Material Cost Minimization Problem for Aluminum Alloy Beam using Beam String Structure

Aluminum alloy is a light-weight material with excellent corrosion resistance but low rigidity. When the aluminum alloy is used to a girder bridge, it takes high costs owing to the increment of its stiffness. Therefore in order to reduce a material cost, the cost minimization problem was performed on beam string structure (BSS) made of the aluminum alloy material based on the results of the topology optimization. We focused on the layout of the BSS and diameter of the cable. The conducted simulation made clear the effectivity of the BSS to the aluminum alloy material for a reduction of material cost and increment of the beam span

Pilot VLBI Survey of SiO v=3 J=1--0 Maser Emission around Evolved Stars

In this Letter, we report detections of SiO v=3 J=1--0 maser emission in very long baseline interferometric (VLBI) observations towards 4 out of 12 long-period variable stars: WX Psc, R Leo, W Hya, and T Cep. The detections towards WX Psc and T Cep are new ones. We also present successful astrometric observations of SiO v=2 and v=3 J=1--0 maser emissions associated with two stars: WX Psc and W Hya and their position-reference continuum sources: J010746.0+131205 and J135146.8-291218 with the VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry (VERA). The relative coordinates of the position-reference continuum source and SiO v=3 maser spots were measured with respect to those of an SiO v=2 maser spot adopted as fringe-phase reference. Thus the faint continuum sources were inversely phase-referenced to the bright maser sources. It implies possible registration of multiple SiO maser line maps onto a common coordinate system with 10 microarcsecond-level accuracy.Comment: 5 Pages, 3 figures, Fig.3 and Tab. 2 were corrected; Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan, Vol. 64, No. 6 issued on 2012 December 2

The genotype-dependent phenotypic landscape of quinoa in salt tolerance and key growth traits

スーパー作物キヌアの多様性を解明 --高い環境適応性と優れた栄養特性をもつキヌアの品種改良に期待--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2020-10-15.Cultivation of quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa), an annual pseudocereal crop that originated in the Andes, is spreading globally. Because quinoa is highly nutritious and resistant to multiple abiotic stresses, it is emerging as a valuable crop to provide food and nutrition security worldwide. However, molecular analyses have been hindered by the genetic heterogeneity resulting from partial outcrossing. In this study, we generated 136 inbred quinoa lines as a basis for the molecular identification and characterization of gene functions in quinoa through genotyping and phenotyping. Following genotyping-by-sequencing analysis of the inbred lines, we selected 5, 753 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the quinoa genome. Based on these SNPs, we show that our quinoa inbred lines fall into three genetic sub-populations. Moreover, we measured phenotypes, such as salt tolerance and key growth traits in the inbred quinoa lines and generated a heatmap that provides a succinct overview of the genotype–phenotype relationship between inbred quinoa lines. We also demonstrate that, in contrast to northern highland lines, most lowland and southern highland lines can germinate even under high salinity conditions. These findings provide a basis for the molecular elucidation and genetic improvement of quinoa and improve our understanding of the evolutionary process underlying quinoa domestication

A case of hepatocellular carcinoma with skin injury of the upper abdominal wall after transcatheter arterial chemoembolization: a case report

Introduction Transcatheter arterial chemoembolization has been widely used to treat advanced hepatocellular carcinoma that cannot be treated by local ablation therapies or surgical resection. The effectiveness of transcatheter arterial chemoembolization in prolonging survival has been well established, and approximately one third of newly discovered hepatocellular carcinoma patients were repeatedly treated by transcatheter arterial chemoembolization in Japan. Various kinds of complications have been reported, and many of which are general complications such as hepatic coma, jaundice, fever-up, ascites, and bile duct injury. The hepatic falciform artery is found frequently during postmortem anatomic dissection and the incidence of hepatic falciform artery is reported to be over 60%. Hepatic falciform artery is known to be the responsible artery for supraumbilical skin rash development after arterial chemo infusion therapy; however, skin complications after transcatheter arterial chemoembolization are rare. Case presentation A 70-year-old female with chronic hepatitis C infection was diagnosed as having hepatocellular carcinoma (S4, 20 mm in diameter). Transcatheter arterial chemoembolization was performed via the left hepatic artery, which was a feeding artery of the hepatocellular carcinoma. Two days after that, supraumbilical skin rash with local tenderness and redness appeared. Retrospective analysis revealed that occlusion of the hepatic falciform artery branching from the left hepatic artery with micromaterials caused the skin lesion. Conclusion We should keep in mind that anticancer drugs or embolic materials can flow into the HFA and may cause abdominal wall injury after transcatheter arterial chemoembolization

Time-resolved photoelectron angular distributions from nonadiabatically aligned CO2 molecules with SX-FEL at SACLA

Weperformed time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy of valence orbitals of alignedCO2 molecules using the femtosecond soft x-ray free-electron laser and the synchronized near-infrared laser. By properly ordering the individual single-shot ion images, we successfully obtained the photoelectron angular distributions (PADs) of theCO2 molecules aligned in the laboratory frame (LF). The simulations using the dipole matrix elements due to the time dependent density functional theory calculations well reproduce the experimental PADs by considering the axis distributions of the molecules. The simulations further suggest that, when the degrees of alignment can be increased up to \ue1 cos2 q\uf1 > 0.8, themolecular geometries during photochemical reactions can be extracted fromthe measured LFPADs once the accurate matrix elements are given by the calculations

A Global Forum on Ultramafic Ecosystems: From Ultramafic Ecology to Rehabilitation of Degraded Environments

The 9th International Conference on Serpentine Ecology (ICSE) was held in Tirana and Pogradec (Albania) from June 5 to 9, 2017. More than 100 delegates from 29 countries around the world gathered to present their research on recent advances in: (i) ultramafic soils, (ii) biogeochemistry, (iii) diversity of ultramafic flora, microflora and fauna, (iv) ecophysiology of ultramafic-adapted organisms, (v) interactions between ultramafic organisms and their ecology, (vi) nature rehabilitation of degraded ultramafic environments (resulting from mining activities), and (vii) the production of bio-based metals through agromining technology. Additionally, the ICSE featured the first symposium on ultramafic aquatic ecology and ecotoxicology. Albania has one of the most diverse ultramafic floras in Europe. During the conference delegates visited some of the most emblematic ultramafic sites in Albania as well as the first agromining field trial in Europe. Here, we present the major topics and provide some highlights of the 25 contributions in this Special Issue (Vol. 33 no.3 and 4)

Study and Search for Main Reason of Lung Cancers Based on Cherenkov Radiation in Environmental Radiation

The number of lung-cancer-related death is highest among all cancers in the world, and it is increasing in Japan where population aging in progressing. The main reason for the lung cancer of non-smokers is regarded to be environmental pollution or exposure of the lung to radon in the nature. The risk of lung cancer was estimated to increase by 8 to 13% per every 100 Bq m-3 concentration of radon in the air. We observed beta rays with maximum energy of 3.27 MeV emitted from 214Bi as one of the progenies based on a detection of Cherenkov radiation. The surface radioactivity concentration of 214Bi on the sample was measured; the relation between the concentration and exposure time for the sample at the room air is researched. The behavior of the radon progenies in the air is discussed by a research for the progenies attaching on the sample after the radon decay. The inhalation of the radon progenies is not clear. Thus, to understand the behavior of progenies in the air make to clear the causal relation between the radon concentration and lung cancers