Melt Electrowriting Allows Tailored Microstructural and Mechanical Design of Scaffolds to Advance Functional Human Myocardial Tissue Formation

Engineering native‐like myocardial muscle, recapitulating its fibrillar organization and mechanical behavior is still a challenge. This study reports the rational design and fabrication of ultrastretchable microfiber scaffolds with controlled hexagonal microstructures via melt electrowriting (MEW). The resulting structures exhibit large biaxial deformations, up to 40% strain, and an unprecedented compliance, delivering up to 40 times more elastic energy than rudimentary MEW fiber scaffolds. Importantly, when human induced pluripotent stem cell‐derived cardiomyocytes (iPSC‐CM) are encapsulated in a collagen‐based hydrogel and seeded on these microstructured and mechanically tailored fiber scaffolds, they show an increase in beating rate (1.5‐fold), enhanced cell alignment, sarcomere content and organization as well as an increase in cardiac maturation‐related marker expression (Cx43 1.8‐fold, cardiac Actin 1.5‐fold, SERCA2a 2.5‐fold, KCNJ2 1.5‐fold, and PPARGC1a 3.6‐fold), indicative of enhanced iPSC‐CM maturation, as compared to rudimentary fiber scaffolds. By combining these novel fiber scaffolds with clinically relevant human iPSC‐CMs, a heart patch that allows further maturation of contractile myocytes for cardiac tissue engineering is generated. Moreover, the designed scaffold allows successful shape recovery after epicardial delivery on a beating porcine heart, without negative effects on the engineered construct and iPSC‐CM viability.     

Non-Destructive Evaluation Method of Pharmaceutical Tablet by Terahertz-Time-Domain Spectroscopy: Application to Sound-Alike Medicines

To evaluate terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) as a promising tool for discriminating pharmaceutical tablets, THz-TDS has been applied for discrimination between pharmaceutical tablets with sound-alike names. Two sets of medicine tablets with sound-alike names, that is, Amaryl and Almarl, Zyloric and Zantac, are examined in this study. Based on the difference in THz absorption spectra, we have succeeded in distinguishing between sound-alike medicine tablets clearly for each set. The results in this study suggest that THz-TDS is a useful tool that is indispensable for medical security maintenance, such as a non-destructive way to prevent mix-up of medicine.     

Single SOC Test Challenge for Blu-ray DVD

<正>The Blu-ray DVD single chip SOC architecture, challenging high speed and high fidelity mixed signal test requirements and test solutions are introduced. COT reductions to make this a mass production low cost test approach is also described.     

Theoretical analysis of view interpolation with inaccurate depth information

A problem of view interpolation from a pair of rectified stereo images with inaccurate depth information is addressed. Errors in geometric information greatly affect the quality of the resulting images since inaccurate geometry causes miscorrespondences between the input images. A new theory for quantitatively analyzing the effect of depth errors and providing a principled optimization scheme based on the mean-squared error metric is proposed. The theory clarifies that, if the probabilistic distribution of the depth errors is given, an optimized view-interpolation scheme that outperforms conventional linear interpolation can be derived. It also reveals that, under specific conditions, linear interpolation is acceptable as an approximation of the optimized-interpolation scheme. Furthermore, band limitation combined with linear interpolation is also analyzed, leading to an optimal cutoff frequency, which achieves better results than the antialias scheme proposed in previous studies. Experimental results using real scenes are also presented to confirm this theory.     

Construction of an insertion marker collection of Sz. japonicus (IMACS) for genetic mapping and a fosmid library covering its genome

Measuring relative genetic distances is one of the best ways to locate genetic loci. Here we report the construction of a strains set for genetic mapping in Schizosaccharomyces japonicus, which belongs to the genus Schizosaccharomyces together with the well‐studied fission yeast Sz. pombe. We constructed 29 strains that bear a positive‐negative selection marker at different loci. The marker was inserted every 500 kb in the genome of Sz. japonicus. Each marker thus becomes a ‘scale mark’ of a chromosome that behaves like a yardstick. By determining the genetic distances from the inserted markers, the relative location of a genomic mutation can be determined. We also constructed a fosmid library that covers an entire genome of Sz. japonicus. These tools together would facilitate identification and cloning of the gene. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Analysis of the relationship between citation frequency of patents and diversity of their backward citations for Japanese patents

Conventional patent citation analyses have focused mainly on the presence of citation relationships, the number of patents cited by the subject patent, and the number of times the subject patent is cited by others (i.e., the numbers of backward and forward citations of the subject patent). However, most of them have not focused on patent classifications. Assuming that a patent based on a variety of technological bases tends to be an important patent that is cited more often, this study examines and clarifies the relationship between the diversity of classifications assigned to backward citations and the number of forward citations for Japanese patents. The results show notable differences in the number of classifications assigned to backward citations between the often cited and less frequently cited groups. It is considered that the diversity of backward citations can be utilized in the evaluation criteria for grouping that roughly identifies the often cited patents or eliminates a large part of less frequently cited patents.