We study the second dual algebra of a Banach algebra and related problems. We resolve some questions raised by Ülger, which are related to Arens products. We then discuss a question of Gulick on the radical of the second dual algebra of the group algebra of a discrete abelian group and give an application of Arens regularity to Fourier and Fourier–Stieltjes transforms.

Elevated postprandial hyperglycaemia and oxidative stress increase the risks of type 2 diabetes and CVD. Green tea catechin possesses antidiabetic properties and antioxidant capacity. In the present study, we examined the acute and continuous effects of ingestion of catechin-rich green tea on postprandial hyperglycaemia and oxidative stress in healthy postmenopausal women. Participants were randomly assigned into the placebo (P, n 11) or green tea (GT, n 11) group. The GT group consumed a catechin-rich green tea (catechins 615 mg/350 ml) beverage per d for 4 weeks. The P group consumed a placebo (catechins 92 mg/350 ml) beverage per d for 4 weeks. At baseline and after 4 weeks, participants of each group consumed their designated beverages with breakfast and consumed lunch 3 h after breakfast. Venous blood samples were collected in the fasted state (0 h) and at 2, 4 and 6 h after breakfast. Postprandial glucose concentrations were 3 % lower in the GT group than in the P group (three-factor ANOVA, group × time interaction, P< 0·05). Serum concentrations of the derivatives of reactive oxygen metabolites increased after meals (P< 0·05), but no effect of catechin-rich green tea intake was observed. Conversely, serum postprandial thioredoxin concentrations were 5 % higher in the GT group than in the P group (three-factor ANOVA, group × time interaction, P< 0·05). These findings indicate that an acute ingestion of catechin-rich green tea has beneficial effects on postprandial glucose and redox homeostasis in postmenopausal women.

Broad-band random-phase (BRP) irradiation is one of the beam smoothing techniques for KrF laser drivers. We have introduced this technique into the KrF laser system ASHURA. By one-dimensional (ID) BRP smoothing, the speckle pattern in conventional random-phase irradiation has been removed. Two BRP beams were overlap-focused on the target incoherently. Although the obtained profile is rather smooth, some low-frequency nonuniformity remains. To improve the uniformity, a new technique for two-dimensional (2D) smoothing has been proposed. In this technique, a wedged etalon is used to get angular dispersion to the orthogonal direction to the ID BRP effect. The preliminary experiment has been carried out.

Hydrogen Affinity of Silica-based Nanocomposite for High Temperature Hydrogen Separation Membranes Japan Fine Ceramics Center, 2-4-1, Mutsuno, Nagoya, 456-8587, Japan Yumi H. Ikuhara, Tomohiro Saito, Koji Hataya, Yuji Iwamoto and Seiji Takahashi Because of concerns about global warming, increasing attention is being directed to find an alternative to fossil hydrocarbon fuels and hydrogen is rapidly becoming one of the leading candidates. For hydrogen production, high temperature membrane reactor is applicable by simplify the process of producing hydrogen from natural gas and purifying it by combining these process into single step. Among the materials, ceramic membranes with molecular sieve-like properties have been expected for application in membrane reactors for conversion enhancement in dehydrogenation and methane reforming reactions. Amorphous silica (Si-O) membranes prepared by sol-gel method have been intensively studied as molecular sieve membranes for gas separation at high temperature. To enhance the hydrogen permselectivity, we have developed Ni nanoparticle-dispersed amorphous Si-O based composite membrane through the precursor solution method and achieved higher hydrogen permeance compared to helium and nitrogen at 573K to 773K. In order to understand the phenomenon of the high hydrogen permeance of the novel nanocomposite membrane, it is important to clarify the expected high temperature hydrogen affinity, i.e., hydrogen adsorption properties. Here, the relationship between microstructure and hydrogen affinity of the nanocomposite was intensively studied from the view point of concentration of Ni nanoparticle in the amorphous Si-O matrix and reversible hydrogen adsorption property. Ni nanoparticles with about 3 to 5 nm in size were homogeneously dispersed in the amorphous Si-O matrix, and the Ni nanoparticles reached to saturate in the Si-O matrix with Ni/(Si+Ni) ratio of 0.2. The reversibly adsorbed hydrogen was hardly detected on the amorphous Si-O and Ni at 573 K, while Ni nanoparticle-dispersed amorphous silica apparently exhibited reversible hydrogen adsorption property. There was appreciable pressure dependence of the reversible hydrogen adsorption on the composite. Further study of the relationship between the increase amount of the reversibly adsorbed hydrogen (Vr) and Ni content on the composite powders revealed that the Vr gradually increased with increasing the Ni content and the highest Vr was ascertained for the composite with the Ni/(Si+Ni) ratio of 0.2. Combining the results of the unique hydrogen permeance through the composite membrane and the hydrogen affinity in the composite powder, we conclude that the existence of reversibly adsorbed hydrogen due to the extensive dispersion of Ni nanoparticles in the Si-O-based membrane involve the enlargement of the number of solubility site for hydrogen, which resulted in the selective enhancement in the hydrogen permeance of the nanocomposite membrane. Contact persons: Y

Background and objectives: Endothelial function plays a key role in determining the clinical manifestations of atherosclerosis. Recent reports have shown that healthy elderly subjects with higher trait anxiety tend to have heightened risks of atherosclerotic lesions and cardiovascular disease. The present study was intended to examine whether an association exists between trait anxiety and endothelial function in healthy young and elderly subjects.

Methods: This study examined 26 young male and 30 elderly male subjects using brachial artery flow-mediated dilation (FMD) – a non-invasive ultrasound method – to evaluate endothelial function by measuring the dilation responses of vascular smooth muscle to the nitric oxide produced by endothelial cells following hyperemia.

Results: A significant negative correlation was observed between the State and Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI)-trait score as a parameter of anxiety and the percentage change of FMD (%FMD) in the elderly subjects, but not in the young subjects. The elderly subjects showed significantly lower %FMD than the young subjects.

Conclusion: These results suggest the possibility that trait anxiety is a predisposing risk factor for cardiovascular damage that might, over a long period, induce atherosclerotic lesions.

We developed a variable-temperature scanning microwave microscope (VT-SμM) that can perform high-throughput materials characterization in the temperature range between 4K and room temperature. As a sensor probe we used a high-Q coaxial cavity resonator, which was mounted on the low-temperature stage to allow variable-temperature measurements. We carried out systematic studies on the thermal degradation of the conducting polymers using the combinatorial libraries of polyaniline and polythiophene thin films, which showed rapid decrease of conductivity above 300C and 250C, respectively. The low-temperature performance of the VT-SμM was demonstrated by the measurement of composition-spread Nd1-xSrxMnO3 thin film, for which we succeeded in detecting the clear metal-insulator transition at 100K. We also propose a simple and easy method for the quantitative analysis of conductive thin films, by using the standard composition-spread thin films of Ti1-xNbxO2.

We explored a new fluid flux stabilized even in the vacuum condition at high temperature by combinatorial pulsed laser deposition (PLD) approach. A small amount of CuO doped in BiOx was found to effectively stabilize BiOx even in 6 Torr O2 at 800°C. The application of this novel Bi-Cu-O flux to the vacuum process lead to the successful fabrication of a single crystal Bi4Ti3O12 film and the establishment of a more reliable process for preparation of an atomically flat LaAlO3(001) substrate.

a-/b-axis-oriented epitaxial Bi4Ti3O12 and neodymium-substituted Bi4Ti3O12 films with a different a-domain fraction, V(100)/[V(100)+V(010)], were grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition above the phase transition temperature. It was demonstrated that the saturation polarization observed for the a-/b-axis-oriented film is proportional to the a-domain fraction estimated by x-ray diffraction. The liner relationship passing through the origin revealed that the 90° domain switching by an external electric field hardly occurred. The extrapolation gave spontaneous polarization of 58 μC/cm2 for a pure a-axis-oriented (Bi3.5Nd0.5)Ti3O12 film. The domain fraction was investigated as a function of thermal strain originated from a difference in thermal expansion coefficient between the film and substrates. The domain fraction of the films changed with the thermal strain along the in-plane [010] in tetragonal a-axis-oriented films as well as epitaxially grown tetragonal Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 films.

Let G be a separable, locally compact group and let d (G) be the set of all closed left ideals in L1(G) which have the form Jμ = {f − f ∗ μ: f ∈ L1(G)}− for some discrete probability measure μ. It is shown that if d (G) has a unique maximal element with respect to the order structure by set inclusion, then G is amenable. This answers a problem of G.A. Willis. We also examine cardinal numbers of the sets of maximal elements in d (G) for nonamenable groups.

A misting free dental mirror is obtained near the human temperature under the saturated humidity atmosphere by use of the sheet electron beam irradiation treatment. It is shown that electron beam irradiation treatment decreases the time to clear vision in a misted mirror. This effect is due to an enhancement of the interfacial energy between the dental mirror glass and water.

Our aim was to determine the effect of growth hormone on non-insulin-mediated glucose disposal in lactating dairy cows. Following 5 d of subcutaneous injections of either saline or growth hormone, insulin, somatostatin or insulin plus somatostatin were infused for 2 h each, in a series of experiments. Coincident with this, unlabelled glucose was infused at a variable rate to maintain a constant plasma glucose concentration. Glucose, doubly labelled with deuterium, was also infused for the calculations of glucose turnover. Plasma insulin levels were reduced to nearly zero by the infusion of somatostatin; under such conditions whole body glucose disposal should be non-insulin-mediated. Dairy cows treated with growth hormone, which had significantly increased milk yields on the day before the experimental infusions, did not have different levels of whole body non-insulin-mediated glucose disposal when expressed in absolute terms. Growth hormone did not affect non-mammary non-insulin-mediated glucose uptake estimated by calculation. Growth hormone significantly inhibited insulin-mediated glucose uptake when plasma insulin levels were elevated. Glucose uptake during insulin plus somatostatin infusion was not significantly different from that of the insulin only infusion.

Four mid-lactation Holstein dairy cows (mean milk yield on day of experiments 26·1 kg/d) were used in a series of experiments to establish the contribution of non-insulin-mediated glucose uptake to total glucose uptake at basal insulin concentrations. A secondary objective was to determine whether somatostatin affects the action of infused insulin. In part I of the experiment a primed continuous infusion of [6,6-2H]glucose (45·2 μg/kg per min) was begun at time 0 and continued for 5 h. After 3 h of [6,6-2H]glucose infusion (basal period) a primed continuous infusion of insulin (0·001 i.u./kg per min) was administered for 2 h. Coincident with the insulin infusion, normal glucose was also infused in order to maintain the plasma glucose concentration at euglycaemia. Part II of the experiment was the same as part I except that somatostatin was infused for 2 h (0·333 μg/kg per min) instead of insulin. In part III of the experiment both insulin and somatostatin were infused for the final 2 h. Plasma insulin levels were increased by insulin infusion (to 0·1476 and 0·1290 i.u./l for parts I and III respectively) and were reduced by somatostatin infusion in part II (to 0·006 i.u./l) relative to the basal periods (mean 0·021 i.u./l). Glucose uptake during somatostatin infusion (2·50 mg/kg per min; part II) was 92·0% of that observed in the respective basal period (2·72 mg/kg per min). Circulating insulin levels were much lower than the dose of insulin that causes a half maximal effect on glucose uptake (0·06–0·10 i.u./l for ruminants); consequently insulin-mediated glucose uptake was probably absent in part II. Secondly, glucose uptake following insulin only infusion (4·05 mg/kg per min) was significantly lower than that observed when insulin plus somatostatin was infused (4·69 mg/kg per min), indicating that somatostatin either directly or indirectly enhanced the action of insulin on glucose uptake.

Let S(G) be a Segal algebra on an infinite compact Abelian group G. We study the existence of many discontinuous translation invariant linear functionals on S(G). It is shown that if G/CG contains no finitely generated dense subgroups, then the dimension of the linear space of all translation invariant linear functionals on S(G) is greater than or equal to 2C and there exist 2C discontinuous translation invariant linear functionals on S(G), where c and CG denote the cardinal number of the continuum and the connected component of the identity in G, respectively.