[in Japanese]

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Both mercury and selenium distribution in the ordinary muscle of Japanese scad (Decapterus maruadsi), preserved under a fasting environment, was investigated in order to clarify the influence of fasting, which is generally performed before shipment in culture facilities, upon the metabolism of some trace components in the fish body. As a result, it is shown that both levels of mercury and selenium (especially low oxidation state of selenium) gradually decreased with the decrease of body weight during the fasting and consequently there was a positive correlation (ro = 0.99) between both levels. These findings suggested that both elements may also be excreted as a detoxified substance such as mercuric selenide by means of fasting until shipment.

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[in Japanese]

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The attractive feature of the small electric boat is introduced. These technology of Japan is far behind other countries. Two newly developed electric boats, so called, plug-in hybrid boats (PHEB) is descrfibed. It is shown that the minimization of the noise generated from the electric boat system is one of the most important issue to be solved. In conclusion, such field might be an attractive thing for Japanese engineers, but the development has lagged behind than other countries.

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Many organic semiconductors for organic transistors have been synthesized. Evaluation of carrier mobility is needed to make organic transistor. However, Rapid and easy method of evaluation of the mobility of the organic semiconductor is not found. The purpose of this study is the investigation of the usefulness of conductometry for the evaluation of organic semiconductor. The characteristic of the organic compound semiconductor can be evaluated quickly and easily by measuring the conductivity of the solution of the organic compound. The conductivity of the solution of the organic compound is related to the real semiconductor properties of the molecule. The sensitivity for the stacking can be evaluated in comparison to the device mobility and the conductivity of the solution of the organic compound.

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The authors paid attention to paper shredder scrap as biomass and studied bioethanol production from them using marine derived yeasts. We reviewed current production methods, suggested the production method that minimized chemical agent use and machinery, and we found out additionally a superiority of paper shredder scrap as a material. As for the saccharification of the material, it was compared sulfuric acid hydrolysis followed by enzymatic saccharification with only the enzymatic one. As a result, the amount of glucose production with the enzymatic saccharification was higher than that with the sulfuric acid followed by the enzymatic one. We found that glucose of 75 g was produced by only the enzymatic saccharification from the paper of 100 g. In this study, the saccharification solution of glucose concentration 270-290 g/L was used by all fermentation tests. About ethanol fermentation, a Saccharomyces cerevisiae C-19 derived from Tokyo Bay was mainly used and both a S. cerevisiae NBRC 10217 and a S. cerevisiae K-7 were used as control strains. As for the fermentation methods, the static fermentation, the agitating fermentation, and the repeated fermentations with immobilized yeasts using the alginate beads were performed. Furthermore, as a new way to increase the amount of total ethanol, ETS (Ethanol Trap System) was developed. By the agitating fermentation, the maximum ethanol concentration of 12 % (w/v) was observed using the strain C-19. In addition, 8.5 % (w/v) of ethanol concentration was produced by the repeated fermentation using immobilized yeast cells. In this study, we discussed both an optimum saccharification condition with enzymes and an optimum fermentation condition for ethanol production using the marine yeast strain C-19. Moreover, these results established that the paper shredder scrap was useful as a novel material for bioethanol production.

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[in Japanese]

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In order to develop a low cost method for rapidly determining the total amount of polyphenols in many samples, the colorimetric technique combined with the Folin-Chiocalteu (FC) method was investigated by using a digital scanner. Since the test solution containing polyphenols shows a blue-color after treatment of the FC method, the R-value was selected from RGB values of the digital image data obtained with a scanner. The absorbance which was calculated from the R-value was proportional to the concentration of a typical polyphenol such as chlorogenic acid and gallic acid. To discuss the cost performance of this colorimetric technique, the usual UV-Vis spectrophotometer method, the digital camera method and the micro-plate reader method were tested. As the linearity of a calibration curve obtained by the three methods was equivalent to that by the scanner method, the scanner method was decided to be the most effective technique from the standpoint of short measuring time and cost performance in the case of determination of the total polyphenol content in many samples. In the future, the FC-scanner method is likely to be multi-used at the site of functional food manufacturing.

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We are researching the way for improving the QOL of the people in a care home by using ICT. The project for weaving memories of the elderly in the care home is one of the important parts of our research. We digitalized the old photos of the residents, and the outpatients of the care homes, and uploaded these photos to the cloud service in order to make them accessible and available at everywhere. Then, these data are transformed into various kinds of media such as the interactive digital photo album, the slide show video, etc. whenever needed for utilizing these media at the various scenes in the care service. Also, we've introduce the TV phones to the care home in order to increase the chances of the communication between the residents and the volunteers, and between the outpatients and the care staffs. In order to support the smooth communication of the elderly, we make it possible to share the reminiscence contents uploaded to the cloud service while the conversation via TV phone.

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[in Japanese]

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