Plasmalopsychosine of human brain mimics the effect of nerve growth factor by activating its receptor kinase and mitogen-activated protein kinase in PC12 cells. Induction of neurite outgrowth and prevention of apoptosis

Plasmalopsychosine, a characteristic fatty aldehyde conjugate of beta-galactosylsphingosine (psychosine) found in brain white matter, enhances p140trk (Trk A) phosphorylation and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) activity and as a consequence induces neurite outgrowth in PC12 cells. The effect of plasmalopsychosine on neurite outgrowth and its prolonged activation of MAPK was similar to that of nerve growth factor (NGF), and the effect was specific to neuronal cells. Plasmalopsychosine was not capable of competing with cold chase-stable, high affinity binding of NGF to Trk A, indicating that plasmalopsychosine and NGF differ in terms of Trk A-activating mechanism. Tyrosine kinase inhibitors K-252a and staurosporine, known to inhibit the neurotrophic effect of NGF, also inhibited these effects of plasmalopsychosine, suggesting that plasmalopsychosine and NGF share a common signaling cascade. Plasmalopsychosine prevents apoptosis of PC12 cells caused by serum deprivation, indicating that it has "neurotrophic factor-like" activity. Taken together, these findings indicate that plasmalopsychosine may play an important role in development and maintenance of the vertebrate nervous system.     

A Curvature and Density‐based Generative Representation of Shapes

This paper introduces a generative model for 3D surfaces based on a representation of shapes with mean curvature and metric, which are invariant under rigid transformation. Hence, compared with existing 3D machine learning frameworks, our model substantially reduces the influence of translation and rotation. In addition, the local structure of shapes will be more precisely captured, since the curvature is explicitly encoded in our model. Specifically, every surface is first conformally mapped to a canonical domain, such as a unit disk or a unit sphere. Then, it is represented by two functions: the mean curvature half‐density and the vertex density, over this canonical domain. Assuming that input shapes follow a certain distribution in a latent space, we use the variational autoencoder to learn the latent space representation. After the learning, we can generate variations of shapes by randomly sampling the distribution in the latent space. Surfaces with triangular meshes can be reconstructed from the generated data by applying isotropic remeshing and spin transformation, which is given by Dirac equation. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our model on datasets of man‐made and biological shapes and compare the results with other methods.     

Interactive Optimization of Generative Image Modelling using Sequential Subspace Search and Content‐based Guidance

Generative image modeling techniques such as GAN demonstrate highly convincing image generation result. However, user interaction is often necessary to obtain desired results. Existing attempts add interactivity but require either tailored architectures or extra data. We present a human‐in‐the‐optimization method that allows users to directly explore and search the latent vector space of generative image modelling. Our system provides multiple candidates by sampling the latent vector space, and the user selects the best blending weights within the subspace using multiple sliders. In addition, the user can express their intention through image editing tools. The system samples latent vectors based on inputs and presents new candidates to the user iteratively. An advantage of our formulation is that one can apply our method to arbitrary pre‐trained model without developing specialized architecture or data. We demonstrate our method with various generative image modelling applications, and show superior performance in a comparative user study with prior art iGAN [ZKSE16].     

Performance simulation of a wall-type reactor in which exothermic and endothermic reactions proceed simultaneously, comparing with that of a fixed-bed reactor

By combining endothermic and exothermic reactions in one reactor, a mutual utilization of thermal energy involved in reactions is expected to produce a saving energy and a cost-down for running in industrial reaction process. In this case, a wall-type reaction system is thought to be suitable because such reaction system is good at exchangeability of thermal energy by conductive heat transfer. This study supposed a wall-type reaction system consisting of endothermic and exothermic reaction channels stacked up and a fixed-bed reaction system of the same configuration, and compared them by numerical simulation in the case where endothermic and exothermic reactions progress simultaneously.

In the fixed-bed reaction system, heat transfer in the catalyst bed takes place by convection, and this transfer becomes the rate-limiting process. Accordingly, occurrence of hot spot in the exothermic channel and shortage of thermal energy in the endothermic channel were predicted. This trend became distinct by making the feed gas directions flowing in the two channels countercurrent and by stacking the channels in multiple tiers. In the wall-type reaction system, however, the temperature distributions in the exothermic and endothermic channels almost conformed to the set temperatures, and the temperature difference between channels was small. Even if the feed gases flowed in countercurrent and even if the channels were stacked several deep, this trend did not change. In the wall-type reaction system, the exchange of thermal energy would take place efficiently by conductive heat transfer between the endothermic and exothermic channels. Furthermore, it was inferred that the wall-type reaction system would provide a stable operation in mutual utilization of thermal energy.     

Constructive linear-time temporal logic: Proof systems and Kripke semantics

In this paper we study a version of constructive linear-time temporal logic (LTL) with the “next” temporal operator. The logic is originally due to Davies, who has shown that the proof system of the logic corresponds to a type system for binding-time analysis via the Curry-Howard isomorphism. However, he did not investigate the logic itself in detail; he has proved only that the logic augmented with negation and classical reasoning is equivalent to (the “next” fragment of) the standard formulation of classical linear-time temporal logic. We give natural deduction, sequent calculus and Hilbert-style proof systems for constructive LTL with conjunction, disjunction and falsehood, and show that the sequent calculus enjoys cut elimination. Moreover, we also consider Kripke semantics and prove soundness and completeness. One distinguishing feature of this logic is that distributivity of the “next” operator over disjunction “?(A∨B)⊃?A∨?B” is rejected in view of a type-theoretic interpretation.     

Study on solid lubricant properties of carbon onions produced by heat treatment of diamond clusters or particles

Tribological properties of carbon onions prepared by heat treatment of diamond clusters or particles are presented. Diamond clusters used as the source material are heated with an infrared radiation furnace to 1730 °C in argon at atmospheric pressure. As a result of heating at 1730 °C for 1 min, diamond clusters are transformed into carbon onions. High resolution TEM observation is employed to confirm the formation of carbon onions that have near-spherical and multi-layered concentric structure. The particle size of these carbon onions ranges from 5 to 10 nm that corresponds to the original size of the diamond clusters. This preparation technique is also applied to diamond particles less than 0.5 μm in diameter to produce larger carbon onions. Tribological properties of the carbon onions are examined by ball-on-disc type friction testing using a silicon wafer and a steel ball. Carbon onions, which are spread on the silicon wafer without adhesive, exhibit stable friction coefficients lower than 0.1 both in air and in vacuum at room temperature. The wear rates of steel balls sliding on the silicon wafer on which carbon onions are distributed are much lower than wear rates for sliding on a wafer over which graphite powder is spread. Moreover, it is found that the larger carbon onions prepared from diamond particles show low friction property on the rough surface of silicon discs.     

Fretting of glass

Fretting damage to a glass surface in contact with a steel ball was investigated. In the initial stage of fretting, severe wear occurred on the steel ball and considerable wear debris was transferred to the glass surface. The coefficient of friction increased during this stage by 80%. Fatigue cracks were observed on the glass surface under conditions of high normal load and tangential force. The mechanism of fretting fatigue and fretting wear is discussed in relation to a brittle material. Finally the effect of thin metal foil inserts in reducing fretting damage is described.     

原理与现象

在日本泡沫经济崩溃之后,出现了生于1960年代的一代建筑师,比如犬吠工作室和橘子组。他们被称为＂Unit派＂,其设计基于对城市的现状调研,诠释地段的外部条件。而生于1970年代的年轻一代建筑师,则在试图掌握一种新的空间原理,比如藤本壮介、石上纯也和平田晃久,同时也创造了独特的现象,比如中村治和乾久美子。     

Rain attenuation model for south east asia countries

A model for predicting rain attenuation on Earth-to-space is developed by using the measured data obtained from tropical and equatorial regions that was revised from the ITU model. The proposed rain attenuation model uses the complete rainfall rate cumulative distribution as input data. It is shown that significant improvements in terms of prediction error over existing attenuation models are obtained     

Experimental and analytical study on aerosol behavior in WIND project

The tests on fission product (FP) behavior in piping under severe accidents are being conducted in the wide range piping integrity demonstration (WIND) project at JAERI to investigate the piping integrity which may be threatened by decay heat from deposited FPs. In order to obtain the background information for future WIND experiment and to confirm analytical capabilities of the FP aerosol analysis codes, ART and VICTORIA, the FP behavior in safety relief valve (SRV) line of BWR during TQUX sequence was analyzed. The analyses showed that the mechanisms that control the FP deposition and transport agreed well between the two codes. However, the differences in models such as diffusiophoresis or turbulence, the treatment of chemical forms and aerosol mass distribution could affect the deposition in piping and, consequently, on the source terms. The WIND experimental analyses were also conducted with a three-dimensional fluiddynamic WINDFLOW, ART and an interface module to appropriately couple the fluiddynamics and FP behavior analyses. The analyses showed that the major deposition mechanism for cesium iodide (CsI) is thermophoresis which depends on the thermal gradient in gas. Accordingly, the coupling analyses were found to be essential to accurately predict the CsI deposition in piping, to which little attention has been paid in the previous studies.