Daisuke Aoki

Viscosities of Fe–Ni, Fe–Co and Ni–Co binary melts

Viscosities of three binary molten alloys consisting of the iron group elements, Fe, Ni and Co, have been measured by using an oscillating cup viscometer over the entire composition range from liquidus temperatures up to 1600 °C with high precision and excellent reproducibility. The viscosities measured showed good Arrhenius linearity for all the compositions. The viscosities of Fe, Ni and Co as a function of temperature are as follows: The isothermal viscosities of Fe–Ni and Fe–Co binary melts increase monotonically with increasing Fe content. On the other hand, in Ni–Co binary melt, the isothermal viscosity decreases slightly and then increases with increasing Co. The activation energy of Fe–Co binary melt increased slightly on mixing, and those of Fe–Ni and Ni–Co melts decreased monotonically with increasing Ni content. The above behaviour is discussed based on the thermodynamic properties of the alloys.

Effectiveness of mass screening for endometrial cancer.

OBJECTIVEnTo investigate the effectiveness of mass screening for endometrial cancer using Endocyte (Laboratoire CCD, Paris, France) endometrial smears.nnnSTUDY DESIGNnThe study subjects were consecutive patients with documented endometrial cancer diagnosed between January 1, 1989, and December 31, 1997, at 22 hospitals in Japan. One hundred twenty-six cases were detected by mass screening and 1,069 diagnosed in outpatient clinics. We compared the stage of cancer at diagnosis and survival rate of patients in the two groups.nnnRESULTSnEarly stage was significantly more frequent in the screening group (P < .001); stage I comprised 88.1% of the screening group as compared with 65.3% of the outpatient group. Well-differentiated adenocarcinoma was significantly more frequent in the screening group (P < .01); grade 1 constituted 74.7% of the screening group as compared with 61.0% of the outpatient group. The five-year survival rate was significantly higher in the screening group than in the outpatient group (94.0% vs. 84.3%, P = .041). The crude hazard ratio (HR) of dying of endometrial cancer for the screening group as compared to the outpatient group was .47 (95% CI .22-.99, P = .048). HR became .96 (95% CI .45-2.08, P = .925) after adjustment for age, study area and cancer stage.nnnCONCLUSIONnThe results suggest that an endometrial cancer screening program would lead to early detection and improved survival among women with endometrial cancer.

Lysine linkage in abasic site-binding ligand-thiazole orange conjugates for improved binding affinity to orphan nucleobases in DNA/RNA hybrids

Introduction of lysine linkage in the conjugate between abasic site-binding ligands and thiazole orange significantly improved the binding affinity for target orphan adenine or uracil nucleobase in DNA/RNA hybrids.

An Effective Damage Identification Method for Large Truss Structures Using Successive Iteration Method of Bounding Domain and Domain Decomposition Finite Element Technique

Damage identification methods using finite element methods have received much attention for health monitoring systems. However, the damage identification methods need a long computational time for large and complex structures. In this paper, we develop an effective damage identification method for large truss structures using a successive iteration method of bounding domain and a domain decomposition finite element technique. The subdomain of truss structures which contains a damaged truss member is first determined by a flexibility method. The subdomain is subdivided into smaller subdomains using a successive iteration method of bounding domain, and finally the damaged truss member is identified. In order to reduce computational time, the domain decomposition finite element technique is used to get frequencies and mode shapes of the whole structure by assembling subdomain frequencies and mode shapes. To examine the effectiveness of the present damage identification method, the damage identification for large two-dimensional and three-dimensional truss structures is conducted. As the results, it is found that the damaged truss member and its residual stiffness can be identified precisely and the present damage identification method can reduce the computational time when the measurement errors are relatively small.