埼玉県春日部市における超軟弱粘土の動土質工学的性質

An earthquake causes serious damage to civil engineering structures, which cannot be avoided unfortunately in Japan. In 1923, Kanto earthquake caused extensive damage to Misato and Kasukabe districts, which are located in a central part of Nakagawa lowland in Kanto alluvial plain. Recently, it was reported that the seismic intensity in Nakagawa lowland was beyond 6.5, in particular, 7 in Kasukabe It was also found that the ultra soft clay exists in underground clayey soils in Nakagawa lowland. That is, the soil behaves like liquid when it is remolded. Furthermore, the shear wave velocities in PS logging tests are nearly constant in the ultra soft clayey soils, irrespective of the water content and the depth. In order to study dynamic properties of the ultra soft alluvial clayey soil, the shear wave velocities were measured in a triaxial chamber equipped with the so-called bender element. Cyclic un-drained triaxial tests were carried out to investigate the dynamic propertiestextapplication/pdfdepartmental bulletin pape

Measurement of azimuthal asymmetries in inclusive production of hadron pairs in e^＋e^－ annihilation at √s = 10.58 GeV

The Collins effect connects transverse quark spin with a measurable azimuthal asymmetry in the yield of hadronic fragments around the quark’s momentum vector. Using two different reconstruction methods we measure statistically significant azimuthal asymmetries for charged pion pairs in e^+e^- annihilation at center-of-mass energies of 10.52 GeV and 10.58 GeV, which can be attributed to the fragmentation of primordial quarks with transverse spin components. The measurement was performed using a data set of 547 fb^{-1} collected by the Belle detector at KEKB improving the statistics of the previously published results by nearly a factor of 20.journal articl

Observation of B+→ΛΛ̅K+

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CO₂Reforming into Fuel Using TiO₂Photocatalyst and Gas Separation Membrane

application/pdfIt was previously reported that CO2 could be reformed into CO, CH4, etc., which can be used as fuels, by TiO2 as the photocatalyst and under UV radiation. If this technique could be applied practically, a carbon circulation system would then be able to be constructed by reforming CO2 from combustion, using solar energy, to fuel, which would solve the problem of global warming and fossil fuels depletion all together. However, the technology is not yet practicable as the fuel concentration of products is too low. To increase the concentration and improve CO2 reforming performance on TiO2, a membrane reactor composed of TiO2 and gas separation membrane prepared by sol–gel and dip-coating method has been built. Study on the factors influencing membrane performance, e.g. rising speed in the dip-coating process, has been carried out with the reactor. The results of the study are reported in this paper.journal articl

Functional Amyloid Formation within Mammalian Tissue

<div><p>Amyloid is a generally insoluble, fibrous cross-β sheet protein aggregate. The process of amyloidogenesis is associated with a variety of neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer, Parkinson, and Huntington disease. We report the discovery of an unprecedented functional mammalian amyloid structure generated by the protein Pmel17. This discovery demonstrates that amyloid is a fundamental nonpathological protein fold utilized by organisms from bacteria to humans. We have found that Pmel17 amyloid templates and accelerates the covalent polymerization of reactive small molecules into melanin—a critically important biopolymer that protects against a broad range of cytotoxic insults including UV and oxidative damage. Pmel17 amyloid also appears to play a role in mitigating the toxicity associated with melanin formation by sequestering and minimizing diffusion of highly reactive, toxic melanin precursors out of the melanosome. Intracellular Pmel17 amyloidogenesis is carefully orchestrated by the secretory pathway, utilizing membrane sequestration and proteolytic steps to protect the cell from amyloid and amyloidogenic intermediates that can be toxic. While functional and pathological amyloid share similar structural features, critical differences in packaging and kinetics of assembly enable the usage of Pmel17 amyloid for normal function. The discovery of native Pmel17 amyloid in mammals provides key insight into the molecular basis of both melanin formation and amyloid pathology, and demonstrates that native amyloid (amyloidin) may be an ancient, evolutionarily conserved protein quaternary structure underpinning diverse pathways contributing to normal cell and tissue physiology.</p> </div

Pmel17 and Thioflavin S Fluorescence Overlap in the Detergent-Insoluble Melanosome Fraction

<p>A 1% Triton-X 100 detergent-insoluble fraction was prepared from purified melanosomes and visualized using differential interference contrast microscopy (DIC) (A), indirect immunofluorescence using a Pmel17-specific antibody (B), or thioflavin S fluorescence (C). Arrows denote Pmel17-containing insoluble clusters of variable size. Asterisks indicate the enlarged cluster shown in the lower righthand corner of each panel. In the insets, the large white arrowheads denote Pmel17-positive structures (shown in [B]) that directly overlap with thioflavin S staining (shown in [C]); the red arrowhead in (A) denotes a residual dense melanin-containing granule lacking Pmel17 (shown in [B]) that does not stain with thioflavin S (shown in [C]).</p

Amyloid, Including rMα, Specifically Accelerates Melanin Synthesis

<div><p>(A) In melanosomes, assembly of activated melanin precursors, generated by tyrosinase, occurs along Pmel17 fibers. The boxed portion of (A) illustrates the amyloid-binding dye thioflavin T and the activated melanin precursor DHQ, which possess similar core structures. This suggests an explanation for the ability of Pmel17 to concentrate and organize melanin precursors, thereby enabling melanogenesis.</p> <p>(B) In vivo, melanosome maturation is a four-step process (I–IV) in which initial formation of the Pmel17 fibrillar matrix (II) enables subsequent melanin polymerization along the Pmel17 fibers (III) (Adapted with permission from [<a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.0040006#pbio-0040006-b016" target="_blank">16</a>].)</p> <p>(C) A time course of melanin synthesis in vitro shows that insoluble rMα amyloid increases the amount of insoluble melanin formed per unit time (grey line) versus a control reaction lacking rMα (black line).</p> <p>(D) Melanin synthesis after 20 h was also evaluated in the presence of insoluble rMα amyloid, α-synuclein amyloid, Aβ amyloid, and collagen IV α-helical fibers. The melanin precursor D,L-DOPA was incubated in the presence of the enzyme tyrosinase and the amyloid of interest at room temperature. Melanin content of each reaction condition was measured by pelleting insoluble melanin, dissolving it in 1 M NaOH, and measuring the absorbance at 350 nm. Supernatant melanin content was equal for all samples.</p> <p>In (C) and (D) error bars represent the standard deviation between triplicate samples.</p></div

Purified Melanosomes Stain with Amyloidophilic Dyes

<p>Melanosomes were isolated from bovine RPE and choroid and visualized using transmission electron microscopy (A; scale bar = 1 μm), differential interference contrast microscopy (DIC) (B, D, and F; scale bars = 10 μm), indirect immunofluorescence using a Pmel17-specific antibody (C), or the thioflavin S (E) or Congo red (G) amyloidophilic fluorophores. Images (B) and (C), (D) and (E), and (F) and (G) are paired.</p