. A linear relationship between the photodimerization rate constant and the difference between ultraviolet (UV) irradiation temperature and the glass transition temperature of the polymer was found. It has become apparent that the photosensitivity of cinnamoylated polypentenamer can be estimated by the glass transition temperature of the original polymer, UV irradiation temperature, activation energy of the dimerization, and γ, which is a coefficient of the relationship between the photosensitive group concentration and the glass transition temperature of the polymer.     

Nonlinear optical property calculations by the long-range-corrected coupled-perturbed Kohn-Sham method

The long-range correction (LC) scheme for the exchange functional of density-functional theory (DFT) was combined with the coupled-perturbed Kohn-Sham (CPKS) method to calculate nonlinear optical response properties. By using this LC-CPKS method, we calculated the hyperpolarizabilities of typical molecules and the dipole moments, polarizabilities, and hyperpolarizabilities of push-pull pi-conjugated systems: p-nitroaniline, 4-amino-4'-nitrostilbene, and alpha,omega-nitroaminopolyenes. It was found that the LC scheme clearly improved the calculation of these optical properties for all of these systems, which have been significantly overestimated by conventional DFTs. We therefore concluded that the long-range exchange interaction played an important role in calculating the optical properties using the DFT formalism.