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Chelidoperca tosaensis is described as a new species based on 84 specimens from Japan and the Philippines taken from depths of 60–302 m. The species can be distinguished from all known congeners by having the following combination of characters: scale rows between lateral line and base of spinous dorsal fin 3; pored lateral-line scales 37–42 (modally 39); scale rows in longitudinal series 39–43 (modally 40); no longitudinal dark stripe or row of dark blotches on body side. The new species is additionally characterized by having a combination of numerous, scattered, yellow spots on dorsal and anal fins with red streak or cluster of reddish spots over bases of about 4–6th dorsal-fin spines; large ocellated red spot with pinkish white border present on membrane between opercular spines; pelvic fin with middle area yellow with whitish spine, and whitish first, second and fifth soft rays; caudal fin with about three transverse rows of yellow spots centrally and posteriorly, two fan-shaped rows of red blotches on basal third, and a pair of white blotches with a pair of yellow blotches between white blotches on the base. Diagnostic characters of Chelidoperca stella, previously known only from its type locality in the Andaman Sea, are updated based on 12 specimens from Taiwan, the Gulf of Tonkin, Vietnam and the Philippines. These specimens represent the first records of the species from the Pacific Ocean.

Recently, circulating tumor cell (CTC) is gathering attention because the clinical applications are enabled by investigating the condition of the CTC. Our group has researched the CTC detection device by using the ring-resonator type of electrode and measuring the resonant frequency by inherent dielectric constants. In this paper, the Q-factor of ring-resonator type of electrode was considered to improve detection sensitivity by setting the negative resistance on this electrode and controlling the resistance values. As the negative resistance, a usefulness of the Esaki diode and the FET combined with the capacitance were examined on the circuit simulation. Furthermore, the simple ring-resonator type of electrode connected with the FET as the negative resistance was fabricated as the early research, and the resonant frequency for each material was measured in order to investigate the ability of this electrode. From the result, it was confirmed that the resonant frequency was separated at MHz order and the detection sensitivity was increased due to enhancement of the Q-factor by using the negative resistance.

High-speed isolation of microparticles (e.g., microplastics, heavy metal particles, microbes, cells) from heterogeneous populations is the key element of high-throughput sorting instruments for chemical, biological, industrial and medical applications. Unfortunately, the performance of continuous microparticle isolation or so-called sorting is fundamentally limited by the trade-off between throughput, purity, and yield. For example, at a given throughput, high-purity sorting needs to sacrifice yield, or vice versa. This is due to Poisson statistics of events (i.e., microparticles, microparticle clusters, microparticle debris) in which the interval between successive events is stochastic and can be very short. Here we demonstrate an on-chip microparticle sorter with an ultrashort switching window in both time (10 μs) and space (10 μm) at a high flow speed of 1 m s-1, thereby overcoming the Poisson trade-off. This is made possible by using femtosecond laser pulses that can produce highly localized transient cavitation bubbles in a microchannel to kick target microparticles from an acoustically focused, densely aligned, bumper-to-bumper stream of microparticles. Our method is important for rare-microparticle sorting applications where both high purity and high yield are required to avoid missing rare microparticles.

A ring resonator type of electrode to detect the circulating tumor cell (CTC) has been proposed because the early diagnosis can be performed and the cell condition can be investigated. Main emphasis was placed on the improvement of the Q-factor for high detection sensitivity. The low loss aluminum, Al membrane was deposited on the surface of the dielectric substrate and the thick copper, Cu was plated on the aluminum as the electrode thorough the lossy titanium, Ti as the adhesive. The Q-factor of the ring resonator was calculated to be about 100 at X-band frequencies thanks to the Al – Ti – Cu layered structure. To confirm the capability for the cell detection, the BaTiO 3 particles were inserted in the ring resonator type of electrodes instead of CTCs as preliminary experiment. The cell identification could be performed from the numerically and experimentally investigations.

Recently, development of a new Circulating Tumor Cells detection device is desired instead of Cell Search System in Japan. In this paper, cell identification has been considered using orthogonally-face-to-face type of micro-electrode where the ring resonator is connected with the electrode in parallel. As early study, the resonant frequency of this electrode was calculated by inserting the Band T lymphocytes instead of the CTCs. It is obvious that the cell identification is possible by calculating resonant frequency.

Electrorotation is a noninvasive technique to measure the dielectric properties of single particles. In this paper, we developed an electrorotation device for high-throughput dielectric characterization of circulating tumor cells (CTCs). The device consists of array of pillar electrodes for single-cell trapping and electrorotation analysis. The practicality of the device was evaluated using barium titanate (BaTiO 3 ) particles. The single BaTiO 3 particles were trapped in gaps between the four pillar electrodes and rotated by electrorotation torque, which reflects their dielectric properties.

In this study, we discuss the relationship between shape and angular velocity for cells of the same kind but with different angular velocity under electrorotation. By representing the shape of the cell as a set of distances between the center of gravity and the contour and analyzing it using a self-organizing map, we hypothesized that there is a relationship between the minor axis length and the angular velocity of the cells. In addition, the result of electromagnetic field simulation simulating the device was to affirm this hypothesis. A meaningful consideration was made toward future improvement of the device.

Because radiation patterns of conventional antennas at the security gates are not enough sharp, many false operations are pointed out to recognize the RF-tags located in short distance away from the security gates. Having this fact in mind, a technique to narrow down the radiation patterns of the antenna operationally while keeping antenna size to be small has been proposed based on the monopulse system at 920 MHz. In this paper, to verify the usefulness of this system, the influence of the interference waves from other unchecked RF-Tags located in short distance away from the security gate was considered, the shoplifted RF-Tag passing through the security gate.

Propagation characteristics of electromagnetic wave at an interface between the free space and hydrated soil were investigated in order to construct a landslide prognostication system. The prehension on the complex permittivity of the hydrated soil became integral technology, so that the complex permittivity was measured as the function of the water volume content at frequency bands from low frequency (LF) to medium frequency (MF), and the transmission and reflection characteristics of the hydrated soil was calculated based on the propagation model applying the measured complex permittivities. From the result, it is obvious that the reflection from the hydrated soil behaves as a key role to estimate the water content. In addition, the complex permittivities of live and dead leaves, woods and stones were measured and the reflection characteristics of the forest existing on the surface of the land were calculated and evaluated. It is found from the calculated results that their influence is little for the reflection characteristics. Finally, the initial consideration of the landslide prognostication system using the bistatic radar technology was performed.

Goal: The purpose of this study is to propose the palm-sized cryoprobe system based on a new concept and to suggest that the freezing technique could be used for treatment of epilepsy. Methods: We propose herein a cryoprobe system based on the boiling effect that uses a specific refrigerants with a boiling point higher than that of liquid nitrogen yet low enough to result in cell necrosis. To evaluate and verify the effectiveness of the proposed system, cooling characteristics are investigated in agar. In addition, the system is applied to a Wistar rat brain-model, in which the epileptic activities are induced in advance by a potent epileptogenic substance. Results: The design concept yielded the following benefits: 1) the selected refrigerant promotes sealing in the tank; 2) the tank can be made as compact as possible, limited only by the volume required for the refrigerant; 3) because the tank and probe units can be separated by a nonconducting, flexible, and high-pressure tube, the tank unit can be manipulated without disturbing the probe tip with mechanical vibrations and electrical noise. Although the agar experiments, we verified that the proposed system can uniquely and reproducibly create an ice ball. Moreover, in the rat experiments in vivo , it was confirmed that penicillin G-induced epileptic activities disappeared on freezing with the proposed system. Conclusions: The palm-sized system has desired characteristics and can apply for an animal model of epilepsy. Significance: Results of in vivo experiments suggest that cryosurgery may be an effective treatment for epilepsy.

Recently, contactless landslides prognostication systems using light wave lasers and ultrasonic waves have been researched and developed, but they suffer from deterioration of detection accuracy due to environment resistance. To overcome such difficulty, electromagnetic waves have been focused on, and a system which can detect water contents in hydrated soil by electromagnetic waves has been investigated in this paper. As the first step, the measurement of the dielectric characteristics of the hydrated soil and the calculation of the incidence and reflection characteristics of the electromagnetic wave in the hydrated soil were performed as functions of the water content and the operating frequency. And thus, a possibility to prognosticate landslides was indicated by the reflection performance from the hydrated soil at medium frequency band.

Cobalt–N-heterocyclic carbene catalytic systems have been developed for chelation-assisted ortho-alkylation of aromatic compounds with alkyl halides. Aryl imines can be selectively monoalkylated at room temperature by various primary or secondary alkyl chlorides or bromides. The catalytic system can also be applied to 2-arylpyridine derivatives, which in the absence of steric hindrance are amenable to dialkylation by an excess of the alkyl halide. Mechanistic experiments, including reactions of stereochemical probes and radical clocks, indicate that the reaction involves single-electron transfer from the cobalt center to the alkyl halide to form the corresponding alkyl radical, which has a finite lifetime before it undergoes C–C bond formation. NRF (Natl Research Foundation, S’pore) Accepted version

An ortho-alkenylation reaction of an aromatic aldimine with an internal alkyne is efficiently promoted by a cobalt catalyst generated from CoBr2, triarylphosphine, and iPrMgBr. The reaction takes place under mild room-temperature conditions to afford, upon acidic hydrolysis, a variety of ortho-alkenylated aromatic aldehydes in moderate to excellent yields. The neighboring formyl and alkenyl groups in the product can be utilized as synthetic handles for the facile construction of indene and naphthalene carbocycles.

Radical reactions using tribenzyltin hydride (Bn3SnH) easily prepared from tin and benzyl chloride were studied. The Et3B-initiated reduction and cyclization of haloalkanes and haloalkenes with Bn3SnH proceeded efficiently. Homolytic hydrostannylation of alkynes with Bn3SnH followed by treatment with electrophiles gave functionalized alkenes in good to high yields. The organotin byproducts formed could be easily removable by filtration and silica-gel column chromatography without any pretreatment. It was also found that tribenzyltin chloride (Bn3SnCl) easily decomposed to benzyl alcohol in a basic solution of H2O2.

A cobalt-triarylphosphine catalyst promotes an annulation reaction of an α,β-unsaturated imine and an internal alkyne to afford a polysubstituted dihydropyridine derivative in good yield under mild conditions. The reaction likely involves alkenylation of the olefinic C-H bond via cobalt-mediated nitrogen-assisted C-H activation followed by facile 6π electrocyclization of the resulting azatriene intermediate.

Electrorotation is a noninvasive technique to measure the dielectric properties of biological cells. In this paper, We fabricate an electrorotation microwell array for high-throughput dielectric characterization of circulating tumor cells (CTCs). The device consists of a microwell array and electrorotation chip. The practicality of the device was evaluated using PC-9 cells. The PC-9 cells were captured single cells in the microwells and measured electrorotation spectrum, which reflects its dielectric properties.

Focal brain cooling (FBC) is under investigation in preclinical trials of intractable epilepsy (IE), including status epilepticus (SE). This method has been studied in rodents as a possible treatment for epileptic disorders, but more evidence from large animal studies is required. To provide evidence that FBC is a safe and effective therapy for IE, we investigated if FBC using a titanium cooling plate can reduce or terminate focal neocortical seizures without having a significant impact on brain tissue. Two cats and two macaque monkeys were chronically implanted with an epidural FBC device over the somatosensory and motor cortex. Penicillin G was delivered via the intracranial cannula for induction of local seizures. Repetitive FBC was performed using a cooling device implanted for a medium-term period (FBC for 30min at least twice every week; 3 months total) in three of the four animals. The animals exhibited seizures with repetitive epileptiform discharges (EDs) after administration of penicillin G, and these discharges decreased at less than 20°C cooling with no adverse histological effects. The results of this study suggest that epidural FBC is a safe and effective potential treatment for IE and SE.

Objective The goal of the study was to investigate the effects of focal brain cooling on epileptic discharges (EDs) and background rhythms in the sensorimotor cortex of anesthetized rats using spectral analysis of electroencephalography (EEG). Methods Penicillin G was administered intracortically into superficial layers of the left sensorimotor cortex and EDs were induced. Focal brain cooling was achieved using a cooling device attached to the cortical surface. The cortical surface was cooled to 25 °C, 20 °C and 15 °C, and EEG was continuously recorded just beneath the cooling device. EEG spectral powers were determined using fast Fourier transform before and during cooling. Results Penicillin G induced EDs and increased the Alpha and Beta power spectra. Cooling suppressed EDs with an effect that depended on the brain temperature. Cooling to 25 °C attenuated Beta powers, cooling to 20 °C attenuated Alpha and Beta powers, and cooling to 15 °C suppressed spectral powers ranging from Delta to Beta bands. Conclusions These results suggest that focal brain cooling can terminate EDs in the cortex and suppress spectral powers with a temperature-dependent effect. Significance These findings may contribute to development of a new clinical treatment for patients with epilepsy.

SUMMARY Purpose: Focal brain cooling is effective for suppression of epileptic seizures, but it is unclear if seizures can be suppressed without a substantial influence on normal neurologic function. To address the issue, a thermoelectrically driven cooling system was developed and applied in freemoving rat models of focal seizure and epilepsy. Methods: Focal seizures limited to the unilateral forelimb were induced by local application of a penicillin G solution or cobalt powder to the unilateral sensorimotor cortex. A proportional integration and differentiation (PID)‐controlled, thermoelectrically driven cooling device (weight of11 g)and bipolarelectrodeswere chronically implanted ontheeloquentarea(ontheepilepticfocus)andtheeffects of cooling (20, 15, and 10� C) on electrocorticography, seizurefrequency,andneurologicchangeswereinvestigated. Key Findings: Cooling was associated with a distinct reduction of the epileptic discharges. In both models, cooling of epileptic foci significantly improved both seizure frequency and neurologic functions from 20� C down to 15� C. Cooling to 10� C also suppressed seizures, but with no further improvement in neurologic function. Subsequent investigation of sensorimotor function revealed significant deterioration in foot-fault tests and the receptive field size at 15� C. Significance: Despite the beneficial effects in ictal rats, sensorimotor functions deteriorated at 15� C, thereby suggesting a lower limit for the therapeutic temperature. These results provide important evidence of atherapeutic effect of temperatures from 20 to 15� C using an implantable, hypothermal device for focal epilepsy.

Substitution reactions of acetals with carbon nucleophiles are fundamental and conventional organic reactions. We succeeded in the preparation of an optically active acetal, which reacted with a silyl enol ether smoothly to afford the desired adducts in racemic forms. By comparison of the ees of the products with the ees of the recovered acetals, we concluded that the aldol-type reactions proceeded not via direct displacement (SN2) or contact ion pairs (intimate ion pair) (SN1) but by a free oxocarbenium ion (SN1) mechanism. Next, a study to achieve asymmetric catalysis of the acetal substitution reactions was conducted. After many trials, it was found that a chiral niobium complex prepared from pentamethoxyniobium [Nb(OMe)5] and a tetradentate BINOL derivative could achieve high enantioselectivities. Asymmetric aldol-type reactions of acetals with silyl enol ethers proceeded smoothly to afford the corresponding aldol-type adducts in good yields with high enantioselectivities.

In travelling-wave electric fields, particles are propelled along electrode arrays by a propulsion force. The propulsion force depends on an applied frequency, voltage and size of particles. In this paper, we present the separation method of micro particles using the propulsion force and inclined gravity. The suspensions of polystyrene beads were used as the method to demonstrate the general application for the selective retention or transportation of particles. The efficiency of the method depends on the size of particles and mass density of particles. Additionally the method can measure the propulsion force on particles by adjusting the inclined angle.

We propose a subdural electrode array guided by a 0.3mm-diamter shape memory alloy guidewire for a minimally-invasive method of electrocorticogram recording. The measured electric characteristics showed that the proposed electrodes are compatible with the application of electrocorticogram recording. Somatosensory evoked potential was measured by the proposed method in the animal test in vivo. The results confirmed that the proposed electrode array is available for the electrocorticogram recording under a minimally-invasive surgery.

We observed nerve excitations on bullfrog sciatic nerves by an optical stimulation using a Holmium YAG (Ho:YAG) laser with the laser power over 2.0 [W]. The laser power was higher the amplitude of the action potential was bigger. However, when the laser power over 10.0 [W], the laser gave damage to the sciatic nerve and the action potential decreased. Not only the action potential was evoked by the high temperature but also the sciatic nerve was damaged by an overlarge temperature. These results show the possibility that the single wavelength laser can use to position estimation of epileptogenic focus and irreversible blocking of propagation of epilepsy seizure.

Laser irradiation is applied to some medical treatments such as dentistry, dermatology, cancer and is also expected to a brain surgical treatment. However, the effect of laser irradiation on brain nerves is not well known. We examined the influence of semiconductor pulse laser irradiation on epileptic bursts in the CA3 region of rat hppocampal slices in the experiment. Epileptic bursts were eliminated on the CA3 by the laser light of energy over 20.0 mJ/cmZ, and the effect was confined to the irradiation area. These results show that the laser irradiation has a possibility for an epilepsy surgical treatment.

In this paper, we propose a hardware oriented vector quantization algorithm employing rough-winner-take-all neural network. The proposed algorithm is almost same as K-means clustering which is the simplest vector quantization. The only different point is that the proposed method employs rough-winner-take-all as the substitute of ordinary winner-take-all. In a rough-winner-take-all strategy, the winner is roughly selected in the early learning stage and is strictly assigned in the later stage. The simulation results show that the quantization performance of the proposed method is nearly equal to Neural Gas which is an excellent vector quantization. Besides, the proposed method can be realized as an extra mode of existing K-means or Self-Organizing Map hardware by changing its winner-take-all controlling.

Both severe calcified lesions and hemodialysis (HD) are predictors for high rates of restenosis, even in the drug-eluting stent era. We sought to investigate the angiographic and clinical outcome in a population of HD versus non-hemodialysis (non-HD) patients with severe calcified lesions requiring rotational atherectomy. One hundred consecutive lesions (28 lesions in the HD group, 72 in the non-HD group) from 82 patients (19 patients in the HD group, 63 in the non-HD group) requiring rotational atherectomy prior to sirolimus-eluting stent (SES) implantation were analyzed post-procedure and at 8 months. Clinical outcomes were assessed at 12 months. Inclusion criteria were calcified lesions with >270° of superficial calcification on the intravascular ultrasound (IVUS), lesions that the IVUS could not cross, or undilatable lesions. There were no differences in patient characteristics except for age. Although both baseline and post-procedure angiographic findings were similar between the two groups, late loss in stented segment was significantly greater in the HD group than in the non-HD group (HD vs. non-HD: 0.69 ± 0.74 mm vs. 0.34 ± 0.50; P = 0.030). Also, the HD group revealed significantly worse clinical outcomes. In conclusion, mid-term results of highly complex, severely calcified lesions requiring rotational atherectomy in non-HD patients were permissible as compared to on-label lesions. However, in HD patients, both angiographic and clinical outcomes were still suboptimal in this lesion subset, even using SES.

1,4-dihydropyridine (DHP) Ca(2+) antagonists have recently been shown to block T-type Ca(2+) channels, which may render favorable actions on cardiovascular systems. However, this evaluation remains to be done systematically for each T-type Ca(2+) channel subtype except for the Ca(v)3.1 (alpha(1G)) subtype. To address this issue at the molecular level, blocking effects of 14 kinds of DHPs (amlodipine, aranidipine, azelnidipine, barnidipine, benidipine, cilnidipine, efonidipine, felodipine, manidipine, nicardipine, nifedipine, nilvadipine, nimodipine, nitrendipine), which are clinically used for treatments of hypertension, on 3 subtypes of T-type Ca(2+) channels [Ca(v)3.2 (alpha(1H)), Ca(v)3.3 (alpha(1I)), and Ca(v)3.1 (alpha(1G))] were investigated in the Xenopus oocyte expression system using the two-microelectrode voltage-clamp technique. These 3 kinds (alpha(1H), alpha(1I) and alpha(1G)) of T-type channels were blocked by amlodipine, manidipine and nicardipine. On the other hand, azelnidipine, barnidipine, benidipine and efonidipine significantly blocked alpha(1H) and alpha(1G), but not alpha(1I) channels, while nilvadipine and nimodipine apparently blocked alpha(1H) and alpha(1I), but not alpha(1G) channels. Moreover, aranidipine blocked only alpha(1H) channels. By contrast, cilnidipine, felodipine, nifedipine and nitrendipine had little effects on these subtypes of T-type channels. The result indicates that the blockade of T-type Ca(2+) channels by derivatives of DHP Ca(2+) antagonist was selective for the channel subtype. Therefore, these selectivities of DHPs in blocking T-type Ca(2+) channel subtypes would provide useful pharmacological and clinical information on the mode of action of the drugs including side-effects and adverse effects.

We propose a new measurement method for a degree of roughness of a given object surface. This method is not to measure the degree of roughness of the object surface directly, but to estimate the roughness from surface images. Named as circulating light sources (CLS), its multiple light sources aligned in a circle illuminate sequentially, and produce images including shadow of the object surface. As the shadows on the images reflect a shape of the object surface, the shapes of the surface, concavo-convex shape, can be estimated by these shadows. In this paper, features of surface roughness are extracted by a Wavelet Multiresolution Analysis (MRA) from the shadow images produced by the CLS, and are classified by a Self-Organizing Map (SOM). A roughness of an unknown surface can be estimated by the SOM after learning.

Genetic algorithms (GAs) are search algorithms based on the mechanics of natural selection and natural evolution. Due to cost reasons, hardware accelerators for GAs are required to reduce its execution time. In the hardware implementation of GAs, a circuit design of roulette wheel selection influences the performance of the GAs hardware. In this paper, we propose a new selection circuit based on Rough Comparison Method (RCM), and evaluate effects of the proposed circuit in terms of execution time and circuit size. The RCM is a parallel processing circuit. Therefore, the execution time is constant regardless of the increase of number in individuals, and the circuit size of the RCM is reduced than the ordinary parallel roulette selection circuits.

Dielectrophoresis (DEP) is the motion of a matter caused by polarization effects in a non-uniform electric field. Recently, studies on DEP are promoted in various medical fields, including separation and characterization of biological cells. It is very important but not easy to measure this motive force, so-called dielectrophoretic force (DEP force). In general, the DEP force generated by the designed electrodes is analyzed by the computer simulation that employs the finite element analysis method. However, it does not always calculate the correct DEP force. Therefore, we propose the method of measuring the DEP force accurately based on the null method. The experiment is conducted with the dielectrophoretic device (DEP device) in which microfabricated electrodes were formed and which contains the polystyrene particles exhibiting the negative DEP in distilled water in a non-uniform electric field. The displacement of the particle reaches a steady state 15 min. after the change of applied voltage v, angle θ or frequency f. The equilibrium state of the particle in a non-uniform electric field can be reached at any place by adjusting both of angles θ and φ, where θ is the “Pitch” angle and φ the “Yaw” angle for the device. The proposed method can measure the incredibly minute DEP force ranging from 25 fN (femto-Newton) at θ=5° to 298 fN at θ=90°, the accuracy of which is determined by the static friction and rolling friction between particles and the inner floor of the DEP device.

Genetic algorithm (GA) is search algorithm based on the mechanics of natural selection and natural genetics. By the way, hardware accelerators for GA are required to reduce an execution time of GA. In the hardware implementation of GA, a circuit design of roulette wheel selection influences the performance of the GA hardware. In this paper, we propose a new roulette wheel selection circuit based on a rough comparison method (RCM), and evaluate effects of the proposed circuit in terms of the execution time and a circuit size.

A 2−r shape of a membership function generator is presented. The proposed membership function generator requires a bit-shifter and a NOR operation only, and thus suits digital hardware implementation well. A fast defuzzification method employing active units is also presented. It reduces a calculation cost for the defuzzification. In this paper, we have successfully applied proposed methods to a self-organizing relationship network. Simulation results show that the proposed method has as good and approximation ability of nonlinear functions as the ordinary method.