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In order to verify the stability evaluation flow of slopes with prevention piles installed, a model test of a slope was conducted. Prevention piles were designed to be installed on a slope with a distribution of successive weak layers, ensuring the safety factor of 1.2 for the design maximum seismic coefficient (K H) equal to 0.6, based on past stability evaluation flows. A slope model installed with prevention piles based on the design was created and a dynamic centrifugal force model experiment was conducted. As a result, it was confirmed that the prevention piles functioned even when the maximum horizontal acceleration (6.31 m/s2) equivalent to the designed seismic coefficient worked, and that no noticeable change occurred on the slope. Based on these facts, the validity of the existing stability evaluation flow was demonstrated.

We have investigated the valence electronic states of α-sexithiophene (α-6T) on three passivated Si(0 0 1) surfaces, oxidized Si(0 0 1), water-adsorbed Si(0 0 1) and ethylene-adsorbed Si(0 0 1), using ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS). At a thickness of α-6T layer below 0.5 nm, clear features of the π states are observed for water-adsorbed Si(0 0 1) and ethylene-adsorbed Si(0 0 1), whereas broad features are observed for oxidized Si(0 0 1). This difference is attributed to the formation of well-ordered stacking on water-adsorbed Si(0 0 1) and ethylene-adsorbed Si(0 0 1).

We used reflectance difference spectroscopy (RDS) and surface differential reflectance spectroscopy (SDRS) to investigate the molecular orientation of ultrathin α -sexithiophene ( α -6T) films on four passivated Si(100)-(2 × 1) surfaces, oxidized Si(001), water-adsorbed Si(001), hydrogen-adsorbed Si(001) and ethylene-adsorbed Si(001), in order to study the substrate dependence of the molecular orientation of isolated molecules and molecules located in islands or films. Strong in-plane anisotropy was observed on ethylene-adsorbed Si(001) even at 5 nm film thickness, which was not the case for the other substrates.

A visible four-layers structure with anomalous nano-sturucture was formed from a homogeneous -phase Bi3Pb7 intermetallic compound under a strong gravitational field (1.02x106 G, 130°C, 100 hours). In the 4th layer (lowest-gravity region), pure Bi particles precipitate. In the 2nd 3rd layers, composition graded structures, where Pb content increased along the gravity direction, were formed. It was found that the very broad XRD peak appeared in the 2nd layer, which indicated that an amorphous structure was contained.

Palm oil has the important advantage of productivity compared with other vegetable oils such as rapeseed oil and soybean oil. However, the cold flow performance of palm oil methyl ester (PME) is poorer than other vegetable-oil-based biodiesel fuels. Previous research by the current authors has shown that ethanol blending into PME improves the cold flow performance and considerably reduces smoke emission. The reduced smoke may be expected to allow an expansion in the exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) limit and lead to reduced oxides of nitrogen (NO x). This paper experimentally analyses the influence of EGR on smoke and NO x emissions with ethanol-blended PME. The results show that the combination of ethanol blending and EGR is effective in reducing NO x and smoke simultaneously without the thermal efficiency deteriorating. The smoke reduction can be attributed to an improved fuel—air mixing by an increased ignition delay owing to the low cetane number of ethanol and by a promoted fuel spray atomization caused by the low boiling point of ethanol. The increase in the oxygen content also leads to lower soot emission. The decrease in local equivalence ratio by ethanol blending was also suggested by the flame observation in which flame with high luminosity, high temperature, and high KL factor shrinks.

For steady-state deformation caused by grain-boundary diffusion, the macroscopic creep rate is analysed for a three-dimensional polycrystal consisting of space-filling grains, by taking into account the effects of diffusional interaction between grains, viscous grain-boundary sliding and grain-size distributions. For regular polyhedral grains, the grain–grain interactions increase the degree of symmetry of diffusional field, resulting in a decrease of the effective diffusion distance. Meanwhile, both the viscous grain-boundary sliding and the grain-size distribution are found to decrease the creep rate. At decreasing grain sizes, the influence of the viscous grain-boundary sliding becomes increasingly important, which explains the recent experimental observations that the creep rates of nanosized grains are much lower than those predicted by grain-boundary diffusion. On the effect of the grain-size distribution, the upper-bound and lower-bound creep rates are estimated.

For steady-state deformation caused by grain-boundary diffusion in hexagonal microstructures, the stress distribution on grain boundaries and the macroscopic strain rates are analysed by taking the effects of viscous grain-boundary sliding into account. The maximum normal stress and the extent of stress concentration are shown to decrease as the grain-boundary viscosity increases. For infinite viscosity and/or extremely small grain sizes, the distribution of the normal stress becomes uniform on grain boundaries. The strain rates are predicted by both the stress analysis and the energy balance method, and the two strain rates are consistent with each other. The predicted strain rates also decrease as the grain-boundary viscosity increases. The present analysis reveals that the grain-size exponent is dependent on the grain size and the grain-boundary viscosity: the exponent becomes unity for small grain sizes and/or high viscosity, while it is three for large grain sizes and/or low viscosity. Recent experim...

The origin of a sudden yield drop in a tetragonal ZrO2 dispersed with 30 vol% MgAl2O4 spinel composite has been examined. The present ZrO2-spinel composite exhibits yield drop in superplastic flow at high strain rates of 0.2s−1 or greater, where the flow behaviour is characterized by a stress exponent of about 3.5 and a grain-size exponent of about 1.0. Experimental examination suggests that a sudden increase in the mobile dislocation density within spinel grains is responsible for the yield drop.

In diffusion creep, the contribution of grain-boundary sliding to the overall strain os can be evaluated in arbitrary polycrystals, if the angular distribution of grain boundaries is known. A os value of 0.5 is obtained for two-dimensional (2D) equiaxed microstructures consisting of regular hexagonal grains, equiaxed grains grown from a Voronoi structure or grains having a circular distribution of grain-boundary angles. The os value is also evaluated for uniaxially deformed 2D microstructures, both diffusionally and uniformly deformed. For the former, the deformed microstructure is obtained by the simulation of microstructural evolution in polycrystals with straight grain boundaries. The os value increases gradually with increasing or decreasing strain and is larger in the diffusionally deformed microstructures than in the uniformly deformed microstructures for a given grain aspect ratio. The os value for three-dimensional (3D) polycrystalline microstructures is also obtained from an ellipsoidal distribut...

The origin of the increase in the stress exponent from n , 2.0 to with decreasing stress in 3 mol% Y 2 O 3 -stabilized tetragonal ZrO 2 has been examined. The present data show that the increase in the n value arises from the existence of a threshold stress that depends on the grain size and temperature. Careful examination of earlier creep data confirms that evaluation of the threshold stress is sensitive to the accuracy of the creep data and the value of n chosen for the compensation of the data. Inspection of the present results and some recent observations of the deformed microstructure suggests that the threshold stress is associated with intragranular dislocation motion.

We report the structural characteristics of a high-quality stable decagonal quasicrystal (D phase) with 1.6nm periodicity, formed in Al75Ni15Ru10 alloy annealed at 890°C for 24h. The tiling structure and the arrangement of transition-metal atoms (Ru and Ni) in this Al-Ni-Ru D phase have been clearly revealed by high-resolution electron microscopy (HREM) and by highangle annular detector dark-field (HAADF) scanning transmission electron microscopy (STM) respectively. On the basis of the HREM and HAADF STM observations, the relationship between the arrangement of local structural units and the formation of the long-range quasiperiodic tiling structure is discussed.

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has been employed to examine the deformed microstructures of a high-purity tetragonal zirconia polycrystal containing 3mol% yttria. The TEM observations reveal that piled-up and tangled dislocations are developed within grains at a high stress, but such substructures do not appear at a lower stress, except for a small number of isolated dislocations. The stress-dependent deformed microstructures suggest that the dislocation substructures observed at a high stress are not due to any experimental artefacts. Applying a model proposed by Eshelby et al. to the observed pile-up dislocations, it can be estimated that a stress concentration of the order of 14-25 is generated around multiple-grain junctions during deformation.

A high-quality superlattice Al-Ni-Ru decagonal quasicrystal with 0.4nm periodicity, formed in the conventionally solidified Al70Ni20Ru10 alloy, has been studied by high-resolution electron microscopy and a high-angle annular dark-field (Z-contrast) technique. It has been clearly revealed that its structure is characterized as an aperiodically ordered arrangement of decagon-shaped atomic columnar clusters which have a diameter of 2nm and show pentagonal symmetry. On the basis of high-resolution electron microscopy structure images, and the atom-resolution Z-contrast observations which highlight the transition-metal sites, the arrangement of atoms in the superlattice decagonal quasicrystal are proposed.

We report atomic resolution imaging of Cu-planar precipitates in aged Al-Cu alloys, known as Guinier-Preston (GP) zones, by high-angle annular detector dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy. Single layered GP-I zones as small as 2 nm in length were resolved among densely populated GP-I zones, whereas double layered GP zones were clearly identified. The images of GP-II zones showed not only the commonly accepted structure, in which single Cu layers are separated by three Al layers, but also a variant, in which double Cu layers are separated by a single Al layer.

An Al-Ni-Co pentagonal quasicrystal, showing electron diffraction patterns with pentagonal symmetry and including so-called superlattice reflections, has been examined by the high-angle annular detector dark-field technique with scanning transmission electron microscopy. Columnar clusters with a pentagonal arrangement of transition-metal atoms around their centres are arrayed in a rhombic tiling with a bond length of 2nm, all the clusters having the same orientation of pentagonal symmetry.

We have found that the structure of an Al-Ni-Co decagonal quasicrystal, which shows a diffraction pattern with many superlattice reflections (called a 'type I superlattice'), can be described as an ordered arrangement of two kinds of atomic columnar cluster with different orientations of their pentagonal symmetry. The fundamental lattice, which is constructed by connecting the clusters, is a rhombic quasiperiodic lattice with a bond length of about 2nm. The two kinds of cluster are placed at the lattice points in a definite manner such that the two connected clusters have different orientations.

We have investigated formation mechanisms of the icosahedral (i-) phase in a Cu-enriched region of the Al–Cu–Fe system. The formation of i-phase in the Al–Cu–Fe alloy system is characterized by the peritectic reaction: λ 2 +L→I (λ 2 is an Al 3 Fe compound with over 5 at.% Cu), which has been observed even in the Cu-enriched region. Therefore, we have tried to avoid the λ 2 -crystallization by preliminary metallurgical treatments for molten alloy. As a result, we have succeeded in growing a single Al 64 Cu 23 Fe 13 i-quasicrystal with the Czochralski method.

The structure of an Al-Ni-Co decagonal quasicrystal (called the S1-type superstructure), which shows diffraction patterns with superlattice reflections, has been studied by atomic-scale observations of electron microscopy. The structure of the decagonal quasicrystal can be characterized as an ordered arrangement of two kinds of atom columnar cluster with different directions of pentagonal symmetry. A fundamental lattice, which is constructed by connecting all the atom clusters, shows a pentagonal quasiperiodic lattice with a bond length of about 2 nm. The pentagonal lattice is divided into two superlattices, which are constructed by connecting atom clusters with the same directions of pentagonal symmetry, with a bond length of 2

We report a fast-programming, compact sense and latch (SL) circuit to realize an eight-level NAND flash memory. Fast programming is achieved by supplying optimized voltage and pulsewidth to the bit lines, according to the programming data. As a result, all data programming is completed almost simultaneously, and 0.67-MB/s program throughput, which is 1.7 times faster than conventional program throughput, is achieved. The compact layout of the SL circuit is made possible by four 3-bit latches sharing one unit of the read/verify control circuit. Using these techniques, we fabricated a 144-Mb, eight-level NAND flash memory using a 0.35-/spl mu/m CMOS process, resulting in a 104.2-mm/sup 2/ die size and a 1.05-/spl mu/m/sup 2/ effective cell size.

A new decagonal quasicrystal (the D phase) with a period of about 1.6 nm was found to form in conventionally solidified and heat-treated Al75Ni15Ru10 alloys. The electron diffraction patterns of the Al-Ni-Ru D phase exhibit a large number of quite sharp diffraction spots located at precise decagonal symmetry positions, indicating a highly ordered decagonal quasicrystal with a long-range quasiperiodic correlation. The D phase is formed with a composition close to Al74Ni15Ru11, as determined by energy-dispersive X-ray analysis. By means of high-resolution electron microscopy, the structural features of the Al-Ni-Ru D phase, which are obviously different from that of the Al-Pd D phase (a typical decagonal quasicrystal with 1.6 nm periodicity reported previously), have been revealed.

A new layered aluminophosphate [Al3P4O16][C5N2H9]2[NH4] (1) has been crystallized in a gel system with molar ratio of Al(PrOi)3:3.6 H3PO4:5.9 1,2-dimethylimidazole:12 TEG:3.4 H2O at 180 °C. Its structure is solved by single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. Compound 1 crystallizes in the monoclinic space group P21/c (no. 14), with a = 10.402(1), b = 14.545(1), c = 16.361(1) A, β = 96.397(6)°, and Z = 4. The inorganic layers, which are constructed from alternating tetrahedral AlO4 and PO3(O) units, contain 4.6 nets and are featured by a series of ◊3(Tp)5 chains. The layers are further held together through strong H-bonds between the terminal oxygen groups and ammonium cations NH4+ as well as protonated 1,2-dimethylimidazole molecules located in the interlayer. Formation of the 4.6 nets of 1 can be thought as the condensation of ◊3(Tp)5 chains.

Ti-Ni alloys of the near-equiatomic composition are technologically important materials with their superior shape memory and superelastic properties. In the present study the authors report the crystallography and morphology of new deformation twinning mode of the B19{prime} martensite in Ti-50.0 at%Ni alloy, which is found in the second and third stages of tensile deformation. Microstructural modifications of the B19{prime} martensite in each deformation stage upon tensile loading are also described briefly.

A new two-dimensional aluminophosphate layer [Al2P3O10(OH)2][C6NH8] (compound 1) has been prepared from an alcoholic system using 4-methylpyridine (C6NH7) as a template. The as-synthesized product is characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, dynamic thermogravimetric, and 31P-, 27Al-, and 13C magic-angle spinning (MAS) NMR analyses. The structure has been solved by single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. Compound 1 crystallized in the monoclinic space group P21/c (no. 14), with a = 8.686 (3) A, b = 21.240 (3) A, c = 8.799 (2) A, β = 113.23 (3)°, and Z = 4. The inorganic layers are constructed from alternating aluminum units (AlO4 and AlO5) and phosphorus units [PO4, PO3(OH), PO2(O)(OH)] and are featured by rows of edge-sharing bridged six-membered rings (6MRs) and zigzag four rings (4MRs). The layers are held with each other through strong H-bondings between the terminal oxygens attached to the 2-connected phosphate groups in adjacent layers. The organic ammonium cations (C6NH8+) are located in the la...

A new microporous aluminophosphate, designated AlPO-HDA, is prepared under solvothermal conditions using 1,6-hexanediamine as the template. AlPO-HDA is the first microporous aluminophosphate with A...

Using n-propylamine as a template, a new two-dimensional aluminophosphate Al 3 P 4 O 16 ·3CH 3 CH 2 CH 2 NH 3 , 1 [space group P2 1 /n (no. 14), a=11.310(1) A, b=14.854(1) A, c=14.796(1) A, β=93.64(1)°, Z=4] is synthesised in an alcoholic system and the structure is solved using single-crystal X-ray diffraction data. The structure consists of tetrahedral AlO 4 and PO 3 (=O) which are linked alternatively to form macroanionic layers parallel to the (10) plane. The organic cations (C 3 H 7 NH 3 + ) are located in the interlayer regions and are connected to the oxgens of the layers by hydrogen bonding.The 2-D nets of compound 1 are constructed from 4.6.8-nets which resemble the 2-D nets (4.6.8) 1 (6.8.8) 1 in microporous AlPO 4 -21.

In this paper it is presented a new algorithm for the construction of panoramic images (including 360 panoramas), which has as main characteristic to avoid the distortion that occurs by joining of several successive images in a sequence. We used the SIFT and RANSAC algorithms to find overlap areas between pairs of images, as well as a Blend algorithm for smoothing the joints. As the proposed algorithm doesn't cause distortions, the subsequent correction is not necessary, contributing to a better performance. The results of experiments using commercial software and also the proposed algorithm were compared through a visual analysis. In addition, a quantitative analysis was done using numeric measures calculated on a panoramic image, generated from an image sequence of a region mapped and georeferenced by Google Earth.

The structure of a single-crystal with a composition of approximately Al Mn Pd, which is isostructural to the Al Mn phase, has been investigated 75 20 5 3 by X-ray diffraction analysis. The refinement of the structure was carried out with data from 2197 observed reflections (intensity I > 2.0sigma( I )) by the least-squares method to a final R value of 0.062. Pd atoms partially replace Al atoms at definite positions in the Al Mn structure and show a mixed occupancy with Al atoms, 3 with their positions significantly shifted along the b -axis. On the basis of the structure of the Al (Mn, Pd) phase, we discuss the positions of Pd atoms in the 3 Al-Pd-Mn decagonal quasicrystal.

The tensile flow stress of a yttria-stabilized zirconia (3Y-TZP) decreased continuously with an increase in SiO 2 addition up to 2.5 mass%. The lowered flow stress was, however, accompanied by no enhanced tensile ductility except for either SiO 2 doping less than 0.1 mass% or that of 2.5 mass%. Stereological microanalysis of deformed specimens revealed that the ductility was controlled strongly by the cavity morphology which depended on the amount of SiO 2 phase. In materials doped with 0.0–0.1 and 2.5 mass% SiO 2 , round cavities grew into sizes smaller than 100 μm. The analysis indicated that the cavity growth law was the same in these materials and thus the ductility was controlled mainly by the cavity nucleation rate. On the other hand, the intermediate SiO 2 doping superinduced the crack-like cavities with growth rates about 3 times higher than that of the round ones. In spite of their low population, they developed easily into cracks with sizes of hundreds of micrometers, aligning perpendicular to the stress axis and resulting in a limited tensile ductility. The cause of the crack-like cavitation was also discussed on the basis of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observations.

This paper looks at the presentation of and response to face threatening acts (FTA) in tutor-student interaction in British and Japanese academic contexts. The specific FTAs looked at were criticism, suggestion and request. Their location in a specific genre, i.e., the one-to-one tutorial, is an important determinant, both for their occurrence and for their interpretation. We investigated five recurring situations in the authentic data: three which were tutor-initiated with the illocutionary force of criticism, suggestion and request for clarification, and two which were student-initiated requests. These situations were incorporated into a discourse completion test, which was administered to native speakers of English and Japanese. The results revealed that while the British students primarily dealt with their own face wants, both positive and negative face wants, the Japanese students showed more concern for the positive face of the tutor. There was an obvious attendance to negative face in the British context, where both the tutor and the student attended each other's negative face and the students attended their own, whereas there was an effacement of negative face in the Japanese context, where neither the tutors nor the students tended to attend each other's or their own negative face. This study, therefore, moves ‘face’ out of the specific realm of politeness, and attempts to demonstrate its wider applicability in contrastive and cross-cultural pragmatics.

We demonstrate 12-core fiber bidirectional long-haul transmission with sub-petabit-class capacity (2 × 344 Tb/s). Inter-core crosstalk management and multicarrier nonlinear compensation enabled the longest distance of 1500 km in SDM transmission with unidirectional capacity over 300 Tb/s.

White emission produced by Ti-doped MgAl2O4 phosphor powder is reported, which is in contrast to blue emission from most Ti-doped single crystals of MgAl2O4. The white emission peak consists of four deconvoluted peaks: 440, 490, 550, and 620 nm, when was excited by 260 nm wavelength. Ti4+ in octahedral sites was found to contribute mostly to greenish blue emissions at 490 and 550 nm. The red emission at 620 nm was produced by abundant Mg 2+ and O2− vacancies in the spinel powder.

In this chapter, we undertake four different kinds of analysis towards an understanding of intercultural communication in action. The action is situated in a context where intercultural encounters are common, namely contemporary higher education. Furthermore, the intercultural encounters are discipline specific. They take place in one-to-one tutorials in fine art, in a UK institution. The lecturers are British and the students are Japanese. In the first place, the tutorial interactions are analysed in terms of the tutorial as genre; second, certain recurring exchange types within the tutorial are isolated as examples of what we call epistemic principles, namely those underlying principles which motivate teaching and learning in the discipline. Third, and following on from the discourse analytic perspective of the students behaviour, students’ own accounts of why they were behaving as they were, and how they understood the tutorial interactions, are explored in a number of retrospective, semi-structured interviews. The stimulus for those interviews were video-recordings of the students tutorials, which had taken place one year earlier, and they were carried out in Japanese. This afforded a fourth kind of analysis, namely the extent to which the students had adapted to or resisted not only the interactional norms of the tutorial, that is behaving like students in a UK context, but also the disciplinary norms which lay behind those interactions.

HAADF (high-angle annular detector dark-field) images with Cs-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) have been observed for a W-(AlCoNi) crystalline phase and two-types of decagonal quasicrystals in Al71.5Co25.5Ni3 and Al72.5Co17.5Ni10 alloys. We have secured positive evidence that three-dimensional arrangements of transition-metal (TM) atoms of decagonal quasicrystals can be directly derived from the arrangements of bright dots in HAADF-STEM images, which correspond to individual TM atoms, by reference to results on HAADF-STEM observation and the structure of W-(AlNiCo) determined by X-ray diffraction analysis. We could conclude that pure TM atomic sites and mixed TM sites (with Al atoms) on A and B planes stacking along the periodic axis are located at the lattice points of a Penrose lattice with a bond length of 0.25 nm. In both planes atomic sites form pentagonal tilings with bond lengths of 0.47 nm and 0.76 (=0.47⋅τ) nm, respectively, in both the Al71.5Co25.5Ni3 and Al72.5Co17.5Ni10 decagonal quasicrystals, whose structures were formally characterized as rhombic and pentagonal tilings of atom columnar clusters with a bond length of 2 nm.

L'A. presente des articles portant sur la metaphore et la structure du texte poetique. Ils traitent du probleme de la metaphore cognitive comme relation iconique entre la langue et le monde dans le langage ordinaire et dans le langage poetique, et analysent la pertinence de la structure du texte poetique pour l'etude de la metaphore cognitive. Ils varient entre etudes de textes poetiques particuliers et mythologie, et vont du probleme general de la traduction a une perspective semiotique theorique. Cette conjonction de la metaphore cognitive et de la pragmatique est destinee a eclairer le fonctionnement des structures metaphoriques et iconiques dans l'usage de la langue en general, et dans le texte poetique en particulier

The problem of iconicity has been a recurring theme in linguistic inquiry into the nature of the linguistic sign. The property of iconicity includes not only the narrow category of sound symbolism, but also the broad categories of isomorphism and metaphor. This paper surveys recent research, and offers a classification of diagrammatic and metaphorical iconicity in language. Problems of structural diagram, relational diagram, grammatical metaphor, conventional metaphor and poetic metaphor are discussed, with a few illustrative examples. This review shows that an evaluation of the property of iconicity in language has implications for the general theory of language as a ‘natural’ phenomenon.

Fe-Pt alloy thin films were prepared by the rf-magnetron sputtering method. From X-ray diffraction results and TEM observations, the following results were obtained: (1) the as-deposited films are disordered and consist of micrograins of size roughly 150~200 A; (2) the annealed films are ordered, with grain sizes about 400~500 A. A lamellar microstructure, which is considered to be a microtwin structure, was observed within the grains. Magnetization measurements revealed that the coercive force, H c , of the annealed films has a maximum (?15.8 kOe) at about equiatomic concentration. The origin of the high H c is considered to be related to the microtwin structure. It was found that H c begins to increase at an annealing temperature of 300°C, which means that the ordered phase begins to grow at the same temperature. The magnetization, M, of the annealed films was smaller than that of as-deposited films. The decrease in M near equiatomic composition is ascribed to a change in the magnetic structure.

The hepatic glycine cleavage system in the chicken was examined at different stages of development to study regulation of its biosynthesis. Embryonic levels of polypeptide and mRNA for glycine decarboxylase, one of the three intrinsic components of this enzyme system, were approximately 10% of their adult levels and were rapidly increased following hatching. Those of H-protein, another intrinsic component, were somewhat higher and were more slowly increased throughout the course of development. The change in activities of the two components went with the increase in their polypeptide levels. Moreover, both relative levels of mRNAs for the two components and relative efficiencies of transcription of their genes were not constant during development. T-protein biosynthesis appeared to follow a course similar to that of H-protein. These observations imply that during development, the production of H-protein and T-protein is regulated by similar mechanisms. Further, it is likely that the same mechanisms do not direct the regulatory processes in the biosynthesis of glycine decarboxylase and that embryo and adult livers possess different regulatory modes regarding the biosynthesis of this enzyme system. The shift to the adult mode appeared to occur at birth. The glycine cleavage activity that was three times higher than that in 12-day-old embryo was observed in adult liver mitochondria.

The early stage of phase decomposition of an Al-7.8at.% Li alloy was studied by atom probe field ion microscopy (APFIM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The atom probe concentration depht profile clearly that the δ′ with the stoichiometric Li concentration were already precipitated in the as-quenched stage. The high resolution TEM image also showed that small isolated ordered particles were present in the disordered matrix. These two results unambiguously show that the first product which we can observe experimentally is the δ′ precipitates. Therefore, it does not seem possible to obtain convincing evidence to prove that the congruent ordering precedes spinodal decomposition, because such a transformation path would have already been completed during quenching.

The microstructure of the Fe73.5Si13.5B9Nb3Cu1 soft magnetic material with a nanocrystalline structure has been investigated by atom probe field ion microscopy and high resolution electron microscopy. In the as-quenched amorphous sample, all the alloying elements were found to distribute homogeneously as an amorphous solid solution. In the annealed sample with the optimum soft magnetic properties, we found that two phases were present. One was bcc FeSi solution and the other was the B and Nb enriched amorphous phase with little Si content. Although some uncertainty remains regarding the distribution of Cu, the present result is consistent with earlier speculations that the bcc phase would be the FeSi solid solution based on the lattice parameter measurement and the Curie temperature measurement.