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A series of our investigations has shown that a shuttle loom costs more expense of wear and tear than a shuttleless loom does.The main reason of this is that a wooden shuttle is low in mechanical durability.From this point-of-view, a plan is afoot to reduce the expense by replacing a wooden shuttle with a plastic one. To carry out the investigation, a German p lastic shuttle is used on an automatic cop changing loom for polyester textured fabric.The main results obtained are as follows : (1) A plastic shuttle can be used in the polyester textured fabric in the similiar condition to the wooden shuttle, (2) Mechanical durability of the plastic shuttle is higher than that of the wooden shuttle, and (3) Therefore, the wear and tear expense of shuttle can be reduced by using a plastic shuttle.

A handy shuttle speed meter, consisted of two sets of photoelect Tic switch, has been developed. It might be useful to control the shuttle looms operating in weaving mills.The main features of the handy shuttle speed meter are as follolAs : 1) the mean velocity of a shuttle can be ea-sily measured, and2) the velocity can be obtained with in one percent in standard error, when two sets of switch are held one meter apart.

The investigation was planed to observe some mechanical behaviours of heald frame, e.g. acceleration and vibration of the frame for obtaining fundamental data to develop a highspeed dobby up to 1 000 rpm in loom- speed. In order to carry out the investigation planned, a positive and negative shedding device were used as the apparatus. The main results obtained were as follows : 1) To increase the shedding speed, the positive system was more suitable then the nagative one.2) The warp used was uneffective to redusce a vibration of the frame.3) The heald frame movement produced by a cycloid cam could not show a better performance comparirng with that of a simqle harmonic motion camin the higher speed range used.4) To increase the shedding speed, a standstill angle of the shedding cams was undesirable. ring than

Background: Asthma is a heterogeneous disease composed of various phenotypes. Periostin, a molecule inducible with interleukin (IL)-4 or IL-13 in bronchial epithelial cells, is a biomarker of “TH2-high” asthma. The objective of this study is to examine whether the serum periostin concentrations are correlated with the severity, specific phenotype(s), or comorbidity of asthma. Methods: Serum concentrations of periostin were measured in 190 Japanese asthmatic patients and 11 healthy controls. The protocol was registered under UMIN 000002980 in the clinical trial registry. Results: The serum concentrations of periostin were significantly higher (P ¼ 0.014) in asthmatics [70.0 (54.0e93.5) ng/ml] than in healthy subjects [57.0 (39.0e63.0) ng/ml], though we found no correlation between serum periostin concentrations and treatment steps required to control asthma. To characterize “high-periostin” phenotype(s), the patients with asthma were divided among tertiles based on the serum concentrations of periostin. The high-periostin group was older at onset of asthma (P ¼ 0.04), had a higher prevalence of aspirin intolerance (P ¼ 0.04) or concomitant nasal disorders (P ¼ 0.03e0.001), higher peripheral eosinophil counts (P < 0.001), and lower pulmonary function (P ¼ 0.02e0.07). The serum concentrations of periostin were particularly high in asthmatic patients complicated by chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps and olfactory dysfunction. In contrast, neither atopic status, control status of asthma, nor quality of life were related with the “high-periostin” phenotype. Conclusion: Elevated periostin concentrations in serum were correlated with a specific phenotype of eosinophilic asthma, late-onset and often complicated by obstructive pulmonary dysfunction and nasal disorders.

In recent years, a number of ultrasonic imaging systems for NDE have been developed. 1,2 These systems are mainly composed of expensive high speed electrical circuits, expensive transducers with a number of elements, and signal processing equipment. However, if the processing of signals concerning flaws is based on phase information, the minimum number of transducer elements is only three in the pitch-catch method. This paper deals with a flaw measurement where only three ultrasonic transducers are used at most for localization and sizing of cylindrical flaws.

This paper proposes a novel technique for the dynamic characterization of microstructures by generating motion in them. Here, microstructures refer to microsensors and microfabricated mechanical components. The method satisfies the requirements for the dynamic characterization of microstructures. Motion is triggered by the reflection of pulse elastic waves propagating in a metal bar. The microstructure to be characterized is fixed to the end surface of the bar and dynamic displacement generated is measured by an argon-ion-laser-based interferometer. The motion of the end surface of the bar generated by the reflection of a pulse elastic wave is measured by either strain gages bonded on the side of the bar or directly by the argon-ion-laser-based interferometer. There is a simple mathematical relationship between the measured strain and the acceleration at the end of the bar. The validity is verfied by the characterization of several kinds of microstructures : a silicon doubly supported beam, an accelerometer and an AE-transducer.

Wistar Imamichi rat and human respiratory cilia were examined with anti-dynein antibody (AD2), which is specific for sea urchin sperm flagellar dynein. AD2-labelled fresh-frozen normal rat and human cilia stained clearly by immunofluorescence and the peroxidase-antiperoxidase (PAP) technique. On immunoelectron microscopy, AD2 labelled the outer dynein arms of normal human cilia. Paraffin-embedded normal human cilia also stained by immunofluorescence, although not always clearly. Neither the cilia of WIC-Hyd male rats, an animal model of Kartagener's syndrome, nor human cilia from patients with primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) reacted positively by the immunofluorescence or PAP technique. Western blots of normal rat cilia yielded a single band of about 450 kDa. In conclusion, AD2 recognizes the outer arm dynein heavy chains of healthy cilia and may be useful in diagnosing and classifying PCD light microscopically especially when only paraffin-embedded specimens are available. This approach may be of potential use for better defining and classifying PCD.

This paper is concerned with the localization and size estimation of cylindrical flaws which are included in materials with flat surfaces. A pair of longitudinal wave probes is used for localization; for sizing, three transducers are used. Simulation and experiments demonstrated that localization is possible even when scanning is limited because of the geometrical configuration of a specimen. The validity of flaw sizing was also shown by experiments. The possibility of size estimation of inner flaws even under the condition of limited scanning is demonstrated.