Japanese scientists and

I paid for the stay at the Homestead out of my own pocket but had a good time. At that meeting there were many young Japanese scientists and many older American scientists. My wife wondered why that was so. I said that the Japanese send people to learn at meetings—the Americans use it as a reward for good behavior. In my case, perhaps an exception. 

The most authoritative study of the Hiroshima bombing, begun in 1976 in consultation with thirty-four Japanese scientists and physicians, reviews the consequences of this infernal insolation, which at half a mile from the hypocenter was more than three thousand times as energetic as the sunlight that had shimmered on Dr. Hachiya s leaves ... 

Of great interest and importance are studies on carbon dioxide reduction on copper electrodes, performed primarily by Japanese scientists. Under certain conditions, formation of methane and ethylene with high faradaic yields (up to 90%) was observed. The efficiency and selectivity of this reaction depends very much on the purity and the state of the surface of the copper electrode. For this reason, many of the published results are contradictory. 

The Japanese scientists tested the fiber optic carbon dioxide sensor86, prepared by dip-coating method - the sol-gel film containing indicator dye, thymol blue, was deposited on unclad fiber. The sensitive film had both organic and inorganic parts with good permeability. The differences between attenuation in N2 gas and in CO2/N2 mixture gas increased with the CO2... 

Not only is Tsukuba Science City in a liminal institutional position in Japan, but it also brings together Japanese and foreign scientists and even Japanese scientists who have found themselves shunned by broader Japanese society for having been abroad working in foreign universities for many years. 

A mesoionic compound PR-G-138-C1 (XXXIX) from Pharma Research in Canada is reported to lower blood pressure in man at low doses by a vasodilator type mechanism (43). This structure is related to SIN-10 (XL) which was reported earlier by Japanese scientists as active in dogs (44). Compounds related to structure XXXIX were compared in spontaneous hypertensive rats and those with the oxadiazole ring hydrogen replaced by chlorine or bromine were as active as the parent compound, although replacement by methyl caused a loss of activity (45). 

Methamphetamine is a potent stimulant that was first synthesized by a Japanese scientist in the early 1900s as an analogue of amphetamine for use as a nasal decongestant, antiasthma drug, and weight loss aid. However, it was not used commercially until the 1940s when it was manufactured and marketed as Methedrine by the pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome. 

The shape of the I(t) curves of the donor centers carries very useful information about the nature of the interaction process. Assuming that the acceptors A are randomly distributed at various distances from the donor centers D, the Japanese scientists Inokuti and Hirayama (1965) investigated the shape of the donor decay-time curves for the different multipolar interactions and also for the exchange interaction. 

These few examples of research indicate, at least in part, the intensity and perseverance with which Japanese scientists approach their work with microbial metabolites. We have seen that, in many instances, efforts are made to duplicate, by synthesis, these substances and it may only be a question of time before a marketable product is developed. Doubtless, what we are seeing in the literature is only a small portion of the energy being expended to successfully produce biodegradable agrochemicals based on natural product templates. Japan is committed to producing abundant crops on small parcels of land and to having an unpolluted environment. 

There is a famous question posed firstly by the Japanese scientist Juro Horiuti before WWII (1939), and then, independently, by the Russian scientist Georgii Boreskov in 1945 "How to find the equation for reaction rate in back direction knowing the rate expression in a forward direction " (detailed description of the problem is presented by Horiuti (1973), see also Boreskov s (1945) original paper). 

In early 1987, the composition and structure of the La-Ba-Cu -O superconductor was still unknown to the general public in the United States. By March of that year certain facts became known from Japanese publications. But at this point in time, a newer, higher Tc (> 90 K) material was announced. This new copper oxide superconductor was quite easy to prepare and, in addition to interested physicists, these new materials could be synthesized by ceramists, chemists, metallurgists, material scientists, or anyone with a knowledge of a chemical approach to solid-state materials. Even high school students developed simple methods for the synthesis of these compounds. The "high" transition temperature and the possible use of liquid nitrogen made research in superconductivity accessible to most scientists and laboratories. The media also capitalized on this worthy news report and published it in newspapers and also presented it on television as a news item. 

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, workers in the paraffin refining, shale oil, and coal tar industries had high incidences of skin cancer. A possible cause emerged during the period 1915-1918 when Japanese scientists discovered that painting the ears of rabbits and mice with coal tar extracts produced tumors, some of which were malignant (Yamagiwa and Ichikawa, 1918). 

Very interesting method of template polymerization was proposed by Japanese scientists. The method is based on the charge transfer interaction between template and monomer. In the course of the studies on the interaction of poly(maleic anhydride) with organic amines, the authors found strong charge transfer interaction of pyridines with poly(maleic anhydride). The polymer with pyridine gives brown-colored system with the absorption maximum at 480 nm. 

New theories and findings on the formation of ionic species and radicals, which become trapped in the polymers, are discussed in the first two chapters, written by the two European authorities, Chapiro and Charlesby. The kinetics of crosslinking polyethylene is the subject of the American authority, Dole. A higher yield of crosslinking polyolefins was observed in the presence of nitrous oxide by the Japanese scientist, Okada. 

In April 1997 I visited Euromat 97, a symposium and exhibition on the latest developments in the field of materials science. During one of the poster presentations, a Japanese scientist presented a new product which he called wood ceramics . These examples serve to illustrate that there are grey areas between the different groups of materials. So obviously an unambiguous definition is no longer possible. 

Mitomycin C, 1, is a potent antitumor antibiotic discovered by Japanese scientists in fermentation cultures of Streptomyces caespitosus. It has been described as "small, fast and deadly (but very selective)" and has an extraordinary ability to crosslink the complementary strands of the DNA double helix with high efficiency and absolute specificity. It is so lethal that one crosslink per genome is sufficient to cause death of a bacterial cell. Mitomycin C, which is widely used clinically as an antitumor drug, does not react with DNA, but enzymatic reduction of the quinone induces a cascade of transformations which results, ultimately, in formation of the DNA crosslink 2. 

A historical review withl07 references. Life and work of Louis-Cami1le Maillard (Feb. 4, 1878 -May 12, 1936) are described. The first use of the index term Maillard reaction in Chemical Abstracts was in 1950. German scientists with early interest in this reaction were Lintner (1912) and Ruckdeschel (1914). Several aspects of this reaction are reviewed with emphasis on the work of Japanese scientists. 

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