Restricted hydration structures of Rb and Br ions confined in slit-shaped carbon nanospace

Hydration structures of "nanosolutions" around both cation and anion for rubidium bromide confined in nanospaces (pore width = 1.1 nm) of activated carbon fiber were determined with EXAFS measurements and related analysis. The analytical results indicate that the ionic solutions confined in hydrophobic nanospaces tend to form an incomplete dehydration structure, because of the spatial restriction by the nanospace and capturing water molecules in the ordered structure.     

Measurements of cosmic-ray low-energy antiproton and proton spectra in a transient period of solar field reversal

The energy spectra of cosmic-ray low-energy antiprotons ( *p's) and protons ( p's) have been measured by BESS in 1999 and 2000, during a period covering reversal at the solar magnetic field. Based on these measurements, a sudden increase of the *p/p flux ratio following the solar magnetic field reversal was observed, and it generally agrees with a drift model of the solar modulation.     

Sucrose incubation increases freezing tolerance of asparagus (Asparagus officinalis L.) embryogenic cell suspensions

The freezing tolerance of asparagus (Asparagus officinalis L.) embryogenic cells, as determined by electrolyte leakage, was increased by the incubation of samples in medium containing 0.8 M sucrose. To elucidate the mechanism involved, we investigated the changes in soluble carbohydrates, cell ultrastructure and proteins accompanying the increase in freezing tolerance following incubation in sugar-rich medium. During sugar incubation, the intracellular sucrose content increased from 67 mol g-1FW to 429 mol g-1FW; it was also metabolized into fructose and glucose, as determined by high-performance liquid chromatography. Microscopy revealed that sugar incubation induced plasmolysis of embryogenic cells and drastic changes in cell ultrastructure with the appearance of rough endoplasmic reticulum (rER). Furthermore, immunoblotting analysis with anti-dehydrin antiserum revealed that a dehydrin-like protein appeared only when maximal freezing tolerance was induced by sugar incubation. These results suggest that freezing tolerance of asparagus embryogenic cells is increased by a complex mechanism involving notably changes in cell ultrastructure and accumulation of certain sugars and proteins during sugar incubation.     

Analysis of trace actinide elements in soil organic matter: Optimization of sample processing to improve chemical separation of U and Pu

Chemical separation yield of actinide elements from soil samples containing high amounts of organic matters was often low as compared to that for samples containing low organic matters. We compared chemical yield of uranium and plutonium from organic-rich Japanese soil and humic acid samples which were subjected to three different pretreatment procedures ((1) pulverization only, (2) dry-ashing at 510 °C after pulverization, and (3) 680 kGy gamma-ray irradiation after pulverization) prior to acid digestion. Separation of U and Pu was performed by U-TEVA resin and AG1-X8 anion exchange resin, respectively. For organic samples, pretreatment procedures governed the yield of actinide elements significantly. Chemical separation yield of U was low (6±1%) for Aldrich humic acid sample after dry-ashing at 510 °C. For such samples, gamma-ray irradiation improved the yield of U to 35±22%. Recovery of Pu was lower for some organic soil samples which were dry-ashed at 510 °C (27±2%) as compared to those which were not dry-ashed (62±10%).     

Preparation and regioselective SN2' reaction of novel gem-difluorinated vinyloxiranes with RLi

A series of hitherto unknown 3,4-epoxy-1,1-difluorobutenes were prepared from the readily accessible alpha,beta-epoxy ketones and these compounds were found to undergo regioselective S(N)2' reactions with hard RLi nucleophiles occurring at the highly positively charged terminal fluorine-possessing sp(2) carbon atom in quite sharp contrast to the cases of the corresponding nonfluorinated vinyloxiranes which only attained a low level of regioselectivity. Addition of HMPA substantially improved the products' olefinic stereoselectivity. Theoretical calculations were used to qualitatively explore the nature of selectivity in these reactions.     

Modulation of axial coordination in N-confused porphyrin-antimony(V) dibromide complex by proton stimulus

The change of the axial bond length in the antimony(V) N-confused tetraphenylporphyrin dibromide complex was demonstrated by protonation and confirmed from X-ray single crystal analyses.     

Low-loss waveguides of benzylidene-aniline derivatives by organic molecular beam heteroepitaxy

An organic nonlinear optical crystal waveguide consisting of 4'-nitrobenzylidene-3-acetamino-4-methoxyaniline (MNBA) and 4'-nitrobenzylidene-3-ethylcarbonylamino-4-methoxyaniline (MNBA-Et) has been fabricated by a two-step heteroepitaxial growth technique. An MNBA-Et homoepitaxial layer used as a buffer layer prevents the formation of a MNBA polycrystalline domain at the heteroepitaxial interface. The MNBA-Et homoepitaxial layer also improves the crystallinity of a single-domain MNBA heteroepitaxial layer. The transmission loss of the MNBA-MNBA-Et slab waveguide is reduced to less than 3 dB/cm by the insertion of the MNBA-Et homoepitaxial layer.     

Morphogenesis and bioluminescence in germination of red bean

Spontaneous bioluminescence and morphogenesis were investigated for the germination and the growth processes of a red bean seed under suppression of photosynthesis. Three types of shape in seed growth were observed in well controlled conditions: (1) no root hair and leaves, (2) with root hairs and leaves and (3) no root growth. In this article, growth dynamics for the first case was investigated. The average growth dynamics of the root length of a red bean after germination and its variance were well described by a simple logistic equation with a noise term. It was observed that the scaling property for the growth dynamics has held. Strong luminescence was observed at two inflection points of the logistic curve of the root growth. By the use of a two dimensional photon counting method, it was clarified that the strong emission was mainly radiated from the cell division zone near a root cap and rather less emission from an elongation area.     

Orthogonalized-plane-wave approximation in the calculation of photoionization cross sections of molecules

The physical bases of the OPW approximation in the calculation of molecular photoionization cross sections are considered in terms of the scattering theory, and the ways of improving the calculation within the framework of OPW approximation are discussed.Numerical calculations are done on several molecules by the ordinary OPW method and by its modifications using the bound orbitals obtained by ab initio SCFMO calculations with gaussian basis set.