Unprecedented acceleration of zirconium(IV)-assisted peptide hydrolysis at neutral pH

4,13-Diaza-18-crown-6 substantially increases the rate of zirconium(IV) hydrolysis of unactivated peptide amide bonds under near-physiological conditions of temperature and pH. In the presence of this azacrown ether, ZrCl(4) efficiently hydrolyses both neutral and negatively charged peptides (pH 7.0-7.3, 37-60 degrees C).     

Rheological analysis and quantitative evaluation of wet kneaded wax matrix

The properties of the wet kneaded wax matrix were evaluated using a compression tester, whereby a newly proposed sigma index for the plastic deformation was assessed in the pressure transmission diagram. The sigma index was indicative of a characteristic of the plastic yield point in the rheological behavior, and presented an initial and abrupt deformation of wet kneaded mass when the wet kneaded mass was subjected to the pressure. The value of sigma index was confirmed to decrease along with an increase in the plasticity of wet kneaded mass. The wet mass of wax matrix was prepared under various kneading time, and then extruded. The properties of the extruded granules such as pore volume, strength and dissolution were investigated. As a result, it was found that the sigma index decreased with an increase in kneading time. The granules with small value of sigma index showed few porosities, large strength and slow dissolution. It was demonstrated that the sigma index linked the characteristics of wet kneaded mass to the dissolution and the other granule properties. Existence of this link was revealed by sigma index evaluation relevant to the plasticity. The sigma index could be a decisive criterion to permit an in-process evaluation of the kneading progress quantitatively, and also useful for anticipating the dissolution of the final granules roughly.     

X-ray laser beam with diffraction-limited divergence generated with two gain media

We demonstrate an x-ray laser at a wavelength of 13.9 nm with a beam divergence of 0.2 mrad, which is 1.8 times the diffraction limit. The x-ray laser is generated with two gain media; the seed x-ray pulse from the first medium is amplified in the second medium. The effect of refraction on x-ray propagation is reduced by spatially and temporally controlling the injection of the seed x-ray to the second medium.     

MRI-negative rotator cuff tears

We report two cases of rotator cuff tear in which the T(2)-weighted MRI signal was negative at the first examination, but positive by the second examination without any changes in symptoms. Many authors have reported on correlations between the MRI and operative findings of rotator cuff tears. However, MRI findings, history of symptoms and operative findings in our patients suggest that there was a discrepancy between symptoms and MRI findings dependent on the period from the injury. Operative findings also indicate that intratendinous tears might have occurred first in these patients then progressed to partial or full thickness tears over time. We concluded that physicians should keep rotator cuff pathology in mind even in patients whose MRI findings are negative but symptoms of rotator cuff tear persist.     

Velocity measurement of clay intrusion through a sudden contraction step using a tagging pulse sequence

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with a spatial tagging sequence was used to measure the velocity distribution of clay that was forced past a sudden contraction. A spatial tagging sequence provided magnetic resonance images of clay that allowed measurement of the velocity distribution in the clay, which can provide profound insights on the deformation process of clay during the intrusion process. The experiments were conducted using a specially-designed vessel that could operate at up to 30 MPa. The vessel offers a rectangle test section with a sudden contraction step that had a ratio of contraction of 2:1. The vessel was installed into a commercial magnetic resonance imaging equipment and then the fluid motion of clay flowing into the narrow contracted channel was quantitatively investigated to examine behaviors of flowing clay as non-Newtonian fluid. MRI results are compared with those obtained by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calculation. Velocity distributions obtained from each tag displacement did not well agree with those predicted by CFD results near the contraction step where the fluid accelerated rapidly. However, a post-processing on calculation results, in which virtual tag displacement is calculated, gave better agreement with experiment and enabled us to compare MRI results with CFD results.     

Fabrication and characteristics of thin-film optical switches using fluorinated silicon oxide deposited by a liquid-phase technique

Optical switching devices have been studied using thin-film optical waveguides with fluorinated silicon oxide (SiOF) films deposited by a liquid-phase deposition (LPD) technique. This report focuses on the structure of the thermo-optical (TO) switch and its optimization. TO devices with double-and triple-layer structures were fabricated using a material with an organic spin-on-glass (SOG) cladding layer and a liquid-phase deposited (LPD) SiOF core layer. The maximum extinction ratio of 15.97 dB was obtained for the double-layer structure TO devices at the half-wavelength power of 2.78 W, and at the heater area of 0.02 mm². The response time decreased with decrease in the heater area for both double-and triple-layer structures. The response time as short as 6.3 ms was obtained at the heater area of 0.02 mm² for the double-layer structure. For the triple-layer structure, an even shorter response time of 2ms was achieved at the heater area of 0.08 mm², and this was over one order of magnitude smaller than that for the double-layer structure at the same heater area (280 ms).     

在RHIC-PHENIX中(s_(NN))~(1/2)=200GeV Au Au碰撞中直接光子的椭圆流测量(英文)

Azimuthal anisotropy of direct photon is measured in S_(NN)~(1/2)=200GeV Au Au collisions at RHIC- PHENIX.Direct photon is one of the most effective probes to study properties of hot dence medium at initial state(also QGP state)of heavy ion collisions because photons almost do not interact strongly with any other particles caused by its long mean free path and they keep their conditions when they axe created.Within statistical and systematic errors,the elliptic flow parameter(v_2)of direct photon is consistent with zero. Direct photon v_2 is estimated by hadron decay photon contamination are subtracted from inclusive photon v_2 in intermediate to high transverse momentum(p_T)region(0 to 10GeV/c)for 3 centrality selections(20% steps)and minimum bias.     

BCS–BEC crossover in one-dimensional integrable model

The crossover from Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer (BCS) superfluid with singlet pairs to Bose–Einstein condensation (BEC) of molecules is studied in one dimension. By use of the nested Bethe ansatz method, the ground state properties of spin-1/2 fermions interacting through attractive δ-function are analyzed explicitly for strong and weak couplings. Based on those results, we confirm a crossover picture, that is, in the BEC regime (strong couplings) the system is described by molecules with weak repulsion while in the BCS regime (weak couplings) it behaves as the weakly attractive fermions.     

Reflectance spectrum of lithium hydride at the Li K-absorption edge

Reflectance spectra of LiH single crystals are measured at the Li⁺K- absorption edge for the first time. The ?₂ spectrum shows a prominent peak at 57.8 eV followed by several structures at the high energy side. We attribute the peak to a transition from the Li⁺ 1s to the n = 1 core exciton state associated with the p-like conduction band.