Perfusable System Using Porous Collagen Gel Scaffold Actively Provides Fresh Culture Media to a Cultured 3D Tissue

Culturing three-dimensional (3D) tissues with an appropriate microenvironment is a critical and fundamental technology in broad areas of cutting-edge bioengineering research. In addition, many technologies have engineered tissue functions. However, an effective system for transporting nutrients, waste, or oxygen to affect the functions of cell tissues has not been reported. In this study, we introduce a novel system that employs diffusion and convection to enhance transportation. To demonstrate the concept of the proposed system, three layers of normal human dermal fibroblast cell sheets are used as a model tissue, which is cultured on a general dish or porous collagen scaffold with perfusable channels for three days with and without the perfusion of culture media in the scaffold. The results show that the viability of the cell tissue was improved by the developed system. Furthermore, glucose consumption, lactate production, and oxygen transport to the tissues were increased, which might improve the viability of tissues. However, mechanical stress in the proposed system did not cause damage or unintentional functional changes in the cultured tissue. We believe that the introduced culturing system potentially suggests a novel standard for 3D cell cultures.     

Development of an Mg2Si Unileg Thermoelectric Module Using Durable Sb-Doped Mg2Si Legs

Mg₂Si unileg structure thermoelectric (TE) modules, which are composed only of n-type Mg₂Si legs, were fabricated using Sb-doped Mg₂Si. The Mg₂Si TE legs used in our module were fabricated by a plasma-activated sintering method using material produced from molten commercial doped polycrystalline Mg₂Si, and, at the same time, nickel electrodes were formed on the Mg₂Si using a monobloc plasma-activated sintering technique. The source material used for our legs has a ZT value of 0.77 at 862 K. The TE modules, which have dimensions of 21 mm × 30 mm × 16 mm, were composed of ten legs that were connected in series electrically using nickel terminals, and the dimensions of a single leg were 4.0 mm  × 4.0 mm × 10 mm. From evaluations of the measured output characteristics of the modules, it appeared that the electrical resistance of the wiring that is used to connect each leg considerably affects the power output of the unileg module. Thus, we attempted to reduce the wiring resistance of the module and fabricated a module using copper terminals. The observed values of the open-circuit voltage and output power of the Sb-doped Mg₂Si unileg module were 496 mV and 1211 mW at ΔT = 531 K (hot side: 873 K; cool side: 342 K).     

Low-Temperature Physical and Thermoelectric Properties of Ba8Ni5Ge41

Resistivity, Hall resistivity, thermopower, thermal conductivity, and magnetization are reported for polycrystalline Ba₈Ni₅Ge₄₁. Ba₈Ni₅Ge₄₁ is diamagnetic with susceptibility χ _dia = (?2.4 to ?2.82) × 10^?7 emu/g. Semiconductor-like behavior was observed for the resistivity. The thermopower shows positive values for a wide temperature range. The Hall resistivity indicates the dominance of electrons, suggesting the existence of multiband conductance. At room temperature, the thermal conductivity is 1.78(5) W/K m. The highest ZT of Ba₈Ni₅Ge₄₁ is 0.0016 at about 278 K.     

Crater and flank wear resistance of cutting tools having micro textured surfaces

We have proposed cutting tools with various textured surfaces to increase cutting tool life. Our previous studies have developed cutting tools having periodical stripe-grooved surfaces on their rake face formed using femtosecond laser technology, which displayed high crater wear resistance in cutting of steel materials. In this study, the mechanism for suppressing the crater wear on the tool surface and the relationship between texture dimensions and wear resistance were investigated to provide a guideline for developing tools with textured surfaces. Furthermore, we newly introduced the textured surfaces into a flank face of cutting tools to improve flank wear resistance. Face milling experiments on steel materials exhibited that the newly developed tool having the textured flank face significantly reduced the flank wear. Moreover, the influences of texture dimensions and cutting conditions on the flank wear resistance were also discussed.     

Oxygen-releasing step of nickel ferrite based on Rietveld analysis for thermochemical two-step water-splitting

We investigated the thermal reduction (T-R) of NiFe₂O₄, either supported by m-ZrO₂ or unsupported, as the oxygen-releasing step of a solar thermochemical water splitting cycle based on a ferrite/wustite redox system, by performing the Rietveld analysis using powder X-ray diffraction. The solid materials obtained after the T-R step at 1300–1400 °C were subjected to Rietveld analysis. The amounts and chemical compositions of the wustite phase produced by the T-R step and the remaining ferrite phase were identified quantitatively. Chemical reaction formulas for the different T-R temperatures were determined from the results. Consistency for the chemical reactions of the thermal reduction was discussed and evaluated comparing the O₂ amounts predicted by the chemical reaction formulas and measured experimentally by mass spectrometry.     

Characteristics of a new power generation system with application of a Shape Memory Alloy Engine

It is necessary to develop new power generation systems using the unused low‐temperature thermal energy around 100 °C from the viewpoint of global warming prevention. Even if a shape memory alloy is bent at normal temperature, when it is warmed, it has the character that it returns to the original straight form. Using this character of a shape memory alloy, unused thermal energy will be able to transform into rotation energy, and finally it can change into electric energy. We solved this energy conversion mechanism and the validity of this theory was indirectly verified by experiment. Furthermore, the power generation characteristic of the Shape Memory Alloy Engine was obtained by experiment. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 165(3): 8–15, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20620     

Influence of the gas exchange function through the middle ear mucosa on the development of sniff-induced middle ear diseases

To investigate the influence of gas exchange function through the middle ear mucosa on the development of sniff-induced middle ear diseases, the authors examined the mastoid pneumatization among patients with sniffing habit using computed tomography, and also examined the change of negative middle ear pressure induced by sniffing using tympanogram. In 20 ears with cholesteatoma or adhesive otitis media, the areas of mastoid cavity measured at the level of the lateral semicircular canal were significantly smaller than those in 26 ears with otitis media with effusion (OME) or attic retraction and in eight normal ears with sniffing habit (P < .01 and P < .0001, respectively). In 26 ears with OME or attic retraction, the areas of mastoid cavity were significantly smaller than those in eight normal ears with sniffing habit (P < .0001). By contrast, in the four ears with sniff-induced middle ear disease, the recovery of negative middle ear pressure in 5 minutes without swallowing was less than 10 mm H2O, whereas in all seven ears with normal eardrum, negative middle ear pressure recovered by more than 20 mm H2O in 5 minutes. These findings suggested that impairment of gas exchange function through the middle ear mucosa, as well as eustachian tube dysfunction, might be closely related to the development of sniff-induced middle ear diseases.     

Development of multicomponent vaporization/condensation model for a reactor safety analysis code SIMMER-III: Theoretical modeling and basic verification

It is believed that the numerical simulation of thermal-hydraulic phenomena of multiphase, multicomponent flows in a reactor core is essential to investigate core disruptive accidents (CDAs) of liquid-metal fast reactors. A new multicomponent vaporization/condensation (V/C) model was developed to provide a generalized model for a fast reactor safety analysis code SIMMER-III, which analyzes relatively short-time-scale phenomena relevant to accident sequences of CDAs. The model characterizes the V/C process associated with phase transition through heat-transfer and mass-diffusion limited models to follow the time evolution of the reactor core under CDA conditions. The heat-transfer limited model describes the nonequilibrium phase-transition processes occurring at interfaces, while the mass-diffusion limited model is employed to represent effects of noncondensable gases and multicomponent mixture on V/C processes. Verification of the model and method employed in the multicomponent V/C model of SIMMER-III was performed successfully by analyzing a series of multicomponent phase-transition experiments.     

Non-contact strain measurement using metal foil gauges with the application of the laser speckle method

This paper presents a new method to measure cyclic strain with no contact using metal foil gauges assisted by the laser speckle method. When aluminium foil is pasted on a specimen and the specimen is loaded cyclically, slip bands are produced on the foil surface. There is a fixed relation between density of the slip bands and the strain amplitude or loading cycles depending on the foil material. Thus the fatigue strain of the base metal can be estimated by observing the surface change of the metal foil by the slip bands at a constant number of loading cycles. The method presented in this paper is intended to make a non-contacting strain measurement by the application of the laser speckle technique for the detection of the surface change. This method is based on observation of the changes in a laser speckle pattern depending on the surface roughness and surface property changes of the foil caused by fatigue. The laser speckle pattern can be analysed automatically and quantitatively using an image processing system.