Enhancement of serotonergic neural activity contributes to cyclosporine-induced tremors in mice

Patients suffering from inflammatory or dysimmunitary diseases may develop various clinical responses to corticotherapy. This brief article describes the various cellular and molecular mechanisms which underly the genetic, endocrine and immunitary factors involved in corticosensitivity, corticoresistance and corticodependence.     

A novel spacer‐free panel structure and glass for FEDs

Abstract— A new design for an FED envelope, composed of box‐shaped front glass, sheet‐like rear glass, and metal members, has been devised. This design structure is effective in reducing tensile stress induced by vacuum at the sealing points. Also, a new glass composition, a new physical tempering method, and a lead‐free hermetic sealing material have been developed. As a result, a novel lightweight spacer‐free panel structure for FEDs has been developed by integrating these new technologies. It will assist in maximizing the essential advantages of FED such as high image quality, high reliability, and low cost.     

Characteristics of particle mixtures in a liquid‐fluidized bed

Behavior of particle mixtures was investigated in a liquid‐fluidized bed experimentally. In the experiment, two kinds of particles of different diameters, and of the same or different materials, were charged in a fluidization column and fluidized by water. Based on the observation of fluidization, a flow pattern map was proposed using the Archimedes number ratio and the terminal velocity ratio, which classifies the two patterns, that is, separation and homogeneous mix. Measured mean void fractions of particle mixtures agreed well with the values calculated from those for each particle independently. © 2001 Scripta Technica, Heat Trans Asian Res, 30(3): 175–184, 2001     

Combined effects of radon inhalation and antioxidant vitamin administration on acute alcohol-induced hepatopathy in mice

It has been reported that radon inhalation activates antioxidative functions in liver and has an antioxidative effect against hepatopathy similar to that of the antioxidative effects of ascorbic acid (VC) or α-tocopherol (VE). In this study, we examined the combined effects of radon inhalation and antioxidant vitamin administration on acute alcohol-induced hepatopathy in mice. ICR mice were subjected to intraperitoneal (i.p.) administration of alcohol after pretreating with air only (sham) or radon at a concentration of approximately 2000 Bq/m³ for 24 hours and i.p. administration of VC (300 mg/kg body weight) or VE (300 mg/kg body weight). In mice injected with alcohol, the combined radon and antioxidant vitamins treatment significantly decreased the activities of glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase in serum compared to not only the alcohol-administered group (sham group), but also the radon inhalation with alcohol administration group or the vitamin and alcohol administration group. In addition, radon inhalation significantly increased the antioxidant level, in such as the catalase activity and the total glutathione content in liver compared to the sham group. These results suggested that the combined radon and antioxidant vitamin treatment could effectively inhibit alcohol-induced hepatopathy in mice without any antagonizing action.     

Design and evaluation of robot patient for nursing skill training in patient transfer

We developed a robot patient for patient transfer training for simulating a patient’s performance during patient transfer and for enabling nurses to practice their nursing skills on it. To realize the robot patient, we focused on addressing the problems of designing its limb actions to enable it to respond to nurses’ operations. RC servos and electromagnetic brakes were installed in the joints to enable the robot to simulate a patient’s limb actions, such as embracing and remaining standing. To enable the robot to automatically respond to nurses’ operations, an identification method for these operations was developed that used voice commands and the features of the limbs’ posture measured by angle sensors installed in the robot’s joints. The robot patient’s performance was examined by a control test in which four experienced nursing teachers performed patient transfer with the robot patient and a human-simulated patient. The results revealed that the robot patient could successfully simulate the actions of a patient’s limbs according to the nursing teachers’ operations and that it is suitable for nursing skill training.     

Meter-scale large area LED-embedded light fabric for the application of fabric ceilings in rooms

We have developed a meter-scale light emitting diode (LED)-embedded light fabric and its weaving machine for application to a light device for fabric ceilings, which have recently become desired for lightweight safe ceilings in Japan and other countries with frequent earthquakes. The LED fabric structure is 1.2-m-wide woven fabric that has 5-mm-wide LED chip-mounted printed circuit board (PCB) tapes as wefts. LEDs are mounted on the tape of PCBs with a reel-to-reel chip mounting system. Then, the LED-mounted tapes are woven with a developed automatic looming machine that aligns the weft with an accuracy of 0.9 mm, which is suitable for precise arrangement of LEDs and wiring to power supply. A 1.2 × 1.2 m LED-embedded light fabric weighing 320 g/m² was woven. The luminance of the LED fabric is 353 lx at a distance of 1 m, which is the luminance of conventional office lighting. The temperature increase of LEDs without a rigid cooling aluminum plate is only 5.8 °C, and the LED fabric is flexible enough to sustain 1,000 bends down to a radius of 3 mm. This LED fabric and its weaving technology will lead to light devices that have lightweight, large area, and high flexibility for fabric ceilings, walls, and other large areas in homes and offices.     

Adaptive searching and replication of images in mobile hierarchical peer-to-peer networks

Due to the limitation of resources in mobile handheld devices and bandwidth constraints in wireless networks, it is important to efficiently manage image content and traffic to improve network throughput and response time. The efficient distribution of images in wireless networks is based on many parameters like the quality of service requirement, available bandwidth, restricted memory and diverse user profiles. We consider digital images as data objects accessed in a hierarchical mobile ad-hoc peer-to-peer network, referred as M-P2P. Our objective is to optimize the number of replicas of images in such a network architecture based on the resource limitations of the requesting peers equipped with miniature mobile devices as well as of wireless constraints in mobile ad-hoc networks (MANET). While replicating images, fragments of different resolution and their residues are used to optimize the traffic in the network and to decrease the search turnaround time. We call this replication algorithm as Ada-Rep. Performance evaluation is done by simulating Ada-Rep, base replication and uniform replication methods to evaluate parameters such as response time, failure rate, memory usage, traffic etc. Our results prove the efficiency and better performance of Ada-Rep.