A clinical evaluation of one-shot dual-energy subtraction chest imaging by means of computed radiography (CR) with imaging plates was carried out in a comparison with the original plain CR images. In analyses of chest images of 140 patients, new information, not detected on the original plain CR images, was obtained on subtraction images in 21 patients (15%). Receiver operating characteristic curve studies also verified the superiority of CR subtraction over the original plain CR images for the detection of pulmonary nodules, calcification in a nodule, and rib lesions. Subtraction images complemented the original plain images.

Three experiments were conducted to examine the possibility of the potential use of shochu distillery by-product (SDBP) as a feedstuff of broiler chickens.In experiment 1, 12-day-old broiler chicks were given diets containing 0, 0.7, 1.4 and 2.3% SDBP (wet), respectively.In experiment 2, 6-day-old broiler chicks were given diets containing 0.7% SDBP (wet), 1.4% wet supernatant of SDBP, 0.14% dried ether extract of SDBP and 0.28% ether extract residue, and in experiment 3, 12-day-old broiler chicks were given diet containing 0.05% ether extract of SDBP. The basal diet was made mainly from corn and isolated soybean protein, with 23% crude protein and 3,200 kcal ME per kg. In experiment 1, it was observed that body weight gain and feed intake were improved significantly (P<0.05) when the diet containing 0.7% wet SDBP was given. However, increasing the level of SDBP diminished the growth promotion.In experiment 2, body weight gain was improved, when the diet containing SDBP, supernatant of SDBP or ether extract of SDBP was given, but not when the residue was given. Feed conversion ratios were significantly (P<0.05) reduced in all the treatment groups than that of the control group. In experment 3, the results were consistent with those of experiment 2. The performance was significantly (P<0.05) increased when the diet containing ether extract of SDBP was given.The present results indicate that SDBP may contain ether soluble growth promoting factor for broiler chicken.

No abstract

A crystalline oxide semiconductor (OS) FPGA capable of subthreshold operation is developed.To achieve subthreshold operation, the OS FPGA employs overdriving of a programmable routing switch and a programmable power switch for power gating by using OS FFT as an ideal floating gate with excellent charge retention. In a prototype chip fabricated with a 0.8-m OS/0.18-m CMOS hybrid process, while maintaining features realizing low power consumption proposed in our previous studies [1, 2], the following are shown: a configured combinational circuit operates at a minimum operating voltage (V min ) of 180 mV, a configured sequential circuit operates at V min of 190 mV with 12.5 kHz, and the minimum power-delay product scores 3.40 pJ/operation at 330 mV.

This paper proposes a novel IGBT model suitable for analyzing the static and dynamic switching characteristics of IGBT modules, which are widely used in power converter circuits. This model is a subcircuit model derived from the basic IGBT equivalent circuit, and can be implemented in the circuit simulator SPICE without modifying the simulator codes nor using user-defined subroutines. Model parameters are easily extracted from measured electrical characteristics of IGBT modules. The validity of this model is confirmed by the experimental results. Some simulation results are also presented to indicate the availability of this IGBT model for accurately estimating the performance of power converters and for designing their robust snubber protection circuits.