sFlt-1 in Chronic Kidney Disease: Friend or Foe?

Placental growth factor (PlGF) and its receptor, fms-like tyrosine kinase-1 (Flt-1), are important regulators involved in angiogenesis, atherogenesis, and inflammation. This review article focuses on the function of PlGF/Flt-1 signaling and its regulation by soluble Flt-1 (sFlt-1) in chronic kidney disease (CKD). Elevation of circulating sFlt-1 and downregulation of sFlt-1 in the vascular endothelium by uremic toxins and oxidative stress both exacerbate heart failure and atherosclerosis. Circulating sFlt-1 is inconsistent with sFlt-1 synthesis, because levels of matrix-bound sFlt-1 are much higher than those of circulating sFlt-1, as verified by a heparin loading test, and are drastically reduced in CKD.     

Dependable multi‐population improved brain storm optimization with differential evolution for optimal operational planning of energy plants

This paper proposes dependable multi‐population improved brain storm optimization with differential evolution for optimal operational planning of energy plants. The problem can be formulated as a mixed‐integer nonlinear programming problem and various evolutionary computation techniques such as particle swarm optimization (PSO), differential evolutionary PSO (DEEPSO), multi‐population DEEPSO (MP‐DEEPSO), and brain storm optimization have been applied so far. When optimal operational planning of numbers of energy plants is calculated simultaneously in a data center, a challenge is to generate optimal operational planning as rapidly as possible considering control intervals and numbers of treated plants. One of the solutions for the challenge is speeding up by parallel and distributed computing. It utilizes numbers of processes and countermeasures for various faults of the distributed processes should be considered. Moreover, successive calculation at every control interval is required for keeping customer services. Therefore, sustainable (dependable) calculation keeping appropriate solution quality is required even if some of the calculation results cannot be returned from distributed processes. It is verified that total energy cost by the proposed dependable multi‐population improved brain storm optimization with differential evolution strategy based method is lower than those by the compared methods, and higher quality of solutions can be kept even with high fault probabilities.     

Practical rearrangement methods for dynamic double‐array dictionaries

Double‐array structures have been widely used to implement dictionaries with string keys. Although the space efficiency of dynamic double‐array dictionaries tends to decrease with key updates, we can still maintain high efficiency using existing methods. However, these methods have practical problems of time and functionality. This paper presents several efficient rearrangement methods to solve these problems. Through experiments using real‐world datasets, we demonstrate that the proposed rearrangement methods are much more practical than existing methods.     

Test Compression for IP Core Testing with Reconfigurable Network and Fixing-Flipping Coding

This paper proposes a class of test compression for IP (intellectual property) core testing. The proposed compression requires only test cubes for the IP cores and it dose not require the structural information about the IP cores. It uses both a reconfigurable network and classes of coding, namely fixing-flipping coding and fixing-shifting-flipping coding. The proposed compression is evaluated from the viewpoint of compression rates and hardware overhead. For three out of four large ISCAS89 benchmark circuits, the compression rates of the proposed compression are better than those of the four existing test compressions.

Effect of coprecipitated barium ferrite on the cure characteristics and dynamic properties of natural rubber–ferrite composites around percolation

The influence of coprecipitated hexagonal barium ferrite BaFe₁₂O₁₉ phase on the cure characteristics and dynamic properties of natural rubber–ferrite composites has been studied as a function of ferrite loading up to 220 phr (part per hundred part of rubber). Unusual characteristics of coprecipitated ferrite particles were discovered by scanning electron microscope. The results show that scorch time t₁₀ and cure time t₉₀ decrease dramatically with increasing ferrite content up to critical ferrite loading. After 160 phr, t₉₀ increases sharply with increasing ferrite content, in contrast to saturation of t₁₀. Minimum torque recorded normal behavior at low ferrite loading, whereas it decreases with increasing ferrite content at high ferrite loading because of dilution effects. The storage modulus E′ and loss modulus E″ decrease with increasing temperature. The loss tangents (tanδ) of the composites are greater than those of the pure rubber. Linear viscoelastic behavior was observed as a result of the homogeneity and compatibility of the composites. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2009     

Effect of impeller clearance on liquid flow within an unbaffled vessel agitated with a forward–reverse rotating impeller

For an unbaffled agitated vessel with an unsteadily forward–reverse rotating impeller whose rotation proceeds with repeated acceleration, deceleration, and stop–reverse processes, liquid flow was studied through visualisation and measurement using particle tracking velocimetry (PTV). A disk turbine impeller with six flat blades was used with varied height settings. The impeller clearance and its forward–reverse rotation cycle characterised the impeller region flow: the radially outward flow in the deceleration process for the larger clearance relative to the vessel diameter of 1/3, and the axially downward flow in the acceleration process for the smaller clearance relative to the vessel diameter of 1/8. The flow patterns within the vessel resulting from the impeller's larger and smaller clearances were outlined, respectively, by double loops and a single loop of circulation, resembling the pattern produced by unidirectionally rotating turbine‐type impellers. The discharge flow was revealed to contain a comparable level of periodic circumferential velocity component, irrespective of the impeller clearance.     

Thin film solar cells incorporating microcrystalline Si1–xGex as efficient infrared absorber: an application to double junction tandem solar cells

We have fabricated efficient (∼7–8%) hydrogenated microcrystalline Si_1–xGe_x (µc‐Si_1–xGe_x:H, x ∼ 0.1–0.17) single junction p‐i‐n solar cells with markedly higher short‐circuit current densities than for µc‐Si:H (x = 0) solar cells due to enhanced infrared absorption. By replacing the conventional µc‐Si:H with the µc‐Si_1–xGe_x:H as infrared absorber in double junction tandem solar cells, the bottom cell thickness can be reduced by more than half while preserving the current matching with hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a‐Si:H) top cell. An initial efficiency of 11.2% is obtained for a‐Si:H/µc‐Si₀.₉Ge₀.₁:H solar cell with bottom cell thickness less than 1 µm. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Production of new antioxidant compound from mycosporine-like amino acid,porphyra-334 by heat treatment

In this study, we evaluated the antioxidant activity (diphenylpicrylhydrazyl (DPPH)-radical scavenging activity) of the low-molecular weight fraction of water-soluble Susabinori (Porphyra yezoensis) extract (LMF). DPPH-radical scavenging activity of LMF (65.5 μmol-Trolox eq/ml) was enhanced at temperatures over 100 °C (1.4, 2.0 and 2.4 times higher at 100, 110 and 120 °C, respectively). As a result of HPLC separations, a newly produced peak was observed in heat treated LMF, while a marked decrease of another peak was found after heat treatment of LMF. The decreased peak was identified as porphyra-334, which is a typical mycosporine-like amino acid, by ESI/MSⁿ analysis (protonated molecule [M + H]⁺ at m/z 347.1 and its fragment ion 303.1). The newly produced compound with [M + H]⁺ at m/z 329.1 was found to be a dehydrated compound of porhyra-334. The compound exhibited an extremely high-IC₅₀ value of 10.1 μg/ml in DPPH-radical scavenging activity, compared to porphyra-334 (>1000 μg/ml).