Here, we investigated the usefulness of silk fibroin nanofibers obtained via mechanical grinding of degummed silkworm silk fibers as an additive in bioinks for extrusion three-dimensional (3D) ...bioprinting of cell-laden constructs. The nanofibers could be sterilized by autoclaving, and addition of the nanofibers improved the shear thinning of polymeric aqueous solutions, independent of electric charge and the content of cross-linkable moieties in the polymers. The addition of nanofibers to bioinks resulted in the fabrication of hydrogel constructs with higher fidelity to blueprints. Mammalian cells in the constructs showed >85% viability independent of the presence of nanofibers. The nanofibers did not affect the morphologies of enclosed cells. These results demonstrate the great potential of silk fibroin nanofibers obtained via mechanical grinding of degummed silkworm silk fibers as an additive in bioinks for extrusion 3D bioprinting.
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•Silk fibroin nanofibers are sterilizable by autoclaving.•Shear thinning of polymer solutions was enhanced by silk fibroin nanofibers.•Inks containing silk fibroin nanofibers realize bioprinting with high printability.•Silk fibroin nanofibers in bioinks are cytocompatible.•Silk fibroin nanofibers are inert toward cells in bioprinted hydrogels.
Antihydrogen, a positron bound to an antiproton, is the simplest antiatom. Its counterpart-hydrogen--is one of the most precisely investigated and best understood systems in physics research. ...High-resolution comparisons of both systems provide sensitive tests of CPT symmetry, which is the most fundamental symmetry in the Standard Model of elementary particle physics. Any measured difference would point to CPT violation and thus to new physics. Here we report the development of an antihydrogen source using a cusp trap for in-flight spectroscopy. A total of 80 antihydrogen atoms are unambiguously detected 2.7 m downstream of the production region, where perturbing residual magnetic fields are small. This is a major step towards precision spectroscopy of the ground-state hyperfine splitting of antihydrogen using Rabi-like beam spectroscopy.
Kimura's disease (KD) is known to be dominant among young Asian men, but it can also occur in middle- and advanced-aged people. The clinical characteristics of KD, especially by age, are not well ...known.
This study was performed to investigate the effects of age on the clinical characteristics of KD.
We conducted a case series study.
All case studies of patients diagnosed with KD were collected via a PubMed search of studies published until August 2018. The data were analyzed by age group.
In total, 215 studies were reviewed (238 patients; mean age of 36 years). The male:female ratio was 4:1 overall, 17:1 in patients aged <20 years, 4:1 in patients aged 20-39 years and 2:1 in patients aged ≥40 years (P = 0.01). The percentage of patients with pruritus was 15.4% overall, 3.8% in patients aged <20 years, 15.5% in patients aged 20-39 years and 21.7% in patients aged ≥40 years (P = 0.02). The time to diagnosis was 5.3 years overall, 3.2 years in patients aged <20 years, 4.7 years in patients aged 20-39 years and 7.1 years in patients aged ≥40 years (P < 0.01).
The proportion of female patients affected the incidence of pruritus, and the time to diagnosis increased as the patients' age increased. There were no significant age-related differences in region/race, complications, multiplicity, laterality, anatomical distribution, maximum size, eosinophil count, immunoglobulin E level, initial treatment, recurrence or outcomes. This may be useful information for the diagnosis of KD.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the clinical outcomes of patients with stage 3 mandibular medication-related osteonecrosis of the jaw (MRONJ) treated using a submental island flap in ...combination with mylohyoid muscle reconstruction after rim mandibulectomy. The medical records of 12 patients treated between January 2019 and April 2022 were analysed retrospectively. Primary wound healing was assessed as the maintenance of full mucosal coverage without signs of infection at 6 months postoperatively. The follow-up period ranged from 7 to 38 months, with an average of 21.8 months. All 12 patients (100%) experienced primary wound healing, with normal mouth opening and occlusion, and without pathological mandibular fracture or facial aesthetic problems during the follow-up period. Postoperative panoramic images revealed new bone formation in the treated areas of the mandible in four patients. During the follow-up period, one patient continuing bevacizumab and zoledronate administration for the primary cancer developed MRONJ in the same area at 13 months postoperatively and finally died. Hence the total success rate was 91.7%. In summary, for patients with stage 3 mandibular MRONJ treated with rim mandibulectomy, the submental island flap combined with mylohyoid muscle is an effective reconstructive option for wound-healing and possible bone regeneration of denuded bone.
Many kinds of servers for communication base stations are being installed to provide information technology (IT) services. Hence, the servers require not only high-performance processer but also ...their cooling system. Among the cooling systems, a cooling fan is the most suitable due to good balance between performance and cost. Nowadays, the cooling fans are required to be improved the cooling performance and efficiency because the heat generation in servers is increased. In a previous paper, several cooling fan motors are designed and compared each other. As a result, an interior permanent magnet (IPM) motor with the magnets equally divided in the circumference direction has the highest efficiency. This paper presents prototype test results of the proposed IPM motor, which are compared to the calculation results. Next, stray losses caused by eddy current and harmonic current are investigated by using three-dimensional finite element method (3D-FEM).
Aims/hypothesis Although the associations between obstructive sleep apnoea and type 2 diabetes mellitus have been reported in cross-sectional design studies, findings on the prospective association ...between the two conditions are limited. We examined prospectively the association between nocturnal intermittent hypoxia as a surrogate marker of obstructive sleep apnoea and risk of type 2 diabetes. Methods A total of 4,398 community residents aged 40 to 69 years who had participated in sleep investigation studies between 2001 and 2005 were enrolled. Nocturnal intermittent hypoxia was assessed by pulse-oximetry and defined by the number of oxygen desaturation measurements ≤3% per h, with five to <15 per h corresponding to mild and 15 events or more per h corresponding to moderate-to-severe nocturnal intermittent hypoxia, respectively. The development of type 2 diabetes was defined by: (1) fasting serum glucose ≥7.00 mmol/l (126 mg/dl); (2) non-fasting serum glucose ≥11.1 mmol/l (200 mg/dl); and/or (3) initiation of glucose-lowering medication or insulin therapy. Multivariable model accounted for age, sex, BMI, smoking status, current alcohol intake, community, borderline type 2 diabetes, habitual snoring, excessive daytime sleepiness, sleep duration and (for women) menopausal status. Results By the end of 2007, 92.2% of participants had been followed up (median follow-up duration interquartile range 3.0 2.9-4.0 years) and 210 persons identified as having developed diabetes. The multivariable-adjusted hazard ratio (95% CI) for developing type 2 diabetes was 1.26 (0.91-1.76) among those with mild nocturnal intermittent hypoxia and 1.69 (1.04-2.76) among those with moderate-to-severe nocturnal intermittent hypoxia (p = 0.03 for trend). Conclusions/interpretation Nocturnal intermittent hypoxia was associated with increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes among middle-aged Japanese.
This study attempted to promote the colony formation and enlarge the colony size of wild
Microcystis
strain by adjusting extracellular polysaccharides and cationic ion concentrations in culture ...medium, and then, using the enhanced floating velocity (Stokes’ law), wild
Microcystis
at the water surface was removed. In order to examine the difference between extracellular polysaccharides mixture and tightly cell-bound extracellular polysaccharides used in this study, the component composition and physical properties were also examined. The results showed that tightly cell-bound extracellular polysaccharides contained the greater amounts of cations (Ca
2+
and Mg
2+
), phosphorus, carboxy group and monosaccharides than extracellular polysaccharides mixture. There were greater amounts of carboxy groups and mannose residue in tightly cell-bound extracellular polysaccharides than extracellular polysaccharides mixture, which would contribute to the stronger cell–cell adhesion of wild
Microcystis
to make colony formation and expand colony size. The adjustment of extracellular polysaccharides and cationic ion concentrations was effective method to promote the colony formation and enlarge the colony size of wild
Microcystis
, and that the control of
Microcystis
buoyancy by enhancing the colony size would be one of the options for the suppression of
Microcystis
blooms from the viewpoint of cost-effective, low-energy, environmentally-friendly, and non-destructive of
Microcystis
cells.
Drosophila egg production depends upon the nutritional available to females. When food is in short supply, oogenesis is arrested and apoptosis of the nurse cells is induced at mid-oogenesis via a ...mechanism that is probably controlled by ecdysteroid hormone. We have shown that expression of some ecdysone-response genes is correlated with apoptosis of egg chambers. Moreover, ecdysteroid injection and application of juvenile hormone induces and suppresses the apoptosis, respectively. In this study, we investigated which tissues show increases in the concentration of ecdysteroids under nutritional shortage to begin to link together nutrient intake, hormone regulation and the choice between egg development or apoptosis made within egg chambers. We measured ecdysteroid levels in the whole body, ovaries and haemolymph samples by RIA and found that the concentration of ecdysteroid increased in all samples. This contributes to the idea that nutritional shortage leads to a rapid high ecdysteroid concentration within the fly and that the high concentration induces apoptosis. Low concentrations of ecdysteroid are essential for normal oogenesis. We suggest there is threshold concentration in the egg chambers and that apoptosis at mid-oogenesis is induced when the ecdysteroid levels exceed the threshold. Starvation causes the ovary to retain the ecdysteroid it produces, thus enabling individual egg chambers to undergo apoptosis and thus control the number of eggs produced in relation to food intake.
The maize weevil, Sitophilus zeamais Motschulsky, is a major pest of rice and other postharvest grain stocks in tropical countries. Heating and cooling treatments have been adopted to control this ...pest. Because heat shock protein (hsp) genes respond to temperature stress, we examined the association of hsp genes with development and thermal stress in S. zeamais. The temperature response of the insect to heat and cold treatments was assessed at four developmental stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. LT50 values at high temperatures were similar among the four developmental stages, while adults were the most tolerant to low temperatures, and eggs, larvae, and pupae exhibited similar LT50 values. Expression levels of three hsps—Szhsp70, Szhsc70, and Szhsp90—fluctuated substantially throughout the four stages at a rearing temperature of 28°C. Heat shock and cold shock increased the expression of all three hsps, and the highest upregulation was observed at 40°C, although the intensity of upregulation varied among the three genes: strongly in Szhsp70, moderately in Szhsp90, and slightly in Szhsc70. Basal expression of the three hsps at 28°C and gene responses to heat and cold shock also varied significantly at the tissue level.
Disruption simulations with DINA code are performed for JT-60SA design. The simulation results have been applied for the design of many components, not only for the vacuum vessel and in-vessel ...components, but also for peripheral components. For instance, for the design of in-vessel coils, stabilizing plate and magnetic sensors, EM force induced by halo current and eddy current at disruption were calculated. For design of poloidal field (PF) coils, the power supply of PF coils and refrigerator system for super conducting coils, eddy current of PF coils and AC loss of superconducting coils were evaluated.
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