In vivo Kinetic Biodistribution of Nano‐Sized Outer Membrane Vesicles Derived from Bacteria

Evaluation of kinetic distribution and behaviors of nanoparticles in vivo provides crucial clues into their roles in living organisms. Extracellular vesicles are evolutionary conserved nanoparticles, known to play important biological functions in intercellular, inter‐species, and inter‐kingdom communication. In this study, the first kinetic analysis of the biodistribution of outer membrane vesicles (OMVs)—bacterial extracellular vesicles—with immune‐modulatory functions is performed. OMVs, injected intraperitoneally, spread to the whole mouse body and accumulate in the liver, lung, spleen, and kidney within 3 h of administration. As an early systemic inflammation response, increased levels of TNF‐α and IL‐6 are observed in serum and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. In addition, the number of leukocytes and platelets in the blood is decreased. OMVs and cytokine concentrations, as well as body temperature are gradually decreased 6 h after OMV injection, in concomitance with the formation of eye exudates, and of an increase in ICAM‐1 levels in the lung. Following OMV elimination, most of the inflammatory signs are reverted, 12 h post‐injection. However, leukocytes in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid are increased as a late reaction. Taken together, these results suggest that OMVs are effective mediators of long distance communication in vivo.     

Fabrication of lotus-type porous carbon steel by the continuous zone melting method and its mechanical properties

A lotus-type porous carbon steel with cylindrical pores was fabricated by the continuous zone melting method in a pressurized mixture of hydrogen and helium gases. The porosity increases with increasing partial pressure of the hydrogen gas, while the pore diameter remains almost constant, independent of the pressure. The ultimate tensile strength of the specimen with cylindrical pores parallel to the tensile direction is lower than the estimated value, assuming that the strength is decreased in proportion to the decrease of the cross-sectional area of the specimen, while the yield strength is higher than the estimated value. The compressive yield strength is also higher than the estimated value. The increase in yield strength is considered to be due to precipitation strengthening. The tensile strength is increased by quenching and tempering, while the elongation decreases. Such mechanical properties are discussed in terms of the microstructural analysis.     

Effects of surface roughness of substrates on the c-axis preferred orientation of ZnO films deposited by r.f. magnetron sputtering

The c-axis preferred orientation of ZnO film is the most important factor for its successful application in piezoelectric devices. The effects of surface roughness of the substrate on the c-axis preferred orientation of ZnO thin films, deposited by radio frequency magnetron sputtering, were investigated. During sputtering, the oxygen content in the argon environment used was varied from 0 to 70% at a total sputtering pressure of 10 mTorr. Very smooth Si, smooth evaporated Au/Si, smooth evaporated-Al/Si, and rough sputtered-Al/Si were used as substrates. Their r.m.s. roughnesses, as measured by atomic force microscopy, were 1.27, 17.1, 21.1 and 65-118 Å, respectively. The crystalline structure and the angular spread of the (0 0* 2) plane normal to the ZnO films were determined using X-ray diffraction and X-ray rocking curves, respectively. The crystallinity and the preferred c-axis orientation of the ZnO films were strongly dependent on the surface roughness of the substrates rather than on the oxygen content of the working environment or on the chemical nature of the substrate.     

Inhibition effect of carbon dioxide on the oxidation of hydrogen over a platinum foil catalyst

This paper investigates the catalytic ignition of the H₂/O₂/CO₂ mixture on platinum in a stagnation flow at atmospheric pressure experimentally and numerically. We measure the ignition temperatures of the gas mixtures flowing towards resistively heated platinum with various composition ratios and various diluent gases of N₂, Ar and CO₂. Compared with N₂ or Ar, the CO₂ dilution shows higher ignition temperature by about 50 K, even at the same composition ratio. The ignition temperature increase is proportional to the dilution ratio. Through the numerical simulation, it is illustrated that higher ignition temperature is caused by the adsorption of CO₂ and following dissociation on platinum surface, which was to date considered negligible in catalytic combustion.     

Recording of volume hologram using a beam pattern from taperedoptical fiber

A photorefractive volume hologram was recorded and probed using light diffracted from a tapered optical fiber as a reference beam. A single-mode fiber (SMF) was chemically etched and tapered to give a complicated beam pattern, and it is shown that the tapered optical fiber can be utilized to increase the storage density of the volume hologram. Spatial selectivity of the volume hologram with this method was increased by two times compared to the normal SMF referencing, which is due to the fact that the complicated beam pattern has little correlation with its shifted version     

A single-chip storage LSI for home networks

Network direct attached storage (NDAS) is a network storage architecture that allows direct attachment of existing ATA/ATAPI devices to Ethernet without a separate server. Unlike other architectures such as NAS, SAN, and USB mass storage, no server computer intervenes between the storage and the client hosts. We describe an NDAS disk controller (NDC) amenable to low-cost single-chip implementation that processes a simplified L3/L4 protocol and converts commands between ATA/ATAPI and Ethernet, while the remaining complex tasks are performed by remote hosts. Unlike NAS architectures that use TCP/IP, NDAS uses a TCP-like lean protocol that lends itself well to high-performance hardware realization. Thanks to the simple NDAS architecture and protocol, an NDC implemented on a single 4 mm /spl times/ 4 mm chip in 0.18 /spl mu/m CMOS technology achieves a maximum throughput of 55 Mbytes/s on gigabit Ethernet, which is comparable to that of a high-performance disk locally attached to a host computer.     

Interdiffusion behavior of Hg in HgTe/CdTe superlattices grown on Cd0.96Zn0.04 Te (211)B substrates by molecular beam epitaxy

Double-crystal x-ray rocking curve (DCRC) and secondary-ion mass-spectroscopy (SIMS) measurements have been performed to investigate the effect of rapid thermal annealing on the interdiffusion behavior of Hg in HgTe/CdTe superlattices grown on Cd_0.96Zn_0.04Te (211)B substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. The sharp satellite peaks of the DCRC measurements on a 100-period HgTe/CdTe (100Å/100Å) superlattice show a periodic arrangement of the superlattice with high-quality interfaces. The negative direction of the entropy change obtained from the diffusion coefficients as a function of the reciprocal of the temperature after RTA indicates that the Hg diffusion for the annealed HgTe/CdTe superlattice is caused by an interstitial mechanism. The Cd and the Hg concentration profiles near the annealed HgTe/CdTe superlattice interfaces, as measured by SIMS, show a nonlinear behavior for Hg, originating from the interstitial diffusion mechanism of the Hg composition. These results indicate that a nonlinear interdiffusion behavior is dominant for HgTe/CdTe superlattices annealed at 190°C and that the rectangular shape of HgTe/CdTe superlattices may change to a parabolic shape because of the intermixing of Hg and Cd due to the thermal treatment.     

Effects of a Nd—Fe—B magnetic filler on the crystallization of poly(phenylene sulfide)

The crystallization of poly(phenylene sulfide) (PPS) in a polymer–magnetic Nd—Fe—B powder suspension was studied. Isothermal crystallization behavior was analyzed by way of differential scanning calorimetry, and the kinetics were described via the Avrami equation. The Avrami parameters and the crystallization times were strongly affected by both the particle size and the presence of a coupling agent coated on the filler particles. The small Nd—Fe—B particles exhibited long induction and half‐times, whereas the large particles tended to have short crystallization times. Particles ranging from 38 to 150 μ appeared to have similar crystallization times and to have no significant change in the value of Avrami index with melt crystallization temperature. As a result of these analyses, the dynamic mechanical properties were determined to correlate the fundamental polymer crystallization characteristics and the physical properties of the PPS binder. The enhancement of the wetting of the filler to the binder was promoted through the coupling agent, as confirmed by dynamic mechanical testing performed on the samples. The storage modulus typically decreased because of the presence of the uncoated small particles. Conversely, the loss modulus was enhanced because of the presence of the coated small particles in the PPS binder. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 83: 1091–1102, 2002     

A study on the degree of deliberation and meditation of cyber poll respondents for nuclear-related decision making

Public participation is essential in each step of the nuclear-related decision-making process. Recently, the electronic systems using the Internet have become quite popular, and have emerged as a good medium for communicating with the public. In this study, a comprehensive utilization of electronic public participation was used to analyze public opinion on a given nuclear-related decision-making process. The degree of deliberation and meditation of the public participating in an electronic poll survey was evaluated, and the decision-making factors representing the personal characteristics of the poll respondents such as age, income, education, residence, degree of knowledge and concern were carefully incorporated when preparing the poll-survey questionnaire for its evaluation. Fuzzy analysis was used to assess and aggregate the responses to each decision-making factor. As a case study, this procedure was used to analyzing public opinion on the location of a low-level radioactive waste disposal facility on the campus of Seoul National University. The results show that there is a tendency of respondents who are on the negative side of the argument to be more deliberate and meditative in their decision-making process than those on the positive side. Knowledge and residence were found to be important decision-making factors.