Tissue dynamics spectroscopy for three-dimensional tissue-based drug screening

Tissue dynamics spectroscopy combines dynamic light scattering with short-coherence digital holography to capture intracellular motion inside multicellular tumor spheroid tissue models. The cellular mechanical activity becomes an endogenous imaging contrast agent for motility contrast imaging. Fluctuation spectroscopy is performed on dynamic speckle from the proliferating shell and hypoxic core to generate drug-response spectrograms that are frequency versus time representations of the changes in spectral content induced by an applied compound or an environmental perturbation. A combination of 28 reference compounds and conditions applied to rat osteogenic UMR-106 spheroids generated spectrograms that were crosscorrelated in a similarity matrix used for unsupervised hierarchical clustering of similar compound responses. This work establishes the feasibility of tissue dynamics spectroscopy for three-dimensional tissue-based phenotypic profiling of drug response as a fully endogenous probe of the response of tissue to reference compounds.     

Memory effects of all‐solution‐processed oxide thin‐film transistors using ZnO nanoparticles

Abstract— Non‐volatile memory effects of an all‐solution‐processed oxide thin‐film transistor (TFT) with ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) as the charge‐trapping layer are reported. The device was fabricated by using a soluble MgInZnO active channel on a ZrHfO^x gate dielectric. ZnO NPs were used as the charge‐trapping site at the gate‐insulator—channel interface, and Al was used for source and drain electrodes. Transfer characteristics of the device showed a large clockwise hysteresis, which can be used to demonstrate its memory function due to electron trapping in the ZnO NP charge‐trapping layer. This memory effect has the potential to be utilized as a memory application on displays and disposable electronics.     

Synthesis and characterization of novel blue azo‐dye derivatives containing acrylate group for dye‐based color filters

Abstract— Even though dyes have a fine resolution and good chromaticities, they are not widely used as coloring materials for color filters (CFs) due to their low thermal stability and chemical resistance. A series of azo‐dye derivatives, which consist of two cross‐linkable acrylate or methacrylate groups to improve thermal and chemical properties, have been synthesized and used to fabricate color filters. The spectral properties and chemical/thermal stabilities of the fabricated CFs were investigated by comparing dye‐based CFs, without a complicated dispersion process, but with pigment‐based CFs using dispersed pigment. Also, more properties including the development test and surface morphologies lithographic properties were studied. The synthesized azo dyes were characterized by elemental analysis, UV‐visible spectra, IR, mass, and ¹H‐NMR spectra.     

Heuristics for determining a patrol path of an unmanned combat vehicle

We consider a problem of finding a path of an unmanned combat vehicle that patrols a given area by visiting a given set of checkpoints with the objective of minimizing possibility of enemy’s infiltration. In this study, we focus on a situation in which the possibility of enemy’s infiltration at (through) each checkpoint is increased nonlinearly as time passes and the checkpoint may be patrolled multiple times during a planning horizon. We develop two-phase heuristics in which an initial path is constructed in the first phase and then it is improved in the second phase. For evaluation of the performance of the proposed heuristics, computational experiments are performed on randomly generated problem instances, and results show that the heuristics give good solutions in a reasonably short time.     

Experimental investigation on the detachable thermosiphon for conduction-cooled superconducting magnets

A detachable thermosiphon, as a transient thermal switch for conduction-cooled superconducting magnet, is designed, fabricated and tested. A thermosiphon between the first and second stages of a cryocooler can reduce the cool-down time of a conduction-cooled superconducting magnet by using the large cooling capacity of the first stage. The thermosiphon is a very efficient heat transfer device until all the working fluid in it freezes (off-state). After the working fluid freezes and the second stage temperature becomes lower than that of the first stage, however, the thermosiphon then becomes a conduction heat leak path between two stages of the cryocooler. Considering a very small cooling capacity of the second stage of the cryocooler around 4.2 K, the conduction heat loss is not negligible. Therefore, a detachable thermosiphon, made of a metal bellows, is considered to be able to eliminate such a conduction heat leak. The mock-up magnet is cooled down with the thermosiphon and the thermodynamic states of the thermosiphon and the mock-up magnet are precisely examined during the whole cool-down process. At off-state, the thermosiphon is detached mechanically from the magnet. In this way, the conduction heat leak path through the thermosiphon wall is completely eliminated. This paper describes the detailed transient operation of the detachable thermosiphon using nitrogen as the working fluid.     

Structural reliability assessment of multi-stack package (MSP) under high temperature storage (HTS) testing condition

Wire ball open failure at the interface of the gold wire and bonding pad of a multi-stack package (MSP) under high temperature storage (HTS) condition of 150 °C is studied. Failure analysis using FIB-SEM was conducted by in-plane moiré interferometry and FEA to clarify the failure mechanism. The ball open failure due to Kirkendall void that results from metal diffusion at high temperature was accelerated by the tensile stress imposed at the gold wire. The tensile stress developed at the gold wire when packages showing different warpage behaviours were stacked. Mechanical interaction between top and bottom packages caused unstable warpage, readily twisted and saddled. The wire came in contact with the photo-sensitive solder resist (PSR) dam because of the unstable warpage and this contact resulted in tensile stress at the gold wires. Solder flux residues reacted with the encapsulant, and as a result, the encapsulant of the top package adhered to the chip of the bottom package, and this adherence created additional tensile stress at the gold wires. To reduce the tensile stress at the wires, the PSR dam was removed, loop shape was altered from 45° to 90°, water soluble flux was applied, and cleaning process was added. HTS reliability was significantly improved and guaranteed after reducing the tensile stress at the wires.     

Preparation of AZ91D Slurries for Semi-Solid Forming Using Al8 ( Mn, Fe) 5 Precipitates

During the solidification of the AZ91D-alloys, the Al8(Mn, Fe)5 phase is generally precipitated in the melt in advance of the precipitation of the primary α-Mg. The basic principle for manufacturing AZ91D-alloy slurries for semi solid forming is to use the Al8(Mn, Fe)5 precipitates as the heterogeneous nucleation sites for primary α-Mg phases. Microscopic analysis for the location of the Al8(Mn, Fe)5 precipitate explains that the Al8(Mn, Fe)5 precipitate is the effective heterogeneous nucleation site for the primary α-Mg phase. It was also observed that increase of the Mn content in the melt and the cooling rate below to the solid/liquid two-phase region resulted in smaller and more globular primary α-Mg due to the increase of heterogeneous nucleation sites. It was found that the average α-Mg diameter grew as a function of t0.278, where t is the holding time at the solid/liquid two-phase region. This would be attributed to the Ostwald type ripening and coalescence between primary α-Mg phases. The cooling rate below to the solid/liquid two-phase region, Mn content in AZ91D alloy, and the holding time and temperature affected on the quality of slurry.     

Procedural Synthesis using Vortex Particle Method for Fluid Simulation

We propose a fast and effective technique to improve sub‐grid visual details of the grid based fluid simulation. Our method procedurally synthesizes the flow fields coming from the incompressible Navier‐Stokes solver and the vorticity fields generated by vortex particle method for sub‐grid turbulence. We are able to efficiently animate smoke which is highly turbulent and swirling with small scale details. Since this technique does not solve the linear system in high‐resolution grids, it can perform fluid simulation more rapidly. We can easily estimate the influence of turbulent and swirling effect to the fluid flow.     

Endometrial Epithelial ARID1A Is Required for Uterine Immune Homeostasis during Early Pregnancy

A growing body of work suggests epigenetic dysregulation contributes to endometriosis pathophysiology and female infertility. The chromatin remodeling complex subunit AT-rich interaction domain 1A (ARID1A) must be properly expressed to maintain normal uterine function. Endometrial epithelial ARID1A is indispensable for pregnancy establishment in mice through regulation of endometrial gland function; however, ARID1A expression is decreased in infertile women with endometriosis. We hypothesized that ARID1A performs critical operations in the endometrial epithelium necessary for fertility besides maintaining gland function. To identify alterations in uterine gene expression resulting from loss of epithelial ARID1A, we performed RNA-sequencing analysis on pre-implantation uteri from Ltf^iCre/+Arid1a^f/f and control mice. Differential expression analysis identified 4181 differentially expressed genes enriched for immune-related ingenuity canonical pathways including agranulocyte adhesion and diapedesis and natural killer cell signaling. RT-qPCR confirmed an increase in pro-inflammatory cytokine and macrophage-related gene expression but a decrease in natural killer cell signaling. Immunostaining confirmed a uterus-specific increase in macrophage infiltration. Flow cytometry delineated an increase in inflammatory macrophages and a decrease in uterine dendritic cells in Ltf^iCre/+Arid1a^f/f uteri. These findings demonstrate a role for endometrial epithelial ARID1A in suppressing inflammation and maintaining uterine immune homeostasis, which are required for successful pregnancy and gynecological health.