Proceedings of the Japan Academy, Series B

Identification of spectral lines in photographic-infrared region from λ 8630 to λ 8800 in cool carbon stars

Yoshio FUJITA

1998 Volume 74 Issue 4 Pages 57-59
Published: 1998
Released on J-STAGE: October 17, 2006

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2183/pjab.74.57

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Identification of spectral feature of some cool carbon stars has been carried out in photographic-infrared region from λ 8630 to λ 8800. Detailed inspection concludes that twenty-six absorption lines couldn't be identified.

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Reproduction of mimosa and clock anomalies before earthquakes

Are they“Alice in the Wonderland Syndrome”?

Motoji IKEYA, Tomonori MATSUDA, Chihiro YAMANAKA

1998 Volume 74 Issue 4 Pages 60-64
Published: 1998
Released on J-STAGE: October 17, 2006

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2183/pjab.74.60

JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

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Some earthquake precursor phenomena told as legends or reported retrospectively for the 1995 Kobe earthquake have been reproduced by laboratory experiments. Mimosa placed on the high voltage sphere of a Van de Graaff electrostatic generator closed its leaves and bowed on charging and air-gap discharging, presumably due to the current induced in its stem. Air-gap discharging caused sudden movements of eels in a nearby plastic aquarium. Eels moved also on applying a pulsed electric field of less than 0.5V/m, while catfish responded only at around 5V/m. The higher sensitivity of eels to electric field than that of catfish is consistent with the story in the Ansei Chronicle that a man could not find eels in a river but only catfish in violent movement before the earthquake. Eels might have already hidden themselves in panic. Rapid rotation and stopping of the second hand of a clock, which were observed before the Kobe Earthquake like in the“Alice in the Wonderland”, have also been reproduced by exposing clocks to electromagnetic waves generated by air-gap discharging. Reported malfunctioning of home electronic appliances before the earthquake would have been due to some natural electromagnetic disturbance at the epicenter.

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Lipase-catalyzed ring-opening polymerization of 16-hexadecanolide

Shuhei NAMEKAWA, Hiroshi UYAMA, Shiro KOBAYASHI

1998 Volume 74 Issue 4 Pages 65-68
Published: 1998
Released on J-STAGE: October 17, 2006

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2183/pjab.74.65

JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

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Enzymatic ring-opening polymerization of a 17-membered lactone, 16-hexadecanolide (HDL), was performed in bulk by using lipases of different origin as catalyst. Pseudomonas fluorescens lipase exhibited high catalytic activity toward the polymerization, producing the corresponding polymer in high yields. A higher polymerization temperature (75°C) resulted in the formation of the polymer with molecular weight of more than 5×10³. HDL monomer was recovered unchanged in the polymerization without the enzyme. Michaelis-Menten kinetics of lactones in five different ring size showed that HDL had the largest enzymatic polymerizability among the lactones examined.

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