[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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Elimination behavior of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) molecules adsorbed on Cu(II)-supported hydroxyapatite (Cu-HAp) using warmed ultrapure water was investigated, and H2S adsorption ability of Cu-HAp before and after exposure to initial H2S gas and the subsequent water treatment was compared. Cu-HAp quickly and markedly adsorbed H2S and its color changed from light blue to dark brown, suggesting that sulfuric component was chemically adsorbed on the surface of Cu-HAp and that it was present as a Cu(II) salt. After the water treatment of Cu-HAp at 333 K after exposure to H2S, the solid phase kept its original crystalline structure and no sulfuric component was detected. The color of the sample gradually changed and turned back to the almost original one after immersion in water for 4 weeks. In addition, Cu-HAp treated in water recovered H2S adsorption ability up to 76 % compared to the original Cu-HAp. Solid residue obtained by evaporation of the treated solution was mainly composed of hydrated calcium sulfate, while any Cu(II) salt was not detected. It suggests that sulfides adsorbed on Cu-HAp was oxidized and eluted into water, and that Cu(II) remained on the surface of the adsorbent. Consequently, Cu-HAp is expected to be a reusable adsorbent against gaseous H2S.

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Recently, along with the declining birthrate and an aging population, labor shortage of nursing care support is recognized as a social problem. Among such social backgrounds, Brain-Computer Interface (BCI), which non-contact controls an external device with electroencephalograms, is being actively researched. However, it is still hard to say that BCI has returned to society. The reason for this is as follows: (1) high cost, and (2) instability of the system caused by requiring complicated control action. From this fact, in this research, BCI specialized for serial operation was tried by simplifying the system, and its operation reliability (task success rate / malfunction rate) has been evaluated. From the experiments, as a technical problem, the motor control method was inappropriate, and the evaluation accuracy of the simple electroencephalograph was low. In this paper, the control method of the motor was changed, and the effect of (1) improvement of the success rate of the problem and (2) reduction effect of the malfunction rate between the conventional method and the proposed method was evaluated. In the experiment, motor control experiments by both methods were performed 5 times on each subject (n = 10). As a result, in the evaluation item (1), the task success rate improved in all subjects. Moreover, similarly in the evaluation item (2), reduction in malfunction rate was confirmed in all subjects. After that, the average was calculated from 10 data for both items, and paired t-test with a significance level of 1 % was carried out. Consequently, the task success rate increased significantly by 13.3 %, and the malfunction rate was significantly decreased by 8.8 % (p < .01). The present result suggested that the proposed method is more voluntary and more secure than the conventional method.

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[in Japanese]

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Among rare earth elements, scandium Sc with the smallest ionic radius, lanthanum La with the largest ionic radius, and gadolinium Gd with an ionic radius near the middle were selected, and the effects of these rare earth elements on the germination and growth of Komatsuna seeds for three days after sowing were investigated. ScCl3･6H2O, GdCl3･6H2O, and LaCl3･7H2O were used as sources of Sc, Gd, and La, respectively. The degree of germination and growth in the test water containing different concentrations of Sc, Gd, and La and the control (ion-exchanged water) were compared. As a result, no obvious significance to germination by addition of rare earth elements was observed, and no difference in the degree of germination depending on the type of rare earth elements and the concentration of test water was observed. On the other hand, the growth enhancement by the addition of rare earth elements was observed for Sc.

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Since the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster in 2011, public health issues in neighboring regions have attracted significant attention. One ongoing debate involves whether the prevalence of diabetes has increased in areas with radioactive contamination or not, as previous studies have revealed inconsistent results. Thus, given that the indirect effects of radiation on public health have been extensively discussed, it is important to evaluate the health statuses of individuals who work in regions with relatively high radiation doses and who are thought to have lived without a major change in lifestyle. The present study aimed to evaluate whether glycated hemoglobin values increased between 2010 and 2016 among a sample of factory (Kikuchi Seisakusho) employees from Iitate village, who continued to work in the factory after the disaster. The results indicated that the post-disaster values for glycated hemoglobin did not significantly exceed those from 2010. This finding may be useful for conducting further studies to examine the effects of radioactive contamination exposure on the risk of developing diabetes.

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Capillary images can be effective indicators since correlations have been established between the status of capillaries and certain diseases such as cancer and diabetes. Traditionally, capillaries observations have been conducted through visual observations by medical experts. Purpose of this study is to develop a noise reduction method to extract clearer capillary images for a quantitative evaluation method. Experiments were conducted with four subjects. The proposed method utilizing OpenCV platform produced clearer capillary images compared to the original images. The results have shown the effectiveness of the proposed noise reduction method.

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[in Japanese]

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