A Study on the Assessment of Management Frameworks for Waste Electronic Home Appliances

Serious adverse impacts on the environment and human health from the recycling and disposal of electronic waste have occurred in the past and continue to occur in China today, due to the lack of a national management strategy. With aiming to support the management strategy development, a study was carried out to plan and quantitatively evaluate the optional management frameworks for the selected five main types of large electronic home appliances in Beijing, the capital city and a typically big municipality in China. This paper outlined the main findings yielded from the series of assessment studies which started from the generation amount prediction and material flow analysis of the used electronic appliances, planning and optimization of the collection & transportation frameworks and ended at the economic evaluation of the optional recycling processes for the waste appliances. Although the revenue could be expected from the result of isolated evaluation of the recycling processes, the entire system will be economically unavailable if the used appliances are still collected from the owners at current prices. The traditional understanding of householders on the values of their used appliances should be changed in Beijing and China as a whole. Establishment of a formal collection system that could take back the used appliances at lower prices (less than 40% of the current level) is the key for the construction of a formal management framework with sustainability

The SUPERMAN protein is an active repressor whose carboxy-terminal repression domain is required for the development of normal flowers

AbstractSUPERMAN was identified as a putative regulator of transcription that acts in floral development, but its function remains to be clarified. We demonstrate here that SUPERMAN is an active repressor whose repression domain is located in the carboxy-terminal region. Ectopic expression of SUPERMAN that lacked the repression domain resulted in a phenotype similar to that of superman mutants, demonstrating that the repression activity of SUPERMAN is essential for the development of normal flowers. Constitutive expression of SUPERMAN resulted in a severe dwarfism but did not affect cell size, indicating that SUPERMAN might regulate genes that are involved in cell division

Application of Imaging Technology to Humans

Recent development of imaging technology has been remarkable and has given great impact to life science research. Moreover, attempts to apply this novel technique to humans and practice it in clinical medicine have also started. Especially, some articles report the utility of imaging living tissues that do not require any labeling in recent years. This “non-labeling imaging” technique has a great potential in human application and clinical medicine practice. In this review, we describe the application of imaging technology to humans, mainly focusing on the diagnosis of cancer by non-labeling imaging with multiphoton excitation microscopy.The version of record of this article, first published in Make Life Visible, is available online at Publisher’s website: https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7908-6_2

Visualizing the Periods of Stock Prices Using Non-Harmonic Analysis of the NASDAQ Composite Index Since 1985

Abstract: The prediction of stock prices is studied extensively, because of the demand from private investors and financial institutions. However, long-term prediction is difficult due to the large number of factors that affect the real market. Previous research has focused on the fluctuation patterns and fluctuation periodicity of stock prices. We have likewise focused on the periodicity of stock prices. We have used a new high-resolution frequency analysis (non-harmonic analysis) method can solve the previous problem of the frequency resolution being low. As a consequence, we have succeeded in visualizing the various periodicities of stock prices. The periodicity fluctuates gently in many periods, but we have confirmed that it fluctuated violently in periods when a sudden event occurred. We expect that this experimental result in combination with previous research will help increase predictive accuracy and will aid long-term prediction

Novel Refrigeration Cycle with Continuous Cooling Turbo Compressor and Condensing Ejector Using Water as Refrigerant

Turbo chiller using water as a refrigerant was developed. A refrigeration cycle using water (R718) as a refrigerant has a high theoretical efficiency, but the cycle pressure ratio is high, and the compressor discharge temperature is elevated. Although the conversion of the compressor to a multistage compressor and the addition of an intercooler between each stage are known to lower the discharge temperature and improve performance, the resulting increased size is problematic. To resolve this issue, this study develops a refrigeration cycle that lowers discharge temperature during the compression process without enlarging the device. Using a continuous cooling compressor that compresses refrigerant vapor while continuously cooling it in process and a condensing ejector that condenses the vapor while compressing it, we experimentally verify the performance of each element. Based on the results, we verify the basic principles of a continuous cooling compressor for continuously cooling compressed vapor with refrigerant droplets sprayed by nozzles installed on the impeller. In addition, the condensing ejector uses a high-speed fine refrigerant droplets to transfer momentum to the refrigerant vapor. And thus raises its pressure within a two-phase state and simultaneously condensing refrigerant vapor

Complete maturation of the plastid protein translocation channel requires a type I signal peptidase

The protein translocation channel at the plastid outer envelope membrane, Toc75, is essential for the viability of plants from the embryonic stage. It is encoded in the nucleus and is synthesized with a bipartite transit peptide that is cleaved during maturation. Despite its important function, the molecular mechanism and the biological significance of the full maturation of Toc75 remain unclear. In this study, we show that a type I signal peptidase (SPase I) is responsible for this process. First, we demonstrate that a bacterial SPase I converted Toc75 precursor to its mature form in vitro. Next, we show that disruption of a gene encoding plastidic SPase I (Plsp1) resulted in the accumulation of immature forms of Toc75, severe reduction of plastid internal membrane development, and a seedling lethal phenotype. These phenotypes were rescued by the overexpression of Plsp1 complementary DNA. Plsp1 appeared to be targeted both to the envelope and to the thylakoidal membranes; thus, it may have multiple functions

非心臓手術における、術前の蛋白尿と術後急性腎障害の関連: 奈良AKIコホート研究

Background: Little is known about the association between pre-operative proteinuria and post-operative acute kidney injury (AKI) in noncardiac surgery. Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study. Adults who underwent noncardiac surgery under general anesthesia from 2007 to 2011 at Nara Medical University Hospital were included. Those with obstetric or urological surgery, missing data for analyses or pre-operative dialysis were excluded. Exposure of interest was pre-operative proteinuria, defined as (+) or more by dipstick test. The outcome variable was post-operative AKI, defined by Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes criteria, within 1 week after surgery. Multivariable logistic regression analyses were performed. Results: Among 5168 subjects, 309 (6.0%) developed AKI. Pre-operative proteinuria was independently associated with post-operative AKI, with an odds ratio (OR) [95% confidence interval (CI)] of 1.80 (1.30-2.51). A sensitivity analysis restricted to elective surgery yielded a similar result. As proteinuria increased, the association with AKI became stronger [OR (95% CI) 1.14 (0.75-1.73), 1.24 (0.79-1.95), 2.75 (1.74-4.35) and 3.95 (1.62-9.62) for urinary protein (+/-), (+), (2+) and (3+), respectively]. Subgroup analyses showed proteinuria was especially associated with post-operative AKI among subjects with renin-angiotensin system inhibitors, other anti-hypertensives, hypoalbuminemia or impaired renal function (P for interaction = 0.05, 0.003, 0.09 or 0.02, respectively). Conclusions: In noncardiac surgery, pre-operative proteinuria was independently associated with post-operative AKI. Subjects with proteinuria should be managed with caution to avoid AKI peri-operatively.博士（医学）・甲第777号・令和3年3月15日© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of ERA-EDTA. All rights reserved.This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in Nephrology dialysis transplantation following peer review. The version of record Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, Volume 35, Issue 12, December 2020, Pages 2111–2116, is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/ndt/gfz269