Compositional and histological comparison of carbonate apatite fabricated by dissolution–precipitation reaction and Bio-Oss<Superscript>®</Superscript>

Carbonate apatite (CO₃Ap) is an inorganic component of bone. This study aimed to compare the composition and tissue response to of CO₃Ap (CO₃Ap-DP) fabricated by the dissolution–precipitation reaction using calcite as a precursor and Bio-Oss®, which is widely used in orthopedic and dental fields as a synthetic bone substitute. X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared results showed that CO₃Ap-DP and Bio-Oss® were both B-type carbonate apatite with low crystallinity. The average sizes of CO₃Ap-DP and Bio-Oss® granules were 450?±?58 and 667?±?168μ?m, respectively, and their carbonate contents were 12.1?±?0.6 and 5.6?±?0.1?wt%, respectively. CO₃Ap-DP had a larger amount of CO₃ than Bio-Oss® but higher crystallinity than Bio-Oss®. When a bone defect made at the femur of rabbits was reconstructed with CO₃Ap-DP and Bio-Oss®, CO₃Ap-DP granules were partially replaced with bone, whereas Bio-Oss® remained at 8 weeks after implantation. CO₃Ap-DP granules elicited a significantly larger amount of new bone formation at the cortical bone portion than Bio-Oss® at 4 weeks after the implantation. The results obtained in the present study demonstrated that CO₃Ap-DP and Bio-Oss® showed different behavior even though they were both classified as CO₃Ap. The CO₃ content in CO₃Ap played a more important role than the crystallinity of CO₃Ap for replacement to bone and high osteoconductivity.

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Modulating the Mechanical Performance of Macroscale Fibers through Shear‐Induced Alignment and Assembly of Protein Nanofibrils

Protein‐based fibers are used by nature as high‐performance materials in a wide range of applications, including providing structural support, creating thermal insulation, and generating underwater adhesives. Such fibers are commonly generated through a hierarchical self‐assembly process, where the molecular building blocks are geometrically confined and aligned along the fiber axis to provide a high level of structural robustness. Here, this approach is mimicked by using a microfluidic spinning method to enable precise control over multiscale order during the assembly process of nanoscale protein nanofibrils into micro‐ and macroscale fibers. By varying the flow rates on chip, the degree of nanofibril alignment can be tuned, leading to an orientation index comparable to that of native silk. It is found that the Young's modulus of the resulting fibers increases with an increasing level of nanoscale alignment of the building blocks, suggesting that the mechanical properties of macroscopic fibers can be controlled through varying the level of ordering of the nanoscale building blocks. Capitalizing on strategies evolved by nature, the fabrication method allows for the controlled formation of macroscopic fibers and offers the potential to be applied for the generation of further novel bioinspired materials.     

Robust facial expression recognition of a speaker using thermal image processing and updating of fundamental training data

We previously developed a method for the facial expression recognition of a speaker. For facial expression recognition, we selected three static images at the timing positions of just before speaking and while speaking the phonemes of the first and last vowels. Then, only the static image of the front-view face was used for facial expression recognition. However, frequent updates of the training data were time-consuming. To reduce the time for updates, we found that the classifications of “neutral”, “happy”, and “others” were efficient and accurate for facial expression recognition. Using the proposed method with updated training data of “happy” and “neutral” after an interval such as approximately three and a half years, the facial expressions of two subjects were discriminable with 87.0 % accuracy for the facial expressions of “happy”, “neutral”, and “others” when exhibiting the intentional facial expressions of “angry”, “happy”, “neutral”, “sad”, and “surprised”.     

Music recommendation hybrid system for improving recognition ability using collaborative filtering and impression words

Music therapy for improving recognition ability may be more effective when the favorite music of each person is adopted. In the proposed system, first, the recommendation process using collaborative filtering is terminated when no users in the reference list have the same preference of recommended music as that of a new user. Then, the second recommendation process finds the most similar music, from the scores for impression words, to those successfully recommended among music not recommended up to the moment. The average number of recommended songs for each user by the proposed system was 12.1, whereas that of collaborative filtering was 4.3. The recommendation accuracy of the proposed system was 70.2 %, whereas that of collaborative filtering was 62.1 %. The ratings of songs can be added on a user-by-user basis in the recommendation process, and this increased number of cases improves the recommendation accuracy and increases the number of recommended songs.     

Speech synthesis of emotions using vowel features of a speaker

Recently, methods for adding emotion to synthetic speech have received considerable attention in the field of speech synthesis research. We previously proposed a case-based method for generating emotional synthetic speech by exploiting the characteristics of the maximum amplitude and the utterance time of vowels, and the fundamental frequency of emotional speech. In the present study, we propose a method in which our reported method is further improved by controlling the fundamental frequency of emotional synthetic speech. As an initial investigation, we adopted the utterance of a Japanese name that is semantically neutral. By using the proposed method, emotional synthetic speech made from the emotional speech of one male subject was discriminable with a mean accuracy of 83.9 % when 18 subjects listened to the emotional synthetic utterances of “angry,” “happy,” “neutral,” “sad,” or “surprised” when the utterance was the Japanese name “Taro,” or “Hiroko.” Further adjustment of fundamental frequency in the proposed method made a much clearer impression on the subjects for emotional synthetic speech.     

Effect of tool geometry on microstructure and static strength in friction stir spot welded aluminium alloys

The effect of tool geometry on microstructure and static strength in friction stir spot welds of 6061 aluminium alloy sheets was studied. Tools with three different probe lengths were used to join the aluminium sheet with different tool rotational speeds and tool holding times. The weld microstructures varied significantly depending on probe length, tool rotational speed and tool holding time. Two particular aspects were identified: the thickness of the upper sheet under the shoulder indentation and the nugget size. The former decreased with increasing probe length at the shortest tool holding time and the slowest tool rotational speed, but there were no discernible differences in other welding conditions, while the latter increased with increasing probe length, tool rotational speed and tool holding time. The tensile shear strength increased with increasing probe length, while the cross-tension strength was not affected significantly by probe length. Two fracture modes were observed: shear fracture of the nugget and mixed mode fracture under tensile shear loading, and nugget debonding and pull-out under cross-tension loading. Based on experimental observation of the microstructures, the effect of probe length on static strength and the fracture mechanisms were discussed.     

A differential laser autocollimation probe for on-machine measurement

An optical probe based on the principle of differential laser autocollimation has been developed for the purpose of on-machine measurement of mirror shapes. The probe is so compact that it can be mounted on diamond lathes. It can be rotated by a stepping motor about an axis perpendicular to the optical axis of measurement, and has been used to measure mirror shapes on an apparatus that imitates the conditions of an on-machine measurement system. The probe can reduce remarkably the measurement errors due to vibrational and thermal noises that could not be avoided previously in on-machine measurement. Estimating from repeatability, accuracy is better than 0.1 μm in measurement of a parabolic curve whose depth is >1 mm and length is ≈ 100 mm.     

Mitocryptide-2: Identification of Its Minimum Structure for Specific Activation of FPR2–Possible Receptor Switching from FPR2 to FPR1 by Its Physiological C-terminal Cleavages

Mitocryptides are a novel family of endogenous neutrophil-activating peptides originating from various mitochondrial proteins. Mitocryptide-2 (MCT-2) is one of such neutrophil-activating peptides, and is produced as an N-formylated pentadecapeptide from mitochondrial cytochrome b. Although MCT-2 is a specific endogenous ligand for formyl peptide receptor 2 (FPR2), the chemical structure within MCT-2 that is responsible for FPR2 activation is still obscure. Here, we demonstrate that the N-terminal heptapeptide structure of MCT-2 with an N-formyl group is the minimum structure that specifically activates FPR2. Moreover, the receptor molecule for MCT-2 is suggested to be shifted from FPR2 to its homolog formyl peptide receptor 1 (FPR1) by the physiological cleavages of its C-terminus. Indeed, N-terminal derivatives of MCT-2 with seven amino acid residues or longer caused an increase of intracellular free Ca²⁺ concentration in HEK-293 cells expressing FPR2, but not in those expressing FPR1. Those MCT-2 derivatives also induced β-hexosaminidase secretion in neutrophilic/granulocytic differentiated HL-60 cells via FPR2 activation. In contrast, MCT-2(1–4), an N-terminal tetrapeptide of MCT-2, specifically activated FPR1 to promote those functions. Moreover, MCT-2 was degraded in serum to produce MCT-2(1–4) over time. These findings suggest that MCT-2 is a novel critical factor that not only initiates innate immunity via the specific activation of FPR2, but also promotes delayed responses by the activation of FPR1, which may include resolution and tissue regeneration. The present results also strongly support the necessity of considering the exact chemical structures of activating factors for the investigation of innate immune responses.     

A comparative study of hydride-induced embrittlement of Zircaloy-4 fuel cladding tubes in the longitudinal and hoop directions

In this work, the mechanical behavior of as-received and hydrogenated Zircaloy-4 fuel claddings was investigated by the newly developed advanced expansion due to compression (A-EDC) test and the conventional uniaxial tension (UT) test at room temperature, in order to, respectively, understand the hydride-induced embrittlement in tube longitudinal and hoop directions. The UT experimental results showed that the mechanical strength in the longitudinal direction slightly increased with hydrogen content, whereas the maximum strain decreased greatly with hydrogen increasing. In the case of A-EDC tests, the mechanical performance in the hoop direction seemed insensitive to the hydrogen content; no obvious decline in maximum strain was observed until 800 ppm H. The comparison between these two tests clearly reveals that the hydride-induced embrittlement is preferential to occur in the longitudinal direction, compared with the sluggish response in the hoop direction, which implied the enhanced ductility anisotropy due to hydrides. In the post-tests observation, the fracture morphologies became gradually distinct for the as-received and hydrided samples examined by UT and A-EDC methods, and different orientation relationships between the applied stresses and hydrides distribution would be responsible for that distinction.     

Facial expression recognition of a speaker using thermal image processing and reject criteria in feature vector space

In our previously developed method for the facial expression recognition of a speaker, the positions of feature vectors in the feature vector space in image processing were generated with imperfections. The imperfections, which caused misrecognition of the facial expression, tended to be far from the center of gravity of the class to which the feature vectors belonged. In the present study, to omit the feature vectors generated with imperfections, a method using reject criteria in the feature vector space was applied to facial expression recognition. Using the proposed method, the facial expressions of two subjects were discriminable with 86.8 % accuracy for the three facial expressions of “happy”, “neutral”, and “others” when they exhibited one of the five intentional facial expressions of “angry”, “happy”, “neutral”, “sad”, and “surprised”, whereas these expressions were discriminable with 78.0 % accuracy by the conventional method. Moreover, the proposed method effectively judged whether the training data were acceptable for facial expression recognition at the moment.