A novel gene delivery system in plants with calcium alginate micro-beads

We have produced micrometer-sized calcium alginate beads referred to as "bio-beads" that encapsulate plasmid DNA molecules carrying a reporter gene. In order to evaluate the efficiency of the bio-beads in mediating genetic transfection, protoplasts isolated from cultured tobacco cells (BY-2) were transfected with bio-beads containing a plasmid that carries the modified green fluorescent protein gene CaMV35S-sGFP. With the bio-beads treatment, approximately ten-fold higher GFP expression was observed after 24 h incubation compared to that with the conventional method using a naked plasmid solution. Transfection was up to 0.22% efficient. These results indicate that bio-beads have a possibility for efficient transformation in plants.     

Moisturizing effect of vesicles formed from monoglycerides on human skin

The moisturizing effect of vesicles formed from monoglycerides on human skin was studied by measurement of conductance on and transepidermal waterloss from the skin surface. Although sonication of the monoglycerides in water with Ca2+ gave multilamellar vesicles, the lamellar structure of the vesicles disappeared during their storage without any other additive. With the addition of poly(vinylpyrrolidone) after the sonication, the stability of the vesicles increased and their lamellar structure was maintained for 3 months at 40 degrees C. These vesicles led to a significantly higher water content of the stratum corneum of human skin compared with non-lamellar monoglyceride, and consequently they improved rough human skin.     

Water mist formation in vapor-mist dielectrics and its effect

It has been proposed that vapor-mist dielectrics in which mixing liquid droplets such as tetrachloroethlene in a gas have the ability of increasing flashover, impulse voltage, and of suppressing partial discharge. Vapor-mist methods have been performed on other materials and the effect of the mist can also be obtained on benzene, hexane, and even water as general materials. Although these studies have been carried out, neither the discharge mechanism on vapor-mist nor the reason for the increase of the discharge voltage is understood fully because the mist is of various sizes. On the other hand, agglomeration of water molecules can be studied with the FR-IR method, and are classified into monomer, dimer, trimer (including polymer). Water gives mist stats which are significant in discussing effects. This paper describes states of water mist and their effect under nonuniform field with positive and negative polarities. Water mist in vapor exists as dimer and trimer, and their amount decreases with the reduction of temperature. These mists have no effect on discharge suppression. However, when the mists are formed by space charges, the inception voltage is increased by these mists in the negative polarity.     

Superconductive Coaxial Cable as a Communication Medium with Enormous Capacity

Superconductive coaxial cable has been investigated to survey its feasibility as a communication medium with enormous capacity. The measurements of the frequency and the temperature dependences of the attenuation of coaxial pairs show that dielectric loss is dominant at 4.2 K, but conductor loss increases and gets the attenuation sensitive to temperature as 5 K is exceeded at a few gigahertz. The effect of periodic impedance lrregularities, which is the greatest problem in the transmission characteristics, has been solved by the improvement of the manufacturing process based on spectral analysis of the dimensional variations of the materials, and it is suggested that superconductive coaxial line is applicable to wide-band communication. A thermal insulation pipe for the cable is manufactured and its insulation efficiency is measured. The feasibility of superconductive coaxial cable Will be increased not only by developing the refrigeration system, but also by applying superconductive materials with low surface resistance and critical temperatures higher than lead.     

A novel transfection method for mammalian cells using calcium alginate microbeads

The direct transfer of genetic materials into mammalian cells is an indispensable technique. We have developed calcium alginate (CA) microbeads which can deliver plasmid DNAs and yeast artificial chromosomes into plant and yeast cells. In this paper, we demonstrate the effective transfection of mammalian cells by CA microbeads immobilizing plasmid DNAs. The transfection was performed using the pEGFP-C1 plasmid containing the cytomegalovirus (CMV) promoter and enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) gene. The transient expression of EGFP was observed 24 h after transfection. The expression efficiency was maximum when the concentration of sodium alginate was 1% and the amount of plasmid DNA was increased to 100 microg. The expression efficiency of our method using CA microbeads is 2-10 times higher than that of the polyethylene glycol (PEG) method. Our results suggest that the CA microbead mediated transfection of mammalian cells effectively delivers genetic materials into mammalian suspension cells.     

Improvement of Transmission Characteristics of Superconductive Coaxial Cable: Spectral Analysis of Dimensional Irregularity of Raw Materials of Coaxial Cable

This paper deals with the improvement of the transmission characteristics of superconductive coaxial line (SCCX), and presents a quantitative relationship between the Fourier component of the dimensional irregularities in the raw material of SCCX, such as the thickness of the copper tape and the diameter of the insulator, and an abnormal increase of the transmission loss due to the periodic impedance irregularities. This paper also shows that even for the coaxial cable with very small attenuation constant (≈ 0.5 dB/km) and high operating frequency (up to several gigahertz), an approximate formula for loss peak due to the periodic impedance irregularities holds for the production length of cable. This is indicated by the comparison of an approximate formula with the result of digital computer simulation.     

Consideration of the Actual Current-Spreading Length of GaN-Based Light-Emitting Diodes for High-Efficiency Design

Based on the proposed experimental method, the current spreading length of GaN-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) was measured and analyzed for practical device design. In this study, Thompson's and Guo's models, which are categorized according to vertical series resistance (in particular, p-type contact resistance), were used to extract device parameters. It was shown that the measured current spreading length strongly depends on the injected current density. For LEDs fabricated with low-resistance p-type contacts, this behavior could be explained in terms of the accelerated current crowding with higher current densities occurring as a result of the reduced voltage drop across the junction, which is in good agreement with Thompson's relation. However, for LEDs fabricated with high-resistance p-contacts, unlike Guo's prediction, the measured current spreading length also showed a strong dependence on the injected current density. This was attributed to thermal heating at the p-contact, resulting in the reduction of the voltage drop across the p-contact and so junction voltage, which is also in agreement with Thompson's model. Based on the measured parameters and the design rule, efficient p-type reflectors, namely, hybrid reflectors were designed. Compared with conventional ones, LEDs fabricated with the hybrid reflectors exhibited better output power at a reasonable forward voltage, indicating that the proposed method is effective in understanding the actual current spreading and hence the practical design of high-efficiency LEDs.     

Electrolyte optimization for a Li ion battery by charge profile analysis

Electrolyte design for Li ion batteries was approached by means of comparison of faradaic and non-faradaic currents. The faradaic current by the movement of Li⁺ ions was dependent on the composition of the electrolyte and was related to the battery capacity; the higher the capacity, the greater the current by the faradaic reaction. The open circuit potential of the electrode with a greater faradaic current decreased at a slower rate than that of the electrode with a smaller faradaic current. This analysis method can be used to prepare an optimal electrolyte of an actual Li ion battery, especially when developing batteries with excellent high-rate discharge capabilities and low temperature discharge properties.     

Chiral alkylated poly(m-phenylene)s: Optical activity and thermal stability of helical structures

Chiral poly[4,6-bis(alkylthio)-1,3-phenylene-alt-2-methyl-1,3-phenylene] was synthesized from 1,3-dibromo-2,6-bis(3-dodecyl-2-methylthio)benzene and 2-methyl-1,3-phenylenebis(pinacol borate) as a precursor of chiral poly(thiaheterohelicene). Circular dichroism (CD) spectra that arise from the poly(1,3-phenylene) backbone inverted according to the chirality of the side chains, which indicated that a helical conformation of the polymer was induced by the interaction between the side chains. The CD intensity of the polymer increased in non-polar solvents such as hexane. The decrease in the molar CD intensity and the broadening of a fluorescence band at higher concentrations suggested that the aggregation of the polymer suppressed the formation of the helical structure. The conformational changes were monitored by the CD and the ¹H NMR spectra at different temperatures. In a good solvent such as dichloromethane, the CD intensity increased, and the ¹H NMR signal of benzene protons shifted to lower fields at low temperatures. In hexane, the CD spectra and the ¹H NMR signals were less dependent on temperatures, as a result of the strong interaction between the chiral alkyl chains in the polymer to freeze the helical conformation.