Inflammatory bronchial polyps with a foreign body-like substance

A 68-year-old male complaining of hemosputum was admitted to our hospital. Fiberoptic bronchoscopic examinations revealed bronchial polyps and a flat foreign body-like substance in the left main bronchus. A closer inspection of a biopsied bronchial inflammatory polyp showed inflammatory edema with hypervascularization in the submucosal space and inflammatory cell infiltration. Following complete removal of this foreign body-like substance, the polyps disappeared within six weeks. It is therefore feasible to assume that the polyps appeared as a reaction to this extrinsic substance. The origin of the foreign matter is not obvious because the patient had no history of aspiration and because the histological examination did not confirm that it was a foreign body. The substance could have been formed out of the organization and calcification of some secretes in the bronchus.     

A Quantum-Corrected Monte Carlo Study on Quasi-Ballistic Transport in Nanoscale MOSFETs

In this paper, the authors study a quasi-ballistic transport in nanoscale Si-MOSFETs based upon a quantum-corrected Monte Carlo device simulation to explore an ultimate device performance. It was found that, when a channel length becomes shorter than 30 nm, an average electron velocity at the source-end of the channel increases due to ballistic transport effects, and then, it approaches a ballistic limit in a sub-10-nm regime. Furthermore, the authors elucidated a physical mechanism creating an asymmetric momentum distribution function at the source-end of the channel and the influences of backscattering from the channel region. The authors also demonstrated that an electron injection velocity at a perfectly ballistic transport is independent of the channel length and corresponds well to a prediction from Natori's analytical model     

Visibility and characteristics of the mobile phones for elderly people

Although mobile phones (MPs) have become important IT devices, there are few studies on the visibility of MPs for elderly people. Using six types of MPs, we analysed the reading performance among elderly people who read 11 numerics on each MP. The subjects were 130 people aged 18 to 86 years, including 60 people over 60 years of age. The subjects' visual functions of cataract cloudiness (CC) and near vision for a 50 cm distant target (NV) were measured. In a twoway ANOVA, two kinds of dependant variables, reading speed (RS) and the number of errors in reading (Error) were used for the subjects' reading performance. Two independent variables were taken from five variables. Each time one variable was fixed as the type of MPs. The other was taken as either age, CC, NV, individual history on MP operation or room illuminance (RI). Eventually, 10 ANOVAs were calculated. Significant differences were found in all ANOVAs except that for RI. We undertook a multiple logistic regression analysis. Independent variables of CC, NV and vertical length of characters (VL) and two kinds of dependent variables, RS and Error, were used. Visual functions and a short VL were related to slow RS and increased Errors.     

Microstructure and thermal expansion properties of invar-type Cu-Zn-Al shape memory alloys

The effects of grain size, volume fraction of the α (fcc) phase in the β (bcc) matrix, and thermal stability on low thermal expansion (LTE) properties of Cu-Zn-Al shape memory (SM) alloys induced by cold rolling were investigated by dilatometry, optical microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, and electrical conductivity measurements. The alloys with the larger grains showed a superior two-way memory (TWM) effect, wider LTE temperature intervals with excellent thermal stability under 80°C. The α+β two-phase alloys also exhibited a good combination of cold workability and LTE properties. These results suggest that the Cu-Zn-Al alloys with high electrical conductivity of about 20% International Annealed Copper Standard (%IACS) have high potential as a new class of Invar alloys that can be applied in various fields.     

Effect of the Variety of Barley and Pearling Rate on the Quality of Shochu Koji

In liquor production, barley koji is used a source of saccharification enzymes, nutrition for yeast multiplication, and to impart flavor to the shochu product. Its role is analogous to that of malt in beer and whisky production. In this report, the influence of barley variety and pearling rate on barley koji characteristics is shown. Four Australian varieties (Stirling, Schooner, Arapiles, Grimmett) and one Japanese variety (Nishinohoshi) were evaluated. Significant differences were observed among barley varieties and pearling rate with respect to the amount of koji mycelia produced, enzyme activity and the amino acid composition of the barley koji.     

Use of double-raised-border structure for quality factor enhancement of type II piston mode FBAR

Microsystem Technologies - This paper investigates applicability of double raised borders to the piston mode film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR). It is shown that it offers significant improvement...     

Suppression of reflection coefficients of surface acoustic wave filters using quadrature hybrids

This paper proposes a simple technique to suppress the reflection coefficients S11 and S22 of surface acoustic wave (SAW) filters. Two identical SAW filters are sandwiched in between two quadrature hybrids, where their two ports are used as input and output, and others are terminated by matched loads. First, it is shown by simulation that both [S11] and [S22] are suppressed to be less than -20 dB without deteriorating the transmission characteristics. Next, two hybrids using microstrip lines were fabricated, and two RF SAW filters for GSM850 were sandwiched in between them. The result showed that the maximum [S11] within the passband was improved from -12.5 dB to -21.7 dB, i.e., 9.2 dB suppression of [S11] was achieved by sacrificing only the insertion loss of less than 0.6 dB. We also attempted to replace the microstrip lines with lumped elements. In this case, the maximum [S11] within the passband was improved more than 7.5 dB with the increased insertion loss of less than 1.5 dB. Finally, simple discussion is given on the inclusion of the transformer function in the quadrature hybrid.     

Circuit model for the GaAs m.e.s.f.e.t. valid to 12 GHz

A new equivalent circuit is given for the GaAs m.e.s.f.e.t., which includes resistive loss in the feed back elements. The circuit values are given for several 1 ?m-gate GaAs m.e.s.f.e.t.s. A method for fitting s12 to the measured data is described. Finally, the gain and stability factor of several GaAs m.e.s.f.e.t.s. are extrapolated to 24 GHz from the present model.