Prediction and compensation of machining geometric errors of five-axis machining centers with kinematic errors

Kinematic errors due to geometric inaccuracies in five-axis machining centers cause deviations in tool positions and orientation from commanded values, which consequently affect geometric accuracy of the machined surface. As is well known in the machine tool industry, machining of a cone frustum as specified in NAS979 standard is a widely accepted final performance test for five-axis machining centers. A critical issue with this machining test is, however, that the influence of the machine's error sources on the geometric accuracy of the machined cone frustum is not fully understood by machine tool builders and thus it is difficult to find causes of machining errors. To address this issue, this paper presents a simulator of machining geometric errors in five-axis machining by considering the effect of kinematic errors on the three-dimensional interference of the tool and the workpiece. Kinematic errors of a five-axis machining center with tilting rotary table type are first identified by a DBB method. Using an error model of the machining center with identified kinematic errors and considering location and geometry of the workpiece, machining geometric error with respect to the nominal geometry of the workpiece is predicted and evaluated. In an aim to improve geometric accuracy of the machined surface, an error compensation for tool position and orientation is also presented. Finally, as an example, the machining of a cone frustum by using a straight end mill, as described in the standard NAS979, is considered in case studies to experimentally verify the prediction and the compensation of machining geometric errors in five-axis machining.     

Glancing angle deposition of copper iodide nanocrystals for efficient organic photovoltaics

We report a simple method to achieve efficient nanostructured organic photovoltaics via patterning copper iodide (CuI) nanocrystals on indium tin oxide by glancing angle deposition. The strong interfacial interaction between zinc phthalocyanine (ZnPc) and CuI leads to the formation of nanopillar arrays with lying-down molecular order, which greatly improve light absorption and surface roughness for exciton dissociation. Optimized ZnPc/C(60) bilayer cell has a power conversion efficiency of 4.0 ± 0.1%, which is about 3-fold larger than that of conventional planar cell.     

Ferulic Acid Production in the Brewing of Rice Wine (Sake)

The traditional Japanese alcoholic beverage sake is produced by fermentation of rice by Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Aspergillus oryzae. A. oryzae releases ferulic acid, an antioxidant, from steamed rice during the fermentation process. The concentration of ferulic acid increased with time during fermentation and the production rate peaked 9–12 days post inoculation. Analysis of the fermentation cultures of Aspergillus oryzae, by high‐performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), revealed that p‐coumaric acid induced an 18.9‐fold increase in the level of ferulic acid. Furthermore, SDS‐PAGE analysis revealed an increase or decrease in the level of specific proteins after the addition of p‐coumaric acid to fermentation cultures of Aspergillus oryzae. Ferulate esterase (FAE) activity was observed in the fermented sake ten days following the start of the fermentation process. These results suggest that the level of ferulic acid is regulated by the enzymes synthesized by A. oryzae during the sake brewing process.     

常压下在PET基材上合成类金刚石膜的研究

本文介绍了在常压下合成的类金刚石膜(AP-DLC films),并对其阻气性和硬度进行了测量.采用射频等离子体化学气相沉积法(RF-PCVD)可在室温下获得均匀的类金刚石膜(薄膜面积450mm2).薄膜的沉积速率随C2H2体积浓度的增加而增大,平均沉积速率约为12μm/min.最大沉积速率1μm/s,约是低气压等离子体化学气相沉积法下薄膜沉积速率(1～2μm/h)的2000倍.AP-DLC膜(1μm厚)的阻气性是未处理PET基材的5～10倍.采用纳米压痕仪测得AP-DLC膜的显微硬度约为3GPa.薄膜衷面粉状粒子的消除可以提高其显微硬度和表面粗糙度.本文报道了采用RF-PCVD法常压下合成DLC膜的物理性能.同时,总结了PET瓶沉积DLC膜以及常压技术和相关DLC膜的发展,主要研究了薄膜的阻气性和显微硬度.     

纯铬钝化膜的电化学性能

本文用交流阻抗技术,通过对钝化铬在中性H₃BO₃+Na₂B₄O₇溶液中添加了K₃Fe₂(CN)₆/K₄Fe(CN)₆氧化还原对溶液中的极化性能及交流阻抗特性的研究,讨论了铬的钝化膜的电路模型。     

Comprehensive In Silico Functional Prediction Analysis of CDKL5 by Single Amino Acid Substitution in the Catalytic Domain

Cyclin-dependent kinase-like 5 (CDKL5) is a serine/threonine protein kinase whose pathological mutations cause CDKL5 deficiency disorder. Most missense mutations are concentrated in the catalytic domain. Therefore, anticipating whether mutations in this region affect CDKL5 function is informative for clinical diagnosis. This study comprehensively predicted the pathogenicity of all 5700 missense substitutions in the catalytic domain of CDKL5 using in silico analysis and evaluating their accuracy. Each missense substitution was evaluated as “pathogenic” or “benign”. In silico tools PolyPhen-2 HumDiv mode/HumVar mode, PROVEAN, and SIFT were selected individually or in combination with one another to determine their performance using 36 previously reported mutations as a reference. Substitutions predicted as pathogenic were over 88.0% accurate using each of the three tools. The best performance score (accuracy, 97.2%; sensitivity, 100%; specificity, 66.7%; and Matthew’s correlation coefficient (MCC), 0.804) was achieved by combining PolyPhen-2 HumDiv, PolyPhen-2 HumVar, and PROVEAN. This provided comprehensive information that could accurately predict the pathogenicity of the disease, which might be used as an aid for clinical diagnosis.     

In Situ PD-L1 Expression in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma Is Induced by Heterogeneous Mechanisms among Patients

The expression of programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) is controlled by complex mechanisms. The elucidation of the molecular mechanisms of PD-L1 expression is important for the exploration of new insights into PD-1 blockade therapy. Detailed mechanisms of the in situ expression of PD-L1 in tissues of oral squamous cell carcinomas (OSCCs) have not yet been clarified. We examined the mechanisms of PD-L1 expression focusing on the phosphorylation of downstream molecules of epidermal growth factor (EGF) and interferon gamma (IFN-γ) signaling in vitro and in vivo by immunoblotting and multi-fluorescence immunohistochemistry (MF-IHC), respectively. The in vitro experiments demonstrated that PD-L1 expression in OSCC cell lines is upregulated by EGF via the EGF receptor (EGFR)/PI3K/AKT pathway, the EGFR/STAT1 pathway, and the EGFR/MEK/ERK pathway, and by IFN-γ via the JAK2/STAT1 pathway. MF-IHC demonstrated that STAT1 and EGFR phosphorylation was frequently shown in PD-L1-positive cases and STAT1 phosphorylation was correlated with lymphocyte infiltration and EGFR phosphorylation. Moreover, the phosphorylation pattern of the related molecules in PD-L1-positive cells differed among the cases investigated. These findings indicate that PD-L1 expression mechanisms differ depending on the tissue environment and suggest that the examination of the tissue environment and molecular alterations of cancer cells affecting PD-L1 expression make it necessary for each patient to choose the appropriate combination drugs for PD-1 blockade cancer treatment.     

Modulation of doxorubicin-induced genotoxicity by squalene in Balb/c mice

The present study aims to evaluate the protective effect of squalene against the genotoxicity of the chemotherapeutic agent doxorubicin (Dox) using two genotoxicity assays, the micronucleus assay and the comet assay. Different groups of mice were fed squalene at the doses of 1 and 4 mmol g(-1) body weight (100 or 400 μl as squalene oil) either at 4 h before or 1 h after Dox (20 mg kg(-1)) treatment. 24 h after the Dox treatment, bone marrow erythrocytes were evaluated for the incidence of micronuclei, and the induced DNA strand breaks were examined in heart tissue by the alkaline comet assay. As expected, Dox significantly induced micronuclei in polychromatic (immature) erythrocytes, as well as in total erythrocytes. The frequency of Dox-induced micronucleated erythrocytes was significantly reduced in the mice treated with squalene both before and after Dox administration. Squalene itself obviously did not induce any micronuclei in bone marrow erythrocytes. The comet assay also demonstrated a significant increase in DNA damage, especially DNA single strand breaks in the Dox-treated group of mice as compared to the control. The Dox-induced DNA damage was also effectively reduced by squalene when it was administered either before or after the Dox treatment. Squalene did not induce any significant DNA damage by itself. Compared to the pre-treatment of squalene, post treatment gave rise to more effective prevention against Dox-induced DNA damage. The data suggest that the complimentary use of squalene with Dox will be beneficial to reduce the adverse effect of Dox in cancer chemotherapy, such as the increased incidence of undesirable mutagenic side effects.     

Surveillance of Staphylococcus aureus in cheese produced in Hokkaido

Although the number of cheese manufacturing units in Hokkaido had increased every year and exceeds 60, many of these units are small-scale processors. We examined the cheese produced in Hokkaido for the presence of Staphylococcus aureus for 3 years after 2002. During the study period, S. aureus was isolated from 38 cheese samples: 3.6 to 9.2% of the total cheese samples examined and 13.0 to 20.0% of the total mozzarella-type cheese samples. The largest population of S. aureus was 2.0 x 10(4) CFU/g. The isolated S. aureus strains were subjected to PCR analysis to look for seven se genes. Of the 38 isolates, 20 did not possess the se gene, but the remaining 13 isolates had seg and sei genes. No enterotoxins were detected in the cheese samples analyzed with a commercial kit.     

Characteristics of dehydration kinetics of dihydrate trehalose to its anhydrous form in ethanol by DSC

Dehydration of dihydrate trehalose to its anhydrous form was performed via crystal transformation in a pressure pan with a differential scanning calorimeter using ethanol as the drying medium. The effect of water content of ethanol on the dehydration kinetics was investigated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), under two experimental conditions: isothermal and temperature ramping. The data sets collected were analysed by the Avrami equation and the Arrhenius plots for isothermal conditions and by Kissinger’s method for non-isothermal measurements. The Kissinger plots revealed click point temperatures (CPTs) which were dependent on the water content of ethanol. At temperatures below the CPTs, higher activation energies were found, whereas at temperatures above the CPTs, lower activation energies were estimated. The anhydrous trehalose crystals obtained by crystal transformation using ethanol of 0.005–2.5% water content were visually observed as aggregates of nano-sized acicular crystals, which inherited the shapes of the dihydrate trehalose crystals.