Abstract: It is intended to provide a method for producing a denatured substance of lactalbumin, particularly the substance showing a cell death inducing activity against a tumor cell, simply at a low cost. The method for producing a denatured substance of lactalbumin includes heating a mixture of domestic animal milk and oleic acid. The method of the invention can produce a useful substance as a pharmaceutical which induces cell death of a tumor cell such as solid cancer or a leukemic lymphocyte from domestic animal milk which is an extremely inexpensive raw material and has advantages that the raw material can be obtained easily, supply of the raw material is stable, the raw material is inexpensive and the like. Further, the method is industrially advantageous because it has characteristics that a large amount of the tumor cell death inducing substance can be produced by a batch reaction, a column treatment is not required and the like.

Abstract: A silk fibroin membrane containing an entrapped biocatalyst such as an enzyme or microorganism is provided by forming a mixture of a biocatalyst solution and a silk fibroin solution, forming a membrane by casting the mixture, drying the membrane and mechanically treating the resultant membrane at a temperature and humidity to produce the membrane in .beta.-form and to structurally stabilize the membrane. Mechanically treating may be by stretching or compressing. A biocatalyst sensor is formed by coating an electrically conductive substrate with a gas-permeable layer and coating the gas-permeable layer with the silk fibroin membrane containing an entrapped biocatalyst.

Abstract: A thread cutting machine is provided with a control system in which, according to one aspect, the rotation of the spindle is controlled in the synchronous manner following up the feed amount of the spindle head and the rotation instruction is computed in accordance with the feed deviation, In another aspect, the feed of the spindle head is controlled in the synchronous manner following up the rotation of the spindle and the feed instruction is computed in accordance with the rotation deviation. In a further aspect, the rotation instruction is operated in accordance with the feed speed and the feed acceleration. In still a further aspect, the feed instruction is computed in accordance with the rotation speed and the rotation acceleration. In the preferred embodiments disclosed herein, the synchronism between the rotation of the spindle and the feed of the spindle head can be remarkably improved with various control modes, thus achieving the high speed thread cutting working with high accuracy.