The aim of the study was to examine how mechanical unloading affects articular cartilage degeneration in the patellofemoral (PF) and tibiofemoral (TF) joints of a monosodium iodoacetate (MIA)-induced ...rat model of osteoarthritis (OA).
The study involved 60 male rats. OA was induced by intra-articular injecting MIA into both knee joints. All animals were equally divided into two groups: sedentary (SE) and hindlimb unloading (HU) groups. Histopathological changes in the articular cartilage of the PF and TF joints were evaluated using the Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI) score and modified Mankin score at 2 and 4 weeks after MIA injection.
In the SE and HU groups, representative histopathological changes in OA were detected in the PF and TF joints. The OARSI and modified Mankin scores for the PF and TF joints tended to increase over time after the injection of 0.2 mg or 1.0 mg of MIA in the SE and HU groups. Both the scores for the HU group were significantly lower than those for the SE group OARSI score: P < 0.0001 (1.0-mg injection at 4 weeks); modified Mankin score: P = 0.0116 (0.2-mg injection at 4 weeks); P = 0.0004 and < 0.0001 (1.0-mg injection at 2 and 4 weeks, respectively).
This study revealed new histological evidence that indicates that unloading condition suppresses articular cartilage degeneration and is beneficial in many areas of basal and clinical research involving OA.
Product selectivity depends greatly on the crystal orientation of the Cu single crystal electrode. C
2H
4/CH
4 ratio is enhanced by introduction of (1
1
1) or (1
1
0) steps in (1
0
0) terrace.
...Electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide was studied with various series of copper single crystal electrodes in 0.1
M KHCO
3 aqueous solution at constant current density 5
mA
cm
−2; the electrodes employed are Cu(S)-
n
(1
0
0)×(1
1
1)
, Cu(S)-
n
(1
0
0)×(1
1
0)
, Cu(S)-
n
(1
1
1)×(1
0
0)
, Cu(S)-
n
(1
1
1)×(1
1
1)
and Cu(S)-
n
(1
1
0)×(1
0
0)
. The electrodes based on (1
0
0) terrace surface give ethylene as the major product. The ethylene formation is further promoted by the introduction of (1
1
1) or (1
1
0) steps to the (1
0
0) basal plane. The highest C
2H
4 to CH
4 formation ratio amounts to 10 in terms of the current efficiency for the (7
1
1) (=4(1
0
0) − (1
1
1)) surface as compared with the value 0.2 for the (1
1
1) electrode. The
n(1
1
1)−(1
1
1)
surfaces favor the formations of acetic acid, acetaldehyde and ethyl alcohol with the increase of the (1
1
1) step atom density. CH
4 formation at the
n(1
1
1)−(1
1
1)
electrodes decreases with the increase of the (1
1
1) step atom density. The
n(1
1
1)−(1
0
0)
surfaces give higher gaseous products; the major product is CH
4 with lower fraction of C
2+ compounds.
Abstract We report the growth of bulk β-Ga 2 O 3 crystals based on crystal pulling from a melt using a cold container without employing a precious-metal crucible. Our approach, named oxide crystal ...growth from cold crucible (OCCC), is a fusion between the skull-melting and Czochralski methods. The absence of an expensive precious-metal crucible makes this a cost-effective crystal growth method, which is a critical factor in the semiconductor industry. An original construction 0.4–0.5 MHz SiC MOSFET transistor generator with power up to 35 kW was used to successfully grow bulk β-Ga 2 O 3 crystals with diameters up to 46 mm. Also, an original diameter control system by generator frequency change was applied. In this preliminary study, the full width at half maximum of the X-ray rocking curve from the obtained β-Ga 2 O 3 crystals with diameters ≤ 46 mm was comparable to those of β-Ga 2 O 3 produced by edge-defined film fed growth. Moreover, as expected, the purity of the obtained crystals was high because only raw material-derived impurities were detected, and contamination from the process, such as insulation and noble metals, was below the detection limit. Our results indicate that the OCCC technique can be used to produce high-purity bulk β-Ga 2 O 3 single crystalline substrate.
Prussian blue, KxFeyFe(CN)6z/nH2O, was investigated as a positive electrode material for sodium-ion batteries. A Na cell with a Prussian blue positive electrode exhibited a first discharge capacity ...of 57 mAh/g. However, the discharge capacity rapidly decreased. It appears that the lattice parameter of Prussian blue changes and electron conductivity is gradually lost. Then, we attempted to improve the cycle performance of the cell with a positive electrode using high conductivity carbon, ketjen black EC600JD. As a result, a positive electrode of Prussian blue and ketjen black exhibited a first discharge capacity of 67 mAh/g and exhibited a retention of more than 80% at the 40th cycle. Moreover, the positive electrode was improved owing to dehydration caused by the thermal treatment of the Prussian blue. Prussian blue showed a reversible Na+ intercalation potential around 2.5V vs. Na, which corresponds to the redox of Fe2+/Fe3+.
•The electrochemical properties of Na cell with Prussian blue were examined.•We attempted to improve the conductivity of positive electrode.•The cycle performance was improved by using ketjen black.•The discharge capacity was improved by the dehydration of Prussian blue.
Enamel is the highly mineralized outer layer of teeth; the cells responsible for enamel formation are ameloblasts. Local hypoxia and hypoxia inducible factor (HIF) in embryonic tissues are important ...to promote normal organogenesis. However, hypoxic state in tooth germs and the roles of HIF in ameloblast differentiation have not been understood. The aim of this study is to clarify the role of HIF in ameloblast differentiation during tooth germ development. We found that tooth germs were under hypoxia and HIF-1α and HIF-2α were expressed in tooth germs in embryonic mice. Then, we used HIF inhibitors to evaluate the function of HIF during tooth germ development. The HIF-2α inhibitor significantly decreased the size of tooth germs in organ culture, while the HIF-1α inhibitor did not apparently affect the size of tooth germs. The HIF-2α inhibitor enhanced the expression of amelogenin, a marker of ameloblast differentiation, in the tooth germs in organ culture and rat dental epithelial SF2 cells. Moreover, we found that the HIF-2α inhibitor-stimulating amelogenin expression was regulated by hes-related family basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor with YRPW motif 2(Hey2) in SF2 cells. These findings suggest that the HIF-2α–Hey2 axis plays an important role in ameloblast differentiation during tooth germ development.
In November 2016, a woman in her 30s who stayed at an insecure, temporary housing facility, a manga café in Tokyo, Japan, for a year was diagnosed with sputum smear-positive tuberculosis (TB). Since ...the café had 31 staff members and provided with accommodation to many people, the local health office initiated a contact investigation. This study aims to characterise the cases found in the outbreak. A TB case was defined as a person tested bacteriologically positive for TB, or was determined to have TB by a physician. A latent TB infection case was defined as a person tested positive by interferon-γ release assay. From January 2016 through November 2017, there were 31 staff members at the manga café, of which, six developed TB disease (one smear-negative, culture-positive and five smear- and culture-negative) in addition to seven LTBI. Another long-term customer was found having sputum smear-positive TB. Variable numbers tandem repeat (VNTR) test revealed that the index patient and the long-term customer had the identical type of VNTR; however, one staff member had a different VNTR. Local health authorities should intensify screening long-term customers of such facilities for TB regularly as well as once a TB outbreak occurs.
Risks of non-cancer outcomes after exposure to atomic bomb (A-bomb) radiation have been evaluated among the Life Span Study (LSS) cohort and its subcohort, the Adult Health Study (AHS). Information ...regarding non-cancer outcomes in the LSS is obtained from death certificates. In the AHS, members undergo clinical examinations biennially to determine their health status. Many AHS studies have been limited to participants attending the clinic over a limited period, and therefore have varying degrees of inferential utility; as such, care is required for comparison with the LSS results. Disease structure of non-cancer diseases in Japan has changed over the long follow-up period since the end of World War II. The health status of the A-bomb survivors may be associated with the hardships of living in a devastated city and impoverished country following the prolonged war effort, in addition to the direct effects of radiation exposure. Radiation-related risk of cardiovascular disease may have increased due to radiation-related increased risk of hypertension and other secondary associations, and the risk of atherosclerotic disorders has also been reported recently. These results should be interpreted with caution because of changes in disease definitions over the follow-up period. The radiation-related risk of non-cancer respiratory diseases also appears to have increased over the follow-up period, but the shapes of the dose–response curves have shown little consistency.
This paper proposes a novel control strategy of a pulsewidth modulation (PWM) converter with no power-source voltage sensors. The strategy has two main features to improve a total power factor and ...efficiency, taking harmonic components into account without detecting the voltage waveforms. One feature is a direct instantaneous power control technique for the converter, which has been developed to control the instantaneous active and reactive power directly by selecting the optimum switching state of the converter. The other feature is an estimation technique of the power-source voltages, which can be performed by calculating the active and reactive power for each switching state of the converter from the line currents. A digital-signal-processor-based experimental system was developed, and experimental tests were conducted to examine the controllability. As a result, it was confirmed that the total power factor and efficiency were more than 97% and 93% over the load power range from 200 to 1400 W, respectively. These results have proven the excellent performance of the proposed system.
We experimentally demonstrate the structural tuning of the waveguiding modes of line defects in photonic crystal (PC) slabs. By tuning the defect widths, we realized efficient single-mode waveguides ...that operate within photonic band gap frequencies in silicon-on-insulator PC slabs. The observed waveguiding characteristics agree very well with three-dimensional finite difference time-domain calculations. We also directly measured the propagation loss of the line defect waveguides and obtained a value of 6 dB/mm.
The CALorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET), launched for installation on the International Space Station (ISS) in August, 2015, has been accumulating scientific data since October, 2015. CALET is ...intended to perform long-duration observations of high-energy cosmic rays onboard the ISS. CALET directly measures the cosmic-ray electron spectrum in the energy range of 1 GeV to 20 TeV with a 2% energy resolution above 30 GeV. In addition, the instrument can measure the spectrum of gamma rays well into the TeV range, and the spectra of protons and nuclei up to a PeV.
In order to operate the CALET onboard ISS, JAXA Ground Support Equipment (JAXA-GSE) and the Waseda CALET Operations Center (WCOC) have been established at JAXA and Waseda University, respectively. Scientific operations using CALET are planned at WCOC, taking into account orbital variations of geomagnetic rigidity cutoff. Scheduled command sequences are used to control the CALET observation modes on orbit. Calibration data acquisition by, for example, recording pedestal and penetrating particle events, a low-energy electron trigger mode operating at high geomagnetic latitude, a low-energy gamma-ray trigger mode operating at low geomagnetic latitude, and an ultra heavy trigger mode, are scheduled around the ISS orbit while maintaining maximum exposure to high-energy electrons and other high-energy shower events by always having the high-energy trigger mode active. The WCOC also prepares and distributes CALET flight data to collaborators in Italy and the United States.
As of August 31, 2017, the total observation time is 689 days with a live time fraction of the total time of ∼ 84%. Nearly 450 million events are collected with a high-energy (E > 10 GeV) trigger. In addition, calibration data acquisition and low-energy trigger modes, as well as an ultra-heavy trigger mode, are consistently scheduled around the ISS orbit. By combining all operation modes with the excellent-quality on-orbit data collected thus far, it is expected that a five-year observation period will provide a wealth of new and interesting results.
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