Supersonic gas jets generated via a conical nozzle are widely applied in the laser wakefield acceleration of electrons. The stability of the gas jet is critical to the electron injection and the reproducibility of the wakefield acceleration. Here we discussed the role of the stilling chamber in a modified converging–diverging nozzle to dissipate the turbulence and to stabilize the gas jets. By the fluid dynamics simulations and the Mach–Zehnder interferometer measurements, the instability originating from the nonlinear turbulence is studied and the mechanism to suppress the instability is proposed. Both the numerical and experimental results prove that the carefully designed nozzle with a stilling chamber is able to reduce the perturbation by more than 10% compared with a simple-conical nozzle.

A growing trend of aging population of China has brought tremendous pressure on the domestic care system, and community education is one of the important content for elderly services. Based on the framework of SAPAD, the community English class in Guangzhou City is taken for case study. Depth research on three stakeholeders-the elderly, social workers and volunteers are carried out by interview, user observation and field research. 6 levels (physical level, syntactic level, empirical level, semantic level, pragmatic level and social level) are extracted based on SAPAD framework, and the behavior- object-significance mapping is completed. Significant clusters of multiple users at different levels are analyzed, and 16 core significant clusters are jointly built. By linking with clustering results of the syntactic level, 6 new function modules are obtained. Finally, the community elderly education service system is built through personas, service blueprint, touch points and storyboard. The new service system will improve learning efficiency, satisfactions and emotional appeals for the elderly, and work efficiency of social workers and volunteers.

Isolation of the left innominate artery from the right aortic arch is a rare anomaly. Herein, we present an even rarer case of incomplete isolation of the proximal left innominate artery with the right aortic arch in a 3-month-old female infant with a double-outlet right ventricle and pulmonary stenosis. Surgical repair at 6 months of age was successful, leading to the restoration of adequate flow in the left arm.

Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disease spreading worldwide that has been reported to worsen the development and progression of other diseases (cancer, vascular diseases and dementia). To establish functional rice lines with anti-postprandial hyperglycaemic effects, we developed mutant rice lines, which lack one or two gene(s) related to starch synthesis, and evaluated their effects. Powder of mutant rice lines or other grains was loaded to rats fasted overnight (oral grain powder loading test). Incremental area under time-concentration curves (iAUC) were calculated with monitored blood glucose levels. Rice lines with anti-postprandial hyperglycaemic effects were separated by cluster analysis with calculated iAUC. A double mutant rice #4019 (starch synthase IIIa (ss3a)/branching enzyme IIb (be2b)), one of the screened mutant rice lines, was fed to Goto-Kakizaki (GK) rats, an animal model for type 2 diabetes, for 5 weeks. Plasma levels of C-peptide, a marker of pancreatic insulin secretion, were measured with ELISA. For in vitro study, a rat pancreatic cell line was cultured with a medium containing rat serum which was sampled from rats fed #4019 diet for 2 d. After 24-h of incubation, an insulin secretion test was performed. Through the oral rice powder loading test, seven rice lines were identified as antidiabetic rice lines. The intake of #4019 diet increased plasma C-peptide levels of GK rats. This result was also observed in vitro. In rat serum added to cell medium, ornithine was significantly increased by the intake of #4019. In conclusion, the mutant rice #4019 promoted pancreatic insulin secretion via elevation of serum ornithine levels.

A powder diffraction method was applied to the quantitative analysis of amorphous silica in several quartz powders. Two calibration methods, i.e., direct analysis and the standard addition method were examined. Calibration mixtures were made by mixing a standard silica gel powder ground to under 5 μm particle size with a matrix quartz powder which was ground to 10 to 40 μm particle size and treated with NaOH solution to remove the amorphous phase caused by grinding. Intensity of the amorphous halo was measured at 23.0° 2θ, and the background intensity at 53.0° 2θ was subtracted. Linear calibration curves were obtained over the ranges of 0 to 50 wt% by direct analysis and 0 to 20 wt% by standard addition methods, respectively. The analytical results obtained by the two calibration methods were in good agreement with each other. The relative standard deviations for 4.3 wt% of amorphous silica were 4.6% by the direct analysis and 5.4% by the standard addition method. These methods were successfully applied to a correction of reference intensity ratios (RIR) for several quartz powders containing amorphous silica. After the correction for amorphous content, the relative standard deviations of the RIR values for quartz powders became smaller.

A novel flat, wood-based carbon material with heterogeneous pores, referred to as flat lignocellulosic carbon material (FLCM), was successfully fabricated by carbonizing samples of the softwood Picea jezoensis (Ezomatsu or Jezo spruce, a Japanese conifer). Simultaneous improvements of the specific surface area of the FLCM and the affinity of electric double-layer capacitor (EDLC) for electrolyte solvents were achieved by vacuum ultraviolet/ozone (VUV/O3) treatment. The specific surface area of the VUV/O3-treated FLCM showed a 50% increase over that of the original FLCM. The spectra measured by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) indicated that the number of O-C=O (carboxyl or ester) bonds increased, whereas the number of C-C bonds decreased. Additionally, the feasibility of using the FLCM as a self-supporting electrode in EDLCs was examined by measuring the electrochemical properties in a three-electrode system. The FLCM was confirmed as an appropriate self-supporting EDLC electrode material without warps and cracks. In addition, the FLCM can be used without any binder. Realization of FLCM-based EDLC electrodes with bendability, an area of several tens of square centimeters, and no risk of warp or crack formation, were indicated. Thus, FLCMs present a fascinating class of self-supporting carbon electrode materials for EDLCs.

A total of 475 Salmonella strains belonging to 5 serovars, isolated from a pig farm which had been heavily contaminated with Salmonella for the past 2 years were tested for antibiotic susceptibility and detection of R plasmids. Thirty-three Escherichia coli isolates from the same farm were also examined in a similar way.

Out of 475 strains 348 (73·2%) were resistant to one or more antibiotics such as tetracycline (Tc), streptomycin (Sm), sulfadimethoxine (Su), chloramphenicol (Cm) and kanamycin (Km), and 247 (85·2%) out of 290 strains belonging to 3 serovars examined harboured conjugative R plasmids. There was no change in the pattern of drug resistance during this survey nor any variation in the pattern of resistance of R plasmids, whatever the serovar. The antibiogram pattern Tc Sm Su, mainly S. typhimurium, was common among Salmonella strains. Among the transferred resistance patterns, the thermosensitive R plasmids conferring the Te marker detected in this study were Fi-, and belonged to incompatibility group H1, whereas the R plasmids conferring Sm Su resistances which coexisted in the same host were Fi+, and compatible with the reference R plasmids tested. The la plasmid conferring Cm resistance alone was isolated from S. anatum and the FII plasmid conferring Sm Km resistances was also isolated from S. typhimurium. In contrast, the 33 E. coli strains examined were resistant to three or five antibiotics and most of the resistance markers were located on conjugative R plasmids. la plasmids conferring Cm resistance alone or FIT plasmids conferring Cm or Km markers were common in the E. coli strains. H1 and H2 plasmids conferring multiple resistance markers were also found in them. The genetic properties of R plasmids derived from Salmonella or E. coil strains are compared, and the potential spread of R plasmids between strains of Salmonella andE. coli is discussed.

Two cases of linear IgA bullous dermatosis initially presenting as ulcerative lesions in the larynx and pharynx are reported. It was difficult to diagnose and treat the lesions, but they were finally diagnosed from the histopathological findings of accompanying skin lesion specimens. One of the patients required a tracheostomy due to increased airway stenosis by a laryngeal lesion. Despite general corticosteroid administration this could not be completely resolved, although partial opening of the glottis was observed, and the patient died of accidental tracheostomy tube complications during home care. Although there are no reports of this disease in the otolaryngological field, these rare diseases involving the skin and entire body should be considered in the differential diagnosis of laryngeal and pharyngeal ulcerative lesions, including airway stenosis. Furthermore, simple and safe procedures for relieving airway stenosis should be selected for rare and difficult-to-diagnose airway disease, prior to the final diagnosis.

We are conducting a survey of the CO J=2-1 line emission in the southern Milky Way (the Tokyo-Onsala-ESO-Calán Galactic CO survey), using the 60-cm radio telescope (VST2) in La Silla, Chile. It is combined with the northern survey made with the identical telescope (VST1) at Nobeyama (e.g., Sakamoto et al. 1995), and is directly comparable with the Columbia survey of the CO J=1-0 emission (e.g., Dame et al. 1987).

Although intrusions of glass fragments into the frontal sinuses are not uncommon in traffic accidents, a case with a tooth in the frontal sinus has never been reported. We report a patient with traumatic inclusion of an incisor tooth in the contralateral frontal sinus. Radiographic investigations demonstrated the tooth in the frontal sinus though no skin damage was recognized on the upper face. The usefulness of CT scan in localizing the missing tooth after facial trauma and its route of entry into the contralateral frontal sinus is discussed.

CMOS is considered as a prospective technology in the VLSI era because of its low power consumption and high driving capability. While ordinary bulk silicon CMOS devices are inferior to SOS CMOS devices in chip area, operation speed and latch-up problem due to the need for isolation wells. SOS is an inherent good partner of the CMOS circuits owing to the simple and perfect isolation. SOS technology, however, has the problem of high wafer cost. Consequently, SOS technology is best applied to high performance logic devices. Latest results of 8k-gate CMOS/SOS gate array and 16×16bit multipliers show 0.87ns 2-NAND gate delay and 27ns multiplication time, respectively, which compete with ECL devices. Application of SOS devices down to 1μm is also promising for very high speed operation. A 78ps gate delay is achieved by double solid phase epitaxy and 1μm technology. INTRO

Pulsed laser annealing has been made for Te or Znimplanted GaP and Si-implanted GaAs in argon gas atmospheres in a pressure range of 1 to 1000 bar. Optical absorption measurement indicates that pulse annealing under pressures higher than 300 bar forms surface layers with a high crystallinity without appreciable evaporation of P or As. This pressure effect is discussed from the viewpoint of diffusion length of evaporated atoms during the annealing time.