Quadrupole moments in chiral material DyFe3(BO3)4 observed by resonant x-ray diffraction

By means of circularly polarized x-ray beam at Dy L3 and Fe K absorption edges, the chiral structure of the electric quadrupole was investigated for a single crystal of DyFe3(BO3)4 in which both Dy and Fe ions are arranged in spiral manners. The integrated intensity of the resonant x- ray diffraction of space-group forbidden reflections 004 and 005 is interpreted within the electric dipole transitions from Dy 2p3 to 5d and Fe 1s to 4p, respectively. We have confirmed that the 2 handedness of the crystal observed at Dy L3 and Fe K edges is consistent with that observed at Dy M5 edge in the previous study. By analyzing the azimuth scans of the diffracted intensity, the electronic quadrupole moments of Dy 5d and Fe 4p are derived. The temperature profiles of the integrated intensity of 004 at the Dy L3 and the Fe K edges are similar to those of Dy-O and Fe-O bond lengths, while that at the Dy M5 edge does not. The results indicate that the helix chiral orientations of quadrupole moments due to Dy 5d and Fe 4p electrons are more strongly affected by the crystal fields than Dy 4f

Household food insecurity and mental distress among pregnant women in Southwestern Ethiopia : a cross sectional study design

Background: There are compelling theoretical and empirical reasons that link household food insecurity to mental distress in the setting where both problems are common. However, little is known about their association during pregnancy in Ethiopia. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted to examine the association of household food insecurity with mental distress during pregnancy. Six hundred and forty-two pregnant women were recruited from 11 health centers and one hospital. Probability proportional to size (PPS) and consecutive sampling techniques were employed to recruit study subjects until the desired sample size was obtained. The Self Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-20) was used to measure mental distress and a 9-item Household Food Insecurity Access Scale was used to measure food security status. Descriptive and inferential statistics were computed accordingly. Multivariate logistic regression was used to estimate the effect of food insecurity on mental distress. Results: Fifty eight of the respondents (9 %) were moderately food insecure and 144 of the respondents (22.4 %) had mental distress. Food insecurity was also associated with mental distress. Pregnant women living in food insecure households were 4 times more likely to have mental distress than their counterparts (COR = 3.77, 95 % CI: 2.17, 6.55). After controlling for confounders, a multivariate logistic regression model supported a link between food insecurity and mental distress (AOR = 4.15, 95 % CI: 1.67, 10.32). Conclusion: The study found a significant association between food insecurity and mental distress. However, the mechanism by which food insecurity is associated with mental distress is not clear. Further investigation is therefore needed to understand either how food insecurity during pregnancy leads to mental distress or weather mental distress is a contributing factor in the development of food insecurity

トクシマ コウエン トクシマ チュウオウ コウエン ノ ゾウエン セッケイ ニツイテ : ヒビヤ コウエン オヨビ ザイファースドルフジョウ トノ ヒカク

Tokushima Park (originally named Tokushima Central Park) is the Japan’s second western-style park that was opened in 1906. We investigated landscape architecture of Tokushima Park based on a blueprint made in 1905 to understand its purpose and function of the park, and compared with Hibiya Park that is the Japan’s first western-style park. Tokushima Park consisted of five areas. The central area included Mt. Shiroyama (Castle Mountain), and primeval forest was protected without allowing to make a big building within the area. A commercial museum, an athletic field, and a botanical garden and a library were placed in the southern, western and eastern areas respectively, so that each area was designed to exhibit each function. Tokushima Park and Hibiya Park were designed by the same two persons Seiroku Honda and Takanori Hongo. The two parks were equipped with a wide road, an athletic field, a botanical garden and so on, and these facilities were adopted to the park made since them. Because Seiroku Honda adopted three design drawings of German parks from the book Gärtnerisches Planzeichnen into a blueprint of Hibiya Park, we investigated the book to ascertain whether any design drawing was also used in Tokushima Park. We found that Seifersdorf Castle, the castle of count Brühl that was built at Seifersdorf in Germany in 13th century, is similar to the southern area of Tokushima Park

Direct fast heating efficiency of a counter-imploded core plasma employing a laser for fast ignition experiments (LFEX)

Fast heating efficiency when a pre-imploded core is directly heated with an ultraintense laser (heating laser) was investigated. \u27Direct heating\u27 means that a heating laser hits a pre-imploded core without applying either a laser guiding cone or an external field. The efficiency, η, is defined as the increase in the internal core energy divided by the energy of the heating laser. Six beams (output of 1.6 kJ) from the GEKKO XII (GXII) green laser system at the Institute of Laser Engineering (ILE), Osaka University were applied to implode a spherical deuterated polystyrene (CD) shell target to form a dense core. The DD-reacted protons and the core x-ray emissions showed a core density of 2.8 ± 0.7 g cm−3, or 2.6 times the solid density. Furthermore, DD-reacted thermal neutrons were utilized to estimate the core temperature between 600 and 750 eV. Thereafter, the core was directly heated by a laser for fast-ignition experiments (LFEX, an extremely energetic ultrashort pulse laser) at ILE with its axis lying along or perpendicular to the GXII bundle axis, respectively. The former and latter laser configurations were termed \u27axial\u27 and \u27transverse modes\u27, respectively. The η was estimated from three independent methods: (1) the core x-ray emission, (2) the thermal neutron yield, and (3) the runaway hot electron spectra. For the axial mode, 0.8%< η <2.1% at low power (low LFEX energy) and 0.4%< η <2.5% at high power (high LFEX energy). For the transverse mode, 2.6%< η <7% at low power and 1.5%< η <7.7% at high power. Their efficiencies were compared with that in the uniform implosion mode using 12 GXII beams, 6% < η <12%, which appeared near to the η for the transverse mode, except that the error bar is very large

Carbon-Ion Beam Irradiation Kills X-Ray-Resistant p53-Null Cancer Cells by Inducing Mitotic Catastrophe

Background and Purpose: To understand the mechanisms involved in the strong killing effect of carbon-ion beam irradiation on cancer cells with TP53 tumor suppressor gene deficiencies.Copyright:Materials and Methods: DNA damage responses after carbon-ion beam or X-ray irradiation in isogenic HCT116 colorectal cancer cell lines with and without TP53 (p53+/ + and p53-/-, respectively) were analyzed as follows: cell survival by clonogenic assay, cell death modes by morphologic observation of DAPI-stained nuclei, DNA doublestrand breaks (DSBs) by immunostaining of phosphorylated H2AX (γH2AX), and cell cycle by flow cytometry and immunostaining of Ser10-phosphorylated histone H3.Results: The p53-/- cells were more resistant than the p53+/+ cells to X-ray irradiation, while the sensitivities of the p53+/+ and p53-/- cells to carbon-ion beam irradiation were comparable. X-ray and carbon-ion beam irradiations predominantly induced apoptosis of the p53+/+ cells but not the p53-/- cells. In the p53-/- cells, carbon-ion beam irradiation, but not X-ray irradiation, markedly induced mitotic catastrophe that was associated with premature mitotic entry with harboring longretained DSBs at 24 h post-irradiation.Conclusions: Efficient induction of mitotic catastrophe in apoptosis-resistant p53- deficient cells implies a strong cancer cell-killing effect of carbon-ion beam irradiation that is independent of the p53 status, suggesting its biological advantage over X-ray treatment

Synthesis of the ABCDG ring skeleton of communesin F based on carboborylation of 1,3-diene and Bi(OTf)₃-catalyzed cyclizations

Communesins, isolated from the mycelium of a strain of Penicillium sp., are cytotoxic heptacyclic indole alkaloids bearing a bis-aminal structure and two contiguous quaternary carbon centers. Toward a total synthesis of communesin F, we synthesized a pentacyclic ABCDG ring skeleton via carboborylation of 1, 3-diene and a Friedel–Crafts-type cyclization, resulting in the formation of an azepine ring through a Bi(OTf)₃-catalyzed SN2’ reaction