In 1979, Masuda and Ikeuchi found out a type of lanthanide tetrad effect in seawaters and phosphorite.At the time of this finding, it was logically reasoned that there should be another type of lanthanide tetrad effect which stands in conjugate relationship with the type as found for seawaters. This paper reports our success in evincing the previous reasoning about the bilateral appearances of the lanthanide tetrad effect, i.e., empirically disclosing the conjugate aspects of the effect in question. Thus, there are two types of tetrad effects for lanthanides in nature, which will be called W and M types for convenience sake according to their apparent shapes. The W tetrad effect is observed in the natural waters and related materials. This suggests that an M tetrad effect can be observed in the solid pro ducts probably having remained after leaching by aqueous medium, in which the W tetrad effect can be operative. Besides, the M tetrad effect have been found in an experiment concerning the lanthanide partitioning between CaSO4 and H20. For the geological rock specimen, a remarkable M tetrad effect is recognized for the leucogranite from South China.To a lesser extent, a similar effect is found in a siliceous ore from the kuroko area.

The bile salts secretion was studied in ten normal subjects and sixteen patients with alcoholic cirrhosis, in a basal period and during 60 minutes after Secretin injection. Total bile salts were measured by a modification of the enzymatic method of Iwata and Yamasaki and the individual bile salts were separated by silica gel thin-layer chromatography. During the 60 minutes after Secretin the mean concentration was 2.88 +/- 2.58 muM/ml in normals and 1.96 +/- 1.25 muM/ml in cirrhotics. The difference is not significant. During the first 20 minutes however the concentration was higher than 3 muM/ml in 8 out of 10 normals and lower than 2 muM/ml in 10 out 16 cirrhotics. The ratios of tri-to dihydroxy bile salts was similar in both groups. The ratios between bile salts conjugated with glycine and with taurine was higher in normals, and the ratio between free to conjugated bile salts was higher in cirrhotics. The lower concentration of total bile salts immediatly after Secretin, the higher proportion of taurin conjugates and of free bile salts could be important factors in the difficulties of fact digestion and absorption frequently found in patients with alcoholic cirrhosis.

Humans take a long time to respond to the slow visual motion of an object. It is not known what neural mechanism causes this delay. We measured magnetoencephalographic neural responses to light spot motion onset within a wide speed range (0.4-500 degrees /sec) and compared these with human reaction times (RTs). The mean response latency was inversely related to the speed of motion up to 100 degrees /sec, whereas the amplitude increased with the speed. The response property at the speed of 500 degrees /sec was different from that at the other speeds. The speed-related latency change was observed when the motion duration was 10 msec or longer in the speed range between 5 and 500 degrees /sec, indicating that the response is directly related to the speed itself. The source of the response was estimated to be around the human MT+ and was validated by functional magnetic imaging study using the same stimuli. The results indicate that the speed of motion is encoded in the neural activity of MT+ and that it can be detected within 10 msec of motion observation. RT to the same motion onset was also inversely related to the speed of motion but the delay could not be explained by the magnetic response latency change. Instead, the reciprocal of RT was linearly related to the reciprocal of the magnetic response latency, suggesting that the visual process interacts with other neural processes for decision and motor preparation.

The high correlation between vection and body sway suggests that vection can be estimated quantitatively by measuring visually-induced body sway.

Two phases produced through the liquid-liquid separation gravitationally segregate during solidification of the monotectic alloys. This paper examined reduction of the gravity segregation for the Cu-Pb monotectic alloys by imposing a static magnetic field up to 10 T. The Cu-Pb alloys with compositions ranging from 15.5 to 84.5 at% Pb solidified at a cooling rate of 10 K/s under a magnetic field. The effect of the magnetic field on the macrosegregation was clearly recognized for the Cu-Pb alloys with compositions ranging from 65 to 70 at% Pb, while the magnetic field did not become a dominant factor of the segregation behavior in the other compositions. Furthermore, diameter of the Cu-rich liquid drops under 10 T was smaller than that under 0 T. The static magnetic field reduced not only the rising velocity of the Cu-rich drops but also the coalescence rate of the liquid drops, resulting in the reduction of the macrosegregation. The magnetohydrodynamic estimation suggested that the terminal velocity of the Cu-rich particles with typical diameters is significantly reduced by the imposed static magnetic field. The difficulty of the particle movement due to the electromagnetic force resulted in the homogenous solidified structure for the Cu-Pb alloys.