Search

To determine whether the pathological response to preoperative chemotherapy for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) can be predicted using 2-[Twenty-eight patients with PDAC who underwent only neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) before surgery were enrolled in the study. All patients had F-18 FDG-PET examinations before NAC. The resected specimen was pathologically evaluated according to the Classification of Pancreatic Carcinoma (7The mean SUVmax of the response group was higher than that of the non-response group (9.00 ± 1.78 versus 4.26 ± 2.35; p0.001). The optimal cut-off value of SUVmax was 9.28 for distinguishing the two groups. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy for the prediction in the response group were 80%, 95.7%, and 92.9%, respectively.SUVmax on F-18 FDG-PET may be useful as a biomarker to predict the pathological response to NAC in patients with PDAC.

This paper provides a research on dynamic analysis for multiple buildings on layered media, where the lumped masses are used to model the structures, a thin layer method approach is used to model the layered soil, and the mixed boundary value problem is solved using the discretized Green's function method in frequency domain. Coupling effects of multiple structures are evaluated with an iterative approach. The problem is solved for different types of soil deposits in urban areas in Japan, where the results indicate the effects of the layering on ground vibration around the buildings with different heights and separate distances.

Dans cet article, nous avons presente une etude morphologique d‘un systeme en cascade de barrages hydroelectriques, a savoir le Marsyangdi moyen (MMHEP) et le Marsyangdi (MHEP) au Nepal. Ces deux centrales fournissent plus de 20% de l‘energie totale. Cependant, le reservoir en amont (MMHEP) souffre d‘un important probleme de sedimentation depuis sa mise en service car il a perdu plus de la moitie de sa capacite de stockage en l‘espace de quatre ans d‘exploitation. L’etude actuelle porte principalement sur la modelisation et l’analyse des problemes de sedimentation, en particulier a MMHEP, qui peuvent etre attribues aux consequences de l’ignorance de la forme de la riviere et de l’afflux de sediments lors de la selection du site du reservoir. Les processus morphologiques a MMHEP, en aval de la riviere et MHEP ont ete modelises a l‘aide du modele Delft3D avec Feedback Control Tool pour simuler le fonctionnement synchronise de deux reservoirs dans un systeme en cascade. Les effets de l‘operation de rincage ainsi que la sensibilite de differentes formules de transport des sediments sur les resultats de la simulation ont ete reveles et analyses. Les resultats montrent un comportement et des tendances de modele coherents malgre la complexite de la modelisation morphologique avec le fonctionnement synchronise de deux reservoirs en cascade ainsi que la rarete des donnees. Il a ete recommande d‘ameliorer a l‘avenir les modeles fondes sur des donnees et informations appropriees.

A history of hypertension is a known risk factor for delirium in patients in intensive care units, but the effect of antihypertensive agents on delirium development is unclear. Nicardipine, a calcium channel blocker, is widely used in ICU as a treatment agent for hypertensive emergency. This study investigated the relationship between the administration of nicardipine hydrochloride and delirium development in patients under mechanical ventilation. We conducted a medical chart review of 103 patients, who were divided into two groups according to the use of nicardipine hydrochloride. The prevalence of delirium was compared with respect to factors such as age, sex, laboratory data, and medical history, by multivariate analysis. 21 patients (20.4 %) were treated with nicardipine hydrochloride in 103 patients. The treatment and non-treatment groups differed significantly in age (72 vs. 65 years) and history of high blood pressure (57% vs. 11%). Multivariate analysis revealed that patients in the treatment group developed delirium significantly less often than those in the non-treatment group (19% vs. 48%). These results suggested that treatment of high blood pressure with nicardipine hydrochloride is a possible method for preventing the development of delirium.

The Telescope Array experiment studies ultra high energy cosmic rays using a hybrid detector. Fluorescence telescopes measure the longitudinal development of the extensive air shower generated when a primary cosmic ray particle interacts with the atmosphere. Meanwhile, scintillator detectors measure the lateral distribution of secondary shower particles that hit the ground. The Middle Drum (MD) fluorescence telescope station consists of 14 telescopes from the High Resolution Fly’s Eye (HiRes) experiment, providing a direct link back to the HiRes measurements. Using the scintillator detector data in conjunction with the telescope data improves the geometrical reconstruction of the showers significantly, and hence, provides a more accurate reconstruction of the energy of the primary particle. The Middle Drum hybrid spectrum is presented and compared to that measured by the Middle Drum station in monocular mode. Further, the hybrid data establishes a link between the Middle Drum data and the surface array. A comparison between the Middle Drum hybrid energy spectrum and scintillator Surface Detector (SD) spectrum is also shown.

Although Sho-seiryu-to (SST), used as a traditional herbal (Kampo) medicine mainly in China and Korea, is shown to have immunomodulating potential, such as an anti-allergic one, its underlying mechanism has not been completely clarified. To partially address the issue, we explored its effects on allergen-exposed mononuclear cells. Male balb/c mice were intraperitoneally administered ovalbumin (OVA: 20 μg) plus alum or vehicle twice (Day 0 and Day 14). At Day 21, mice were sacrificed and splenocytes (mononuclear cells) were isolated and cultured in the presence or absence of OVA with or without SST. Thereafter, helper T-related cytokines in the culture supernatants were evaluated by means of ELISA. Protein level of interferon-γ was lower than 5.0 pg/mL in the supernatants from OVA-non-exposed or -exposed mononuclear cells in the presence or absence of OVA stimulation. On the other hand, SST induced the cytokine from both types of mononuclear cells in the presence (P < 0.05) or absence of OVA stimulation as compared to corresponding control. By contrast, interleukin (IL)-4 level tended to be decreased by SST in OVA-non-exposed mononuclear cells as did IL-13 in both non-exposed and exposed mononuclear cells as compared to vehicle. In conclusion, immunoregulating efficacy by SST on allergy-prone subjects may include, at least in part, restoring helper T balance mainly through hyperproduction of IFN-γ against mononuclear cells such as lymphocytes.

BACKGROUND This study aimed to determine the clinical benefit of neoadjuvant methotrexate, doxorubicin, vinblastine, and cisplatin (MVAC) in patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) treated with radical cystectomy. PATIENTS AND METHODS Patients with MIBC (T2-4aN0M0) were randomised to receive two cycles of neoadjuvant MVAC followed by radical cystectomy (NAC arm) or radical cystectomy alone (RC arm). The primary end point was overall survival (OS). Secondary end points were progression-free survival, surgery-related complications, adverse events during chemotherapy, proportion with no residual tumour in the cystectomy specimens, and quality of life. To detect an improvement in 5-year OS from 45% in the RC arm to 57% in the NAC arm with 80% power, 176 events were required per arm. RESULTS Patients (N = 130) were randomly assigned to the RC arm (N = 66) and the NAC arm (N = 64). The patient registration was terminated before reaching the initially planned number of patients because of slow accrual. At the second interim analysis just after the early stoppage of patient accrual, the Data and Safety Monitoring Committee recommended early publication of the results because the trial did not have enough power to draw a confirmatory conclusion. OS of the NAC arm was better than that of the RC arm, although the difference was not statistically significant [hazard ratio 0.65, multiplicity adjusted 99.99% confidence interval 0.19-2.18, one-sided P = 0.07]. In the NAC arm and the RC arm, 34% and 9% of the patients had pT0, respectively (P < 0.01). In subgroup analyses, OS in almost all subgroups was in favour of NAC. CONCLUSIONS This trial showed a significantly increased pT0 proportion and favourable OS of patients who received neoadjuvant MVAC. NAC with MVAC can still be considered promising as a standard treatment. UMIN CLINICAL TRIALS REGISTRY IDENTIFIER C000000093.

We used FM imaging to identify neurons that receive sensory feedback from the body wall in a circuit for octopamine (OA)-evoked rhythmic locomotion in the earthworm, Eisenia fetida. We visualized synapses in which postsynaptic neurons receive the sensory feedback, by using FM1-43 dye to label the synapses of both motor and sensory pathways that are associated with locomotion, then clearing the motor pathway synapse labeling, and finally identifying the target synapses by distinguishing physiologically functional synapses through destaining using a high-K(+) solution. A pair of synaptic regions associated with the sensory feedback was found to be located two or three cell body-widths away from the midline, between the anterior parts of the roots of the second lateral nerves (LNs) at the segmental ganglia (SGs). Using conventional intracellular recording and dye loading of the cell bodies surrounding these synaptic regions, we identified a pair of bilateral neurons with cell bodies larger than those of other cells in these regions, and named them "Oscillatory firing neurons Projecting to Peripheral nerves" (OPPs). These had a bipolar shape and projected neurites to the ipsilateral first and third LNs, fired rhythmically, and had a burst timing synchronized with the motor pattern bursts from the ipsilateral first LNs. Current injection into an OPP caused firing in the ipsilateral first LNs, supporting the hypothesis that OPPs functionally project to the peripheral nerves. OPPs also sent neurites to the adjacent anterior and posterior SGs, suggesting connections with the adjacent segments. We conclude that FM imaging can be used to identify neurons involved in specific functions, and that OPPs are the first neurons to be associated with OA-induced locomotion in the earthworm.

The edge-based smoothed finite element method (ES-FEM) using triangular mesh was recently proposed to model the fracture problems in 2D solids. This paper contains the following ingredients: (1) the ES-FEM is extended to three-dimensional (3D) ES-FEM using tetrahedral elements to compute the stress intensity factors and simulate crack propagation in 3D elastic solids; (2) to model the singular fields of arbitrary order near the crack front, a layer of specially designed seven-noded crack-tip element is constructed; (3) the displacement is then enriched with ease to reproduce the necessary order of stress singularity; and (4) the enrichment is done without losing the essential properties of partition-of-unity and the linear function reproduction. Because the singular ES-FEM uses the strain smoothing technique and it is a typical weakened weak (W2) formulation, the system stiffness matrix is computed employing only the shape function values on the surface of the smoothing domains created based on the edges of elements. No derivatives of the shape functions are needed, and thus no mapping and integration for the W2 form is required. Several numerical examples are presented to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

A reconfigurable five-element Yagi-Uda monopole array is presented that utilizes pressure-driven liquid-metal elements. There is one centrally located driven element and six parasitic elements in the array, all of which utilize liquid metal so that their physical lengths can be varied. This allows the array to tune to different operational frequencies, vary the number of director elements, and change parasitic elements from reflectors to directors, and vice versa. The measured results show beam steering along a single axis and 1.33 dB of gain tuning at 2.4 and 3.87 GHz.

Funagira Dam is a concrete gravity dam having a height of 24.50 m and a dam crest length of 220.00 m, and is located approximately 30 km upstream from the mouth of the Tenryu River. The Funagira Dam is owned by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Shizuoka Prefecture, and Electric Power Development Co., Ltd. (J-POWER), and its objectives include power generation and supply of agricultural water, public water, and industrial water. For energy dissipation, the downstream area of the dam was designed as a hydraulic jump-type dissipater using bed protection blocks. The dam has experienced several large storm events in the 40 years after its completion. The protection blocks were damaged and the scouring downstream of the dam began soon after completion. About 6,300 tetrapods were added stage by stage to the bottom. In recent times (2011), however, flood events have been more intense and of longer duration, with maximum spillway releases of up to approximately 6,396 m3/s. This resulted in increased scouring at the foot of the dam. Emergency measures were taken just downstream of the dam apron from 2011 to 2013. The scouring process is a function of several variables, such as water discharge, water level downstream, bed protection, bed materials, transport, morphological riverbed conditions, and gate operations. Experimental studies with field observations, mathematical model tests, and vertical 2-dimensional and fully 3-dimensional hydraulic scale model tests have been carried out to examine the scouring processes and to determine long-term measures. These studies indicate that scouring was caused by a horizontal secondary flow with non-uniform discharge releases, and by changing the types of hydraulic jump because of long-term morphological riverbed changes. The study especially indicates that severe scouring would occur not only for extreme planned discharge but also for small discharges, because of the downstream water level of the dam.

We have developed magnetic metallic contaminant detectors using multiple high-T c SQUIDs (superconducting quantum interference devices) for food and industrial products. For manufacturers producing items such as processed food and industrial products, problems with metallic contaminants are critical issues. When contamination occurs, the manufacturer of the product suffers a great loss from recalling the tainted product. The lower detection limit for practical X-ray usage is on the order of 1 mm. A detection system using a SQUID is a powerful tool for sensitive inspections. For practical use, the detection width of the system should be increased by employing multiple sensors. We designed and set up a multi-channel high-T c SQUID inspection system with a width of at least 130 mm for food and 70 mm for industrial products. As a result, a small ϕ0.3-mm stainless steel particle for food and a ϕ27-μm iron particle for industrial products were successfully detected.

We have developed the magnetic metallic contaminant detectors using multiple high Tc SQUID gradiometers for industrial products. Finding ultra-small metallic contaminants is a big issue for manufacturers producing commercial products. The quality of industrial products such as lithium ion batteries can deteriorate by the inclusion of tiny metallic contaminants. When the contamination does occur, the manufacturer of the product suffers a great loss to recall the tainted products. Metallic particles with outer dimension less than 50 μm cannot be detected by a conventional X-ray imaging. Therefore a high sensitive detection system for small foreign matters is required. However, in most of the cases, the matrix of an active material coated sheet electrode is magnetized and the magnetic signal from the matrix is large enough to mask the signal from contaminants. Thus we have developed a detection system based on a SQUID gradiometer and a horizontal magnetization to date. For practical use, we should increase the detection width of the system by employing multiple sensors. We successfully realized an eight-channel high-Tc SQUID gradiometer system for inspection of sheet electrodes of a lithium ion battery with width of at least 60 to 70 mm. Eight planar SQUID gradiometers were mounted with a separation of 9.0 mm. As a result, small iron particles of less than 50 μm were successfully measured. This result suggests that the system is a promising tool for the detection of contaminants in a lithium ion battery.

The quality of life and safeness of the present and future generations are strongly intertwined with the availability of energy sources and the sustainability of the energy infrastructure. Energy consumption in developed countries grows at a rate of approximately 1% per year, and that of developing countries, 5% per year (Muneer et al., 2005 [1] ). Present reserves of oil and natural gas can only cover consumption at this rate for the next 50 years in the case of oil, and for the next 70 years in the case of natural gas. Therefore, one of the fundamental priorities for a country such as Algeria is to use several renewable energies (RE) sources and environmentally friendly energy conversion technologies. Algeria is endowed with large reserves of energy sources, mainly hydrocarbons and a considerable potential for the utilisation of RE sources especially with respect to solar energy. Algeria has the potential to be one of the major contributors in solar energy and become a role model to other countries in the world. RE are now one of the major elements of Algeria's energy policy and in view of boosting the national effort in terms of RE beyond 2011, Algeria has developed a national programme for the period 2011–2030 to promote concrete actions in the fields of energy efficiency and RE in line with the approach adopted by the government on February 3, 2011. Besides, it confirms Algerian's ambition to become an international hub for industrial and energy production and exportation in the solar sector. With this in mind, along with the environmental responsibility issues, public awareness gradually increased over the last seven years and alternative energy resources have become a new area of interest. As a tangible target, the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM) strategic plan aims to reach a 40% share of RE (mainly solar) in electric energy production by 2030. The various future projects are all factors that will undoubtedly give Algeria an important role in the implementation of RE technology in North Africa, the capacity for providing sustainable supply of cost-effective electricity from RE sources for the needs of the population, and the possibility of even exporting 10,000 MW to neighbouring and European market. This paper provides a detailed analysis of the existing renewable energy sector and a forecast for demand growth, additional capacity, investment requirements and Algeria's ambitious objectives of use of RE and environment protection. The paper also discusses the current energy scenario and explores the alternative energy like solar and wind to ensure energy security supply, reliability, greater efficiency in energy conversion, transmission and utilisation. Particular attention is paid to Algeria's global and sustainable solutions of the environmental challenges and the problems of conservation of fossil energy resources under the clean development mechanism (CDM) structure. The report also provides a detailed analysis of the existing renewable energy sector and a forecast for demand growth, additional capacity, and investment requirements

We study the anisotropy of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Ray (UHECR) events collected by the Telescope Array (TA) detector in the first 40 months of operation. Following earlier studies, we examine event sets with energy thresholds of 10 EeV, 40 EeV, and 57 EeV. We find that the distributions of the events in right ascension and declination are compatible with an isotropic distribution in all three sets. We then compare with previously reported clustering of the UHECR events at small angular scales. No significant clustering is found in the TA data. We then check the events with E>57 EeV for correlations with nearby active galactic nuclei. No significant correlation is found. Finally, we examine all three sets for correlations with the large-scale structure of the Universe. We find that the two higher-energy sets are compatible with both an isotropic distribution and the hypothesis that UHECR sources follow the matter distribution of the Universe (the LSS hypothesis), while the event set with E>10 EeV is compatible with isotropy and is not compatible with the LSS hypothesis at 95% CL unless large deflection angles are also assumed. We show that accounting for UHECR deflections in a realistic model of the Galactic magnetic field can make this set compatible with the LSS hypothesis., 10 pages, 9 figures

We have developed metallic contaminant detection systems using HTS-SQUIDs. In this study, we designed and fabricated a single-chip HTS rf-SQUID using SQUID microscope techniques to reduce both the lift-off and cooling temperature as compared with the substrate resonator HTS rf-SQUID. The HTS rf-SQUID was a washer-type rf-SQUID without a flux focuser. By lengthening and narrowing the SQUID hole, we showed that the inductance of the SQUID ring was reduced, and the effective area and the field noise were improved consequently. By introducing a single-chip HTS rf-SQUID with hole size of 800 μm × 50 μm into the detection system, we obtained a field sensitivity of 150 fT/Hz1/2 and a lift-off of 1.5 mm. Since this SQUID has advantages in the reduction of lift-off and cooling temperature, its detectability and magnetic field resolution are superior to that of the substrate resonator SQUID. Finally, we showed the single-chip SQUID can detect 20 μm in diameter iron balls.

A two-channel high-Tc SQUID gradiometer system for the detection of magnetic foreign matter in a lithium-ion battery was developed. Finding ultra-small metallic foreign particles can be a big issue for a manufacturer that produces commercial products such as lithium-ion batteries. If the presence of such particles is detected in its products, the manufacturer has to recall the products and thereby suffers a significant loss. Previously, we developed a detection system based on a single-channel SQUID gradiometer and horizontal magnetization. For practical use, we need to increase the detection width of the system by employing multiple sensors. In this paper, we present a two-channel high-Tc SQUID gradiometer system for the inspection of a lithium-ion battery. In order to increase the inspection width, two SQUID gradiometers were employed along with a specially designed cryostat. As a result, small iron particles with a diameter of less than 100 μm were detected by the system with a width of 22 mm. This is the first multi-channel high-Tc SQUID gradiometer system for detection of the contaminants in a lithium-ion battery.

Effect of an addition of a cooled step-up transformer to a flux locked loop (FLL) circuit was studied to reduce indirect rf interference to HTS-dc-SQUID. First, we demonstrated that a noise level of an HTS-dc-SQUID system using the FLL circuit with single room-temperature transformer could be easily degraded by radiation of rf electromagnetic wave to cables in the FLL circuit. It is thought that the rf radiation induced rf current in the circuit, and was transmitted to the SQUID to modulate the bias current, resulting in the increase of the noise level. To avoid the degradation due to such indirect rf interference, the cooled set-up transformer was added to the FLL circuit since it was expected that the additional transformer would work as a “step-down” transformer against the induced rf current. It was shown that the noise level of a HTS-SQUID system (SQUITEM system) operated in an electromagnetically unshielded environment could be improved to the same level as that measured in a magnetically shielded room by the additional cooled transformer and appropriate impedance matching.

Spermatogonial stem cells (SSC) self-renew and differentiate into spermatocytes to produce haploid sperm. Because SSC are a small population of adult stem cells in the testis, numerous studies have been reported to derive cell lines from cultured SSC. It has been reported that neonatal and adult mouse SSC can be cultured in vitro over the long term. Male germline stem (GS) cells, embryonic stem (ES)-like cells, and multipotent male germline stem (MGS) cells were derivated from mouse SSC. However, in domestic species including cattle, information about in vitro culture of SSC is mainly available in the neonatal and immature animal. To our knowledge, there are no reports about long-term culture of SSC isolated from adult bovine testis. In this report, we established culture conditions to maintain SSC isolated from adult and immature testes. The SSC were isolated by 3-step enzymatic digestion and enriched by Percoll gradient centrifugation. For adult testicular cell suspensions, SSC were further enriched by differential plating on precoated gelatin dish. After Percoll gradient centrifugation, we found differential expression of SSC markers (GFRα-1 and UCHL-1) in the isolated cells from immature and adult testis. The RT-PCR results also confirmed the expression of differentiated spermatogonia markers (SYCP3 and STRA-8) in adult testicular cell suspensions. It suggests that isolated testicular germ cell population from adult testis are more heterogeneous than those of immature testis. The SSC isolated from adult testes were cultured in low-serum media containing 6-bromoindirubin-3′-oxime (BIO), an inhibitor of glycogen synthase kinase-3α (GSK3), and subsequently the cultures were maintained in the medium containing glial cell line-derived neurotropic factor (GDNF). The cell lines have characteristics resembling mouse GS cell lines as confirmed by their grape-like shape morphology, the expression of SSC markers (UCHL-1, DBA, and GFRa-1), and pluripotent stem cell markers (POU5F1, SOX2, KLF4). The SSC from immature testes were proliferated for more than 3 months in serum-free culture conditions in the presence of GDNF and bovine leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF). The cell lines had ES-like cell morphology, expressed pluripotent stem cell markers and SSC-specific markers. They differentiated in vitro into 3 germ layers confirmed by the expression of ectoderm (NESTIN), mesoderm (BMP4), and endoderm (GATA-6) markers by RT-PCR and neuron like-cells confirmed by the expression of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) by immunofluorescence analysis. In conclusion, these findings indicate an efficient method to enrich SSC without cell sorting method and different long-term culture systems subsequently established to maintain SSC from adult and immature testes. Furthermore, our data would be useful for further studies that aim to preserve endangered species and improve livestock production through genome editing technology.

A new type of solid state solar cell is produced by using Fe 2 O 3 (working electrode) and SiC as a hole collector (counter electrode). Two molten salts , 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride (EMICl) and 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium iodide (BMII) were used as crystal growth inhibitor s with a SiC film. It was found that BMII shows about 10 times higher efficiency compared to an EMICI - based SiC film solar cell. Keywords: Fe 2 O 3 ; SiC; Solid state solar cell; Molten salt. © 2009 JSR Publications. ISSN: 2070-0237 (Print); 2070-0245 (Online). All rights reserved. DOI: 10.3329/jsr.v2i1.2660 J. Sci. Res. 2 (1), 1-8 (2009)

It is important to remove large environmental noise in measurement using SQUIDs without magnetic shielding. Here, the environmental noise has been reduced by an active noise control (ANC) system in the MHz radio-frequency region. The ANC system including a phase and amplitude control circuit has been designed to allow precise adjustments of the phase and the amplitude of the anti-phase wave against the noise waves in the MHz region. In this paper, a sinusoidal wave in the MHz range was used as the radio frequency interference. When a SQUID was used for a signal detector, the ANC system suppressed this sinusoidal wave to the white noise level by about 54 dB. The performance of the ANC system for the chemical detection by nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) was checked in a simulated environment. One was the case of a real AM radio broadcasting signal with the dummy NQR signal and another was the real NQR signal with a sinusoidal wave as noise. For both cases, the ANC showed good performance for MHz range noise cancellation.

RESUMO – O material em estudo, o grafeno, em sua forma cristalizada, possui excelentes propriedades opticas, termicas e eletricas que sao significativas e uteis em diversas aplicacoes, desde que sua sintese ocorra de forma controlada, com um adequado teor de pureza. Com o objetivo de explorar e investigar as possibilidades em desenvolvimento relativas a sintese deste material, o presente trabalho promoveu um estudo sobre alguns metodos de sintese e caracterizacao do grafeno, um nanomaterial da familia de alotropos do carbono. Tais metodos foram descritos com o objetivo de se analisar e avaliar aqueles que proporcionaram maior eficiencia de sintese. Como resultado da pesquisa realizada, pode-se afirmar que as rotas de processos de sintese do tipo top-down forneceram os melhores resultados, devido a geracao de grafeno de alta qualidade, com alto rendimento e baixo custo, garantindo a possibilidade de seu uso industrial aplicado na elaboracao de outros materiais como, por exemplo, na composicao de peliculas, fundamentais para a protecao de equipamentos que dependem de energia termica e eletrica para seu funcionamento.

It is important to remove large environmental noise in measurement using SQUIDs without magnetic shielding. Active noise control (ANC) is an effective method to remove the environmental noise. The environmental noise has been reduced by the ANC system in the radio frequency region around MHz. The anti-phase waves of the environmental noise should be generated by this system. The ANC system including the phase and amplitude control circuit was developed to make the anti-phase waves in the MHz region. In this paper, sinusoidal waves with a MHz frequency were used as the environmental noise. When a coil antenna was used for a receiver antenna, this ANC system suppressed these sinusoidal waves to the white noise level about 40 dB. When we used a SQUID as a receiver antenna, we also cancelled sinusoidal waves to the white noise level by this system. This shows that the ANC system is useful to reduce an environmental noise when this ANC system is developed to cancel multi-frequency noise.

Signals through Kit receptor tyrosine kinase are essential for development of erythrocytes, melanocytes, germ cells, mast cells and interstitial cells of Cajal (ICCs). Mice and rats with a double gene dose of loss-of-function mutations of Kit show depletion of these cells. Although human homozygotes with loss-of-function mutations of Kit have not been reported, gain-of-function mutations of Kit result in development of tumors from mast cells, germ cells and ICCs in humans. The ICC tumors are called gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs), and GISTs are a good target for the Kit inhibitor imatinib mesylate. The interrelationship between the type of Kit gain-of-function mutations and the therapeutic effect of imatinib mesylate has been well characterized in GISTs. Kit is interesting from both a biological and clinical view-point.

With rapid increase in the power dissipation density in modern electronic equipment, the cooling design of electronic equipment becomes increasingly important. For widely used forced-convection air-cooled systems, the reliability and acoustic noise of the fan present serious concerns as the air velocity is increased to enhance the cooling capacity. Thus, the interest in natural-convection air cooling is growing to take advantages of the low noise and energy saving inherent in that cooling mode. One method of promoting the capacity of natural air cooling is to incline the electronics casing and thereby induce draft air by what is called the chimney effect. However, the effect of inclination on the thermal behaviour and the cooling capacity has not yet been fully understood owing to the involvement of many parameters in driving the draft air. This paper presents the results of experimental and numerical studies on the effect of casing inclination on the temperature rise across the casing. Numerical simulation was carried out to find the thermal behaviour inside a thin electronic equipment casing. The simulation results are in good agreement with experimental data. A thermal design guide is obtained regarding how the cooling effect is improved by increasing the inclination angle.

We have grown InN films on 3C-SiC (001) substrates with and without cubic GaN underlayers by RF-N 2 plasma MBE. It was found that, in the case of direct growth on 3C-SiC (001), hexagonal InN grows with the crystal orientation as hexagonal InN (1100)//3C-SiC (110), while, in the case of the growth on cubic GaN underlayers, cubic InN grows with the crystal orientation as cubic InN (110)//cubic GaN (110). Photoluminescence emissions from the cubic and hexagonal InN films were clearly observed at around 0.7 eV.

In the present work, an important basic flow phenomenon, natural convection-induced flow, is studied numerically. Three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations along with the energy equation are solved based on the finite difference method. A generalized coordinate system is used so that sufficient grid resolution could be achieved in the body surface boundary layer region. The results of calculation showed a satisfactory agreement with the measured data and led to a good understanding of the overall flow and thermal behaviour inside an electronic equipment cabinet model, which is very difficult, if not impossible, to gather by experiment.

Porphyromonas gingivalis has been shown to attack host defense systems through proteolytic cleavage of a wide variety of members of the systems. In this study, we examined the ability of P. gingivalis culture supernatant to alter the expression of human T cell surface proteins. As judged by flow cytometric analysis, detection of CD4 expression was completely eliminated by the supernatant, but CD8 was less sensitive. When the culture supernatant was added with reducing agents, proteolytic activity was enhanced, resulting in the cleavage of CD8. Mitogenic response of T cells to phytohemagglutinin or concanavalin A was decreased by the treatment of the cells with the culture supernatant of P. gingivalis. The three forms of gingipains (high molecular mass arginine-specific gingipain, arginine-specific gingipain 2 and lysine-specific gingipain) purified from the culture supernatant of P. gingivalis actively cleaved CD4 and CD8 on human T cells, indicating that proteolytic activity of the culture supernatant was due to gingipains. These results suggest that cysteine proteinases like gingipains released from P. gingivalis cleave T cell surface proteins and impede T cell function.

This paper is concerned with the natural cooling of electronic equipment casings. Effects of the size and the location of the outlet vent as well as the relative distance from the outlet vent location to the power heater position on the flow resistance have been investigated experimentally by using a simple model casing simulated for practical natural air cooled electronic equipment casings. The result shows that the mean temperature rise inside the casing increases with increase in the heater input power, but decreases linearly with increase in the vent porosity coefficient in logarithmic coordinates. As the heater approaches the outlet vent, the temperature rise increases linearly in the logarithmic scale. By defining a new dimensionless parameter called the equivalent Reynolds number, involving the Reynolds number and the porosity coefficient, the flow resistance coefficient is found to have a close logarithmic linear correlation, K = kxχ−1.5, with the equivalent Reynolds number. Its validation has been proved by the good agreement with experimental results. The result indicates that the relative distance from the outlet vent to the heat dissipation unit can be considered as a chimney height in the practical engineering design. Although further more detailed validations are needed, a useful correlation between the flow resistance coefficient, the Reynolds number and the porosity coefficient has been presented for the design application of natural cooling electronic casings.

Haplotype analysis is important for mapping traits. Recently, methods for estimating haplotype frequencies from genotypes of unrelated individuals based on the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm have been developed. Our program estimates haplotype frequencies in the population and determines the posterior probability distribution of diplotype configuration (diplotype distribution) for each subject based on the estimated haplotype frequencies. Samples from three ethnic groups for the smoothelin gene (SMTN) and those from three Japanese groups for serum amyloid A genes (SAA@) were analyzed. The estimated diplotype distribution for each individual was concentrated, in most cases, in a single diplotype configuration. The diplotype configuration thus determined was the same as that determined in in vitro experiments, with one exception. Thus, the diplotype configurations determined using the estimated haplotype frequencies from unrelated individuals are reliable. Using this method, the risk of a subject developing a phenotype may be estimated from the diplotype distribution when the phenotype is associated with diplotype configurations.