Drop Formation in Immiscible Liquid Systems under Condition of Mass Transfer

The drop formation in immiscible liquid-liquid systems under mass transfer conditions was experimentally investigated. To know the exact effact effect of mass transfer on drop sizes, the decrease of interfacial tensions due to the presence of solutes has to be evaluate. Interfacial tensions of liquid pairs were measured with a Wilhelmy method as a function of the relative amounts at which both the solution and the solvent were mutually saturated. The interfacial tensions between the liquid pairs mutually saturated at on equal amount were found to be appropriate for the prediction of the drop formation accompanying mass transfer

Better Organization of Legal Knowledge

The increasing need of legislatures to draft complicated statutes, e.g., the Internal Revenue Code, requires the development of new techniques for defining and communicating complicated policies both accurately and understandably. At present, these complicated statutes are expressed in long, convoluted sentences with frequent uses of exceptions and limitations. Current drafting technique, with its inadequacies, often hinders a comprehensive understanding of the policy being communicated and often fails to communicate the policy accurately. Moreover, with the voluminous increase of legal literature in recent times, legal researchers experience increasing difficulty in attempting to retrieve relevant judicial and administrative interpretations. The authors propose a technique for improving the legal communication network by clarifying its messages, making them amenable to more organized storage, and thereby simplifying their retrieval. We anticipate that this technique will encourage more accurate and understandable legal drafting and will facilitate the analysis of legal problems and the retrieval of relevant legal information

Numerical Study on Deformation Behavior of Rigid-Plastic Inhomogeneous Material Using Three-Dimensional Models

It is important to study the microscopic deformation behavior of inhomogeneous material, for most engineering materials are inhomogeneous. The aim of the present study is to clarify by numerical analysis some features of microscopic plastic strain distributions, the mean flow stress and the material factors affecting on it. The rigid-plastic solution is important not only for plastic deformation problems with large strain, but also for creep deformation problems through the plastic analogy in the creep analysis. The effects of material parameter and loading conditions on the deformation behavior of the material are examined and discussed based on the result of calculation. The effects of the aspect ratio of the inhomogeneous regions on the deformation mode are studied. The patterns of the strain concentration and the averaged flow stress of the inhomogeneous material are also discussed. The results of rigid-plastic material are compared with those of the elastic material

Flying-seed-like liquid crystals 3: new guideline for the induction of mesomorphism by using bulky groups instead of long alkyl chains

In our previous work, we synthesized a series of phthalocyanine-based flying-seed-like compounds, (nPh-PhO)(4)PcCu (n = 3, 2, 1 and 0 in nPh-PhO: a-d), and revealed that each of them shows a columnar liquid crystalline phase (Col(ho) or Col(rho)) from rt to an extremely high temperature near 500 degrees C. Thus, we could obtain columnar liquid crystalline phases for discotic compounds by using bulky substituents (a-d) instead of long alkyl chains. In order to further study the utility of these bulky substituents (a-d) on the induction of mesomorphism for other shaped molecules, we have synthesized novel flying-seed-like calamitic phenoxybenzoic acid derivatives, nPh-PhOBA (3a-d), and their Mitsubishi-Mark-shaped terbium complexes, (nPh-PhOBA)(3)Tb center dot mMeOH (4a-d), in this work. Very interestingly, the mesomorphism of the phenoxybenzoic aids derivatives nPh-PhOBA (n = 0-3) was induced to show a mesophase (M-x) only by the bulky substituent d (n = 0), whereas the mesomorphism of their corresponding terbium complexes (nPh-PhOBA)(3)Tb(III) (n = 0-3) was induced to show rectangular columnar (Col(r)) mesophases by the bulky substituents c and d (n = 1, 0). On the other hand, the mesomorphism of the PcCu complexes (nPh-PhOBA)(4)PcCu (n = 0-3) in our previous work was induced by all the bulky substituents a, b, c and d (n = 0-3). Thus, it becomes apparent that both calamitic and columnar mesomorphism can be induced by the substitution of bulky groups instead of long alkyl chains, and that the balance of the core size and the bulkiness of the substituents is very important to obtain mesomorphism in flying-seed-like compounds. We believe that this is a new guideline for the induction of mesomorphism by using bulky groups instead of long alkyl chains.ArticleJOURNAL OF MATERIALS CHEMISTRY C. 1(34):5315-5321 (2013)journal articl

Meiotic association between Spo11 regulated by Rec102, Rec104 and Rec114

Meiotic recombination is initiated by DNA double-stranded break (DSB) formation catalyzed by Spo11, a type-II topoisomerase-like transesterificase, presumably via a dimerization-mediated mechanism. We demonstrate the existence of in vivo interactions between Spo11 proteins carrying distinct tags, and the chromatin-binding and DSB activity of tagged Spo11 at innate and targeted DSB sites upon fusion to the Gal4 DNA-binding domain. First we identified the interaction between Spo11-3FLAG and Gal4BD-Spo11 proteins, and established that this interaction specifically occurs at the time of DSB formation. We then observed that presence of the Gal4BD-spo11Y135F (nuclease-deficient) protein allows Spo11-3FLAG recruitment at the GAL2 locus, indicative of the formation of a hetero-complex near the GAL2 UAS sites, but no formation of double- or single-strand breaks. Spo11 self-interaction around the GAL2 DSB site depends on other proteins for DSB formation, in particular Rec102, Rec104 and Rec114. Together, these results suggest that in vivo self-association of Spo11 during meiosis is genetically regulated. The results are discussed in relation to possible roles of Spo11 self-interaction in the control of the cleavage activity

Improvement of assurance including security for wireless sensor networks using dispersed data transmission

AbstractAssurance networks are one of the essential technologies of New-generation Networks. Assurance is defined as the capability of guaranteeing functional and non-functional system properties such as dependability, security, timeliness and adaptability to heterogeneous and changing requirements. Assurance is essential for sustainable networks and this research focused specifically on providing assurance for WSNs. Node capture attacks are one prospective kind of attack on WSNs. To reduce negative effect of node capture attacks, we have previously proposed secure decentralized data transfer. In this proposed method, it was assumed that multiple paths were in place. In this paper as well, we again propose using the multipath routing method. To make multiple paths fit our previously proposed method, we have modified ATR (Augmented Tree Based Routing). We have conducted simulation experiments using our proposed method in a network simulator. The results show that our previously proposed method is effective in both cases in which the network size is small or large. In addition, we conducted other simulation experiments to measure several aspects of the assurance of our method. We measured in terms of varying parameters such as node densities, distance between the source and the destination nodes, and so on. Additionally, our method is more assured than the single path-based method

Effects of pulsing procedure of interleukin-12 in combination with interleukin-2 on the activation of peripheral blood lymphocytes derived from patients with hepatocellular carcinoma.

In patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), natural killer (NK) cell activity decreases significantly, and the reduced activity may be associated with the progression of HCC. In this study we evaluated the effects of pulsing with interleukin (IL)-2 and/or IL-12 on the activation of freshly isolated peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) derived from patients with HCC. PBL obtained from 9 HCC patients, 4 liver cirrhosis patients, and 9 normal subjects were cultured in the presence of IL-2 and/or IL-12. After 24 h of incubation, the levels of interferon (IFN)-gamma and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha presented in the supernatants were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha production of PBL pulsed by a combination of IL-2 and IL-12 was significantly higher than those of PBL stimulated by either IL-2 or IL-12 alone. The mRNA encoding perforin, granzyme B, as well as IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha, were markedly enhanced in PBL stimulated with a combination of IL-12 and IL-2. The pulsing procedure of IL-12 in combination with IL-2 resulted in the increase of IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha, and the expression of perforin and granzyme B mRNA in PBL obtained from HCC patients, as well as in those obtained from normal subjects. These results indicate that adoptive immunotherapy based on PBL pulsed with a combination of IL-2 and IL-12 may be a promising adjunctive strategy for HCC treatment.</p

Additive Intraocular Pressure-Lowering Effects of Ripasudil with Glaucoma Therapeutic Agents in Rabbits and Monkeys

Ripasudil hydrochloride hydrate (K-115), a specific Rho-associated coiled-coil containing protein kinase (ROCK) inhibitor, is developed for the treatment of glaucoma and ocular hypertension. Topical administration of ripasudil decreases intraocular pressure (IOP) by increasing conventional outflow through the trabeculae to Schlemm’s canal, which is different from existing agents that suppress aqueous humor production or promote uveoscleral outflow. In this study, we demonstrated that ripasudil significantly lowered IOP in combined regimens with other glaucoma therapeutic agents in rabbits and monkeys. Ripasudil showed additional effects on maximum IOP lowering or prolonged the duration of IOP-lowering effects with combined administration of timolol, nipradilol, brimonidine, brinzolamide, latanoprost, latanoprost/timolol fixed combination, and dorzolamide/timolol fixed combination. These results indicate that facilitation of conventional outflow by ripasudil provides additive IOP-lowering effect with other classes of antiglaucoma agents. Ripasudil is expected to have substantial utility in combined regimens with existing agents for glaucoma treatment

Suppressive effects of transforming growth factor-beta1 produced by hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines on interferon-gamma production by peripheral blood mononuclear cells.

Transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGF-beta1) exerts potent immunosuppressive effects. In this study, we investigated the potential role of TGF-beta1 produced by hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cell lines in immunosuppression mechanisms. Using the Mv1Lu cell-growth inhibition assay and an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), we detected optimal levels of TGF-beta1 in the culture supernatants conditioned by the HCC cell lines PLC/PRF/5, Hep3B, and HepG2. To determine the biological activity of TGF-beta1 in the supernatants, we examined the effects of the culture supernatants on the production of interferon (IFN)-gamma induced during the culture of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) stimulated with interleukin (IL)-12. IFN-gamma production of IL-12-stimulated PBMCs in the 1:1 dilution of the acid-activated conditioned medium of PLC/PRF/5, Hep3B, and HepG2 reduced to 14.7 +/- 0.8, 17.3 +/- 9.0, and 35.9 +/- 14.6%, respectively, compared with the value in the culture with control medium (complete culture medium). These results suggest that HCC cells producing TGF-beta1 may reduce the generation or activation of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) and natural killer (NK) cells, and thus could enhance their ability to escape immune-mediated surveillance.</p