Formation of superfluid liquid pocket in aerogel and its solidification by cooling

Formation of superfluid liquid pockets of ⁴He surrounded by ⁴He crystals were observed in an aerogel of 96% porosity. The liquid pockets did not crystallize by application of pressure but crystallized via avalanche by cool-ing below a particular temperature. The crystallization by cooling was also observed when crystals occupied a smaller portion of the aerogel. Driving force for the crystallization by cooling and possible mass transport process are discussed

Formation of superfluid liquid pocket in aerogel and its solidification by cooling

Formation of superfluid liquid pockets of ⁴He surrounded by ⁴He crystals were observed in an aerogel of 96% porosity. The liquid pockets did not crystallize by application of pressure but crystallized via avalanche by cool-ing below a particular temperature. The crystallization by cooling was also observed when crystals occupied a smaller portion of the aerogel. Driving force for the crystallization by cooling and possible mass transport process are discussed

Time variations in the deep underground muon flux

More than 35 million high-energy muons collected with the MACRO detector at the underground Gran Sasso Laboratory have been used to search for flux variations of different nature. Two kinds of studies were carried out: a search for the occurrence of clusters of events and a search for periodic variations. Different analysis methods, including the Scan Statistics test and the Lomb-Scargle spectral analysis have been applied to the data.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, accepted by EP

Possible relationship between Helicobacter pylori infection and cap polyposis of the colon

The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com.ArticleHELICOBACTER. 9(6): 651-656 (2004)journal articl

Muscle plasticity related to changes in tubulin and αB-crystallin levels induced by eccentric contraction in rat skeletal muscles

We used the model of eccentric contraction of the hindlimb muscle by Ochi et al. to examine the role of eccentric contraction in muscle plasticity. This model aims to focus on stimulated skeletal muscle responses by measuring tissue weights and tracing the quantities of αB-crystallin and tubulin. The medial gastrocnemius muscle (GCM) responded to electrically induced eccentric contraction (EIEC) with significant increases in tissue weight (p < 0.01) and the ratio of tissue weight to body weight (p < 0.05); however, there was a decrease in soleus muscle weight after EIEC. EIEC in the GCM caused contractile-induced sustenance of the traced proteins, but the soleus muscle exhibited a remarkable decrease in α-tubulin and a 19% decrease in αB-crystallin. EIEC caused fast-to-slow myosin heavy chain (MHC) isoform type-oriented shift within both the GCM and soleus muscle. These results have shown that different MHC isoform type-expressing slow and fast muscles commonly undergo fast-to-slow type MHC isoform transformation. This suggests that different levels of EIEC affected each of the slow and fast muscles to induce different quantitative changes in the expression of αB-crystallin and α-tubulin

Development of an advanced Compton camera with gaseous TPC and scintillator

A prototype of the MeV gamma-ray imaging camera based on the full reconstruction of the Compton process has been developed. This camera consists of a micro-TPC that is a gaseous Time Projection Chamber (TPC) and scintillation cameras. With the information of the recoil electrons and the scattered gamma-rays, this camera detects the energy and incident direction of each incident gamma-ray. We developed a prototype of the MeV gamma-ray camera with a micro-TPC and a NaI(Tl) scintillator, and succeeded in reconstructing the gamma-rays from 0.3 MeV to 1.3 MeV. Measured angular resolutions of ARM (Angular Resolution Measure) and SPD (Scatter Plane Deviation) for 356 keV gamma-rays were $18^\circ$ and $35^\circ$, respectively.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures. Proceedings of the 6th International Workshop On Radiation Imaging Detector