pH-Sensitive Oscillatory Motion of a Urease Motor on the Urea Aqueous Phase

A self-propelled object coupled with an enzyme reaction between urease and urea was investigated at the air/aqueous interface. A plastic object that was fixed to a urease-immobilized filter paper was used as a self-propelled object, termed a urease motor, placed on an aqueous urea solution. The driving force of the urease motor is the difference in the surface tension around the object. Oscillatory motion or no motion was triggered depending on the initial pH of the urea solution. Both the frequency and maximum speed of the oscillatory motion varied depending on the initial pH of the water phase. The mechanisms underlying the oscillatory motion and no motion were discussed in relation to the bell-shaped enzyme activity of urease in the enzyme reaction and the surface tension around the urease motor.     

When does the subadditivity theorem for multiplier ideals hold?

Demailly, Ein and Lazarsfeld proved the subadditivity theorem for multiplier ideals on nonsingular varieties, which states the multiplier ideal of the product of ideals is contained in the product of the individual multiplier ideals. We prove that, in the two-dimensional case, the subadditivity theorem holds on log terminal singularities. However, in the higher dimensional case, we have several counterexamples. We consider the subadditivity theorem for monomial ideals on toric rings and construct a counterexample on a three-dimensional toric ring.

     

Small and high-density GeSiC dots stacked on buried Ge hut-clusters in Si

Self-assembled GeSiC dots stacked on a Ge hut-cluster layer buried in Si have been investigated. The critical thickness for formation of GeSiC dots is reduced owing to the strain fields from the buried hut-clusters. By utilizing the stacked structure, the dot size is decreased and the uniformity is improved. The highest density of the GeSiC dots with stacked structures is 7.4×10¹⁰ cm⁻², which is six times larger than that of single GeSiC dots. The formation of the self-assembled GeSiC dots is strongly influenced by being stacked with buried Ge dots as well as C incorporation.     

Compact directed acyclic word graphs for a sliding window

Suffix trees are a well-known and widely-studied data structure highly useful for string matching. The suffix tree of a string w can be constructed in O(n) time and space, where n denotes the length of w. Larsson achieved an efficient algorithm to maintain suffix trees for a sliding window. It contributes to prediction by partial matching (PPM) style statistical data compression scheme. Compact directed acyclic word graphs (CDAWGs) are a more space-economical data structure for indexing strings. In this paper we propose a linear-time algorithm to maintain CDAWGs for a sliding window.     

Quasi-monocyclic near-infrared pulses with a stabilized carrier-envelope phase characterized by noncollinear cross-correlation frequency-resolved optical gating.

Precise characterization of noncollinear optical parametric amplifier idler pulses that have bandwidths of more than an octave with a center wavelength at 990 nm was demonstrated. The method employed was cross-correlation frequency-resolved optical gating with broadband sum-frequency mixing to take advantage of the idler's angular dispersion. Compression to near the transform limit was achieved to produce quasi-monocyclic near-infrared pulses by use of a deformable membrane mirror.     

Structural and electrical properties of crystalline (1−x)Ta2O5−xTiO2 thin films fabricated by metalorganic decomposition

Polycrystalline (1−x)Ta₂O₅−xTiO₂ thin films were formed on Si by metalorganic decomposition (MOD) and annealed at various temperatures. As-deposited films were in the amorphous state and were completely transformed to crystalline after annealing above 600 °C. During crystallization, a thin interfacial SiO₂ layer was formed at the (1−x)Ta₂O₅−xTiO₂/Si interface. Thin films with 0.92Ta₂O₅–0.08TiO₂ composition exhibited superior insulating properties. The measured dielectric constant and dissipation factor at 1 MHz were 9 and 0.015, respectively, for films annealed at 900 °C. The interface trap density was 2.5×10¹¹ cm⁻² eV⁻¹, and flatband voltage was −0.38 V. A charge storage density of 22.8 fC/μm² was obtained at an applied electric field of 3 MV/cm. The leakage current density was lower than 4×10⁻⁹ A/cm² up to an applied electric field of 6 MV/cm.     

Chemically modified proton‐conducting membranes based on sulfonated polyimides: Improved water stability and fuel‐cell performance

A series of branched/crosslinked sulfonated polyimide (B/C‐SPI) membranes were prepared and evaluated as proton‐conducting ionomers based on the new concept of in situ crosslinking from sulfonated polyimide (SPI) oligomers and triamine monomers. Chemical branching and crosslinking in SPI oligomers with 1,3,5‐tris(4‐aminophenoxy)benzene as a crosslinker gave the polymer membranes very good water stability and mechanical properties under an accelerated aging treatment in water at 130 °C, despite their high ion‐exchange capacity (2.2–2.6 mequiv g^?1). The resulting polymer electrolytes displayed high proton conductivities of 0.2–0.3 S cm^?1 at 120 °C in water and reasonably high conductivities of 0.02–0.03 S cm^?1 at 50% relative humidity. In a single H₂/O₂ fuel‐cell system at 90 °C, they exhibited high fuel‐cell performances comparable to those of Nafion 112. The B/C‐SPI membranes also displayed good performances in a direct methanol fuel cell with methanol concentrations as high as 50 wt % that were superior to those of Nafion 112. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 44: 3751–3762, 2006     

Self-aligned imaging system using phase conjugate readout from elementary holographic grating

We propose a self-aligned imaging system (SAIS) using phase conjugate readout from an elementary holographic grating. The SAIS provides a huge amount of interconnections between a lot of points on two corresponding imaging planes without troublesome mechanical alignment. In the SAIS, a hologram for one-to-one interconnection is used for many-to-many interconnections. In addition, the SAIS has the capability of correcting aberration. Preliminary experiments verify the principle and the capability of the SAIS.     

Host-guest complexation effect of 2,3,6-tri-O-methyl-β-cyclodextrin on a C60-porphyrin light-to-photocurrent conversion system

In a light-to-photocurrent conversion system based on a C₆₀-porphyrin bilayer prepared by electrostatic alternate adsorption, porphyrin units in a porphyrin polymer have been isolated by cyclodextrin utilizing the host-guest interaction. In this system, a high quantum yield was achieved by suppression of self-quenching of porphyrin units.     

Phase separation in the formation of hollow particles by suspension polymerization for divinylbenzene/toluene droplets dissolving polystyrene

Phase-separation behavior within polymerizing divinylbenzene/toluene droplet dissolving polystyrenes (PS) was investigated to clarify the formation mechanism of the hollow polymer particles by suspension polymerization. No hollow particles were obtained at a low content of low-molecular-weight PS where phase separation occurred at high conversion. On the other hand, hollow particles were obtained at a high content of high-molecular-weight PS where phase separation occurred at low conversion. The phase separation in an early stage of the polymerization, which was promoted by the presence of PS and cross-links of polydivinylbenzene, was a key factor for the formation of the hollow structure.