EFFECTS OF LONG-TERM ORAL ADMINISTRATION OF GREEN TEA CULTIVATED IN DIFFERENT DISTRICTS IN JAPAN ON BODY WEIGHT, BLOOD LIPID AND GLUCOSE LEVELS ON db/db MICE

Previous research using short‐term animal experiments has indicated that oral administration of green tea can suppress elevation of blood sugar. However, few data are available on the antihyperglycemia effect of green tea in long‐term experiments. In this study, effects of long‐term (up to 16 weeks) administration of green tea preparations on body weight, blood sugar and lipid content of db/db and db/+m mice were examined. Preparations were prepared by the same procedure from tea leaves cultivated in different districts in Japan. Significant differences (P < 0.05) were observed in the blood parameters and body weight between control and green tea groups of db/db mice. In the case of normal mice, however, no significant difference was observed. In addition, the response to the administration of green tea depended on the source and composition of tea leaves.     

Optimal control of system with continuous and discrete state variables

An optimization problem for a system composed of continuous and discrete subsystems is considered. The discrete subsystem is introduced to express a combinatorial constraint in conventional control problems. The objective, the state equation and the constraint are assumed linear. The problem is formulated as a mixed-integer linear program with a staircase structure. A feasible decomposition method is developed for obtaining a suboptimal solution to the problem. In applications to an optimal energy control and planning problem for a large-scale production plant, our method uses less computing time than the non-decomposition method.     

Applications of the Long and Accurate Polymerase Chain Reaction Method in Yeast Molecular Biology: Direct Sequencing of the Amplified DNA and Its Introduction into Yeast

A DNA fragment longer than 10 kb can be amplified by the long and accurate polymerase chain reaction (LA-PCR) method. We demonstrate here applications of this technique in molecular biological studies of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We have shown that DNA fragments amplified by LA-PCR can be directly used as a template in the chain-termination sequencing protocol, making it possible to quickly identify the DNA insert of yeast genomic library clones. We have also shown that the amplified yeast DNA can easily be introduced into yeast by co-transformation with linearized vector DNA. Overlapping DNA between the amplified yeast fragment and the vector must be more than 20 bp long in order to obtain 90% or more correct recombinant plasmids. These results suggest that simple amplification of yeast clones by LA-PCR can replace the previous procedures of yeast clone recovery, consisting of transformation of Escherichia coli, propagation of plasmids in E. coli and preparation of plasmid DNA. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mathematical Modeling and Analysis of MEMS Deformable Mirror Actuated by Electrostatic Piston Array

In this report, we constructed a simple mathematical analysis model for a new MEMS deformable mirror using an electrostatic piston array. The deformable mirror has been developed as a wavefront compensation device in adaptive optics for retinal observation. The device realizes a large convex deformation with a low operation voltage because of moving bottom electrodes on the pistons. The constructed model is based on the plate theory and simple superposition of the actuation components. The calculated deformation analyzed using this model agrees well with that analyzed using the finite element method not only in deformation shape but the peak‐valley deformations. In addition, the calculation time is much shorter, so the model can be used for design optimization of the device.     

Rate Processes in Solvent Extraction of Metal Ion

Abstract

The mechanism and kinetics of metal extraction with several extractants, including chelating agents, acidic organophosphorous extractant and neutral extractants are discussed in this paper.

Firstly the extraction rate of metal ion for the general extraction system is formulated by solving the diffusional equation with chemical reaction, in which the interfacial reaction is considered by the boundary conditions. The overall rate expressions of the complex formation with chelating agents are obtained both in aqueous phase and at the interface. The general formula of the extraction rate is simplified by considering the rate-determining steps.

Next, the extraction rate of metal ion with chelating agents and acidic organophosphorous extractants is discussed. For the chelating agents, the most important properly to determine the locus of complex formation is the distribution constant between the organic and aqueous phases. The contribution of the interfacial reaction to the extraction rate increases with the increase in the distribution constant of chelating agents. The extraction rate of many metal ions with acidic organophosphorous extractant are determined by the diffusion process of final complex in the organic phase.

Finally, the extraction rate of palladium ion with some neutral extractants is also discussed. The extraction rate is determined by the complex reaction in the aqueous phase and at the interface. The contribution of the interfacial reaction increases with the distribution constant of extractants.     

Error analysis of fixed-point prediction with coloured measurement noise

The main purpose of this paper is the error analysis of the fixed-point prediction for the linear continuous-time system with the coloured measurement noise. In the first part of this paper we derive an algorithm for the fixed-point prediction with the coloured measurement, noise from the given system. The remaining part presents the error analysis of the fixed-point prediction due to two causes, one of which is misidentifying the coefficients of the system and the covariances of the noises and the other of simplifying the coloured measurement noise by a white measurement noise. For the above cases two differential equations are obtained which govern the actual covariances regarded as the error quantities.     

Identification method in environmental systems and its application to water pollution

An identification algorithm is presented for a pollution source distributed along a river. The water quality is described by a couple of partial differential equations of the first order or a parabolic one. This problem, after transformation, results in the Fredholm integral equation of the first kind, which is non-well posed in the sense of Hadamard. The solution does not continuously depend on the observed data. The application of the regularization method proposed by Tikhonov (1963) yields a stable algorithm for the identification problem. Some simulation examples are given to illustrate the applicability of this method to environmental control systems based on the convective or dispersive phenomena.     

On the optimality of the boundary control for the non-linear control system with controls appearing linearly†

In this paper, the optimization of a non-linear control system is studied, where both the system and the performance index are linear in the control variables. This study is concerned mainly with the optimality of the totally singular control of the maximum principle.

The problem is reduced to the study of & non-regular case of the classical calculus of variations, for which anew criterion is found concerning the property of its extremals

By means of this new criterion, it is proved that the totally singular control cannot be optimal for the higher dimensional case. In other words, the optimal control should be the boundary control     

Finite-dimensional decentralized VS-MRAC of non-linear interconnected distributed parameter systems

We propose a design method for finite-dimensional decentralized VS-MRAC of a class of large-scale non-linear interconnected distributed parameter systems with bounded input and output disturbances. Each equivalent control is approximated by each average control and the norm of the output error vector can be made asymptotically arbitrarily small without the ?-matrix condition, independently of the reference inputs and in spite of the presence of non-linear interconnections, unmodelled dynamics and disturbances. Furthermore, it is assured that all signals in the closed-loop system are globally ultimately uniformly bounded. Finally, we show the effectiveness of the proposed method by using a numerical example.