Fabrication of heterostructures of halogen-bridged quasi-one-dimensional mixed-valence transition metal complexes

Single-heterostructure crystals of a series of halogen-bridged quasi-one- dimensional mixed-valence transition metal complexes (HMMCs) were fabricated by selective coordination epitaxial growth (SCE growth). The overgrowth crystals of the HMMC were grown on the columnar crystals of the substrate HMMC in solution. The single-heterostructure crystals were epitaxially grown only when the two HMMCs had similar crystal structures. If their crystal structures were different, no heterostructure crystal was grown. This result suggests that the degree of mismatch between the crystal structures of the substrate and the overgrowth is the predominant factor which determines the SCE growth of the HMMCs.     

40 Gbit/s packet bit error ratio and loss real-time measurement for ultrahigh-speed packet switched network

A novel packet bit error rate (BER) and loss measurement method and system is proposed. A proposed 40 Gbit/s packet BER and loss measurement system is expressed in detail. A 40 Gbit/s BER and loss measurement with various conditions is demonstrated experimentally. In real time, only the payload part of a packet and burst stream with fluctuated guard time is evaluated. The BER and packet loss of a randomly received packet sequence due to routing and buffering can be also evaluated by the measurement system. A 10 Gbit/s packet BER and loss measurement with optical label switching, buffering, and preamble-free optical packet 3R are demonstrated experimentally.     

An Antisense Oligonucleotide against a Splicing Enhancer Sequence within Exon 1 of the MSTN Gene Inhibits Pre-mRNA Maturation to Act as a Novel Myostatin Inhibitor

Antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) are agents that modulate gene function. ASO-mediated out-of-frame exon skipping has been employed to suppress gene function. Myostatin, encoded by the MSTN gene, is a potent negative regulator of skeletal muscle growth. ASOs that induce skipping of out-of-frame exon 2 of the MSTN gene have been studied for their use in increasing muscle mass. However, no ASOs are currently available for clinical use. We hypothesized that ASOs against the splicing enhancer sequence within exon 1 of the MSTN gene would inhibit maturation of pre-mRNA, thereby suppressing gene function. To explore this hypothesis, ASOs against sequences of exon 1 of the MSTN gene were screened for their ability to reduce mature MSTN mRNA levels. One screened ASO, named KMM001, decreased MSTN mRNA levels in a dose-dependent manner and reciprocally increased MSTN pre-mRNA levels. Accordingly, KMM001 decreased myostatin protein levels. KMM001 inhibited SMAD-mediated myostatin signaling in rhabdomyosarcoma cells. Remarkably, it did not decrease GDF11 mRNA levels, indicating myostatin-specific inhibition. As expected, KMM001 enhanced the proliferation of human myoblasts. We conclude that KMM001 is a novel myostatin inhibitor that inhibits pre-mRNA maturation. KMM001 has great promise for clinical applications and should be examined for its ability to treat various muscle-wasting conditions.     

Progress and prospects of the human–robot collaboration

Recent technological advances in hardware design of the robotic platforms enabled the implementation of various control modalities for improved interactions with humans and unstructured environments. An important application area for the integration of robots with such advanced interaction capabilities is human–robot collaboration. This aspect represents high socio-economic impacts and maintains the sense of purpose of the involved people, as the robots do not completely replace the humans from the work process. The research community’s recent surge of interest in this area has been devoted to the implementation of various methodologies to achieve intuitive and seamless human–robot-environment interactions by incorporating the collaborative partners’ superior capabilities, e.g. human’s cognitive and robot’s physical power generation capacity. In fact, the main purpose of this paper is to review the state-of-the-art on intermediate human–robot interfaces (bi-directional), robot control modalities, system stability, benchmarking and relevant use cases, and to extend views on the required future developments in the realm of human–robot collaboration.     

WO3/BiVO4 composite photoelectrode prepared by improved auto-combustion method for highly efficient water splitting

We report on the improvement in the water splitting efficiency of a WO₃/BiVO₄ composite photoelectrode by the application of an improved auto-combustion method to the preparation of porous BiVO₄ thin films. The unique feature of this preparation method is the addition of both NH₄NO₃, as a strong oxidizing agent, and an organic additive into BiVO₄ precursor solution. The local decomposition heat of the organic additive and oxidizing agent created a porous film with small, highly crystalline BiVO₄ particles. The photoelectrode has many advantages over existing ones, such as the high light-harvesting efficiency (LHE), a single BiVO₄ phase, the facile access of the holes to the photoelectrode/electrolyte interface, and the ease of water and oxygen diffusion. The maximum incident photon-to-current efficiency (IPCE) was estimated to be 64% (at 440 nm, 1.23 V vs. RHE) and the applied bias photon-tocurrent efficiency (ABPE) reached as high as 1.28%. This ABPE value is highest among all oxide semiconductor photoelectrodes reported previously, except for the case of a stacking photoelectrode system.     

Polymerized ionic liquids with guanidinium cations as host for gel polymer electrolytes in lithium metal batteries

Polymerized ionic liquids (PILs) having guanidinium cations with different counter‐anions, such as PF₆^? and N(CF₃SO₂)₂^? (TFSI^?), were synthesized by copolymerization of a guanidinium ionic liquid monomer with methyl acrylate followed by an anion exchange reaction. Furthermore, incorporating a guanidinium ionic liquid, LiTFSI salt and nano‐size SiO₂, a quaternary gel polymer electrolyte based on one of the PILs as the polymer host was prepared. The quaternary gel polymer electrolyte was chemically stable even at a higher temperature of 80 °C in contact with the lithium anode. In particular, the electrolyte exhibited high lithium ion conductivity, wide electrochemical stability window and good lithium stripping/plating performance. Li/LiFePO₄ batteries with the quaternary gel polymer electrolyte at 80 °C had capacities of 140 and 130 mA h g^?1 respectively at 0.1 and 0.2 C current rates. Copyright © 2011 Society of Chemical Industry     

Impact of compression,physical aging,and freezing rate on the crystallization characteristics of an amorphous sugar matrix

Amorphous matrices made up of sugar molecules, are frequently used in food and pharmaceutical industries. A drawback to their use is that they are susceptible to collapse, as a result of water uptake and an increase in temperature and subsequently crystallize. Herein, the crystallization characteristics of amorphous sugar (sucrose and α-lactose) preparations were analyzed, with the purpose of obtaining knowledge that could lead to the prediction of how long the amorphous state is retained under various conditions. The impact of compression, physical aging and freezing rate on the induction period (t_ind) for crystallization were examined. Freeze-dried sugar samples were compressed at 74 or 443 MPa (5 min) and then rehumidified at specified RHs. Some freeze-dried sucrose samples were physically aged, and alternatively freeze-drying was conducted under different conditions. The isothermal crystallization of the prepared samples at different temperatures (T), the glass transition and the crystallization temperature (T_cry) were measured, using differential scanning calorimetry. The compression markedly decreased the t_ind, while significantly lowered the hygroscopicity. Physical aging and slower-freezing also shortened the t_ind. The t_ind was found to be correlated exclusively with (T_cry–T), regardless of rehumidification, compression, sugar type, physical aging and freezing rate in the freeze-drying process.     

Study on the fabrication of a SU-8 cantilever vertically-allocated in a closed fluidic microchannel

Microsystem Technologies - This paper describes the fabrication of a vertically-allocated SU-8 cantilever in a closed fluidic channel. The difficulties to fabricate the vertically-allocated SU-8...