Effect of α-Lipoic Acid on the Development of Human Skin Equivalents Using a Pumpless Skin-on-a-Chip Model

Owing to the prohibition of cosmetic animal testing, various attempts have recently been made using skin-on-a-chip (SOC) technology as a replacement for animal testing. Previously, we reported the development of a pumpless SOC capable of drug testing with a simple drive using the principle that the medium flows along the channel by gravity when the chip is tilted using a microfluidic channel. In this study, using pumpless SOC, instead of drug testing at the single-cell level, we evaluated the efficacy of α-lipoic acid (ALA), which is known as an anti-aging substance in skin equivalents, for skin tissue and epidermal structure formation. The expression of proteins and changes in genotyping were compared and evaluated. Hematoxylin and eosin staining for histological analysis showed a difference in the activity of fibroblasts in the dermis layer with respect to the presence or absence of ALA. We observed that the epidermis layer became increasingly prominent as the culture period was extended by treatment with 10 μM ALA. The expression of epidermal structural proteins of filaggrin, involucrin, keratin 10, and collagen IV increased because of the effect of ALA. Changes in the epidermis layer were noticeable after the ALA treatment. As a result of aging, damage to the skin-barrier function and structural integrity is reduced, indicating that ALA has an anti-aging effect. We performed a gene analysis of filaggrin, involucrin, keratin 10, integrin, and collagen I genes in ALA-treated human skin equivalents, which indicated an increase in filaggrin gene expression after ALA treatment. These results indicate that pumpless SOC can be used as an in vitro skin model similar to human skin, protein and gene expression can be analyzed, and it can be used for functional drug tests of cosmetic materials in the future. This technology is expected to contribute to the development of skin disease models.     

YSZ atmospheric plasma coating method for improved high temperature corrosion and wear resistance

Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology - The yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) ceramic coating of feed rollers exposed to the high temperature environment used in the floating process for...     

Mechanical dither design for ring laser gyroscope

The gyroscopes have been used as a suitable inertial instrument for the navigation guidance and attitude controls. The accuracy as very sensitive sensor is limited by the lock-in region (dead band) by the frequency coupling between two counter-propagating waves at low rotation rates. This frequency coupling gives no phase difference and an angular increment is not detected. This problem can be overcome by the mechanical dithering. The purpose of the mechanical dithering is to suppress the dead band, oscillate the monoblock about the rotation axis and add an external rotation rate. This paper presents the theoretical considerations of the mechanical performances of dither on the basis of the loading condition and angular characteristics due to the piezoelement deformation and the validity of theoretical equations are compared through FEM (Finite Element Method) simulations.     

Measurement of developing turbulent flow in a U-bend of circular cross-section

Hot-wire measurements of the full mapping of the velocity and Reynolds stress components are reported for developing turbulent flow in a strongly curved 180 deg pipe and its tangents. A slanted wire is rotated into 6 orientations and the voltage outputs from wires are combined to obtain the mean velocity and Reynolds stress components. The strength of secondary flow reaches up to the 28% of bulk mean velocity. The strong counter-rotating vortex pair induced by the transverse pressure gradient and centrifugal force imbalance grows up to Θ = 67.5° into the bend. But the vortex pair breaks down into two cell pattern after Θ=90° Core vortex formation and reversal of secondary flow direction along the bend symmetry plane is cleanly found in the secondary vector plot. At Θ=67.5° and Θ = 90° into bend a large “trough” develops in the longitudinal velocity toward the inside of the bend due to the breakdown of secondary flow. In the bend, the mean longitudinal velocity component changes little after Θ=90°, but secondary flow never achieves fully-developed state. Similar behaviors are observed in the radial and circumferential stresses.     

Barrier function based finite-time tracking control for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems with input saturation

In this article, a novel robust finite-time tracking control scheme is proposed for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems subject to the model uncertainty, external disturbance, and input saturation. A barrier function based disturbance observer (BFDO) with finite-time convergence performance is developed to estimate the non-smooth nonlinear compound disturbance, which includes the uncertainty, disturbance of system and input saturation. In addition, an adaptive continuous nonsingular terminal sliding mode controller, based on the barrier function and the estimate of the BFDO is developed. The Lyapunov stability and finite-time convergence of the proposed control scheme are proved. The effectiveness and performance advantage of the proposed control scheme is demonstrated by numerical simulations and comparison with existing works.     

Chemical structure designing to enhance the yield stress of electrorheological fluids based on modified chitosan compounds

For studying the influences of alkyl chain length, end groups of the side chains, and mixture on enhancing the shear stress of electrorheological (ER) fluids, chitosan carboxylates were synthesized for ER particles and prepared ER fluids by dispersing the particles in silicone oil. After comparing the shear stress of all prepared ER fluids, the conclusion obtained was that ER particles having two functional groups showed higher shear stress than those having one functional group. However, after mixing two ER particles having one functional group respectively, the ER fluid having those particles showed a lower shear stress. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 93: 1559–1566, 2004     

Electrorheological properties of chemically modified chitosan suspension with various functional pendants

In this study, functional pendants of chitosan were focused on enhancing the shear stress of electrorheological (ER) fluids. Chitosan succinates and chitosan phthalate were synthesized for ER particles and ER fluids were prepared by dispersing the particles in silicone oil. After comparing the shear stress of all prepared ER fluids, obtained conclusions were that ER particle having two functional groups (one is +ve charge and another is ?ve charge) showed higher shear stress than that having only one functional group like the comparison between chitosan succinate(I) and chitosan succinate(II). However, though expect of the intermolecular overlapping between the π electrons clouds supporting the charge carrier generation and transport leading to a significant delocalization of electrons, chitosan phthalate shows lower shear stress than chitosan succinate(I) and chitosan succinate(II). © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 102: 4937–4942, 2006     

Preparation of transparent ts-1 zeolite film and its photocatalytic isomerization under uv irradiation

TS-1 zeolite film has been prepared by using nano sized TS-1 zeolite particles for the photocatalytic isomerization of cis-2-butene. TS-1 zeolite film showed optical transparent property and the thickness of film was 0.7 μm. UV irradiation of TS-1 zeolite film in the presence ofcis-2-butene leads to the photocatalytic isomerization ofcis-2-butene intotrans-2-butene at the temperature of 275 K. The yield oftrans- 2-butene was linearly increased with UV-irradiation time.     

Raney Ni catalysts derived from different alloy precursors Part II. CO and CO2 methanation activity

Catalytic activity, in conjunction with reaction mechanism, was studied in the methanation of CO and CO₂ on three Raney Ni catalysts derived from different Ni-Al alloys using different leaching conditions. Main products were CH₄ and CO₂ in CO methanation, and CH₄ and CO in CO₂ methanation. Any other hydrocarbon products were not observed. Over all catalysts, CO methanation showed lower selectivity to methane and higher activation energy than CO₂ methanation. The catalyst derived from alloy having higher Ni content using more severe leaching conditions, namely higher reaction temperature and longer extraction time, showed higher specific activity and higher selectivity to methane both in CO and CO₂ methanation. In CO and CO₂ methanation on Raney Ni catalyst, catalytic activity was seen to have close relation with the activity to dissociate CO This paper was presented at the 2004 Korea/Japan/Taiwan Chemical Engineering Conference held at Busan, Korea between November 3 and 4,2004.