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H Sugawara

Publications and source records attributed to H Sugawara.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Drastic change in transport of entropy with quadrupolar ordering in.

The antiferroquadrupolar ordering of is explored by probing thermal and thermoelectric transport. The lattice thermal conductivity drastically increases with the ordering, as a consequence of a large drop in carrier concentration and a strong electron-phonon coupling. The low level of carrier density in the ordered state is confirmed by the anomalously large values of the Seebeck and Nernst coefficients. The results are reminiscent of and suggest that both belong to the same class of partial metal-insulator transitions. The magnitude of the Nernst coefficient, larger than in any other metal, indicates a new route for Ettingshausen cooling at Kelvin temperatures.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2005

Direct observation of quadrupolar excitons in the heavy-fermion superconductor PrOs4Sb12.

We report inelastic neutron scattering experiments performed to investigate the low energy magnetic excitations on single crystals of the heavy-fermion superconductor PrOs(4)Sb(12). The observed excitation clearly softens at a wave vector Q=(1,0,0), which is the same as the modulation vector of the field-induced antiferro-quadrupolar ordering, and its intensity at Q=(1,0,0) is smaller than that around the zone center. This result directly evidences that this excitonic behavior is derived mainly from nonmagnetic quadrupolar interactions. Furthermore, the narrowing of the linewidths of the excitations below the superconducting transition temperature indicates the close connection between the superconductivity and the excitons.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2005

Multiband superconductivity in the heavy fermion compound PrOs4Sb12.

The thermal conductivity of the heavy fermion superconductor Pr(Os(4)Sb(12) was measured down to T(c)/40 throughout the vortex state. At lowest temperatures and for magnetic fields H approximately 0.07H(c2), already 40% of the normal state thermal conductivity is restored. This behavior (similar to that observed in MgB2) is a clear signature of multiband superconductivity in this compound.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2005

DDBJ in collaboration with mass-sequencing teams on annotation.

In the past year, we at DDBJ (DNA Data Bank of Japan; http://www.ddbj.nig.ac.jp) collected and released 1,066,084 entries or 718,072,425 bases including the whole chromosome 22 of chimpanzee, the whole-genome shotgun sequences of silkworm and various others. On the other hand, we hosted workshops for human full-length cDNA annotation and participated in jamborees of mouse full-length cDNA annotation. The annotated data are made public at DDBJ. We are also in collaboration with a RIKEN team to accept and release the CAGE (Cap Analysis Gene Expression) data under a new category, MGA (Mass Sequences for Genome Annotation). The data will be useful for studying gene expression control in many aspects.

Animals↗
PubMed2005

Leuprorelin acetate granulomas: case reports and review of the literature.

Leuprorelin acetate, an agonist of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH), is indicated in the treatment of prostate cancer. Recently, depot formulations of leuprorelin acetate have been widely used. We report three patients who showed a granulomatous reaction after treatment using a leuprorelin acetate 3-month depot formulation. These patients presented with 5-6-cm subcutaneous nodules at injection sites, which developed after the depot type was changed from a 1-month to a 3-month formulation. Skin biopsy showed epithelioid cells and foreign body giant cells containing round, translucent microspheres which formed sarcoidal granulomas. Changing to other GnRH agonists resulted in no further problems. We have reviewed the previous reports of leuprorelin acetate-induced granuloma formation. The formation of such granulomas may be related to the polymers that allow slow release after injection, or leuprorelin acetate itself may be responsible. The depot injection methods using leuprorelin also seem to have a causal effect in granuloma formation. Dermatologists need to know that depot leuprorelin acetate may cause a granulomatous reaction which produces a subcutaneous nodule that might be misdiagnosed as a malignant tumour.

Aged↗
PubMed2005

Relationship between accreditation scores and the public disclosure of accreditation reports: a cross sectional study.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the association between accreditation scores and the disclosure of accreditation reports. DESIGN: A cross sectional study. SETTING: Hospitals participating in an accreditation programme in Japan. PARTICIPANTS: 547 of the 817 hospitals accredited by the Japan Council for Quality Health Care (JCQHC) by January 2003. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Data on participation in public disclosure of accreditation reports through the JCQHC website were obtained from the JCQHC database. Comments on the disclosure were obtained using a questionnaire based survey. RESULTS: A total of 508 (93%) of the participating hospitals disclosed their accreditation reports on the JCQHC website. Public hospitals were significantly more committed to public disclosure than private hospitals, and larger hospitals were significantly more likely to participate in public disclosure than smaller hospitals. Accreditation scores were positively related to the public disclosure of hospital accreditation reports. Scores for patient focused care and efforts to meet community needs were significantly higher in actively disclosing hospitals than in non-disclosing hospitals. Among the large hospitals, scores for safety management were significantly higher in hospitals advocating disclosure than in non-disclosing hospitals. CONCLUSIONS: There was a positive correlation between accreditation scores and public disclosure. Our results suggest that the public disclosure of accreditation reports should be encouraged to improve public accountability and the quality of care. Future studies should investigate the interaction between public disclosure, processes and outcomes.

Accreditation↗
PubMed2004

Flux-line lattice distortion in PrOs4Sb12.

We report that the flux-line lattice in the cubic superconductor Pr(Os4Sb12 is strongly distorted from an ideal hexagonal lattice at very low temperatures in a small applied field. We attribute this to the presence of gap nodes in the superconducting state on at least some Fermi-surface sheets.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2004

High magnetic field phase diagram of PrOs4Sb12.

The magnetic phase diagram of PrOs4Sb12 has been investigated by specific heat measurements between 8 and 32 T. A new Schottky anomaly, due to excitations between two lowest crystalline-electric-field (CEF) singlets, has been found for both H parallel (100) and H parallel (110) above the field where the field-induced ordered phase (FIOP) is suppressed. The constructed H-T phase diagram shows weak magnetic anisotropy and implies a crossing of the two CEF levels at about 8-9 T for both field directions. These results provide an unambiguous evidence for the Gamma(1) singlet being the CEF ground state and suggest the level crossing (involving lowest CEF levels) as the driving mechanism of FIOP.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2004

DDBJ in the stream of various biological data.

In the past year we at DDBJ (http://www.ddbj.nig. ac.jp) have made a steady increase in the number of data submissions with a 50.6% increment in the number of bases or 46.5% increment in the number of entries. Among them the genome data of man, ascidian and rice hold the top three. Our activity has extended to providing a tool that enables sequence retrieval using regular expressions, and to launching our SOAP server and web services to facilitate the acquisition of proper data and tools from a huge number of biological data resources on websites worldwide. We have also opened our public gene expression database, CIBEX.

Animals↗
PubMed2003

Probing the superconducting gap symmetry of PrOs4Sb12: a penetration depth study.

We report measurements of the magnetic penetration depth lambda in single crystals of PrOs4Sb12 down to 0.1 K, with the ac field applied along the a, b, and c directions. In all three field orientations, lambda approximately T2 and superfluid density rho(s) approximately T2 for T<0.3T(c). Data are best fit by the 3He A-phase-like gap with multidomains, each having two point nodes along a cube axis, and parameter Delta(0)(0)/k(B)T(c)=2.6, suggesting that PrOs4Sb12 is a strong-coupling superconductor with two point nodes on the Fermi surface. We also confirm the double transitions at 1.75 and 1.85 K seen in other measurements.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2003

Time-reversal symmetry-breaking superconductivity in heavy-fermion PrOs4Sb12 detected by muon-spin relaxation.

We report on muon-spin relaxation measurements of the 4f(2)-based heavy-fermion superconductor filled-skutterudite Pr(Os4Sb12. The results reveal the spontaneous appearance of static internal magnetic fields below the superconducting transition temperature, providing unambiguous evidence for the breaking of time-reversal symmetry in the superconducting state. A discussion is made on which of the spin or orbital component of Cooper pairs carries a nonzero momentum.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2003

Biological SOAP servers and web services provided by the public sequence data bank.

A number of biological data resources (i.e. databases and data analytical tools) are searchable and usable on-line thanks to the internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) servers. The output from the web server is easy for us to browse. However, it is laborious and sometimes impossible for us to write a computer program that finds a useful data resource, sends a proper query and processes the output. It is a serious obstacle to the integration of distributed heterogeneous data resources. To solve the issue, we have implemented a SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) server and web services that provide a program-friendly interface. The web services are accessible at http://www.xml.nig.ac.jp/.

Databases, Nucleic Acid↗
PubMed2003

Multiple superconducting phases in new heavy fermion superconductor PrOs4Sb12.

The superconducting gap structure of recently discovered heavy fermion superconductor PrOs4Sb12 was investigated by using thermal transport measurements in magnetic field rotated relative to the crystal axes. We demonstrate that a novel change in the symmetry of the superconducting gap function occurs deep inside the superconducting state, giving a clear indication of the presence of two distinct superconducting phases with twofold and fourfold symmetries. We infer that the gap functions in both phases have a point node singularity, in contrast to the familiar line node singularity observed in almost all unconventional superconductors.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2003

Evidence for unconventional strong-coupling superconductivity in PrOs4Sb12: an Sb nuclear quadrupole resonance study.

We report Sb-NQR results which evidence a heavy-fermion (HF) behavior and an unconventional superconducting (SC) property in Pr(Os4Sb12 with T(c)=1.85 K. The temperature (T) dependence of nuclear-spin-lattice-relaxation rate, 1/T(1), and NQR frequency unravel a low-lying crystal-electric-field splitting below T0 approximately 10 K, associated with Pr3+(4f(2))-derived ground state. In the SC state, 1/T(1) shows neither a coherence peak just below T(c) K nor a T3-like power-law behavior observed for anisotropic HF superconductors with the line-node gap. The isotropic energy gap with its size Delta/k(B)=4.8 K seems to open up across T(c) below T(*) approximately 2.3 K. It is surprising that Pr(Os4Sb12 looks like an isotropic HF superconductor-it may indeed argue for Cooper pairing via quadrupolar fluctuations.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2003

DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ) in XML.

The DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ, http://www.ddbj.nig.ac.jp) has collected and released more entries and bases than last year. This is mainly due to large-scale submissions from Japanese sequencing teams on mouse, rice, chimpanzee, nematoda and other organisms. The contributions of DDBJ over the past year are 17.3% (entries) and 10.3% (bases) of the combined outputs of the International Nucleotide Sequence Databases (INSD). Our complete genome sequence database, Genome Information Broker (GIB), has been improved by incorporating XML. It is now possible to perform a more sophisticated database search against the new GIB than the ordinary BLAST or FASTA search.

Animals↗
PubMed2002

DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ) for genome scale research in life science.

The DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ, http://www.ddbj.nig.ac.jp) has made an effort to collect as much data as possible mainly from Japanese researchers. The increase rates of the data we collected, annotated and released to the public in the past year are 43% for the number of entries and 52% for the number of bases. The increase rates are accelerated even after the human genome was sequenced, because sequencing technology has been remarkably advanced and simplified, and research in life science has been shifted from the gene scale to the genome scale. In addition, we have developed the Genome Information Broker (GIB, http://gib.genes.nig.ac.jp) that now includes more than 50 complete microbial genome and Arabidopsis genome data. We have also developed a database of the human genome, the Human Genomics Studio (HGS, http://studio.nig.ac.jp). HGS provides one with a set of sequences being as continuous as possible in any one of the 24 chromosomes. Both GIB and HGS have been updated incorporating newly available data and retrieval tools.

Animals↗