Sputter etching mechanism and changes of surface structure of PTFE

Growth of microscopic cones on PTFE surface by RF sputter etching process are studied. The surface texm changes from initial submicron hillocks to large cones during sputter etching. The height of these cones is 33 to 45 percent of the etching depth calculated from etching rate. The direction of these cones is nearly equal to the ion incident angle. Boundary energy of sputtering and growth of cones are 100 eV and 150 eV, respectively. It is obtained that the redeposition ratio by back diffusion to sputtered molecule is 11 percent from the experiment using collector. It is concluded that redeposition and repolymerization process of sputtered material occurs in parallel with the ion etching process, and cones continue to grow partly during etching.     

In vivo adenovirus-mediated prodrug gene therapy for carcinoembryonic antigen-producing pancreatic cancer

The vascular endothelial injury with its consequent activation is actively involved in inflammation and promotion of a procoagulant state, which are likely to be of major importance in the pathogenesis of various disorders, including renal thrombotic microangiopathy. This study briefly reviews the consequences of glomerular endothelial cell injury or activation, as shown by recent experimental data.     

A domain specific sub-ontology derivation end-user tool for the Semantic Grid

Sub-ontology, as the name implies, is a subset of an ontology tailored for a specific domain. Large-scale ontology data can be optimized by extracting the required sub-ontology. Sub-ontology extraction that reflects the user requirements is one method of addressing the issue. Here, sub-ontology extraction methods are called sub-ontology optimization schemes. In this paper, we develop a visual view for users to adopt sub-ontology extraction methods with a particular aim of providing users a front-end tool to perform a particular sub-ontology extraction. Likewise, we construct a Semantic Grid prototype environment to extract the sub-ontology and conducted preliminary evaluation through illustrations using the UMLS Semantic Network. Functional evaluations provided promising results to pursue further experiments and studies on the problem issue.     

Neural network for optimal steiner tree computation

Hopfield neural network model for finding the shortest path between two nodes in a graph was proposed recently in some literatures. In this paper, we present a modified version of Hopfield model to a more general problem of searching an optimal tree (least total cost tree) from a source node to a number of destination nodes in a graph. This problem is called Steiner tree in graph theory, where it is proved to be a NP-complete. Through computer simulations, it is shown that the proposed model could always find an optimal or near-optimal valid solution in various graphs.     

pp60c-src activation in hepatocellular carcinoma of humans and LEC rats

For the related Src kinases, a close correlation exists between elevated tyrosine kinase activity and cell transformation. However, the involvement of pp60c-src in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains obscure. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether pp60c-src tyrosine kinase activity is elevated in HCC. We analyzed the kinase activity of pp60c-src in normal liver tissue, chronic hepatitis liver tissue, and tumorous and adjacent nontumorous portions of HCC tissue from patients and Long-Evans cinnamon (LEC) rats that are known to develop liver cancer spontaneously. The kinase activity of pp60c-src was rarely detected in the normal human liver tissue and chronic hepatitis liver tissue, but it was elevated in tumorous and nontumorous portions of HCC tissue. Furthermore, the kinase activity of pp60c-src was significantly elevated in tumorous tissues compared with nontumorous tissues. The kinase activity of pp60c-src was also higher in poorly differentiated HCC. In addition, the kinase activity of pp60c-src increased proportionately with the development of HCC of LEC rats. Our results suggest that activation of the protooncogene product pp60c-src may play an important role in the malignant transformation of hepatocytes in human and LEC rats, and that it may be closely related to the histopathological grading of human HCC.     

Ipragliflozin Ameliorates Diabetic Nephropathy Associated with Perirenal Adipose Expansion in Mice

Sodium glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitors inhibit the development of diabetic nephropathy (DN). We determined whether changes in perirenal fat (PRAT) by a SGLT2 inhibitor ipragliflozin (Ipra) contribute to the suppression of DN development. High-fat diet (HFD)-fed mice were used as a DN model and were treated with or without Ipra for 6 weeks. Ipra treatment reduced urinary albumin excretion (UAE) and glomerular hypertrophy in HFD-fed mice. In the PRAT of Ipra-treated mice, adipocyte size was increased, and inflammation, fibrosis, and adipocyte death were suppressed. In conditioned medium made from PRAT (PRAT-CM) of Ipra-treated mice, the concentration of leptin was significantly lower than PRAT-CM of mice without Ipra treatment. Serum leptin concentration in renal vein positively correlated with UAE. PRAT-CM from HFD-fed mice showed greater cell proliferation signaling in mouse glomerular endothelial cells (GECs) than PRAT-CM from standard diet-fed mice via p38MAPK and leptin-dependent pathways, whose effects were significantly attenuated in PRAT-CM from Ipra-treated mice. These findings suggest that Ipra-induced PRAT expansion may play an important role in the improvement of DN in HFD-fed mice. In vitro experiments suggest that reduced PRAT-derived leptin by Ipra could inhibit GECs proliferation, possibly contributing to the suppression of DN development.     

A ROCK Inhibitor Promotes Graft Survival during Transplantation of iPS-Cell-Derived Retinal Cells

Currently, retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) transplantation includes sheet and single-cell transplantation, the latter of which includes cell death and may be highly immunogenic, and there are some issues to be improved in single-cell transplantation. Y-27632 is an inhibitor of Rho-associated protein kinase (ROCK), the downstream kinase of Rho. We herein investigated the effect of Y-27632 in vitro on retinal pigment epithelium derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS-RPE cells), and also its effects in vivo on the transplantation of iPS-RPE cell suspensions. As a result, the addition of Y-27632 in vitro showed suppression of apoptosis, promotion of cell adhesion, and higher proliferation and pigmentation of iPS-RPE cells. Y-27632 also increased the viability of the transplant without showing obvious retinal toxicity in human iPS-RPE transplantation into monkey subretinal space in vivo. Therefore, it is possible that ROCK inhibitors can improve the engraftment of iPS-RPE cell suspensions after transplantation.     

Comparison of visual fatigue caused by head-mounted display for virtual reality and two-dimensional display using objective and subjective evaluation

This study aimed to evaluate objective and subjective visual fatigue experienced before and after performing a visual task while using a head-mounted display for virtual reality (VR-HMD) and two-dimensional (2D) display. Binocular fusion maintenance (BFM) was measured using a binocular open-view Shack–Hartmann wavefront aberrometer equipped with liquid crystal shutters. Twelve healthy subjects performed the BFM test and completed a questionnaire regarding subjective symptoms before and after performing a visual task that induces low visually induced motion sickness (VIMS). BFM (p = .87) and total subjective eye symptom scores (p = .38) were not significantly different between both groups, although these values were significantly lower after the visual task than before the task within both groups (p < .05). These findings suggest that visual fatigue after using a VR-HMD is not significantly different from that after using a 2D display in the presence of low-VIMS VR content.

Practitioner summary: Objective and subjective evaluation of visual fatigue were not significantly different with the use of a head-mounted display for virtual reality (VR-HMD) and two-dimensional display. These results should be valuable not only to engineers developing VR content but also to researchers involved in the evaluation of visual fatigue using VR-HMD.

Abbreviations: VR: virtual reality; VR-HMD: head-mounted display for virtual reality; BFM: binocular fusion maintenance; BWFA: binocular open-view Shack–Hartmann wavefront aberrometer     

Development of the automated gold-linked electrochemical immunoassay system for blood monitoring

This paper reports the development of fully automated miniaturized immunoassay system. The system consist of postage stamp sized microchip and compact (post card sized foot print) microchip driver. To realize easy sample loading into the microchip, surface modification of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was developed, and life time of the modified surface up to 9 days is confirmed. The microchip just consumes a droplet of blood (2 μl) and the loading and metering of the sample is realized by capillary action, therefore the microchip is compatible with blood collection method by using lancet needle. Fully automated immunoassay protocol in the system is demonstrated within 15 min using whole blood sample. Finally, fully automated detection of antigen (insulin) was successfully demonstrated in the developed system.