Development of sulfonated FEP-Nafion hybrid proton exchange membranes for PEFC

The performance of polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) is affected by an interfacial property between a proton exchange membrane (PEM) and electrodes. Thus, to develop a well-laminated membrane electrode assembly (MEA), a hybrid PEM (FN) was fabricated by mixing a radiation grafted membrane (sulfonated FEP) with ionomer (Nafion^® dispersion) which is applied to coat the interface of the PEM and electrodes.The obtained FN, sulfonated FEP and Nafion^®112 were characterized in terms of water uptake, ion exchange capacity (IEC), polarization performance and electrochemical impedance. FN showed high IEC and water uptake, which would induce the highest ionic conductivity (IC) among tested PEMs. In terms of FN, the interface between the PEM and electrodes should have been improved because FN showed the lowest charge transfer resistance than other tested PEMs. The high IC and improved interface between the PEM and electrodes resulted in the best cell performance of FN in tested PEMs.     

Synthesis and Immunomodulatory Activity of Fluorine-Containing Bisphosphonates

Immune checkpoint blockade using anti-PD-1/PD-L1 or anti-CTLA-4 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) has revolutionized cancer treatment. However, many types of cancer do not respond and for those that do, only a minority of patients achieve durable remissions. Therefore, oncoimmunologists are working to develop adoptive cell therapies for non-hematopoietic tumors by harnessing immune effector cells such as αβ T cells and γδ T cells. In contrast to conventional αβ T cells that recognize peptides in the context of MHC class I or II molecules, γδ T cells expressing Vγ2Vδ2 T cell receptors (also termed Vγ9Vδ2) are stimulated by isoprenoid metabolites (phosphoantigens) such as isopentenyl diphosphate in a butyrophilin-3A1-dependent manner. Vγ2Vδ2 T cells kill almost all types of tumor cells that have been treated with bisphosphonates. In this study, we synthesized a series of fluorine-containing bisphosphonates based on current drugs and found that they stimulated Vγ2Vδ2 T cell killing of tumor cells. A fluorine-containing prodrug analogue of zoledronate where phosphonate moieties were masked with pivaloyloxymethyl groups markedly enhanced Vγ2Vδ2 T-cell-mediated cytotoxicity, and also promoted the expansion of peripheral blood Vγ2Vδ2 T cells. These results demonstrate that a prodrug of a fluorine-containing zoledronate analogue can sensitize tumor cells for killing as well as expand Vγ2Vδ2 T cells for adoptive cell therapy.     

Fractional transformation group induced byQR factorization and linear prediction problem

A new fractional transformation group is found which acts transitively on the space of linear predictors for nonstationary processes by using the QR factorization of nonsingular matrices.     

Serologic study of the working mechanisms of immunotherapy for children with perennial allergic rhinitis

BACKGROUND: Recent double-blind placebo-controlled trials have clearly shown the efficacy of immunotherapy for perennial allergic rhinitis. However, the exact working mechanisms related to the clinical effect of immunotherapy remain unclear. OBJECTIVES: To monitor the changes over time in immunologic parameters in children who received immunotherapy for perennial allergic rhinitis, and to elucidate the working mechanisms of immunotherapy related to its clinical efficacy. DESIGN: Nineteen children with perennial allergic rhinitis due to Dermatophagoides farinae enrolled in this prospective open study. Venous blood was collected to determine levels of specific IgE, specific IgG4, soluble interleukin 2 receptor, interleukin 4, soluble intercellular adhesion molecule 1, and soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 at enrollment and 1, 2, 3, 5, and 10 years after enrollment. RESULTS: Immunotherapy affected serum levels of specific IgE, specific IgG4, soluble interleukin 2 receptor, interleukin 4, and soluble intercellular adhesion molecule 1, but not soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule 1. The rates of increase of levels of specific IgG4 and the rates of decrease of levels of soluble interleukin 2 receptor were correlated with the rates of decrease of symptom scores during the first 3 years of treatment, but not after 5 years. The rates of decrease in levels of soluble intercellular adhesion molecule 1 were correlated with the rates of decrease in symptom scores at 3 and 5 years after the beginning of the course of immunotherapy. The rates of decrease in levels of specific IgE and interleukin 4 were correlated with the rates of decrease in symptom scores after 5 and 10 years of treatment, but not during the first 3 years. CONCLUSION: Each modulation in levels of specific IgE, specific IgG4, soluble interleukin 2 receptor, interleukin 4, and soluble intercellular adhesion molecule 1 contributed to the clinical effect of immunotherapy in particular phases of treatment for children with perennial allergic rhinitis.     

An all-band TV tuner IC with 10-GHz 100-V mixed analog/digital Sibipolar technology

An all-band TV tuner IC with an on-chip PLL and a high-voltage output stage is developed. The use of a self-aligned bipolar technology called high-voltage compatible sidewall base contact structure (HV-SICOS) allows the integration of 1-GHz analog circuits, 1-GHz low-power ECL-I²L PLL circuits, and a 0.5- to 30-V tuning diode bias current on the same chip. The analog block has a VCO and mixer pair for the VHF/CATV and another pair for the UHF bands, a UHF input amplifier, an IF amplifier, and a VCO signal switching circuit. To suppress the digital noise level for mixed analog/digital mode operation, the PLL is constructed with high-speed ECL circuits for divide-by-four and dual modulus prescalers, and low-power I²L circuits. An isolation area is placed between the analog and digital blocks. Conversion gain of 24 dB for VHF/CATV and 33 dB for UHF, a noise figure of 10 dB, and 1% cross modulation of 95 dB-μV are obtained. This IC operates with a total power dissipation of 200 mW on a 3-mm×4-mm chip     

t-Model mechanism of high-T c cuprates

A doublon formalism ofd-p model Hubbard Hamiltonian is studied only with transfer integrals, and without the superexchange term. This gives excellent doping-dependent features ofT _c in high-T _c cuprates.     

Data-dependent dissimilarity measure: an effective alternative to geometric distance measures

Nearest neighbor search is a core process in many data mining algorithms. Finding reliable closest matches of a test instance is still a challenging task as the effectiveness of many general-purpose distance measures such as \(\ell _p\)-norm decreases as the number of dimensions increases. Their performances vary significantly in different data distributions. This is mainly because they compute the distance between two instances solely based on their geometric positions in the feature space, and data distribution has no influence on the distance measure. This paper presents a simple data-dependent general-purpose dissimilarity measure called ‘\(m_p\)-dissimilarity’. Rather than relying on geometric distance, it measures the dissimilarity between two instances as a probability mass in a region that encloses the two instances in every dimension. It deems two instances in a sparse region to be more similar than two instances of equal inter-point geometric distance in a dense region. Our empirical results in k-NN classification and content-based multimedia information retrieval tasks show that the proposed \(m_p\)-dissimilarity measure produces better task-specific performance than existing widely used general-purpose distance measures such as \(\ell _p\)-norm and cosine distance across a wide range of moderate- to high-dimensional data sets with continuous only, discrete only, and mixed attributes.     

Preparation of High-Strength Apatite Ceramics

A sintered apatite with enhanced strength was achieved by incorporating C_aO-P₂O₅/metal oxide frit. When B_aO or Al₂0₃ were partially substituted for C_aO in the frit composition, the sintered product was stronger because grain growth was retarded. The average bending strength of the strongest sintered apatite was 205.8 MP .     

Shear viscosity of the B phase of superfluid 3He. II. s-p-d-wave approximation

The shear viscosity (T) of superfluid ³He-B is studied throughout the temperature region 0t1 (t=T/T _c). The Boltzmann equation for Bogoliubov-Valatin quasiparticles is solved by a variational method. In the calculation of the collision integral, the scattering amplitude is estimated in the s-p-d-wave approximation by taking into account the spin-dependent part as well as the spin-independent part. The reduced shear viscosity % MathType!MTEF!2!1!+-% feaafeart1ev1aaatCvAUfeBSjuyZL2yd9gzLbvyNv2CaerbuLwBLn% hiov2DGi1BTfMBaeXatLxBI9gBaerbd9wDYLwzYbItLDharqqtubsr% 4rNCHbGeaGqiVu0Je9sqqrpepC0xbbL8F4rqqrFfpeea0xe9Lq-Jc9% vqaqpepm0xbba9pwe9Q8fs0-qqaqpepae9pg0FirpepeKkFr0xfr-x% fr-xHapdbiqaaeGaciGaaiaabeqaamaabaabaaGcbaWaaacaaeaacq% aH3oaAaiaawoWaaiabg2da9iabeE7aOHqaciaa-HcaieaacaGFubGa% a8xkaGGaciab99caViabeE7aOjaa-HcacaGFubWaaSbaaKqaGgaaca% WFJbaaleqaaOGaa8xkaaaa!440E!\[\widetilde\eta = \eta (T)/\eta (T_c )\] in this approximation is smaller than those in the s-wave and s-p-wave approximations at all temperatures. The numerical result for \~ in the s-p-d- wave approximation is in good agreement with the recent experimental data of Parpia et al. and of Alvesalo et al. in the temperature range 0.5.t1.0.Supported in part by the Nishina Memorial Foundation and in part by the NSF under Grant No. DMR-76-24011.     

Characterization of the DNA binding domain of the mouse IRF-2 protein

The DNA binding domain of the interferon regulatory factor-2protein (IRF-2) has been produced and characterized, -chymotrypsindigestion of the purified IRF-2 protein bound to a syntheticbinding site yields a peptide fragment of 14 K in molecularweight. N-terminal analysis of this peptide fragment showedthat its sequence is the same as that of the intact IRF-2. Apeptide fragment of {small tilde} 14 K, IRF-2(113), which correspondsto the N-terminal 113 amino acids of the intact IRF-2 protein,has been expressed in a functional form in Escherichia coli.The first methionine was processed during the expression andthe purified IRF-2(113) thus contains 112 amino acids. DNaseI footprinting and gel retardation assaying showed that IRF-2(113)binds to a synthetic DNA having the consensus binding site andto the upstream regulatory sequence of the IFN-ß geneas intact IRF-2 does. These results showed that this peptidefragment, IRF-2(113), may be a good material for investigationof the DNA binding domain of IRF-2 and of the DNA–proteininteraction.