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The new routeing measures in Sunda Strait, that consists of traffic separation scheme (TSS), precautionary area (PA), and inshore traffic zones (ITZ), have been implemented since July 2020. The Automatic Identification System (AIS) data is utilized to understand the traffic pattern in this area. One dataset before and one dataset after the implementation of TSS is then converted into a vessel trip database. Eight vessel courses, two positions, and seven crossing zones are determined from the density plot to categorise the vessel trips. This study introduced a different perspective to assess the crossing situation by using three point-of-views to calculate the probability, namely crossing zone basis, course basis, and vessel type basis. The analysis result shows that the crossing situation is mostly occurred in the precautionary area of the new routeing measure.

With action on environmental issues becoming increasingly important, the maritime industry is facing a new paradigm shift for zero emission technology. Environmental issues should be urgently solved; however, this new type of paradigm shift means that the maritime industry will face a dilemma between the current growth-based economy and the imminent sustainable economy. In this paper, we apply the framework of the theory of constraints when considering the dilemma; the issues are then elucidated, and some holistic improvement solutions are considered.

This study is utilizing hydraulics experimental and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods to verify the flow phenomenon in ballast water during the drainage process and to discuss the drainage efficiency. The model designed for the experiment is a part of ballast tanks of a typical bulk carrier and it is using the scale of 1:10 for the data collection. The experimental results are then validated and verified by conducting a two-phase flow model applied volume of fluid (VOF) simulation. The use of VOF in the ballast tank drainage is approved, so the drainage efficiency of the ballast tank can be predicted. This study also provides an optimization method for a simplified mathematical model, which can improve the agreement between the model and experimental results and create a more efficient yet simpler evaluation method for the configuration of the ballast tank drainage system.

The quality of the ballast water drainage system during the cargo handling process of ships is an important issue for those involved in marine transportation such as cargo owners and shipping companies as it is significantly related to their revenue shipping. An excess charge is incurred if moored beyond the scheduled time due to the loading time, and the deadweight tonnage superfluity residual water reduces the deadweight tonnage. To minimize the loss of their transportation, this paper addressed two problems: shortening the ballast drainage time and minimizing the amount of residual water in the ballast tank. The objective of this study was to construct an optimal ballast drainage system to solve these problems. In this paper, hydraulic experiments modelling the drainage of the ballast tank were conducted to evaluate the drainage system's design policy and reveal the optimum design condition of a ballast tank.

The increasing demand for goods transportation inherent the risks of the terminal congestion, consequently decreasing the operational efficiency. Maritime transportation containerization has forced container terminals to carefully evaluate how to manage their yard operations. Nowadays, with the Internet of Things (IoT) and the development of data technologies the complexity of data within and around the terminal has been increased, and a lack of data-driven approaches in this matter can still be identified. Using data mining techniques, some effects that are producing inefficiency might be discovered and fixed. This paper presents a data-mining approach to extract useful information from the terminal daily operations report. Additionally, it is shown the container's length of stay of a Straddle Carrier system container terminal.

During the training of a welder, either novice or professional, most activities are focused on the acquisition of wrist-hand motion skills. In the basic welding training, trainees initially required hand-on practices to acquire the skills of wrist hand motion to maintain the distance of electrode tip to a base metal such that the welding arc was continuously flaming. Secondly, trainees were practices of manipulating hand motion to follow seam tracking for joining two metals within defined speed & torch height. These practices were then continued for various types of weld joints. The result of acquiring this skill level was then assessed by inspecting the visual appearance of the weldment. In this study, an effort was undertaken to monitor and assess the progress of acquiring wrist-hand motion skills using wearable sensors: accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer. Then, the record of those sensors was plotted as a time series signal compared with those performed by the training instructor. Their achievement of skills grade was analyzed using the Supervised Vector Machine (SVM) Learning Method. The result has indicated that this proposed method can assist in assessing welder trainees’ efforts to improve their skills.

The Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) was launched for earth observation and there are more than 6 million scenes of archives including coastal areas during period of five years. The wealth of satellite imagery is noticeable for investigating monitoring methods such as ship detection in wide ocean area. Especially, it is useful way to estimate past behaviour from satellite imagery compared to reference data. We collected satellite imagery and analysis breaking process in major ship breaking yards between year 2009 and 2011. Comparing the number of recycling ships by satellite imagery to the world statistics is in good agreement. In this study, Remote Sensing Application has been discussed in order to assess the potential to be used for economic activities such as ship recycling in wide coastal area. It was used to evaluate the performance of ship recycling monitoring by Satellite imagery. Additionally, an approach for recognizing ships by SAR imagery regardless of weather conditions is presented.

Sunda Strait has played an essential role to the Indonesian marine transportation. Safety of navigation is one issue that often leads to an accident, especially ship collision. A collision risk assessment in a waterway is critical not only to predict the probability of collision accident but also to understand its consequences to human life, shipping company, as well as to the environment. However, it could be hard to evaluate the accident due to the scarcity of real accident data. Thus, a near miss analysis can be considered as an equivalent substitute. A one-week of Automatic Identification System (AIS) data is taken as the sample to test the methodology proposed in this paper. The target area of the near miss analysis discussed in this paper is TSS area in Sunda Strait. To categorise the encounter as a safe or unsafe encounter, this paper utilises the closest point of approach (CPA) as the indicator and it contains two parameters, the distance to CPA (DCPA) and the time to CPA (TCPA). Four values of DCPA and TCPA are used as the threshold, those are introduced by Park, Fukuto and Imazu, Goodwin, and Limbach. In this time range, 135929 sample data are collected, but only 92,379 points from 276 ships are found inside the target area. The number of situations that are categorized as near miss encounters (NNM) for each threshold are 1668, 5870, 9370, and 13549, respectively. The combined threshold is proposed to adjust with the condition of Sunda Strait and produce a result with 9,946 points detected as near miss encounter.

The rainy season from June to July in the East Asia is called as the Changma in Korea, the Meiyu in China, or the Baiu in Japan. The mesoscale convective systems which occur near a front frequently lead to severe weather phenomenon such as localized gust and heavy rainfall. An intensive field experiment was conducted at Chujado (33.95° N, 126.28° E) to characterize the precipitating system and the size distribution during a Changma period between 21 June 2007 and 11 July 2007. The precipitation system caused heavy rainfalls in Chujado for 20 h and three identified rainfall cases were analyzed using the Doppler radar data, disdrometer data, NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data, and sounding data Based on the radar reflectivity at Chujado, each rainfall system maintained for 7 h, 4 h, and 9 h, respectively. The analysis with the total vertical wind shear (TVWS) and the directional vertical wind shear (DVWS) shows that the temperature gradient was the strongest near the surface. Both warm and cold advections were occurred in all cases. The deep warm advection turns out to cause the longer rainfall lifetime and stronger rainrate but smaller raindrop size. The unstable atmospheric condition, which has cold advection at the surface and warm advection in higher level, causes the larger size diameter of raindrop.

Recent progress in endoscopic techniques has revealed that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) often cause ulcers in the small intestine in humans, but effective therapy is not available at present. In the present study, we investigated the effects of feeding condition and the amount of dietary fiber (DF) in the diet on the formation of gastrointestinal ulcers induced by NSAIDs in dogs. Several types of diets containing various percentages of DF were given to dogs. Indomethacin (1 or 3 mg/kg, p.o.), ketoprofen (2 mg/kg, s.c.), or fulnixin (1 mg/kg, s.c.) was administered once daily at 10 a.m. after a morning meal or without a morning meal (fasted condition) for 3 - 7 days. Gastrointestinal lesions were examined 24 h after the final dose of the drugs. When indomethacin (3 mg/kg) was administered after a morning meal (fed condition) for 7 days, it produced many lesions in the small intestine. However, when it was given in the fasted condition without the morning meal, the lesions were markedly decreased. All the NSAIDs given after feeding of regular dry food containing 6% DF once a day for 3 days produced many lesions in the small intestine. The lesions were decreased or increased in dogs given prescription diets containing low DF (1.1%) and high DF (15.4%), respectively. Furthermore, lesions were not observed in dogs given canned diet containing very low DF (0.1%), whereas lesions appeared again in dogs given canned diet supplemented with cellulose (3 or 10%) but not with pectin (10%). These results suggested that both feeding condition and insoluble DF, such as cellulose in the diet, play an important role in the formation of NSAID-induced small intestinal lesions, and that a diet with no or low amounts of DF may decrease gastrointestinal side-effects associated with the use of NSAIDs.

The rainy season from June to July in the East Asia is called the Changma in Korea, the Meiyu in China, or the Baiu in Japan. The mesoscale convective systems which occur near a front frequently lead to severe weather phenomenon such as localized gust and heavy rainfall. An intensive field experiment was conducted at Chujado (33.95°N, 126.28°E) to find out the characteristics of the precipitating system using information such as the raindrop size distribution, kinematic features during a Changma period between June 21 2007 and July 11 2007. Different characteristics of three identified rainfall cases in a Changma frontal precipitation system occurred from 5 to 6 July in 2007 at Chujado area have been identified. Based on the radar reflectivity and raingage at Chujado, each rainfall system maintained for 7 hours, 4 hours, and 9 hours, respectively. According to the analysis of a total vertical wind shear (TVWS) and a directional vertical wind shear (DVWS), the temperature gradient was the strongest near the surface and both warm and cold advections were occurred in all cases but at different levels. The deep warm advection was related to the longer rainfall lifetime and stronger rainrate, but smaller raindrop size. The unstable atmospheric condition, which has cold advection at the surface and warm advection in higher level, caused the larger size diameter of raindrop. The echo top height of 30 dBZ was around 6 km in the two rainfall systems and around 4 km in the other one. The number concentrations of raindrop has turning point at the drop size of 2 mm in diameter. The stronger (weaker) updraft and downdraft were also related to the decreased number concentration of smaller (larger) size drops and increased that of the larger (smaller) drops.

The pejerrey (Odontesthes bonariensis) is a teleost fish with strong temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD). Several studies have shown that dmrt1 and gonadal aromatase (cyp19a1) are implicated in the sex differentiation process in teleosts but little is known on the expression balance and endocrine regulation of these two genes during TSD. This study was designed to clarify the expression patterns of both genes during gonadal sex differentiation of pejerrey reared at female-, male- and mixed-sex-producing temperatures (FPT, MPT, and MixPT, respectively). The expression of dmrt1 was found to be significantly higher during gonadal sex differentiation at MPT compared to FPT. Conversely, cyp19a1 expression clearly increased during differentiation at FPT but not at MPT. The expression of both genes at MixPT showed a dimorphic profile with individual values resembling either those at the MPT or FPT. Administration of exogenous 17β-estradiol down- and up-regulated the expression of dmrt1 and cyp19a1, respectively, regardless of temperature, and rescued the female phenotype at the MPT. However, treatment with the aromatase inhibitor Fadrozole caused masculinization without changing the pattern of gene expression. These results are strong evidence of the involvement of both genes in the gonadal differentiation process of pejerrey. The involvement of estradiol is discussed.

Molecular mechanisms of ecdysteroid regulation in development and reproduction have been thoroughly investigated in Diptera and Lepidoptera, but few studies report the molecular actions of ecdysteroids in hemimetabolous insects and more primitive arthropods. Ecdysteroids appear to be the main hormones regulating development and vitellogenesis in ticks. An ecdysteroid receptor that showed high homology with EcRs of other arthropods was isolated from Ornithodoros moubata (OmEcRA). OmEcR expression patterns coincided with ecdysteroid titres in the haemolymph during moulting and vitellogenesis and differed between mated and virgin females. Therefore, OmEcR appears to mediate the regulation of moulting and vitellogenesis by ecdysteroids in O. moubata females as seen in other arthropods.

In this paper, the basic technologies of alternating current (ac) plasma display panel (PDP) and the next-generation technologies are described. The panel structure of reflective type and three electrodes with surface discharge, and the basic operation of address display-period separation (ADS) subfield method have been developed for PDP products, and these basic technologies have the capabilities which can respond to next-generation development, such as high luminous efficacy, low cost, and enlargement of the screen size. In the recent research, the technologies that provide three times the luminous efficacy comparing with that of latest PDP products and innovative manufacturing process technologies for drastic cost reduction have already been developed. How we install the new technologies in the products is an important subject. PDPs will keep advantages in a large screen flat panel display market by the technical development for the next-generation in each field.

Insect metamorphosis is induced by the steroid 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E) in the absence of sesquiterpenoid juvenile hormone (JH). In Drosophila melanogaster, the Broad-Complex (BR-C) transcriptional factor plays critical roles during metamorphosis. We isolated cDNAs encoding BR-C in the silkworm Bombyx mori and examined their mRNA expression. cDNAs for three BR-C isoforms with zinc finger pairs (Z1, Z2 and Z4) and four isoforms lacking them were cloned. Their mRNAs were expressed in multiple tissues at the larval-pupal metamorphosis. In the anterior silk gland, BR-C mRNAs were expressed at the end of the last larval instar but not expressed during the penultimate instar. 20E administration induced BR-C mRNA expression and JH suppressed 20E-induced BR-C expression in this tissue both in vivo and in vitro. Thus, BR-C mRNAs are inducible by 20E only in the absence of JH, a finding that explains their metamorphosis-specific expression.

Friction Stir Welding (FSW) is the most remarkable welding technology that has been invented and developed in last decade. It made it possible to join a number of light metals that were previously believed difficult to weld in a reliable manner, i.e. without defects including distortion. This summarising report tries to clarify the recent trend of this new technology in Japan. It reveals that the Japanese industry has a strong development potential, particularly in the field of practical applications. Examples of practical products are the rolling stock industry, automobile industry, shipbuilding and aircraft.. Major research works are concentrated on the clarification of the mechanical properties for the particular products. General agreements of their results showed that static and fatigue strengths were distributed between base metal and MIG properties of aluminium. Fundamental research work is also carried out to investigate heat input estimation, microstructural characterisation during FSW and motion of metal using dissimilar aluminium plate combinations including process tolerance.

The composition dependence of the superconducting critical temperature Tc has been investigated for A15-type V3Ga compounds. The Tc is determined by the specific heat and the magnetic flux transmission ratio through the sample and discussed in terms of the powder X-ray diffraction. The long-range order parameter and the lattice parameter of V3Ga are evaluated quantitatively by the Rietveld method at each composition, which is evaluated exactly by the electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) measurements. The well-ordered homogeneous alloying structures. V1−xGax compounds are found to have nearly the same Tc as that for the stoichiometric composition between 0.23≤

In welding of a thin plate, welding deformation is a severe problem. It is difficult to correct the welding deformation after welding. Therefore, the welding deformation should be avoided before or during welding. As the welding deformation is generated by thermal cycle during welding, it is thought low heat input joining process is efficient to decrease the welding deformation. In this study, friction welding was proposed as lower heat input welding process than arc welding. MAG welding was also carried out to compare welding deformation and heat input. However, it is difficult to compare heat input between friction welding and arc welding. Because, there in no general heat input calculation in friction welding and does not define the weld line in friction welding. To compare the heat input directly, pipe circumference was assumed to weld line and calculated heat input by simplified heat input rate, which was proposed by authors. The appearance of friction welded joint was sound and tensile tests revealed the fracture occurred at the base metal of plate. In friction welding, the deformation of plate was smaller than that in MAG welded joints. Heat input in friction welding was 10-30% in MAG welding by direct comparison for same dimension of joints. The time for welding was also smaller in friction welding. Friction welding is small deformation and efficiency process for joining of pipe and thin plate.

Electron beam mask writing is one of the most promising technologies for reliable fine mask patterning in present and future optical lithography. To establish a high performance mask writing system, not only the development of breakthrough technologies for improvement in mask accuracy of CD and image placement of the mask pattern but also the development of contamination control technologies should be pursued. To meet these requirements, the mask blanks upper surface scatter meter for EB writer (MUSE) system has been newly developed. MUSE can evaluate and measure the particles on the mask in vacuum environments and can be attached to the EB system. By using MUSE, not only the investigation of the origin of dust production in the EB system but also productive control of the EB system can be accomplished. This paper describes the MUSE system and the results of particle measurement in the EB mask writing system. The performance of the EB system with respect to particles is presented and discussed.

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of a phosphodiesterase inhibitor, cilostazol, on the prevention of silent brain infarction in diabetic patients without symptoms of vascular events.A total of 89 subjects were allocated at random to the cilostazol group ( n = 43) or the control group ( n = 46).After the study period (3.2 +/- 0.5 years), carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) (means +/- SD) had increased ( p0.01) by 0.18 +/- 0.19 mm in the control group. In the cilostazol group, intima-media thickness showed almost no change (-0.00 +/- 0.16 mm). In the control group, 2 out of 46 subjects showed symptomatic brain infarctions and 10 out of 34 subjects without infarct-like region assessed by standard brain MRI examination showed silent brain infarctions after the observation period. On the other hand, no subjects in the cilostazol group showed silent brain infarction or strokes during the study period. Both at the beginning and end of the study period, the number of infarct-like regions positively correlated with IMT ( r = 0.335, p0.001 or r = 0.347, p0.001 respectively). The progression of infarct-like regions was directly related to the increase in IMT during the study period ( r = 0.299, p = 0.004).These data demonstrated that cilostazol could prevent the onset of silent brain infarction in Japanese subjects with Type II (non-insulin-dependent) diabetes mellitus. Also, an increase in intima-media thickness of the carotid artery wall could be able to predict the onset of silent brain infarction.

(2002). NiTi coatings produced by the transferred plasma arc welding process and their wear characteristics. Welding International: Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 276-283.

Many types of hard material are coated on the surface to improve their wear resistance. Addition of vanadium carbide to Co based alloys (stellite no. 21) as a hard material powder is one of the ways to improve the wear resistance characteristics of the surface layer. The plasma transfer arc (PTA) welding process was introduced as a coating technology for elevated temperature surface modification. This process has recently generated interest in the surface modification field owing to its operability, low initial cost of equipment, high deposition rate, and small dilution rate. Coated layers produced by PTA considerably improve the hardness and wear resistance of surface layers for elevated temperature applications. Vanadium carbide (VC) addition into stellite powder showed a significant improvement in wear resistance. However, alloys containing VC showed pronounced sensitivity to hot cracking under repeated heating and cooling environments. This study clarifies the cause of thermal fatigue cracking...

A strain of Lactobacillus helveticus carrying the cryptic plasmid pCP53 was used for a detailed analysis of the survival and persistence of this organism in the faeces of volunteers administered oral doses of the strain. The CP53 strain had high affinity for Caco-2 cells, but displayed low bile acid resistance in vitro. Rifampicin-resistant colonies could be reisolated from the faeces of four of seven subjects fed with the rifampicin-resistant CP53 derivative strain. Moreover, the recovery of cells, as estimated by plasmid analysis, was higher than that estimated by measuring the number of rifampicin-resistant cells. From these results, we conclude that the CP53 strain can survive passage through the gastrointestinal tract.

Underwater friction surfacing experiments were carried out in a waterbath to clarify the effect of the surrounding medium on the characteristics of the process and the deposit. A quench hardenable martensitic stainless steel with 1%C and 17%Cr was used as the coating material and low carbon structural steel as the substrate. The mechanisms of friction surfacing have been analysed and the results show that a uniform hardness distribution and refined microstructure can be achieved in the transverse section of the deposit. As a result of the cooling effect of water, the deposition efficiency of the consumable material under water was greater than in air. Defects such as quench cracks were not observed in water owing to the reheating characteristics of the underwater friction surfacing process.

Plasma display panel (PDP) structure has been investigated to develop a 21-in-diagonal color plasma display with a high-resolution of 0.22-mm subpixel pitch. To realize a high-resolution display, a stripe alignment of three primary color elements such as red, blue, and green, was introduced. Four kinds of panel structures are compared and finally stripe rib and stripe phosphor structures were introduced for the three electrode surface discharge plasma display. The 21-in-plasma display developed with the structure has firstly been put into the market with sufficient performance, such as a wide operating voltage margin, a high luminance, and a wide viewing angle of more than 60 V, 200 cd/m/sup 2/, and 160/spl deg/, respectively.

Few surface modification processes appear to coat a 1 mm thick compact layer on a substrate successfully, although several technologies have been proposed and applied. The present paper concerns a fundamental approach to establishing a friction surfacing technique that produces a 1mm thick hard coat. Experiments were carried out to clarify the effect of process parameters on the quality of coatings. Martensitic stainless steel with 1C-17 Cr was the coating material and low carbon structural steel the substrate, using a conventional friction welding machine equipped with a sliding stage. A 20 mm wide and 1 mm thick stable hardened layer was produced using a 20 mm dia. Rod of coating material. The dimensions of the layer depend on the rotational speed of the consumable rod, as lower rotational speeds produce thicker, wider coating layers. Calorimetric measurements revealed that the total heat input rate was not influenced by the frictional speed, however the ratio of thermal distributions on to the ...

FSW and Spot FSW have been foot lighted into the application of light automobile assembly, which seem to be the most effective for preventing the global warming. Spot FSW has characterized as several merits against conventional resistance spot welding. Joints of Spot FSW are achieved relatively higher shear strength than RSW using less electrical energy input to make joints. The temperature of tool tip is anticipated the critical parameters on to the weld quality and weld joint strength. However, measuring of tip temperature seems to be not so easy due to high rotation of tool. We developed simple procedure to measure the tip of tool by rotating data logger with spindle. After Spot FSW, stored data are transferred to PC for analyzing of process from the logger. Specification of data logger is 4 MB memory with 2 channel thermo-couples and variable sampling intervals depending on the purpose, such as Spot FSW or conventional FSW. Main results are as follows: tip temperature is depending on the rotation speed of tool reaching at 480 – 510 C but temperatures of shoulder do not influenced in case of spot FSW. Measured results show thermal distribution is correlated with probe temperature and material ones. Center of probe temperature is the highest, and sidewall of probe and shoulder in temperatures order.

We report a healthy, 73-year-old Japanese woman who presented with primary cryptococcosis on the skin of both cheeks. She had initially developed an erythematous, partly ulcerated lesion on the right cheek 2 weeks earlier following an injury. There was no regional lymphadenopathy, and chest X-rays were normal. Histopathological findings showed granulomatous cell infiltration. Periodic acid Schiff staining revealed spores that were identified by the indirect immunoperoxidase staining method as Cryptococcus neoformans. The isolate was identified as C. neoformans var. neoformans serotype D. The skin lesions healed in 1 month without antifungal therapy. A literature review indicates that this serotype tends to produce cutaneous lesions without systemic involvement.

The tubular type and plate-and-frame type are two conventional kinds of membrane modules used for collected human excreta treatment. However. such modules are hindered by high power consumption. blocking of the membrane by fiber components. the need for frequent cleaning and other such problems. Here, the authors investigated the performance and stability of a collected human excreta treatment plant utilizing rotary disk modules developed for the separation of highly concentrated liquid. As a result, it was found that, whether treating activated sludge or coagulated sludge, continuous operation over more than six months can be achieved at a low power consumption and without chemical cleaning. By this the authors have shown that rotary disk modules can be applied to the treatment of highly concentrated residential wastewater.

Ceramic coated slide plates were developed in order to ensure smooth sliding of the tongue rail and tight contact with stock rail. The 0·5 mm thickness thin metallic bonded layer was synthesized by spraying ceramic powders using conventional plasma spraying technique. Coated materials were mostly Al2O3 ceramic including metallic materials. It is concluded field tests that coated plates satisfied endurance specifications, corrosion, wear and load specifications without any maintenance of ceramic coated plates. Since field tests have been successfully performed, more than 10,000 slide plates are being used in Japan by Shin-kansen Rail Way and private railway companies.

An indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and a dot enzyme assay (DEA) were used to determine the specificities of Cryptococcus neoformans factor sera to serotype type-specific capsular polysaccharides, glucuronoxylomannans (GXMs). Pure and chemically characterized GXMs were obtained from representative isolates of C. neoformans serotypes A, B, C, and D. Distinctive specificity patterns and quantitative differences were observed for each factor serum when the selected GXMs were studied by ELISA. The specificity patterns for each factor serum determined by DEA almost completely paralleled the ELISA results. The serotype specificities demonstrated by ELISA and DEA were similar to previously reported results that were obtained by slide agglutination studies of whole cells. On the basis of the ELISA and DEA activity patterns, factor sera 5, 6, and 8 were specific for serotypes B, C, and D, respectively; factor serum 1 was strongly reactive to all serotypes; factor serum 2 was specific for serotypes A, B, and D; factor serum 3 was specific for serotypes A and D; and factor serum 4 was specific for serotypes B and C. The specificity of factor serum 7 for serotype A was demonstrated by DEA only. Structural variation was indicated among the serotype C isolates studied because a unique activity pattern versus factor serum 6 was observed for each isolate. The quantitative differences in the activity of the GXMs from five serotype C isolates suggest that mannopyranoside residues substituted O-2 and O-4 with xylose are essential elements of the determinant responsible for the observed activity of factor 6. No significant differences in activity patterns and specificities of factor serum 6 were observed when O-deacetylated GXMs were substituted for the native GXMs. Our results show that ELISA and DEA are valuable techniques for the serological analysis of cryptococcal factor sera and GXMs.

(1993). Puckering in aluminium alloy welds ‐ prevention using double wire MIG welding. Welding International: Vol. 7, No. 6, pp. 431-437.

Juvenile hormone esterases (JHEs) are required for the degradation of juvenile hormones (JHs) in insects. Here, we report the cloning and analysis of the jhe gene in the red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum, a model insect of Coleoptera. The Tcjhe gene was strongly expressed at the final instar larva, as would be expected if it functioned to decrease the JH titer at this stage. A recombinant TcJHE protein efficiently degraded JH III, suggesting that the enzyme functions in vivo as a JH-specific degradation enzyme. This is the first report describing the developmental expression profile of the jhe gene whose enzymatic activity was shown in Coleoptera, and the new data reported here will aid elucidation of the mechanism of JH titer regulation in insects.