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ObjectiveTo verify understanding and awareness of fertility preservation (FP) in pediatric patients undergoing FP treatments.MethodsA questionnaire survey was conducted before and after explanation of fertility issues and FP treatments for patients 6–17 years old who visited or were hospitalized for the purpose of ovarian tissue cryopreservation (OTC) or oocyte cryopreservation (OC), or sperm cryopreservation between October 2018 and April 2022. This study was approved by the institutional review board at St. Marianna University School of Medicine (No. 4123, UMIN000046125).ResultParticipants in the study comprised 36 children (34 girls, 2 boys). Overall mean age was 13.3 ± 3.0 years. The underlying diseases were diverse, with leukemia in 14 patients (38.9%), brain tumor in 4 patients (11.1%). The questionnaire survey before the explanation showed that 19 patients (52.8%) wanted to have children in the future, but 15 (41.7%) were unsure of future wishes to raise children. And most children expressed some degree of understanding of the treatment being planned for the underlying disease (34, 94.4%). Similarly, most children understood that the treatment would affect their fertility (33, 91.7%). When asked if they would like to hear a story about how to become a mother or father after FP which including information of FP, half answered “Don’t mind” (18, 50.0%). After being provided with information about FP treatment, all participants answered that they understood the adverse effects on fertility of treatments for the underlying disease. Regarding FP treatment, 32 children (88.9%) expressed understanding for FP and 26 (72.2%) wished to receive FP. “Fear” and “Pain” and “Costs” were frequently cited as concerns about FP. Following explanations, 33 children (91.7%) answered “Happy I heard the story” and no children answered, “Wish I hadn’t heard the story”. Finally, 28 of the 34 girls (82.4%) underwent OTC and one girl underwent OC.DiscussionThe fact that all patients responded positively to the explanations of FP treatment is very informative. This is considered largely attributable to the patients themselves being involved in the decision-making process for FP.ConclusionsExplanations of FP for children appear valid if age-appropriate explanations are provided.

We show that the systematic error unique to Brillouin optical correlation-domain reflectometry (BOCDR) can be effectively suppressed by use of low-coherence light, and demonstrate distributed strain measurement with ~3 cm spatial resolution., Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures

Laurent Berger attached a p-adic differential equation N_rig(M) with a Frobenius structure to an arbitrary de Rham (phi, Gamma)-module over a Robba ring. In this article, we compare the local epsilon conjecture for the cyclotomic deformation of M with that of N_rig(M). We first define an isomorphism between the fundamental lines of their cyclotomic deformations using the second author's results on the big exponential map. As a main result of the article, we show that this isomorphism enables us to reduce the local epsilon conjecture for the cyclotomic deformation of M to that of N_rig(M)., Comment: 28 pages

To enhance the torque and output power of the rod-shaped piezoelectric rotary motors, in this article, we employ alumina to substitute the metal parts of the transducers considering that the high Young's modulus of alumina may avoid preload-induced vibration reduction and enable the transducers to generate the high driving force. Besides, alumina exhibits a relatively low density compared to most of the materials commonly used as the vibrating bodies (except aluminum alloy); this probably enhances the power densities of the piezoelectric motors. To assess the validity of our proposal, we constructed a Langevin-type alumina/lead–zirconate–titanate (PZT) motor and investigated its load characteristics. The transducer of 35 mm in outer diameter operated in orthogonal bending (B2) modes and drove the rotor with its end surface. The alumina/PZT motor yields the maximal torque and maximal output power of 1.56 N·m and 26.0 W, respectively, both of which exceed those of the metal/PZT motors having identical structure and working in B2 modes. Additionally, its power density reaches 56.3 W/kg, relatively high among the rod-shaped rotary motors although some of which work in more powerful modes. This article validates the effectiveness of our proposal and provides a new approach to improve the performance of the rod-shaped piezoelectric rotary motors.

We studied a method of seismic detection in which a Hough transform is used to obtain strain data from distributed acoustic sensing using submarine cables.

Additional file 1: Supplemental Figure 1. Distribution of physical restraint duration during the first 24–72 h after admission. Continuous physical restraint was defined as the patients who required continuous physical restraint during the first 24–72 h after admission. Intermittent physical restraint was defined as the patients who required any physical restraint during the first 24–72 h after admission.

Additional file 2: Supplemental Table 1. Comparison of baseline characteristics with favorable (mRS 0–3) and unfavorable (mRS 4–6) outcomes.

Our team, Hibikino-Musashi@Home (HMA), was founded in 2010. It is based in Japan in the Kitakyushu Science and Research Park. Since 2010, we have annually participated in the RoboCup@Home Japan Open competition in the open platform league (OPL). We participated as an open platform league team in the 2017 Nagoya RoboCup competition and as a domestic standard platform league (DSPL) team in the 2017 Nagoya, 2018 Montreal, and 2019 Sydney RoboCup competitions. We also participated in the World Robot Challenge (WRC) 2018 in the service-robotics category of the partner-robot challenge (real space) and won first place. Currently, we have 20 members from eight different laboratories within the Kyushu Institute of Technology. In this paper, we introduce the activities that have been performed by our team and the technologies that we use., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, RoboCup 2020

Our team, Hibikino-Musashi@Home (HMA), was founded in 2010. It is based in the Kitakyushu Science and Research Park, Japan. Since 2010, we have participated in the RoboCup@Home Japan Open competition open platform league annually. We have also participated in the RoboCup 2017 Nagoya as an open platform league and domestic standard platform league teams, and in the RoboCup 2018 Montreal as a domestic standard platform league team. Currently, we have 23 members from seven different laboratories based in Kyushu Institute of Technology. This paper aims to introduce the activities that are performed by our team and the technologies that we use., Comment: 9pages, 5 figures, RoboCup 2019. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2005.14451

Our previous studies showed that traveling-wave rotary ultrasonic motors with polymer-based vibrators yielded limited output power when operating in the commonly used low-order bending vibration modes. In this study, we employ a high-order bending mode in the polymer-based cylindrical ultrasonic motor, because this mode yields a relatively high electromechanical coupling factor, which may lead to high output power of the motor. Additionally, in contrast with the low-order modes with only vertical nodal lines, the high-order mode has both horizontal and vertical nodal lines on the circumferential outer surface of the polymer-based vibrator. With these attractive advantages, it is worth investigating basic vibration characteristics of polymer-based vibrators operating in high-order modes and their applications to ultrasonic motors. The vibrating body is made of poly phenylene sulfide, a functional polymer exhibiting low mechanical loss even under high-amplitude ultrasonic vibration and is activated by a piezoelectric ceramic element bonded on the back surface. The high-order modes are optimal for polymer-based vibrators with practical thicknesses, because their equivalent stiffnesses and masses are relatively low when operating in this mode. Polymer-based motors with the high-order modes exhibit relatively high output torques and powers, compared with not only polymer-based motors with low-order bending modes, but also metal-based motors operating in high-order vibration modes.

Supplemental Material, Supplemental_material_1 for The Therapeutic Effects of Adipose-Derived Stem Cells and Recombinant Peptide Pieces on Mouse Model of DSS Colitis by Reiko Iwazawa, Sayako Kozakai, Tsukasa Kitahashi, Kentaro Nakamura, and Ken-ichiro Hata in Cell Transplantation

Supplemental Material, Supplemental_material_2 for The Therapeutic Effects of Adipose-Derived Stem Cells and Recombinant Peptide Pieces on Mouse Model of DSS Colitis by Reiko Iwazawa, Sayako Kozakai, Tsukasa Kitahashi, Kentaro Nakamura, and Ken-ichiro Hata in Cell Transplantation

Supplemental_material_1_revice for The Therapeutic Effects of Adipose-Derived Stem Cells and Recombinant Peptide Pieces on Mouse Model of DSS Colitis by Reiko Iwazawa, Sayako Kozakai, Tsukasa Kitahashi, Kentaro Nakamura, and Ken-ichiro Hata in Cell Transplantation

With their characteristics of low density and elastic moduli, polymers are promising materials for making ultrasonic motors (USMs) with high energy density. Although it has been believed for a long time that polymers are too lossy to be applied to high-amplitude vibrators, there are several new polymers that exhibit excellent vibration characteristics. First, we measure the damping coefficients of some functional polymers to explore the applicability of polymers as vibrators for USMs. Second, to investigate the vibration characteristics, we fabricate bimorph vibrators using several kinds of polymers that have low attenuation. Third, a bending mode USM is fabricated with a polymer rod and four piezoelectric plates bonded on the rod as a typical example of a USM. Through an experimental investigation of the motor performance, it was found that the polymer-based USMs exhibited higher rotation velocity than the aluminum-based USM under a light preload, although the maximum torque of the polymer-based USMs was smaller than the aluminum-based USM. Among the tested polymers, polyphenylenesulfide was a prospective material for USMs under light preloads because of the high amplitude and lightweight of polyphenylenesulfide.

We measure the Brillouin gain spectra in two cores (the central core and one of the outer cores) of a ~3-m-long, silica-based, 7-core multi-core fiber (MCF) with incident light of 1550 nm wavelength, and investigate the Brillouin frequency shift (BFS) and its dependence on strain and temperature. The BFSs of both the cores are ~10.92 GHz, and the strain- and temperature-dependence coefficients of the BFS in the central core are 484.8 MHz/% and 1.08 MHz/K, respectively, whereas those in the outer core are 516.9 MHz/% and 1.03 MHz/K. All of these values are not largely different from those in a silica single-mode fiber, which is expected because the cores are composed of the same material (silica). The difference in the BFS dependence of strain between the two cores may originate from the difference in structural deformation when strain is applied to the fiber, which is a unique characteristic to MCFs. The future prospect on distributed strain and temperature sensing based on Brillouin scattering in MCFs is finally presented., Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures

Although high-transmission-capacity optical fibers are in demand, the problem of the fiber fuse phenomenon needs to be resolved to prevent the destruction of fibers. As polymer optical fibers become more prevalent, clarifying their fuse properties has become important. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a fuse propagation velocity of 21.9 mm/s, which is 1 to 2 orders of magnitude slower than that in standard silica fibers. The achieved threshold power density and proportionality constant between the propagation velocity and the power density are respectively 1/186 of and 16.8 times the values for silica fibers. An oscillatory continuous curve instead of periodic voids is formed after the passage of the fuse. An easy fuse termination method is presented herein, along with its potential plasma applications., Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures

An amplified 16 channel dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) array architecture is presented for interferometric fibre optic sensor array systems. This architecture employs a distributed Erbium doped fibre amplifier (EDFA) scheme to decrease the array insertion loss, and employs time division multiplexing (TDM) at each wavelength to increase the number of sensors that can be supported. The first experimental demonstration of this system is reported including results which show the potential for multiplexing and interrogating up to 4096 sensors using a single telemetry fibre pair with good system performance.

The aim of this article is to study Bloch-Kato's exponential map and Perrin-Riou's "big" exponential map purely in terms of (��,��)-modules over the Robba ring. We first generalize the definition of Bloch-Kato's exponential map for all the (��,��)-modules without using Fontaine's rings B_{cris}, B_{dR} of p-adic periods and then we generalize the construction of Perrin-Riou's "big" exponential map for all the de Rham (��,��)-modules and prove that this map interpolates our Bloch-Kato's exponential map and the dual exponential map. Finally, we prove a theorem concerning to the determinant of our "big" exponential map, which is a generalization of Perrin-Riou's ��(V)-conjecture. The key ingredients for our study are Pottharst's theory of analytic Iwasawa cohomology and Berger's construction of p-adic differential equations associated to de Rham (��,��)-modules., 51pages(1st version), 56pages (2nd version)

The aim of this article is to prove Zariski density of crystalline representations in the rigid analytic space associated to the universal deformation ring of a d-dimensional mod p representation of Gal(\bar{K}/K) for any d and for any p-adic field K. This is a generalization of the results of Colmez, Kisin (d=2, K=Q_p), of the author (d=2, any K), of Chenevier (any d, K=Q_p). A key ingredient for the proof is to construct a p-adic family of trianguline representations. In this article, we construct (an approximation of) this family by generalizing Kisin's theory of finite slope subspace X_{fs} for any d and for any K.

The aim of this article is to study deformation theory of trianguline B-pairs for any p-adic field. For benign B-pairs, a special good class of trianguline B-pairs, we prove a main theorem concerning tangent spaces of these deformation spaces. These are generalizations of Bellaiche-Chenevier's and Chenevier's works in the case of K=Q_p, where they used (phi,Gamma)-modules over Robba ring instead of using B-pairs. The main theorem, the author hopes, will play crucial roles in some problems of Zariski density of modular points or of crystalline points in deformation spaces of global or local p-adic Galois representations., Comment: 30pages

With the characteristics of low density, low elastic modulus, and low mechanical loss, poly(phenylene sulfide) (PPS) is a promising material for fabricating lightweight ultrasonic motors (USMs). For the first time, we used PPS to fabricate an annular elastomer with teeth and glued a piece of piezoelectric-ceramic annular disk to the bottom of the elastomer to form a vibrator. To explore for a material suitable for the rotor surface coming in contact with the PPS-based vibrator, several disk-shaped rotors made of different materials were fabricated to form traveling wave USMs. The polymer-based USM rotates successfully as the conventional metal-based USMs. The experimental results show that the USM with the aluminum rotor has the largest torque, which indicates that aluminum is the most suitable for the rotor surface among the tested materials.

With the properties of low density, low elastic modulus, and low mechanical loss, poly(phenylene sulfide) (PPS) is a suitable material as the elastomer in an airborne ultrasonic transducer for generating large vibration velocity. In this study, we design and fabricate a transducer composed of a PPS-based longitudinal vibrator and a PPS-based disk of 0.3 mm thickness to obtain high-intensity ultrasound. The rated sound pressure at a distance of 300 mm reached 38.9 Pa (125 dB, 0 dB re. 0.02 mPa) when the frequency and voltage were 58.90 kHz and 20 V. The weight of this transducer is 6.3 g. The ratio of the sound pressure to the weight of the prototype transducer is 1.8 times larger than that of the commercial transducer. The experimental results indicate that PPS is a good substitute for metal as the elastomer for manufacturing airborne ultrasonic transducers with a high output-to-weight ratio.

A 1.8 cc silent bidirectional traveling-wave, self-moving linear microactuator is shown to be capable of generating a sliding velocity of 0.22 m/s and sliding force of 1.1 N. Through the use of computational analysis in the actuator's design, the vibration characteristics were improved in order to obtain a better actuator. The generation of a radial traveling wave about the circumference of the actuator, akin to a ring, is shown to exist despite the unusual shape, and the presence of traveling wave motion along the output face also is shown to exist. By using short-time sinusoidal signals, slider displacements as small as 82 nm were obtained from the actuator, and by using direct current (DC) input, displacements of up to /spl plusmn/107 nm were obtained, suggesting a way to obtain subnanometer positioning accuracy over arbitrary sliding distances. By reversing the phase between the paired driving signals, the direction of motion was reversed at up to 300 Hz; the slider displacement and velocity was found to be inversely proportional to the phase-reversal rate, and the slider's peak velocity and maximum thrust force were directly proportional to the phase between the driving signals. The output force and velocity of the actuator was fairly insensitive to the input frequency, giving measurable motion between 132.5 and 141.5 kHz, but was sensitive to the input voltage, requiring at least 38 V input for operation, and was approximately quadratically dependent on the applied preload centered about 2.25 N.

A torsional microtransducer for high-power applications was developed using standard bulk lead zirconium titanate (PZT) placed upon a small rectangular prism made from phosphor bronze, with a tapered conical end serving as a horn and a machined interior to improve the actuator's response. Torsion was obtained from a prototype at the design frequency of 192 kHz as well as over a wide range of frequencies from 136 kHz to 1.02 MHz. Torsional vibration velocities of 335 mm/s at 192 kHz were measured at 27.3 V/sub RMS/ on the 1.5-mm diameter output tip, amounting to 25,600 degree/s vibration velocity along the outer circumference of the tip. At 1.02 MHz, a torsional vibration velocity of 1750 mm/s (134,000 degree/s) at 17.8 V/sub RMS/ was obtained through use of the thickness mode of the PZT elements. Using the design described in this study, high-power torsional transducers with diameters of 5 mm and below are now possible.

Using a 3×4×5 mm torsional microtransducer attached to a 30-cm long, 0.3-mm diameter flexible stainless steel wire, torsional vibration and coupled torsional-flexural vibration is transmitted to a remotely-placed rotor. The torsional microtransducer uses flat, thickness-poled lead zirconate titanate (PZT) elements attached to the surface of a square-sided prism with a tapered horn and tip; the elements twist the structure and generate torsional vibration amplified by the horn and tip at 150–260 kHz. Swaged to the wire–the `acoustic waveguide'–torsional vibration is transmitted into the wire, and flexural vibration is developed in the wire due to strong torsional-flexural coupling, demonstrated by measurement of the vibration velocity. Standing wave vibration was generated (standing wave ratio, SWR≈7.5) in the waveguide with nothing on the waveguide tip, but upon using a rotor, traveling wave vibration transmitted energy to the rotor (SWR≈4), which acted essentially as a loss; by placing a damping material on the tip instead of a rotor, very similar traveling wave motion was obtained (SWR≈1.5). The few torsional resonances of the transducer were found to be greatly increased in number by the waveguide, and rotors, with a contact radius of 300 µm, were found to rotate for most of these resonances in either direction at up to 11,500 rpm and 3.5 µN-m.

Optical fibers have been successfully utilized for point sensors targeting physical quantities (stress, strain, rotation, acceleration), chemical compounds (humidity, oil, nitrates, alcohols, DNA) or radiation fields (X-rays, β particles, γ-rays). Similarly, bundles of fibers have been extremely successful in imaging visible wavelengths for medical endoscopy and industrial boroscopy. This work presents the progress in the fabrication and experimental evaluation of multicore fiber as neutron scattering instrumentation designed to detect and image neutrons with micron level spatial resolution.

Fuel assembly vibrations in nuclear reactor cores should not be excessive as these can compromise the lifetime of the assembly and lead to safety hazards. This issue is particularly relevant to new reactor designs that use liquid metal coolants. We therefore demonstrate accurate measurements of the vibrations of a fuel assembly in a lead-bismuth eutectic cooled installation with fibre Bragg grating (FBG) based sensors. The use of FBGs in combination with a dedicated sensor integration approach allows accounting for the severe geometrical constraints and providing for the required minimal intrusiveness of the instrumentation, identifying the vibration modes with required accuracy and observing the differences between the vibration amplitudes of the individual fuel pins as well as evidencing a low frequency fuel pin vibration mode resulting from the supports.

Composite materials are increasingly used in aerospace applications, owing to their high strength-to-mass ratio. Such materials are nevertheless vulnerable to impact damage. It is therefore important to investigate the effects of impacts on composites. Here we embed specialty microstructured optical fiber Bragg grating based sensors inside a carbon fiber reinforced polymer, providing access to the 3D strain evolution within the composite during impact. We measured a maximum strain of -655 muepsilon along the direction of impact, and substantially lower values in the two in-plane directions. Such in-situ characterization can trigger insight in the development of impact damage in composites.

An inline intermodal no core fiber (NCF) sensor based on direct ligand immobilization for detection of nickel ions (Ni2+) is proposed. Covalently immobilized nickel specific ligand, Meso-Tetra(4-carboxyphenyl)porphine, on the NCF surface serves as adsorption site for Ni2+ and can induce ambient refractive index (RI) change around the NCF on occurrence of binding events. The change in RI results in spectrum wavelength shifts, which was measured for continuous monitoring of Ni2+ concentration. The proposed sensor was observed to exhibit a sensitivity of 121.03 nm/mM towards Ni2+ ions. Published version

In this paper we demonstrate through simulation the potential for phase-shifted fibre Bragg gratings incorporating structural slow light to enable intrinsic reflection-mode point sensors for electric field or voltage. It is shown that lo-bi FBGs incorporating multiple phase shifts yield large enhancements in group index (group delay) at resonance, thus amplifying and localizing time-dependent non-reciprocal effects. A relative, multiplexable measurement of electric field by comparison of the phase unbalance between linear modes on and off resonance is proposed, yielding static resolutions of 24 V and 18 mV respectively in unpoled (dc Kerr effect) and poled (Pockels effect) fibres.