Measurement of human blood viscosity a using Falling Needle Rheometer and the correlation to the Modified Herschel-Bulkley model equation.

We measured the blood viscosity of 25 male and 25 female healthy people (total 50) using a compact-sized falling needle viscometer (Falling Needle Rheometer) capable of highly accurate measurements. Based on the analysis of the flow characteristics, most of the blood specific non-Newtonian fluid (Casson fluid) behavior was confirmed. Additionally, the blood from males has a higher apparent viscosity and Casson yield value than that from women. Furthermore, a new Herschel-Bulkley type model equation representing the relationship between the shear rate and apparent viscosity of human blood was proposed based on the measured blood flow characteristics. The proposed model improved the exponential term on the shear rate and added the constant term on the yield stress so that the measured value can be correlated with a high accuracy. Using the proposed model equation, the correlation accuracy of all of the measured human blood viscosities was better than in the Herschel-Bulkley model equation and Casson model in a wide range of shear rate regions. By incorporating numerical flow analysis (computational fluid dynamics), this model equation may contribute to analyses considering the non-Newtonian fluidity of human blood.

Yeast cell wall extract induces disease resistance against bacterial and fungal pathogens in Arabidopsis thaliana and Brassica crop.

Housaku Monogatari (HM) is a plant activator prepared from a yeast cell wall extract. We examined the efficacy of HM application and observed that HM treatment increased the resistance of Arabidopsis thaliana and Brassica rapa leaves to bacterial and fungal infections. HM reduced the severity of bacterial leaf spot and anthracnose on A. thaliana and Brassica crop leaves with protective effects. In addition, gene expression analysis of A. thaliana plants after treatment with HM indicated increased expression of several plant defense-related genes. HM treatment appears to induce early activation of jasmonate/ethylene and late activation of salicylic acid (SA) pathways. Analysis using signaling mutants revealed that HM required SA accumulation and SA signaling to facilitate resistance to the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. maculicola and the fungal pathogen Colletotrichum higginsianum. In addition, HM-induced resistance conferred chitin-independent disease resistance to bacterial pathogens in A. thaliana. These results suggest that HM contains multiple microbe-associated molecular patterns that activate defense responses in plants. These findings suggest that the application of HM is a useful tool that may facilitate new disease control methods.

Development of a fixed-bed anammox reactor with high treatment potential.

A plug-flow type anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) reactor was developed using malt ceramics (MC) produced from carbonized spent grains as the biomass carriers for anammox sludge. Partial nitrified effluent of the filtrate from the sludge dehydrator of a brewery company was used as influent to a 20 L anammox reactor using MC. An average volumetric nitrogen removal rate (VNR) of 8.78 kg-N/m(3)/day was maintained stably for 76 days with 1 h of HRT. In a larger anammox reactor (400 L), an average VNR of 4.84 kg-N/m(3)/day could be maintained for 86 days during the treatment of low strength synthetic inorganic wastewater. As a result of bacterial community analysis for the 20 L anammox reactor, Asahi BRW1, probably originating from the wastewater collected at Asahi Breweries, was detected as the dominant anammox bacterium. These anammox reactors were characterized by a high NH(4)-N removal capacity for low strength wastewater with a short hydraulic retention time.