Preparation and applications of novel fluoroalkyl end-capped acrylic acid oligomers/silica nanocomposites-encapsulated fullerenes

Fluoroalkyl end-capped acrylic acid oligomers/fullerenes nanocomposites reacted smoothly with tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) and silica nanoparticles under alkaline conditions to give fluoroalkyl end-capped oligomers/silica composites-encapsulated fullerenes. Interestingly, these isolated fluorinated composites were found to afford nanometer size-controlled colloidal particles with a good dispersibility in a variety of organic solvents including water. More interestingly, these fluorinated silica nanocomposites-encapsulated fullerenes were applied to a new type of surface modification agent, and these nanocomposites were able to disperse well above the poly(methyl methacrylate) films to exhibit not only surface active property imparted by fluorine but also a unique characteristic related to fullerenes in the nanocomposites on the surface, effectively.     

Retrospective analysis of the treatment of patients with small cell lung cancer showing poor performance status

To assess the feasibility of treatments for patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) showing a poor performance status (PS, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group; ECOG 3 or 4), we retrospectively reviewed the outcome for 13 SCLC patients showing poor PS treated at the National Cancer Center Hospital between January 1984 and May 1994. The main factors which contributed to poor prognosis were superior vena cava (SVC) syndrome, massive pleural effusion, tracheal stenosis due to lymph node swelling, pericardial effusion and pulmonary fibrosis (causing dyspnea in combination), brain metastasis resulting in neurological disturbance, cachexia, Eaton-Lambert syndrome causing muscle weakness, retroperitoneal lymph node metastasis causing abdominal pain, peritoneal effusion due to abdominal lymph node swelling, vertebral metastasis causing paraplegia, and dermatomyositis/polymyositis (DM/PM) causing muscle weakness. All of the patients received chemotherapy with or without radiotherapy. The PS of 8 patients improved with treatment, but no improvement was seen in 5. We analyzed these 13 patients and considered the treatments for those with poor PS. Chemo-radiotherapy was tolerable in SCLC patients showing PS 3, and improved their PS if severe conditions or combined disease did not arise concurrently. It was further suggested that PS 4 patients with severe conditions or combined disease should not be given the treatments.     

Cytokine gene expression after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation

Cytokines produced by T lymphocytes, monocytes/macrophages, and fibroblasts play a central role in the immune response and in the development of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). Also, it has been reported that dysregulated production of cytokines maybe the primary mediator of clinical manifestation of acute GVHD. Regarding cytokine gene expression after human allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (allo BMT), we have demonstrated increased IL-1 beta, IL-6, and TNF-alpha mRNA expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells during the development of acute and chronic GVHD and that the degree of the increase was dependent on the severity of the disease. Furthermore, overexpression of these cytokine mRNAs could be detected before the clinical manifestations of GVHD developed. In contrast, IL-2 mRNA expression was not detected in peripheral blood mononuclear cells in GVHD patients. On the other hand, we have reported that increased mRNA expression and protein product of IL-2 and IFN-gamma were evident in the mixed lymphocyte culture of the cases who developed severe lethal transplantation-related complications. Therefore, the detection of increased IL-2 and IFN-gamma gene expression in MLC appeared to be useful for predicting transplantation-related complications in BMT patients. Furthermore, we found increased IL-2 receptor alpha subunit mRNA expression in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells during GVHD. These findings may indicate the important role of inflammatory cytokines such as IL-1 beta, IL-6 and TNF-alpha in the development of the clinical manifestation of GVHD and also may be indicative of the important role of IL-2 and the IL-2 receptor in allo response perhaps mainly as an autocrine effect.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Trigger Detection Using Geographical Relation Graph for Social Context Awareness

The concept of context awareness is believed to be a key enabler for the new ubiquitous network service paradigm brought by cloud computing platforms and smartphone OSs. In particular, autonomous context-based service customization is becoming an essential tool in this context because users cannot be expected to pick step by step the appropriate network services by manually and explicitly matching preferences for their current context. In this work, we hence focus on the core problem of how to detect changes of context for network services. In turn, detection of such changes can trigger timely system reconfigurations. We introduce a trigger detection mechanism based on a mixed graph-based representation model able to encode geographical and social relationships among people and social objects like stores, restaurants, and event spots. Our mechanism generates a trigger when a significant change in the graph takes place, and it is able to render significant changes in a geographical relationship that holds among objects socially connected with each other. The main benefits of our method are that (1) it does not require building reference models in advance, and (2) it can deal with different kinds of social objects uniformly once the graph is defined. A computer simulation scenario provides evidence on the expected performance of our method.     

Finishing characteristics of brittle materials by ELID-lap grinding using metal-resin bonded wheels

ELID-lap grinding is a method of constant pressure grinding which utilizes an electrically conductive wheel and the electrolytic in-process dressing (ELID) method. This method has the advantage of using micro grain-wheels above #10 000 and also, through simple modification, can be used on existing lap machines. To find the characteristics of metal-resin bonded wheels developed for ELID-lap grinding, experiments on the grinding of brittle materials were performed using wheels with a variety of grain diameters. The wheels used in the experiments were #8000, #120 000 and #3 000 000 metal-resin bonded diamond wheels (#8000 MRB-D, #120 000 MRB-D and #3 000 000 MRB-D wheels). The workpieces were silicon and glass. The results of the experiments showed that stable grinding can be achieved with the #8000 to #3 000 000 MRB-D wheels. With the #3 000 000 MRB-D wheel, very smooth surface finishes were obtained for both silicon (PV 2.8 nm) and glass (PV 2.5 nm). Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) observations indicated these surfaces to be very smooth in the order of several nanometers, obtained by mechanical removal using an ultrafine wheel.     

A chemically amplified molecular glass resist with an ionic photoacid generator and a single protection group

A molecular glass resist with an ionic photoacid generator and a single protection group (MR‐1) has been developed. MR‐1 exhibited good thermal properties, such as a 5% weight loss temperature (T_d5%) of 167°C and a glass transition temperature (T_g) of 80°C. MR‐1 showed the good sensitivity of 80 μC/cm² and high contrast of 4.9 with e‐beam exposure (50 keV). A relatively high resolution of 50 nm and low Line‐Edge‐Roughness of 3.8 nm were obtained by e‐beam exposure (100 keV). © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014 , 131, 39769.     

Solid-State Polymerization Behavior of 1,3-Bis(3-quinolyl)-1,4-butadiyne

Summary 1,4-Bis(3-quinolyl)-1,3-butadiyne (DQ) is known to be polymerized in solid state to give the corresponding polydiacetylene. However, the polymer yield of DQ bulk crystals is low. Thus, we prepared several types of DQ crystals by different procedures to find the reason for the low polymer yield. We found three modifications of DQ crystals and they were evaluated by spectroscopic measurements and X-ray diffraction. DQ bulk crystals (Crystal I) and thermally grown DQ crystals on Crystal I (Crystal II) have the same structure classified to Type A, which gives regular polydiacetylene structure in low polymer yields. DQ crystals grown on glass plates by sublimation (Crystal III) belong to the second modification of Type B. DQ nanocrystals prepared by the reprecipitation method (Crystal IV) are Type B, and thermally grown DQ crystals on nanocrystals (Crystal V) are Type C. Crystals of Types B and C could be polymerized in low yields without showing excitonic absorption of polydiacetylene indicating irregular polymerization other than 1,4-addition. For crystals of Type A, we found that the 1,4-addition polymerization proceeded only in near-surface portions of the crystals. It can be plausibly explained that mobile monomers in the near-surface portion are only able to take part in their polymerization, resulting in low polymer conversion.     

TEM study of TiN coatings fabricated by mechanical milling using vibration technique

A mechanical milling method was used for the deposition of TiN coatings. The principle of this method is that a substrate and powder were placed along with balls into the vibration chamber that was vibrated by a mechano-reactor. During mechanical milling process, the substrate surface was impacted by a large number of flying balls. The TiN particles trapped in between the balls and the substrate became cold welded to the surface. The repeated substrate-to-ball collisions forged TiN particles into a coating on the substrate surface. The process allowed the thick TiN coatings to be produced at room temperature in an ambient atmosphere. TEM study of the as-fabricated coatings was carried out. The coating formation depended on the size of the initial TiN particles. The 50-nm TiN nanoparticles were more easily cold welded than 1.5-μm microparticles. The nanoparticles had a tendency to consolidate and densify into the bulk material under the applied compressive loading. The TiN particles better consolidated and densified on the hard Ti surface than on the soft Al one.     

Z-dol Versus Z-tetraol: Bonding and Durability in Magnetic Hard Disk Application

A component-level study has revealed that the durability of magnetic hard disks coated with Z-dol improved with increasing level of relative humidity, while the durability of disks coated with Z-tetraol was generally superior and not affected by the humidity within the range investigated (8–80%). It has been shown earlier that water molecules effectively passivate the catalytic centers responsible for the lubricant degradation. The Z-dol molecular chain has a hydroxyl group at each end, while the Z-tetraol molecular chain has two hydroxyl groups at each end. Having surmised that the superior performance of Z-tetraol can be ascribed to its ability to retain water molecules at its multiply hydroxylated ends, the solubility of water in Z-dol, Z-tetraol, and Z-TX were investigated using proton NMR spectroscopy. The study revealed that Z-tetraol is not only able to retain a much larger number of water molecules at its ends, but also is able to form stronger hydrogen bonds. Z-tetraol would then bond more tightly to the carbon overcoat (via hydrogen bonding with the surface hydroxyl groups), and be more resistant against catalytic degradation owing to its affinity to, and retention of water molecules.