Herein, we introduce a simple route to fabricating hydrophilic microfluidic chips with an alternative material, a UV‐cured polyurethane‐related polymer, known as Norland Optical Adhesive (NOA 63). ...Conventionally, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is widely used to fabricate microfluidic chips as an alternative to glass or SiO2 because PDMS is easily molded and relatively cheap. However, despite these advantages, the hydrophobicity of PDMS entails critical problems when it is used in microfluidic chips because microchannels inside the microfluidic chips, which have extremely low surface tension, are difficult to fill with aqueous solution without an extra pumping system. To overcome these problems, significant efforts have been focused on developing procedures to change the PDMS surface to be hydrophilic. However, the resulting hydrophilicity is generally short‐lived and the modification procedures require cumbersome multi‐steps. In the present study, we demonstrate that microchannel‐molding and microfluidic chip construction are easier using NOA 63 than when using PDMS and that the hydrophilicity of the NOA surface, which is induced by treatment with O2 plasma, lasts longer, for at least one month. Due to the longer lasting hydrophilicity, microchannels in NOA 63 microfluidic chips are spontaneously filled with solution by capillary reaction without any extra pumping over the period. The feasibility of NOA 63‐based microfabrication is verified by demonstrating NOA 63 microfluidic platforms with antibody‐immobilized beads for immunoassays.
Capillary forces can be used to fill this commercially available UV‐cured photopolymer with aqueous solutions (see figure) as opposed to the more commonly used polydimethylsiloxane. The beauty of this is that microfluidic chips created from this material can easily be produced by a simple oxygen‐plasma treatment. The chips in their turn can then be used for assays and other optical detection systems.
Currently available interferon (IFN)-γ-release assays (IGRA) cannot discriminate active tuberculosis (TB) from latent TB infection (LTBI), and so have limited clinical utility for diagnosing active ...TB. Since numbers of tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-α-producing T cells are highly correlated with active TB, we hypothesized that detecting IFN-γ- and/or TNF-α-producing T cells would overcome this limitation of IGRA. This study evaluated the diagnostic performances of the IFN-γ and TNF-α dual release fluorospot assay for active TB.
Adult patients with suspected TB including recent TB exposers were prospectively enrolled over a 28-month period. In addition to the conventional IGRA test (i.e. QuantiFERON-In-Tube), a fluorospot assay for detecting IFN-γ- and TNF-α-producing T cells was performed. The final diagnoses were classified by clinical category. Patients with confirmed or probable TB were regarded as active TB, and patients with not active TB were further classified as having not active TB with and without LTBI, based on the QuantiFERON-In-Tube results.
A total of 153 patients including 45 with active TB and 108 with not active TB (38 LTBI vs. 70 not LTBI) were finally analysed. The sensitivity and specificity of the QuantiFERON-In-Tube assay for active TB were 84% (95% confidence interval (CI), 70–93) and 70% (95% CI 61–79), respectively. The IFN-γ/TNF-α dual release assay by fluorospot had substantially higher diagnostic specificity (94%) for diagnosing active TB than the IFN-γ single release assay (72%, p < 0.001), without compromising sensitivity (84% vs. 89%, p 0.79).
The fluorospot-based IFN-γ/TNF-α dual release assay appears to be a simple and useful test for diagnosing active TB.
A frequency-agile load modulation scheme is proposed for reliable near-field magnetic communication with a magnetic resonance wireless power transfer system. A working prototype of the system to ...realise concurrent power and data transfer in the high-frequency band has been fabricated to verify that demodulation of the load modulation signal state detected on the transmitter side is stable over the distance ranges covering the near-field coupling region. This scheme can be a simple and efficient solution against potential issues such as non-communication and envelope inversion arising from strong magnetic resonance coupling.
The Physics of the B Factories Bevan, Adrian; Golob, Bostjan; Mannel, Thomas ...
The European physical journal. C, Particles and fields,
March 2015, Volume:
74, Issue:
11
eBook, Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
This work is on the Physics of the B Factories. Part A of this book contains a brief description of the SLAC and KEK B Factories as well as their detectors, BaBar and Belle, and data taking related ...issues. Part B discusses tools and methods used by the experiments in order to obtain results. The results themselves can be found in Part C.
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•Type-I structured InAs/ZnSe core/shell QDs were fabricated.•The poor coverage of InAs QDs on TiO2 layer are improved clearly.•InAs/ZnSe QD based solar cell exhibit the cell ...efficiency of 2.7%.
We report the synthesis of colloidal InAs/ZnSe core/shell quantum dots (QDs) by the hot injection method. InAs nanocrystals have a narrow band gap of 0.38eV, a high absorption coefficient, and multiple exciton generation; hence, they are promising candidates for application in solar cells. However, poor coverage of the titania layer causes a low solar efficiency of ∼1.74%. We synthesized type-I InAs/ZnSe core/shell QDs as an effective solution; they are expected to have enhanced solar cell efficiency because of the different wettability of the ZnSe shell and their superior stability as compared to that of the unstable InAs core. We characterized the QDs by powder X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and absorption and emission spectroscopy. The particle size increased from 2.6nm to 5nm, whereas the absorption and emission spectra exhibited a slight red shift, which is typical of type-I structured core/shell QDs. We then fabricated QD-based solar cells and investigated the cell properties, obtaining an open-circuit voltage (VOC) of 0.51V, a short-circuit current density (JSC) of 12.4mA/cm2, and a fill factor (FF) of 44%; the efficiency of 2.7% shows an improvement of more than 50% as compared to the values in previous reports.
Capsaicin (trans-8-methyl-N-vanillyl-6-nonenamide), a natural product of Capsicum species, is known to induce excitation of nociceptive terminals involved in pain perception. Recent studies have also ...shown that capsaicin not only has chemopreventive properties against certain carcinogens and mutagens but also exerts anticancer activity. Here, we demonstrated the antiangiogenic activity of capsaicin using in vitro and in vivo assay systems. In vitro, capsaicin inhibited vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) -induced proliferation, DNA synthesis, chemotactic motility, and capillary-like tube formation of primary cultured human endothelial cells. Capsaicin inhibited both VEGF-induced vessel sprouting in rat aortic ring assay and VEGF-induced vessel formation in the mouse Matrigel plug assay. Moreover, capsaicin was able to suppress tumor-induced angiogenesis in chick chorioallantoic membrane assay. Capsaicin caused G(1) arrest in endothelial cells. This effect correlated with the down-regulation of the expression of cyclin D1 that led to inhibition of cyclin-dependent kinase 4-mediated phosphorylation of retinoblastoma protein. Signaling experiments show that capsaicin inhibits VEGF-induced p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase, p125(FAK), and AKT activation, but its molecular target is distinct from the VEGF receptor KDR/Flk-1. Taken together, these results demonstrate that capsaicin is a novel inhibitor of angiogenesis and suggest that it may be valuable to develop pharmaceutical drugs for treatment of angiogenesis-dependent human diseases such as tumors.
Unusual Edwardsiella tarda, that do not produce hydrogen sulfide (H2S) from thiosulfate, was isolated from diseased eels (Anguilla japonica) in varying farming sites. In this study, we examined the ...biochemical characteristics of H2S production from the bacterium E. tarda. Diseased eels, along with pond water, were sampled from eight eel farms. All isolates were used for biochemical characterization and 16S rRNA and fimbrial gene sequencing. The phs gene of some isolates were also sequenced. H2S production was analyzed from either thiosulfate (S2O32−)- or sulfite (SO3−)-containing media. DNA analysis identified all isolates as E. tarda. Of the 17 E. tarda isolates, 11 were unable to reduce thiosulfate to H2S, while all isolates produced H2S from sulfite. In addition, non-thiosulfate-reducing E. tarda were isolated from four of the eight sampled eel farms. In media containing sulfate (SO42−) and in media without thiosulfate or sulfite, no H2S production was observed. In addition, glucose and galactose appeared to repress thiosulfate reduction in all strains, whereas these different carbon sources did not affect sulfite reduction. This indicates that thiosulfate and sulfite reduction pathways do not overlap in E. tarda. For this reason, careful attention should be made when identifying or differentiating non-thiosulfate-reducing E. tarda using H2S production characteristics.
► Unusual Edwardsiella tarda was isolated from diseased Japanese eels. ► Of the 17 E. tarda isolates, 11 were unable to reduce thiosulfate to H2S. ► All isolates produced H2S from sulfite. ► Non-thiosulfate-reducing E. tarda were isolated from 4 of the eight sampled eel farms. ► Careful attention should be made when identifying this unusual bacteria.
Today's phones have as many as 60 front-end radios covering multiple frequency bands. For each frequency band, acoustic filters offer high-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">{Q} ...</tex-math></inline-formula>, good power handling, and linearity in a very small package. These properties are crucial when addressing the "explosion" in the number of radios and the filters needed by today's Smart Phones. Moving forward, filter integration will become essential for cost and size. A novel lithium tantalate (LT) bonded to silicon hybrid substrate silicon SAW (SiSAW) was developed that provides temperature compensation, good power handling properties, while mostly eliminating spurious modes created between the LT/Si interface. One of several advantages of this technique is that one can integrate as many filters as needed onto one die. This provides for cost savings as well as area savings while reproducing the inherent performance of high-quality temperature compensated (TC)-surface acoustic waves (TC-SAWs).
Context.
Several radio sources have been detected in the high-mass star-forming region W75N(B), with the massive young stellar objects VLA 1 and VLA 2 shown to be of particular interest among them. ...These objects are thought to be at different evolutionary stages: VLA 1 is in the early stage of photoionization and driving a thermal radio jet, while VLA 2 is a thermal, collimated ionized wind surrounded by a dusty disk or envelope. In both sources, 22 GHz H
2
O masers have been detected in the past. Those around VLA 1 show a persistent linear distribution along the thermal radio jet, while those around VLA 2 have traced the evolution from a non-collimated to a collimated outflow over a period of ∼20 yr. The magnetic field inferred from the H
2
O masers has shown an orientation rotation following the direction of the major-axis of the shell around VLA 2, whereas it is immutable around VLA 1.
Aims.
By monitoring the polarized emission of the 22 GHz H
2
O masers around both VLA 1 and VLA 2 over a period of six years, we aim to determine whether the H
2
O maser distributions show any variation over time and whether the magnetic field behaves accordingly.
Methods.
The European VLBI Network was used in full polarization and phase-reference mode in order to determine the absolute positions of the 22 GHz H
2
O masers with a beam size of ∼1 mas and to determine the orientation and the strength of the magnetic field. We observed four epochs separated by two years from 2014 to 2020.
Results.
We detected polarized emission from the H
2
O masers around both VLA 1 and VLA 2 in all the epochs. By comparing the H
2
O masers detected in the four epochs, we find that the masers around VLA 1 are tracing a nondissociative shock originating from the expansion of the thermal radio jet, while the masers around VLA 2 are tracing an asymmetric expansion of the gas that is halted in the northeast where the gas likely encounters a very dense medium. We also found that the magnetic field inferred from the H
2
O masers in each epoch can be considered as a portion of a quasi-static magnetic field estimated in that location rather than in that time. This allowed us to study the morphology of the magnetic field around both VLA 1 and VLA 2 locally across a larger area by considering the vectors estimated in all the epochs as a whole. We find that the magnetic field in VLA 1 is located along the jet axis, bending toward the north and south at the northeasterly and southwesterly ends of the jet, respectively, reconnecting with the large-scale magnetic field. The magnetic field in VLA 2 is perpendicular to the expansion directions until it encounters the denser matter in the northeast, where the magnetic field is parallel to the expansion direction and agrees with the large-scale magnetic field. We also measured the magnetic field strength along the line of sight in three of the four epochs, with resulting values of −764 mG <
B
||
VLA 1
< − 676 mG and −355 mG <
B
||
VLA 2
< −2426 mG.
Summary
Background
Airway remodelling is associated with irreversible, or partially reversible, airflow obstruction and ultimately unresponsiveness to asthma therapies such as corticosteroids. ...Roflumilast is a selective phosphodiesterase‐4 inhibitor that has an anti‐inflammatory effect in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Objective
The objective of this study was to study the effect of roflumilast on airway inflammation and remodelling in a murine model of chronic asthma.
Methods
BALB/c mice sensitized to ovalbumin (OVA) were chronically exposed to intranasal OVA administration twice a week for additional 3 months. Roflumilast was administered orally during the intranasal OVA challenge. A lung fibroblast cell line was used in the proliferation assay.
Results
Compared with control mice, mice chronically exposed to OVA developed eosinophilic airway inflammation, airway hyper‐responsiveness (AHR), and exhibited features of airway remodelling. Administration of roflumilast significantly inhibited airway inflammation and AHR. Roflumilast also significantly decreased goblet cell hyperplasia and pulmonary fibrosis, which are parameters of airway remodelling. The levels of interleukin (IL)‐4, IL‐5, and IL‐13 in the bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluids were significantly lower in the roflumilast group. In vitro, roflumilast significantly inhibited stem cell factor (SCF)‐induced cell proliferation of fibroblasts. The SCF concentration and mRNA expression in a murine model also significantly decreased with roflumilast treatment.
Conclusions
These results suggest that the administration of roflumilast regulates airway inflammation, AHR, and airway remodelling in a model of chronic asthma. The beneficial effects from roflumilast may be related to the SCF/c‐kit pathway.
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