In Arabidopsis thaliana, the circadian clock regulates the photoperiodic plant growth including the elongation of hypocotyls in a short-days (SDs)-specific manner. The clock-controlled ...PHYTOCHROME-INTERACTING FACTOR 4 (PIF4) gene encoding a basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factor plays crucial roles in this regulation. The SDs-specific elongation of hypocotyls is best explained by accumulation of the active PIF4 proteins at the end of night specifically in SDs due to coincidence between internal (circadian clock) and external (photoperiod) cues. However, this external coincidence model was challenged with the recent finding that the elongation of hypocotyls is markedly promoted at high growth temperature (28˚C) even in long-days (LDs), implying that the model to explain the photoperiodic response of plant architecture appears to be conditional on ambient temperature. With regard to this problem, the results of this and previous studies showed that the model holds under a wide range of ambient temperature conditions (16˚C to 28˚C). We propose that the circadian clock and PIF4-mediated external coincidence mechanism coordinately integrates both of the cues from seasonal changes in photoperiod and temperature to regulate plant growth in natural habitats.
A number of wireless systems have recently adopted an adaptive modulation scheme to improve frequency efficiency. Unlike mobile systems, FWA (fixed wireless access) systems including IEEE 802.16 ...systems used for MAN (metropolitan area network) are allowed to use quasi-millimeter and millimeter bands, but those are vulnerable to rain attenuation. Adaptive modulation scheme is effective in those systems to improve the availability of wireless links. A 26 GHz-band broadband FWA system with a five-level (1024 QAM to BPSK) adaptive modulation scheme was proposed and developed by the authors for field experiments. This paper introduces field experimental results concerning switching thresholds for adaptive modulation controls using the developed FWA system. The numerical results reveal that conventional ideas, in which identical switching thresholds in terms of BER (bit error rate) apply to all modulation methods and switching thresholds maximizing Layer-2 throughput, can neither obtain the maximum TCP (transmission control protocol) throughput nor satisfy the upper limit of the UDP (user datagram protocol) packet loss rate
Summary. We report here a case of a 21-year-old Japanese woman suffering from severe acute liver injury due to hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in the third trimester of her first pregnancy. When a ...second-generation antibody reactivity to HCV had not yet appeared, HCV RNA was detected in her serum using a polymerase chain reaction. Subsequent natural interferon-alpha therapy played a key role in the recovery from severe hepatic injury, and the disappearance of HCV RNA in her serum. Consequently, HCV RNA has not been detected for over 17 months after the cessation of interferon administration. On the other hand HCV RNA was not detected in her cord or the baby serum. Therefore, maternal transmission of HCV was not evidenced. This is a rare case in which a severe form of acute hepatitis C was successfully treated with natural interferon-alpha, and no indication of a maternal transmission of HCV in acute hepatitis C could be demonstrated with polymerase chain reaction analysis. INTRODUCTION Hepatitis C virus (HCV), a main causative agent for chronic hepatitis, is responsible for a high incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma in the world. 1, 2)
Shrinkage of Pipe due to Annular Limited Heating Araki, Toshiaki; Yamada, Takeshi; Matsumura, Hiroyuki ...
QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF THE JAPAN WELDING SOCIETY,
1993/08/05, Letnik:
11, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Odprti dostop
Thermal plastic process for reducing a diameter of metal pipe by heating an annular limited section of the pipe while cooling adjacent sections has been developed. This report is concerned with the ...method of the process, its principle and the effect of parameters for shrinkage of pipe. The principle of shrinkage of pipe is explained that the limited section of pipe heated by an annular induction coil tends to radially expand outwardly. However, due to the self-restriction against thermal expansion and reducing the yielding strength because of high temperature condition, the heated section's diameter is not increased so much as that of free expansion. As a result, a diameter of thermal plastic processed part is reduced in comparison with initial one after cooling. As for the parameters, maximum temperature, coil length, diameter, wall-thickness and number of repetition are given. Effects of parameters for shrinkage of pipe are as follows. As maximum temperature becomes higher and coil length becomes shorter, the shrinkage of pipe is increased. And as diameter and wall-thickness of the pipe become bigger respectively, the shrinkage is increased slightly. Furthermore, if this process is repeated for the same pipe, the shrinkage is increased.
A new practical method for the rapid microdetermination of hydroxyproline (Hyp) in biomedical samples, such as tissue and urine, in the presence of a definite amount of cysteine as antioxidant was ...established by means of the modified KISO method using flow injection analysis. This method uses no organic solvent and requires only 9min for each sample, which can be injected every 3min (about 5h is sufficient for 100 samples). A good linear relationship (r=0.99996) was obtained between the concentration of Hyp (0-80μg/ml) and the absorbance (0-0.514). In biomedical samples (hydrolyzates of rat stomach tissue), the recoveries (94.8-103.7%) and the reproducibility (the mean of RSD; 0.484% for ten kinds of rat tissues) were satisfactory. The correlation between values from this method and from the conventional KISO method was shown to be good enough (r=0.966) for hydrolyzate samples (n=95), when a proper amount of cysteine solution was added to both the sample and standard solutions and the concentration of the oxidant was optimized to Hyp contents.
A 43-year-old woman underwent aortic valve replacement for aortic regurgitation causing aortitis syndrome. The postoperative course had been uneventful and inflammation was controlled by steroid ...therapy. She developed a moderate degree of dyspnea with cardiomegaly. Two years after the first aorta valve replacement (AVR), severe aortic regurgitation was observed on both echocardiography and aortography. Dehiscence of the prosthetic valve was suspected and an emergency operation was performed. To secure the reimplanted prosthetic valve, we applied the technique of passing felt-pledgeted sutures through the aortic wall in the vicinity to the right coronary cusp and the noncoronary cusp and others through the left coronary cusp with everting mattress sutures. The postoperative course of the second AVR has been uneventful for two months. Since prosthetic valve detachment can occur even if inflammation of aortitis is well controlled, strict management of inflammation is recommended for a prolonged period to prevent reccurence of aortitis and subsequent valve dehiscence.
This report summarizes the study on numerical analysis of thermal elastic-plastic deformations of steel pipes due to annular local heating process. This process in which while the local area is ...heated annularly the adjacent sections are cooled can be applied to reduce the diameter of steel pipes. The results of this study are as follows ; (1) While the circumferential plastic strains generated during heating period are compressive, they are tensile during cooling. (2) When the compressive plastic strains remain after cooling, the pipe shrinks. The remaining tensile plastic strains cause the pipe to expand. (3) The variation of the longitudinal temperature distribution controls whether the pipe shrinks or expands. (4) Since the effect of the parameters on deformation of pipe, namely the distribution of temperature, the cross section shape of pipe and the number of themal cycles, can be determined by performing thermal elastic-plastic numerical analysis one can control the deformation of the pipe caused by a forementioned process. (5) The numerical predictions show good agreement with experimental results. Moreover, it is found that the value of pipe shrinkage can be represented by the parameter αTmax/βLc.
Broadband fixed wireless access (BFWA) systems with multi-hop mesh topologies have attracted considerable attention as a promising technology for next generation, high quality, high capacity, and ...high density access infrastructures. The primary advantages of mesh network topologies are an improvement of availability in connectivity between pairs of nodes by means of diversity routes. The paper discusses a wireless node architecture that enables the integrated control of route diversity and traffic engineering together with the control of wireless links whose quality and performance could be affected by radio propagation conditions. Taking into account the functional requirements for multi-hop mesh BFWA networks, such as adaptive link configuration with multiple channels, distributed network management, and traffic engineering in mesh networks, the entity called network control unit (NCU) is designed and developed on a common UNIX based server computer. Implemented functions and their performance are demonstrated using experimental environments with wired networks.
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