Blood–Nerve Barrier (BNB) Pathology in Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy and In Vitro Human BNB Model

In diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN), metabolic disorder by hyperglycemia progresses in peripheral nerves. In addition to the direct damage to peripheral neural axons, the homeostatic mechanism of peripheral nerves is disrupted by dysfunction of the blood–nerve barrier (BNB) and Schwann cells. The disruption of the BNB, which is a crucial factor in DPN development and exacerbation, causes axonal degeneration via various pathways. Although many reports revealed that hyperglycemia and other important factors, such as dyslipidemia-induced dysfunction of Schwann cells, contributed to DPN, the molecular mechanisms underlying BNB disruption have not been sufficiently elucidated, mainly because of the lack of in vitro studies owing to difficulties in establishing human cell lines from vascular endothelial cells and pericytes that form the BNB. We have developed, for the first time, temperature-sensitive immortalized cell lines of vascular endothelial cells and pericytes originating from the BNB of human sciatic nerves, and we have elucidated the disruption to the BNB mainly in response to advanced glycation end products in DPN. Recently, we succeeded in developing an in vitro BNB model to reflect the anatomical characteristics of the BNB using cell sheet engineering, and we established immortalized cell lines originating from the human BNB. In this article, we review the pathologic evidence of the pathology of DPN in terms of BNB disruption, and we introduce the current in vitro BNB models.     

Verification of illumination tolerance for photo-model-based cloth recognition

Globally, robots are being used in garment factories according to their advantages such as high precision, flexibility, and productivity. However, it is difficult for robots to deal with deformable objects such as cloths and strings automatically. The main tasks of such robots are to recognize a deformable object and to pick up and place it at a designated position automatically. The deformable character of cloths seems a main hindrance for automatic handling by robots, especially if the cloth is unique. In this paper, a cloth handling robotic system for unique cloths is proposed with consideration of verification of illumination tolerance. This robotic system comprises two main portions: the first portion generates a model of cloths using an image taken by a single camera, and the second portion estimates the relative pose of cloth appeared in the view of two cameras using the generated model. In our cloths’ pose estimation, the photo-model projected from 3D to 2D is used, where this system does not need defining the object’s size, shape, design, color, and weight. The illumination tolerance of the proposed system under different light conditions of different light sources was verified experimentally for evaluating the proposed system from the view point of practicality. The fluorescent light and the light-emitting diode (LED) light are used in this experiment, having confirmed that the proposed system can recognize cloths in condition that the light environments have varieties.     

Confinement of Long‐Lived Triplet Excitons in Organic Semiconducting Host–Guest Systems

Long‐lived triplet excitons on organic molecules easily deactivate at room temperature because of the presence of thermally activated nonradiative pathways. This study demonstrates long‐lived phosphorescence at room temperature resulting from suppression of the nonradiative deactivation of triplet excitons in conventional organic semiconducting host–guest systems. The nonradiative deactivation pathway strongly depends on the triplet energy gap between the guest emitting molecules and the host matrices. The triplet energy gap required to confine the long‐lived triplet excitons (≈0.5 eV) is much larger than that of conventional host–guest systems for phosphorescent emitters. By effectively confining the triplet excitons, this study demonstrates long‐lived room‐temperature phosphorescence under optical and electrical excitation.     

Transformations of the wavelength of the light incident upon solar cells

A method for the improvement of the spectral response of solar cells was proposed. The attachment of the fluorescent plate on the CdS/CdTe cells made the cell sensitive to the light at wavelength below 510 nm, transforming the wavelength of the incident light from non-photoresponsive region (below 510 nm) to photoresponsive region (above 510 nm). A simple analytical model for the maximum power of the cell showed that the increase in the maximum power for the irradiation of sunlight (Air Mass 1.5, direct) was 33%. Furthermore, a possible increase amounted to 40%, if the fluorescent quantum efficiency took the value of 1.0 and that the wavelength of the absorbed light was completely shifted above 510 nm where internal quantum efficiency of the solar cell is equal to 1.0.     

Influences of repetition rate of laser pulses on growth of crystalline AlN films on sapphire(0001) substrates by pulsed laser deposition

We investigated influences of a repetition frequency of laser pulses on growth of AlN crystalline films by pulsed laser deposition. The structural and morphological properties of the films were studied by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. Employment of high frequency laser pulses not only enhanced the growth of AlN crystallites, but also afforded the crystal growth at higher nitrogen pressures. Growth of α-AlN was dramatically enhanced with an increase in the laser pulse frequency, while β-AlN was grown at the high frequency of laser pulses and high nitrogen pressures.     

The production of an electrochemical capacitor electrode using holey single-wall carbon nanohorns with high specific surface area

We prepared single-wall carbon nanohorns (SWCNHs) with a high specific surface area and fabricated an electrochemical capacitor electrode with good performance from them. Carbon impurities involved in the as-grown SWCNHs were thoroughly removed and the purified SWCNHs were oxidized to produce holes in them (SWCNHox). The specific surface area was estimated as 1720 m²/g, the largest surface area of SWCNHs ever reported. Capacitive properties were also investigated using the obtained SWCNHox. We found that an electrochemical device with SWCNHox showed an excellent specific capacitance of about 100 F/g, accelerating industrial progress for their uses in energy and environmental fields.     

Limiting distribution of the score statistic under moderate deviation from a unit root in MA(1)

This article derives an asymptotic distribution of Tanaka's score statistic under moderate deviation from a unit root in a moving average model of order one [MA(1)]. The limiting distribution is classified into three types depending on the order of deviation. In the fastest case, the convergence order of the asymptotic distribution continuously changes from the invertible process to the unit root one. In the slowest case, the limiting distribution coincides with one in the invertible process in the distribution sense. This implies that they share a common asymptotic property. The limiting distribution in the intermediate case has the boundary property between the fastest case and the slowest one.     

Transformations of the wavelength of the light incident upon CdS/CdTe solar cells

A method for the improvement of the spectral response of the CdS/CdTe solar cell was proposed. The coatings of fluorescent coloring agent (FCA) on the cell made the cell sensitive to light at wavelengths below 510 nm, transforming the wavelength of the incident light from non-incentive region (below 510 nm) to incentive region (above 510 nm). The FCA coatings showed about 8% and 14% increases in the maximum power of the solar cell under the radiations of a white and day-light fluorescent lamp, respectively. Possible maximum output powers were predicted by using a simple model for the external quantum efficiency of the cell.