Middle Pleistocene terrace evolution in the drainage of the Natori River Northeast Japan

Reconstruction of evolution of the Middle Pleistocene fluvial terraces in the drainage of the Natori River in Northeast Japan is important to understand how climate, sea-level changes, and crustal movements have controlled geomorphic development, particularly tectonic separation between the Tohoku Backbone Range and the basins located at the foot of the range. The purpose of this study is to clarify the chronological framework of the geomorphic development of these terraces. To reconstruct geomorphic evolution within a chronological framework, marker tephras; Adachi-Medeshima (Ac-Md), Tsubonuma Air-fall Pumice 4-2 (TbP4-2: MIS 7.4–5.2), Tsubonuma Air-fall Lithic Fragment (Tblf:MIS 7.4–5.2), Magarizaka Ash (MgA: MIS 7.4 or MIS 7.2) and the Tsubonuma Air-fall Pumice1 (TbP1: MIS 9), in descending order, were used. This study classified and newly defined the terrace surfaces in the study area into Imo-toge Surface, Moto-isago 1 and 2 surfaces, Aobayama 1 to 4 surfaces, Dainohara Surface and lower surfaces from older to younger. Imo-toge and Moto-isago 1 surfaces would have been formed as fluvial fans before MIS 9 based on stratigraphic relationship with the TbP1. Based on the deformation of the Moto-isago 1 Surface, tectonic separation of the Kawasaki Basin from the Tohoku Backbone Range finished afterMIS 10. Aobayama 1 to 4 and Dainohara surfaces would have evolved in the period from MIS 7.5 to MIS 5.2 reflecting climate or eustatic sea-level changes

Malignant Amelanotic Melanoma of the Pleura without Primary Skin Lesion:An Autopsy Case Report

Melanoma metastasizing to the lungs is common, but primary pulmonary or pleural melanoma is extremely rare. We present an autopsy case of malignant melanoma of the pleura without primary skin lesion in a 49-year-old man. A mass found in the right chest was diagnosed as spindle cell sarcoma by antemortem fine-needle aspiration cytology. At autopsy, a yellow-white tumor located primarily in the right visceral pleura (diagnosed as an amelanotic melanoma) was found to have invaded into the right lung, right parietal pleura, and right diaphragm, and to have metastasized into the left lung and visceral pleura, thyroid, and left adrenal gland. No primary site was found. The tumor cells were positive for S100 and focally positive for HMB-45, but negative for other markers. Immuno-histochemical examination for S100 and HMB-45 would thus appear to be useful for the diagnosis of an amelanotic melanoma.</p

Highly sensitive chiral analysis in capillary electrophoresis with large-volume sample stacking with an electroosmotic flow pump.

To improve the sensitivity in chiral analysis by capillary electrophoresis without loss of optical resolution, application of large-volume sample stacking with an electroosmotic flow pump (LVSEP) was investigated. Effects of the addition of cyclodextrin (CD) into a running solution on the LVSEP preconcentration was theoretically studied, where the preconcentration efficiency and effective separation length would be slightly increased if the effective electrophoretic velocity (v(ep, eff, BGS)) of the analytes was decreased by interacting with CD. In LVSEP-CD-modified capillary zone electrophoresis (CDCZE) and LVSEP-CD electrokinetic chromatography with reduced v(ep, eff, BGS), up to 1000-fold sensitivity increases were achieved with almost no loss of resolution. In LVSEP-CD-modified micellar electrokinetic chromatography of amino acids with increased v(ep, eff, BGS), a 1300-fold sensitivity increase was achieved without much loss of resolution, indicating the versatile applicability of LVSEP to many separation modes. An enantio-excess (EE) assay was also carried out in LVSEP-CDCZE, resulting in successful analyses of up to 99.6% EE. Finally, we analyzed ibuprofen in urine by desalting with a C(18) solid-phase extraction column. As a typical result, 250ppb ibuprofen was well concentrated and optically resolved with 84.0-86.6% recovery in LVSEP-CDCZE, indicating the applicability of LVSEP to real samples containing a large amount of unnecessary background salts

Hydrophobic silica aerogel production at KEK

We present herein a characterization of a standard method used at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) to produce hydrophobic silica aerogels and expand this method to obtain a wide range of refractive index (n = 1.006-1.14). We describe in detail the entire production process and explain the methods used to measure the characteristic parameters of aerogels, namely the refractive index, transmittance, and density. We use a small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) technique to relate the transparency to the fine structure of aerogels.Comment: To be published in Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A, 9 pages, 10 figures, 1 tabl

Coevolution of the galactic cores and spiral galaxies

Using high-resolution N-body/SPH simulations with $2\times 10^6$ particles, we investigate the evolution of stellar and gaseous galactic cores during the hierarchical formation of a spiral galaxy. We find that the galactic core ($r < 300$ pc) coevolves with the host galaxy. The average mass ratio between the baryonic core and the halo is nearly constant, $\sim$ 0.04 from $z \sim 10$ to $z \sim 2$. However, there are several `rapid-growing phases' during the evolution, in which the rate of mass accretion to the central sub-kpc region is ten times higher ($\sim 1 M_\odot$ yr pc$^{-1}$) than the average accretion rate. The rapid growth of the inner core is associated with the major merger events with a time-delay. We also find that the spin-axis of the gas core frequently changes. As a result, the angular momentum vector of the central part of the galaxy is independent of the rotation of the outer part. Our results suggest that if a constant fraction of the baryonic mass in the central several 100 pc of a galaxy is converted into a massive black hole, the black hole mass should correlate with the total mass of the galaxies.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Accepted for publication in ApJ