Studies on vocal fold injection and changes in pitch associated with alcohol intake

The current study was carried out with particular emphasis on the association between phonetic function tests and alterations in the appearance of the hypopharyngeal and laryngeal mucosa, such as capillary dilatation, edema, and vocal fold injection after alcohol intake. The results demonstrated the occurrence of previously unrecognized pathophysiological changes associated with synchronous phonetic functions in the vocal pathway after alcohol intake. Serum ethanol and aldehyde concentration levels were evaluated hourly for 2.5 h after ingestion of alcohol. When an electronystagmogram showed the typical pattern of alcohol intake, the study was initiated. Occasionally, rhinography was performed on subjects complaining of a stuffy nose after alcohol intake.     

A branch and search algorithm for a class of nonlinear knapsack problems

This paper discusses a class of nonlinear knapsack problems where the objective function is quadratic. The method is a branch and search procedure which includes an efficient algorithm to find the continuous (relaxed) solution and a reduction rule which computes tight lower and upper bounds on the integer variables.     

Cell culture on polymers prepared by radiation-induced polymerization of various glass-forming monomers

The growth of cells on polymers prepared by the radiation polymerization of monomethacrylate and dimethacrylate was investigated. Cell growth was affected greatly by such properties of the polymers as water content, wettability, and porosity. Growth was promoted remarkably by rinsing the polymers with warm water at 60-70 degrees C and by irradiation of polymers with an electron beam. Cell growth decreased with increasing oxyethylene length (n) in the polymerized dimethacrylate of same series, CH2C(CH3)CO(OCH2CH2)nOCOC(CH3)CH2. A decrease in the hydrophilicity of the polymer increased cell growth rate. Formation of pore structures in the polymer films also increased the cell growth.     

Conformational equilibrium of 1,2-dichloroethane in water: comparison of PCM and RISM-SCF methods

The RISM-SCF and polarizable continuum model (PCM) approaches have been applied to study the conformational equilibrium of 1,2-dichloroethane (DCE) in water. Both the electron correlation effect and basis sets play an important role in the relative energies of the gauche and trans conformers in gas and solution phases. Both PCM and RISM-MP2 methods resulted in a consistent trend with the previous experimental and theoretical studies that the population of the gauche conformer increases in going from the gas phase to the aqueous solution. However, the PCM treatment could not describe the solvent effect completely in that the sign of the relative free energy of the gauche and trans forms is opposite to the most recent experimental and theoretical data, while the RISM-MP2 gives the right sign in the free energy difference. We found that the larger excess chemical potential gain (by ca. -4.1 kcal/mol) for the gauche conformer is large enough to result in the gauche preference of DCE in water, though it has to compensate for more solute reorganization energy (approximately 1.6 kcal/mol) and overcome the energy difference (approximately 1.6 kcal/mol) in the gas phase. The radial distribution functions between DCE and the nearest water shows that the electrostatic repulsion between chlorine and oxygen atoms is higher in the trans conformer than in the gauche one, while the attractive interaction between chlorine and hydrogen of water is higher in the gauche conformer.     

Depth-control method for integral imaging

We present a method for controlling the depth of three-dimensional (3D) images reconstructed by integral photography. Incoherent light is reflected from 3D objects, propagates through a lens array, and is captured as the first elemental images by a capturing device. The second elemental images of the 3D images are generated by numerical processing from the first elemental images in accordance with the desired depth. The optical reconstruction of 3D images at the desired depth by the second elemental images is confirmed experimentally.     

Geometric analysis of spatial distortion in projection-type integral imaging

In projection-type integral imaging, positional errors in elemental images and elemental lenses affect three-dimensional (3D) image quality. We analyzed the relationships between the geometric distortion in elemental images caused by a projection lens and the spatial distortion in the reconstructed 3D image. As a result, we clarified that 3D images that were reconstructed far from the lens array were largely affected, and that the reconstructed images were significantly distorted in the depth direction at the corners of the displayed images.     

The influences of supersaturation on LPE growth of GaN single crystals using the Na flux method

The dependency of LPE growth rate and dislocation density on supersaturation in the growth of GaN single crystals in the Na flux was investigated. When the growth rate was low during the growth of GaN at a small value of supersaturation, the dislocation density was much lower compared with that of a substrate grown by the Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition method (MOCVD). In contrast, when the growth rate of GaN was high at a large value of supersaturation, the crystal was hopper including a large number of dislocations. The relationship between the growth conditions and the crystal color in GaN single crystals grown in Na flux was also investigated. When at 800 °C the nitrogen concentration in Na–Ga melt was low, the grown crystals were always tinted black. When the nitrogen concentration at 850 °C was high, transparent crystals could be grown.