On the use of nickel foil strain gages at varying temperatures

When a strain gage made of nickel foil attached on the surface of a specimen is subjected to repeated loads, the elastic stress is measured by observing slip-bands in the foil resulting from repeated strain. Calibration studies with rotating-bending tests at various temperatures between room temperature and 350°C are performed on round steel bars with nickel foil. The relation between the threshold stress for the first appearance of slip-bands and the number of stress cycles is examined at varying temperatures, which provides the calibration values of the nickel foil tested at varying temperatures. Assuming that the first appearance of slip-bands is based on the linear cumulative damage law, the calibration values at varying temperatures are calculated from those established by the calibration tests at several constant temperatures. It is found that the calculated calibration values agree well with the results obtained by the calibration tests at varying temperatures and that the calculation applying the linear cumulative damage law is a useful method to presume the calibration values at varying temperatures without performing the experiment.     

Sequential determination of trace amounts of iron and copper in water samples by flow injection analysis with catalytic spectrophotometric detection.

A simple flow injection analysis (FIA) method is described for the sequential determination of iron and copper. The detection method for iron and copper is based on their catalytic activities in the oxidation reaction of N,N-dimethyl-p-phenylenediamine (DPD) with hydrogen peroxide. The sequential determination of iron and copper can be carried out by injecting two sample plugs into the FIA system, sequentially. One injection does not contain triethylenetetramine (TETA), and is used for the sum of iron and copper concentration; the other which contains TETA is used only for the iron concentration. For iron determination, TETA is used as a masking agent of copper. The difference in peak height can be used for the calculation of copper concentration. Under the optimal conditions, the detection limits (3sigma) of 0.01 and 0.07 microg L(-1) were obtained for iron and copper, respectively. The proposed method can be applied to the determination of iron and copper in tap water and bottled-drinking mineral water samples. Good recoveries of the method, 98-103% for iron and 98-106% for copper, were achieved.     

ON DEFINABILITY OF NORMAL SUBGROUPS OF A SUPERSTABLE GROUP

In this note we treat maximal and minimal normal subgroups of a superstable group and prove that these groups are definable under certain conditions. Main tool is a superstable version of Zil'ber's indecomposability theorem. MSC: 03C60.     

On the semicontinuity problem of fibers and global F-regularity

In this article, we discuss the semicontinuity problem of certain properties on fibers for a morphism of schemes. One aspect of this problem is local. Namely, we consider properties of schemes at the level of local rings, in which the main results are established by solving the lifting and localization problems for local rings. In particular, we obtain the localization theorems in the case of seminormal and F-rational rings, respectively. Another aspect of this problem is global, which is often related to the vanishing problem of certain higher direct image sheaves. As a test example, we consider the deformation of the global F-regularity.     

Target-selective one-way membrane fusion system based on a pH-responsive coiled coil assembly at the interface of liposomal vesicles

The coiled coil trimer structure is a common motif observed in membrane fusion processes of specific fusion proteins such as the hemagglutinin glycoprotein. The HA2 subunit in the hemagglutinin changes its conformation or geometry to be favorable to membrane fusion in response to endosomal weakly acidic pH. This pH responsiveness is indispensable to an artificial polypeptide-triggered delivery system as well as the membrane fusion reaction in biology. In this study, we have constructed an AAB-type coiled coil heteroassembled system that is sensitive to weakly acidic pH. The heterotrimer is formed from two kinds of polypeptides containing an Ala or a Trp residue at a hydrophobic a position, and it was observed that the Glu residue at the other a position induced an acidic pH-dependent conformational change. On the basis of this pH-responsive coiled coil heteroassembled system, a boronic acid coupled working polypeptide for the combination of an intervesicular complex with a sugarlike compound on the surface of the target liposome, and a supporting polypeptide for the construction of a pH-responsive heterotrimer with the working polypeptide were designed and synthesized. The process of membrane fusion was characterized by lipid-mixing, inner-leaflet lipid-mixing, and content-mixing assays. The target selective vesicle fusion is clearly observed at a weakly acidic pH, where the working polypeptides form a heterotrimeric coiled coil with the supporting polypeptides in a 1:2 binding stoichiometry and the surfaces between pilot and target vesicles come into close proximity to each other.     

Extended nanospace chemical systems on a chip for new analytical technology

Integration of chemical processes on a microchemical chip has gained much attention in the past decade, and the basic concepts of micro-integration and the supporting technologies have been intensively developed. As a result, many analytical and chemical synthesis applications were demonstrated. The superior performances were verified including shortening analysis time, decrease of sample and reagent volume, and easy chemical operations. Now, the micro-technologies are moving toward practical applications by establishing the systems in which the microchemical chip works as chemical central processing unit. Recently, as a new research field, integration is further proceeding to the 10(1)-10(3) nm scale, which we call extended nanospace. The extended nanospace locates the gap between the targets of conventional nanotechnology (10(0)-10(1) nm) and micro-technology (>1 μm), and the fluidics and chemistry have not been explored well due to a lack of fundamental technologies. For these purposes, many methodologies were established in recent years. Unique liquid properties were reported, which were quite different from those in microspace. Some properties can be expected by considering the characteristics of microspace and the downscaling, and the others are unexpected or are difficult to predict. These properties enabled new chemical operations which will be quite important as the next analytical technologies. Now, chemistry and fluidics in the extended nanospace are forming a new research field. In this review, we survey the fundamental technologies for extended nanospace researches and introduce several unique liquid properties. Finally, unique chemical operations are also illustrated leading to new analytical operations.     

Molecular probe for a fluorous medium: long-lived phosphorescence of alpha-diketones in perfluoromethylcyclohexane at room temperature.

We found that alpha-diketones (2,3-butanedione (BD) and 1-phenyl-1,2-propanedione (PPD)) were very suitable luminescence probes for studying the properties of a perfluorinated solvent (i.e., fluorous solvent; perfluoromethylcyclohexane (PFMC)), since these compounds were soluble in PFMC and showed long-lived phosphorescence even at room temperature. The phosphorescence lifetime (tau(p)) of BD in PFMC (650 micros) was much longer than that in cyclohexane (CH, 270 micros). The longer tau(p) value of BD in PFMC was ascribed to the variation of the intersystem crossing rate constant (k(isc)) from the excited triplet state (T1) to the ground state (S0) with the solvent. Some possible reasons for the change in k(isc) were discussed in terms of solute-solvent interactions. Furthermore, by utilizing phosphorescence quenching of BD by pyrene, we, determined a rate constant of the diffusion-controlled reaction in PFMC. Characteristic behaviors of mixing/separation processes between PFMC and a common organic solvent observed by Schlieren photographs were also reported.     

Observation of micropores in hard-carbon using Xe NMR porosimetry

The existence of micropores and the change of surface structure in pitch-based hard-carbon in xenon atmosphere were demonstrated using ¹²⁹Xe NMR. For high-pressure (4.0 MPa) ¹²⁹Xe NMR measurements, the hard-carbon samples in Xe gas showed three peaks at 27, 34 and 210 ppm. The last was attributed to the xenon in micropores (<1 nm) in hard-carbon particles. The NMR spectrum of a sample evacuated at 773 K and exposed to 0.1 MPa Xe gas at 773 K for 24 h showed two peaks at 29 and 128 ppm, which were attributed, respectively, to the xenon atoms adsorbed in the large pores (probably mesopores) and micropores of hard-carbon. With increasing annealing time in Xe gas at 773 K, both peaks shifted and merged into one peak at 50 ppm. The diffusion of adsorbed xenon atoms is very slow, probably because the transfer of molecules or atoms among micropores in hard-carbon does not occur readily. Many micropores are isolated from the outer surface. For that reason, xenon atoms are thought to be adsorbed only by micropores near the surface, which are easily accessible from the surrounding space.