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Background: Endothelial cells (ECs) are prominent cell types governing vascular tone and homeostasis. Activation of ECs is the central pathophysiological process in the initiation of atherosclerosis (AS). Interferon signaling (IFN Type I and II) is activated in ECs under inflammatory conditions such as systemic lupus erythematosus and is implicated in EC activation. But the underlying mechanisms are still unknown. Through RNA sequencing and pathway analysis, we have identified TNIK, a Ste20 family of MAP kinases (MAP4K) to regulate IFN signaling in ECs. Our study is the first to report the role and function of TNIK in IFN signaling and EC activation. Hypothesis: TNIK regulates IFNs through STAT mediated signaling and downstream interferon stimulated gene (ISG) sets Methods: Cultured Human aortic endothelial cells (HAECs) were treated with control or TNIK-targeted siRNA. Later cells were subjected to static, laminar or disturbed flow conditions. Total RNA was isolated and sequenced by mRNA-seq. The differential expression data were analyzed using CLC genomics and Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA). Western blotting and qRT-PCR were performed to validate STAT activation and interferon stimulated genes (ISGs) Results: We found >450 genes differentially expressed in siTNIK vs siCTRL treated ECs (fold change>2, FDR Conclusions: Our study elucidates the unique role of TNIK in regulating STAT mediated IFN signaling and subsequent ISGs in ECs.

Background and Objectives: It is not yet clear how the pro-atherogenic signaling events in endothelial cells (ECs) such as those that lead to EC senescence, apoptosis and activation are interconnected and promote atherosclerotic plaque formation in the area exposed to disturbed blood flow (d-flow). TERF2IP, a member of the shelterin complex of the telomere, regulates all three pathological events. We investigated the role of TERF2IP K240 SUMOylation in the process of d-flow-induced atherosclerotic plaque formation. Methods and Results: We found that d-flow increased TERF2IP K240 SUMOylation in ECs and that it was suppressed by a p90RSK specific inhibitor, FMK-MEA. This SUMOylation was independent of TERF2IP S205 phosphorylation. The d-flow-induced senescence, DNA damage, and apoptosis were inhibited in ECs with TERF2IP depletion or point-mutated phosphorylation (S205A) and SUMOylation (K240R) sites. NF-κB activation induced by d-flow or overexpression of p90RSK was also significantly inhibited in ECs overexpressing the TERF2IP S205A phosphorylation mutant. However, cells overexpressing the TERF2IP K240R SUMOylation mutant showed no effect on the d-flow or p90RSK-medaited NF-κB activation. To determine the biological function of TERF2IP K240 SUMOylation, we generated TERF2IP K240R knock-in (KI) mice and examined d-flow-induced atherosclerotic plaque formation using partial left carotid ligation model mice fed a high-fat diet after AAV8-PCSK9 injection. We found no differences in body weights and cholesterol levels between TERF2IP K240R KI and wild type control (WT) mice, but plaque formation was significantly inhibited in the KI mice compared to WT animals (Oil Red O positive area (%): 19.0 +/- 12.5 (KI mice, n=8) vs 61.2 +/- 24.3 (WT mice, n=7), p = 0.0008). Bone marrow from WT mice were transplanted into KI and WT mice, which were then injected with AAV8-PCSK9 virus and fed a high-fat diet for 16 weeks, but we still found that plaque formation was inhibited in the KI mice. Conclusion: TERF2IP SUMOylation plays a role in in EC senescence but not in activation. The significant inhibition of plaque formation in the TERF2IP K240R KI mice is due to downregulation of TERF2IP SUMOylation in ECs not in myeloid cells.

We review the concept of MIMO based inter-subcarrier linear crosstalk mitigation in the optical transmission. The proposed FDE assisted MIMO techniques were experimentally verified with digital subcarrier based PM-QAM transmission, realized sub-Nyquist spaced transmission.

We experimentally demonstrated inter-subcarrier linear crosstalk mitigation of five-subcarrier 10-GBaud RRC-PM-16QAM using Groupwise fixed FDE assisted MIMO. The proposed method enabled 6.3% tighter subcarrier spacing over 120 km SSMF, compared to conventional 2x2 MIMO.

In the 5G era, the cellular network is designed to address various requirements from vertical industries, such as massive connectivity, high data rate and low-latency communication. Vehicle to everything (V2X) communication is considered a representative application in vertical domains. Vehicles and infrastructure can cooperate to develop a wide range of perception where sensor information from vehicles and roadside infrastructure is collected and processed at mobile edge servers. This perception information can be distributed for advanced driving support. For example, a receiver vehicle or driver extends local perception even in limited visibility. In this system, it is a key challenge to collect sensor information within the delay budget in order to provide real-time driving support. However, user experienced throughput may vary due to vehicle mobility. The quantity of sensor data that can be transmitted within the delay budget also varies. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a sensor data collection scheme with priority control and adaptive sensor set selection to maximize the quantity of sensor data under latency requirements. The study concludes that the proposed scheme is validated in a stationary environment based on 5G trials and laboratory tests.

SUMMARY The vacuum circuit breaker (VCB) achieves the high current interrupting capability in the pressure lower than 10 Pa to 5 Pa. When gas pressure increases, the breakdown voltage of a VCB decreases according to Paschen's law, and in the case of small leak, the partial discharge will occur in the VCB and the high frequency electromagnetic waves are radiated. So, we have developed the partial discharge detection system using an antenna with the region from 200 MHz to 300 MHz placed inside the VCB. However, if the partial discharge occurs outside the VCB, the detection system leads to misdetection as the partial discharge inside the VCB. In order to improve the performance of partial discharge detection, the outputs of antenna voltages inside and outside the VCB are investigated.

Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications is vital to further developing intelligent transport systems. Network (NW) based V2X communications including the long-term evolution (LTE) is a part of the cellular V2X concept in which direct communications (sidelink) and NW-based communications (uplink and downlink) work in a complementary way. In order to design appropriate cooperation between direct and NW-based communications, it is important to identify practical performance limitations of both types of communications. While the 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) has published technical reports on latency components of LTE, to our knowledge only a few papers have verified the accuracy of the components. In this paper, we evaluate the communication latency obtained through driving tests in comparison to the end-to-end latency analyzed in the 3GPP reports and further evaluate the impact of network congestion in terms of inter-cell interference in a system-level simulation.

Cellular vehicle to everything (C-V2X) communication is growing technology which aims to initially provide driving assistance services for driving safety. C-V2X is expected to be evolved to offer wider range of services, e.g., advanced driving support for autonomous driving and teleoperation for vehicles. 3GPP has a plan to specify 5G New Radio (NR) based V2X specification in release 16 which provides enhanced reliability for V2X In Japan potential spectrum and new radio interface is under investigation targeting to provide advanced V2X services.

We improved the tolerance to linear crosstalk of 34GHz-spaced 272Gb/s PM-16QAM subcarriers by 0.5dB after 480km SSMF transmission, using Super-Nyquist Filtering and low complexity MMSE-based ISI compensation, compared to Nyquist shaping at identical circuit resource.

We transmit 256Gb/s signal through 404km, passing 8 times a hybrid pumping scheme MC-EDFA controlled depending on monitored temperature. Received Q value variations are within ±0.15dB while power consumption is reduced by up to 38.0%.

In this paper, the authors report the relation between the arc rotation and the temperature of contact surface. The interruption tests were performed with the vacuum chamber equipped with spiral-type contacts. The rotation of vacuum arc was observed with high speed cameras from two different directions. The temperature of the contact surface was estimated from emission intensity measured by high speed camera with the infrared band-pass filter. Local surface overheating occurs with slow-speed arc rotation, whereas surface temperature rises homogeneously with high-speed arc rotation. In addition, differences of arc behavior certainly effects on the interrupting performance.

We demonstrated experimentally the improvement of the transmission distance by 27% of 150Gb/s signal at 3b/s/Hz with a novel TCM format, 8-state 12QAM TCM, compared to PM-8QAM. We also demonstrated improvement of the transmission distance for multiple state TCM using nonlinear compensation, ranging from 14% to 26%, while similar improvement was below 11% for PM signals.

When small currents are interrupted by a vacuum switch, it is well known that the chopping current and the associated overvoltage are observed. Many investigations on the current-chopping phenomena in alternating-current (ac) circuits have been carried out, but there are no data available on inverter circuits in spite of their recent wide application to synchronous motor systems. In this paper, chopping-current levels and the overvoltages in an inverter circuit under a simple three-level pulsewidth-modulated control are investigated. As a result, the mean chopping-current level is three to four times higher than that in an ac circuit. In particular, high chopping currents occur only when the timing of the current interruption by the vacuum switch synchronizes with that of the inverter's switching, which we call “double chopping.” High chopping current due to double chopping might be harmful since the high overvoltage proportional to the chopping-current level could damage the insulation of electric equipment. However, we experimentally confirmed that a typical surge suppressor could reduce overvoltage.

Two new classes of mono- and oligo(p-phenylene ethynylene)s grafted with polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes (POSS) were synthesized via ‘click’ chemistry and palladium-catalyzed Sonogashira cross-coupling. These materials with cubic silsesquioxanes are very robust with excellent thermal stability in air (T5%loss>330 °C) and exhibited Tg>80 °C. All the compounds showed high photoluminescence with a range of blue emission and quantum yield up to 80% in the solution. Extended π conjugation molecules of oligo-pPEs POSS maintain relatively high PL quantum efficiencies in the solid state, compared to mono-pPEs POSS. A preliminary report is made of some of the materials as multilayer OLED components with active dopants PVK and PBD.

In power line communications (PLC) systems, medium- and low-voltage power lines are used as a communication network. Reflections caused by impedance mismatches degrade the transmission characteristics in the frequency range for PLC systems. If transmission characteristics of power lines can be estimated by simulation, the design and operation of PLC networks will be efficient. This paper proposes a method of simulating the transmission characteristics of a channel model between a transmitter and a receiver installed on a distribution network. The propagation characteristics of PLC signals of each distribution facility are described using two-port networks. A channel model is automatically generated from the combination of component models along the topology of the distribution network and the transmitter and receiver locations. The proposed method was validated using field data and was proved to be effective. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn, 92(3): 46–55, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ecj.10233

現在公共施設の点検は遠望目視が基本であり，部材ごとに評価される．そのデータをもとにして部材の劣化曲線などが推定され，補修順位が定められる．しかし，昨年発生したいくつかの橋梁の損傷あるいは落橋事例は，単に遠望目視の積み重ねだけでは，橋梁の安全性は保証されないことを示した．すべての公共施設の点検を近接目視に切り替えることは近年の財政状況では不可能であるが，現在の点検体制のもとで得られた部材レベルの情報から，施設の総合的な健全度を判定する技術の確立も必要と考えられる．そこで本研究は，現在北海道で行われている目視点検結果から，各施設の総合的な健全度をサポートベクターマシン（Support Vector Machine）により求めることを試みた．

Considering the seismic risks associated with structural damage and loss caused by various seismic forces, the total cost cannot necessarily be minimized by the verification of seismic performance using two levels of seismic forces (Levels 1 and 2 earthquake motion). Here, the total cost is defined as the summation of the initial construction cost and the seismic risk cost, which includes repair and user costs. The seismic force, with which the total cost becomes the minimum, is thought to vary with the function and type of the structure to be designed. From such a point of view, this paper presents a method for determining the target seismic design force unique to the intended structure.

We propose a new 4D coded modulation format, 64SP-12QAM, with same SE as PM-8QAM and straightforwardly-switchable with PM-16QAM. We experimentally demonstrated over 0.2 dB better sensitivity for 64SP-12QAM compared to PM-8QAM, enabling a transmission reach extension to 6,000 km at 6b/s/Hz.

We propose multi-redundancy optical coded modulation using superposed trellis. We experimentally prove that our scheme enables fine adaptive SE control and high coding gain of 7.1dB for 3-bit redundant 16QAM with quarterly reduced circuit complexity.

We evaluated experimentally 2, 8, 32 state 32Gbaud TCM-QPSK and TCM-16QAM. TCM offers finer configuration for flexible transponders increasing SE, on 1.1dB wider ranges. TCM may also be used with HD-FEC in lower power transceivers.

ゴム支承を有する橋梁構造物に代表されるような，地震時の挙動が複雑となる構造物には，動的解析による耐震性能の照査を基本とする．しかし，動的解析には一回の解析に比較的多い時間を必要とするため，最適設計に動的解析を直接組み込むことは非現実的である．本研究ではこのような背景のもとで，構造物の動的な制約条件をRBFネットワークを用いて近似をすることによる最適耐震設計を試みた．本論文では比較的簡単な門型ラーメンRC橋脚を例にとり，非線形スペクトル法との最適設計と比較して，まず近似の妥当性を確認する．さらに，地震時の挙動が複雑になると想定される，ゴム支承を有する4径間連続RC橋を例にとり最適設計を試みる．これらの結果から，本手法の有効性を確認することを目的とする．

A New Binding Method (NBM) was used to investigate the characteristics of the specific binding of 125I-omega-conotoxin (omega-CTX) GVIA and 125I-omega-CTX MVIIC to Cav2.1 and Cav2.2 channels captured from chick brain membranes by antibodies against B1Nt (a peptide sequence in Car2.1 and Cav2.2 channels). The results for the NBM were as follows. (1) The ED50 values for specific binding of 125I-omega-CTX GVIA and 125I-omega-CTX MVIIC to Cav2.1 and Cav2.2 channels were about 68 and 60 pM, respectively, and very similar to those (87 and 35 pM, respectively) to crude membranes from chick brain. (2) The specific 125I-omega-CTX GVIA (100 pM) binding was inhibited by omega-CTX GVIA (0.5 nM), dynorphine A (Dyn), gentamicin (Gen), neomycin (Neo) and tobramicin (Tob) (100 microM each), but not by omega-agaconotoxin (Aga) IVA, calciseptine, omega-CTX SVIB, omega-CTX MVIIC (0.5 nM each), PN200-110 (PN), diltiazem (Dil) or verapamil (Ver) (100 microM each). Calmodulin (CaM) inhibited the specific binding in a dose-dependent manner (IC50 value of about 100 microg protein/ml). (3) The specific 125I-omega-CTX MVIIC (60 pM) binding was inhibited by omega-CTX MVIIC, omega-CTX GVIA, omega-CTX SVIB (0.5 nM each), Dyn, Neo and Tob (100 microM, each), but not by omega-Aga IVA, calciseptine (0.5 nM each), PN, Dil, Ver (100 microM each) or 100 microg protein/ml CaM. These results suggested that the characteristics of the specific binding of 125I-omega-CTX GVIA and 125I-omega-CTX MVIIC to Cav2.1 and Cav2.2 channels in the NBM were very similar to those to crude membranes from chick brain, although the IC50 values for CaM and free Ca2+ of CaM were about 33- and 5000-fold higher, respectively, than those for the specific binding of 125I-omega-CTX GVIA and 125I-omega-CTX MVIIC to crude membranes.

Omega-conotoxin GVIA (ω-CTX), as a selective blocker for an N-type Ca2+ channel, has been conveniently used in many molecular biochemical and pharmacological experiments. There has been little elucidation of 125I-ω-CTX binding sites (mainly the 135-kDa band) in the crude membranes from chick brain, although the characteristics of specific 125I-ω-CTX binding and labeling sites in chick brain membranes have been investigated in our previous research. In this work, our goal is to further identify 125I-ω-CTX labeling sites in chick brain membranes by using anti-B1Nt antibodies (against the N-terminal segment B1Nt of N- or P-type Ca2+ channel α1-subunits). The 125I-ω-CTX–labeled sites in chick brain membranes could be solubilized and immunoprecipitated by using an anti B1Nt antibody. The molecular weight of the immunoprecipitated protein was determined as 135 kDa, which is inconsistent with that of the specific 125I-ω-CTX binding protein reported previously. Moreover, the 125I-ω-CTX–labeled protein could be purified by the method of preparative SDS-PAGE and recognized by anti-B1Nt antibodies in Western blotting analysis. These results indicated that anti-B1Nt antibodies could truly recognize 125I-ω-CTX–labeled sites as the main band of 135 kDa from chick brain membranes, and the ω-CTX–labeled site (mainly the 135-kDa band) should be N-type Ca2+ channel α1-subunits.

To clear the structural specificity of calmodulin (CaM) on the specific 125I-ω-CTX binding to crude membranes from whole chick brain, the following experiments were investigated in this study: (i) the attenuating effect of semisynthetic tetrahydroisoquinoline derivatives on the inhibitory effect of Ca2+/CaM, (ii) the effects of chimeras of yeast and chicken Ca2+/CaM, and (iii) the effects of Ca2+-binding proteins (such as troponin c, S 100 a and b, and annexin I, III–V). The inhibitory effect of Ca2+/CaM was attenuated by isoquinoline derivatives (PX 28, 34, 216, 224, and CPU57) and a CaM antagonist W-7. PX 34, a typical synthesized isoquinoline derivative, showed the attenuating effect in a dose-dependent manner. The ED50 value for the attenuating effect of PX 34 was about 20 μM, which is similar to that of W-7 reported previously. Some chimeric CaMs such as YC 51–53 (which are close to the properties of vertebrate CaM) showed a significant inhibitory effect on the specific 125I-ω-CTX binding, but YC 129 and 130 (which retain the properties of yeast CaM), troponin c, S100 a, b, and annexin I, III–V had no effect on the specific 125I-ω-CTX binding. These results suggest that the characteristic structure containing the EF-hand structure of CaM itself is needed to cause the inhibitory effect on the specific 125I-ω-CTX binding.

The antibodies against omega-conotoxin GVIA (ω-CTX GVIA; N-type voltage-dependent calcium channel [VDCC] blocker) and B1Nt (N-terminal segment [residues 1–13] of BI α1 subunits of VDCCs) were prepared, and the selectivity for each antigen ω-CTX GVIA and B1Nt was investigated. For the antigen selectivity of anti–ω-CTX GVIA antibody against ω-CTX GVIA, ELISA, and immunoprecipitation were used. The reactions for ELISA and immunoprecipitation were observed except when antibody IgG purified by Protein A–Sepharose CL-4B from nonimmunized serum (purified NI-Ab) was used. The specific reactions were inhibited by 10 nM ω-CTX GVIA, but not by ω-CTX SVIB (N-type VDCC blocker), ω-CTX MVIIC (N- and P-type VDCC blocker), or ω-Aga IVA (P-type VDCC blocker). For the antigen selectivity of the anti-B1Nt antibody, analyses by ELISA, immunoprecipitation, and Western blotting were conducted. The reactions were observed except when NI-Ab was used. The ELISA and immunoprecipitation reactions were inhibited by the antigen peptide B1Nt, and the IC50 values were about 1.2 × 1028 and 1.3 × 1028 M, respectively. The bands of 210 and 190 kD by Western blotting of crude membranes from chick brain were also inhibited by 1 μM B1Nt. These results suggest that the antibodies prepared against ω-CTX GVIA and B1Nt in this work have high selectivity for their antigen. Therefore we assume that the antibodies against ω-CTX GVIA and B1Nt are useful tools for the analyses of the function and distribution of N-type VDCCs. The anti ω-CTX GVIA antibody must also be useful for the radioimmunoassay of ω-CTX GVIA.

The characteristics of the inhibitory effect of calcium ion (Ca2+)/calmodulin (CaM) on specific [125I]-omega-conotoxin GVIA (125I-omega-CTX) binding and on the labeling of 125I-omega-CTX to crude membranes from chick brain were investigated. The inhibitory effect of Ca2+/CaM depended on the concentrations of free Ca2+ and CaM. The IC50 values for free Ca2+ and CaM were about 2.0 x 10(-8) M and 3.0 microg protein/ml, respectively. The inhibitory effect of Ca2+/CaM was attenuated by the CaM antagonists W-7, prenylamine and CaM-kinase II fragment (290-309), but not by the calcineurin inhibitor FK506. Ca2+/CaM also inhibited the labeling of a 135-kDa band (which was considered to be part of N-type Ca2+ channel alpha1 subunits) with 125I-omega-CTX using a cross-linker. These results suggest that Ca2+/CaM affects specific 125I-omega-CTX binding sites, probably N-type Ca2+ channel alpha1 subunits, in crude membranes from chick whole brain.

The effect of Ca2+/calmodulin (CaM) on the specific binding of [125I]omega-conotoxin GVIA (125I-ω-CTX) to crude membranes from chick brain was investigated. When we examined the effects of the activation of various endogenous protein kinases on specific [125I]ω-CTX binding to crude membranes, we observed that Ca2+/CaM had an inhibitory effect regardless of whether or not the standard medium contained ATP (0.5 mM). Ca2+/CaM also had an inhibitory effect in a simple binding-assay medium containing HEPES-HCl buffer, BSA, Ca2+ and CaM, and this effect was dependent on the concentration of Ca2+. The effect of Ca2+/CaM was attenuated by the CaM antagonists W-7 and CaM-kinase II fragment (290–309). An experiment with modified ELISA using purified anti ω-CTX antibody indicated that Ca2+/CaM did not affect the direct binding of [125I]ω-CTX and CaM. These results suggest that Ca2+/CaM either directly or indirectly affects specific [125I]ω-CTX binding sites, probably N-type Ca2+ channels in crude membranes from chick whole brain.

We propose a simple optimization method based on the relation between the filter configuration and the dispersion compensated at each stage in order to maximize filtered backpropagation performance. We validate our method with the transmission of 127-Gb/s PM-QPSK signal over all SMF 2400 km line in nonlinear regime.

We propose an optimum design of nonlinear compensation based on digital backpropagation assisted by mitigation with CD pre-compensation in order to reduce circuit resources. Transmission experiment with a 127Gbps PM-QPSK signal over a 2,400km SSMF line exhibits Q improvement with small stage number backpropagation and -20% CD pre-compensation.

We propose a hardware-efficient polarization demultiplexing algorithm suitable for QAM signals, which is based on dual decision-directed algorithm. Our algorithm requires only half size hardware of a conventional double stage algorithm based on CMA.

A field trial of 100-Gbit/s Ethernet over an optical transport network (OTN) is conducted using a real-time digital coherent signal processor. Error free operation with the Q-margin of 3.2 dB is confirmed at a 100 Gbit/s Ethernet analyzer by concatenating a low-density parity-check code with a OTN framer forward error correction, after 80-ch WDM transmission through 6 spans x 70 km of dispersion shifted fiber without inline-dispersion compensation. Also, the recovery time of 12 msec is observed in an optical route switching experiment, which is achieved through fast chromatic dispersion estimation functionality.

We demonstrate 112Gb/s transmission using PM-QPSK format and FPGA-based real-time digital signal processing. By employing framed processing architecture for polarization demultiplexing and carrier phase estimation, stable operation of error free after FEC and wide frequency offset have been achieved.

When small currents are interrupted by vacuum switch, it is well known that chopping current and the associated overvoltage are observed. Various investigations on the current-chopping phenomena in AC circuits have been reported, but there are no data available on inverter circuits in spite of their recent wide application to synchronous motor systems. In this paper, chopping-current levels and the overvoltages in an inverter circuit under a simple three level pulse width modulated (PWM) control are investigated. As a result, the mean chopping-current level is 3–4 times higher than that in an AC circuit. In particular, high chopping currents occur only when the timing of the current interruption by the vacuum switch synchronizes with that of the inverter's switching, which we call ‘double chopping’. High chopping current due to double chopping might be harmful since the high overvoltage proportional to the chopping-current level could damage the insulation of electric equipment. However, we experimentally confirmed that a typical surge suppressor could reduce overvoltage.