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This study performed the semen discrimination test, short tandem repeat (STR) typing, and Y-chromosome specific-STR (Y-STR) typing on five, 30–50-year-old semen stains. All samples reacted positively with the SM test reagent, and we observed sperm heads in all samples microscopically. The quantity of DNA extracted from the 43- and 50-year-old samples was much lower than from the other samples. STR typing of the 30-, 32-, 32-, 43-, and 50-year-old semen samples detected a maximum of 13, 15, 15, 11, and 6 of 15 loci, respectively, while Y-STR typing detected 16, 16, 16, 10, and 10 of 16 loci. These results suggest that the semen discrimination test and STR and Y-STR typing can detect extremely old semen stains and are useful for forensic practice.

We develop the micro chamber for real-time monitoring of living cell. It is integrated with an extremely low dead volume sample injector. The chamber was fabricated by the combination of isotropic etching and deep trench etching using CCP-RIE and ICP-RIE. The reproducible sample injection of the order of 1 nL is performed. Biological cell culture of HeLa is also demonstrated in a prototype device.

In this paper we present a concentration-conservative flow switch using a sheath flow. A novel concept of stepwise flow was proposed to prevent the sample dilution during flow switching. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations revealed that the stepwise flow suppressed a back flow of the sample reagent that caused the sample dilution. Based on the CFD simulation results, the prototype devices of the flow switch utilizing the stepwise flow were designed. Using fabricated devices, reduction of the sample dilution by the stepwise flow was confirmed. In order to reduce the switching time, pneumatic microvalves were integrated with the flow switch. Its characteristic of the switching time was evaluated experimentally. The switching time was about 130 ms, which was reduced to less than half compared to the case of using off-chip valves. In the case that the sample flow rate is 1 µL/min, it is expected that the flow switch will achieve fluid sampling with the accuracy of the order of nanoliters.

Cemento-ossifying fibroma is a relatively rare osteogenic tumor of the jaw bones. A case of cemento-ossifying fibroma accompanied by a cystic area is reported here. The tumor was found in the mandibular molar region of a 52-year-old woman.Histopathological examination showed that the tumor consisted of fibrous tissue, and contained cementicle-like tissue, woven and lamellar bone, and osteoid tissue. The fibrous tissue was perforated by multiple cystic spaces of varying size, occasionally filled with blood.Therefore, the tumor was histopathologically diagnosed as cemento-ossifying fibroma. The cystic changes of this lesion were also discussed.

This paper presents a concentration-conservative multiple sample injector. The stepwise flow was used to reduce dilution of the sample reagent while the reagent was injected into the sample collection outlet. By using CFD simulation, the concentration profile of the sample reagent was estimated. It was clearly shown that the concentration was kept in a sample outlet. For experimental evaluation, a sample injector was fabricated and the sample injection using stepwise flow was observed by a fluorescent measuring system.

This paper describes methods to develop autonomous flight control systems for UAVs. The unmanned helicopter "RMAX" produced by YAMAHA Motor Co., LTD. is used in this study. It was difficult to develop flight control systems, because the dynamics of the helicopter is nonlinear. An efficient method to design controllers by training neural networks is proposed in this paper. It is easy to use trained neural network together with online training neural networks or adaptive controllers to compensate undesirable effects which are not modeled or sudden changes of the target and environment, therefore the control system can be highly reliable. Results of flight experiments are shown to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.

This paper describes methods to develop autonomous flight control systems for UAVs. The unmanned helicopter "RMAX" produced by Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. is used in this study. It was difficult to develop flight control systems, because the dynamics of the helicopter is nonlinear. An efficient method to design controllers by training neural networks is proposed in this paper. It is easy to use trained neural network together with online training neural networks or adaptive controllers to compensate undesirable effects which are not modeled or sudden changes of the target and environment, therefore the control system can be highly reliable. Results of flight experiments are shown to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.

Proposes a design method of a sliding mode controller by training a neural network. The singular solution of the optimal control problem is applied to training the neural network. We focus on the robustness of the trained controller against uncertainties, and we propose a method to quantify the robustness of any kind of controllers by training another neural network. Moreover, methods to train a quantified robust controller are proposed, and they can also improve the robustness. Some numerical simulations show the effectiveness of proposed methods.

Pb‐substituted Ba‐ferrite films were prepared at various substrate temperature Ts by dc magnetron sputtering and their crystallographic characteristics and magnetic properties were investigated. The substitution of Pb facilitates the crystallization and improves the crystallinity for hexagonal M phase. All of the films prepared at Ts above 460 °C exhibit a good c‐axis orientation and the c‐axis dispersion angle (Δθ50) for Pb‐substituted Ba‐ferrite films is as small as 1°. The coercivities (Hc⊥) and Hc∥) and saturation magnetization Ms of Pb‐substituted Ba‐ferrite films are 0.7–1.0 kOe, 0.2 kOe and 250–300 emu/cm3, respectively.

To expand software easily, the construction of large-scale widely distributed systems should be based on the concept of autonomous decentralized systems. It is proposed that the software expansion methods should be variable, according to the characteristics of software. Two types of software, online control software and human service software, are derived from the analysis of software characteristics. The software expansion process is then derived, and online replacement is discussed. >

Studies on SiO/sub 2/-SiO/sub 2/ bonding with hydrofluoric acid (HF) are described. This method has a remarkable feature that bonding can be obtained at room temperature. Advantages of this method are low thermal damage, low residual stress and simplicity of the bonding process, which are expected for the packaging and assembly of MEMS. The bond characteristics were measured under different bonding conditions of HF concentration, pressure, chemicals and so on. The bond strength depends on the applied pressure during bonding. HF concentration can be reduced to 0.1%. The bonding is also observed using KOH solution instead of HF. TEM, SIMS, RI and EPMA were applied to evaluate the bonded interface. From the TEM results, an interlayer is formed between SiO/sub 2/-SiO/sub 2/. The thickness of the interlayer depends strongly on the applied pressure during bonding. The SIMS results showed that hydrogen and fluorine partially exist in the interlayer. Considering the result of the RI analysis, surplus HF solution is squeezed out from the interface as the bonding progress. From these results, both surfaces of the SiO/sub 2/ are solved by HF and an interlayer, which is a binding layer, is formed. Formation of the interlayer plays a very important role for the characteristics of HF-bonding.

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) devices have been fabricated in a small size on quartz or glass substrates. To fabricate a quartz device, we developed a novel bonding method with HF solution. HF-bonding was carried out with 1% HF solution with a pressure of /spl sim/40 gf/cm/sup 2/. With an evaluation of the new bonding method, we confirm that the method ensures enough strength, air tightness and optical property. An advantage of this method is simplicity of bonding process in comparison with a conventional thermal bonding. Using the glass /spl mu/CE devices, we obtained the original device design and process procedure through our experiments. It was proved that /spl mu/CE chip permits to apply higher electric power in comparison with the conventional CE system. We show that our design permits to perform quantitative sample injection (several 10 pl or less), effective separation (the number of theoretical plates is over 2500) and high speed analysis (over 10 times as high as the conventional CE system). These features promise an advantage of /spl mu/CE devices over conventional analytical equipments.

Electrophoresis features of large DNA in dense pillar array structures were studied. The sieving structures were all-quartz-made, 200 – 500nm in diameter, 5 jim in height, and fabricated by dry etching process employing high selective Ni mask. Electrophoresis velocities of DNA in the structure were measured by a fluorescence microscope. The separation ability of T4 and lambda in the pillar region was dependent on the pillar size. The ability was significantly enhanced at the boundary where the DNA entered into the dense pillar region from free solution region. These results shows the importance of pillar pattern design for the DNA separation, and the possibility of high performance separation by optimizing the pillar size and the boundary effect.

An efficient micromixer using nonhomogeneous multilayer in the laminar flow regime is described. In order to increase the mixing efficiency, the CFD simulation was used to optimize the width of the multilayers. It is estimated that the reagents mixing is proceeded more than 10 times faster compared to previous multilayer micromixers. The optimized micromixer was fabricated, and its mixing efficiency was evaluated.

We have proposed a field-inversion electrophoresis on a microchip for a shorter effective length, and investigated the external frequency for the DNA analysis based on the field-inversion electrophoresis device. By using the optimized frequency, we demonstrated that the field-inversion electrophoresis has great potentials for the separation of DNA fragments with shorter effective length.

The effects of heat treatment during fabrication process and NaOH treatment after fabrication on surface silanol (Si-OH) concentration profile are discussed. FTIR-ATR (Fourier transform Infrared Spectroscopy - Attenuated Total Reflection) method is applied to measure the surface OH concentration of materials. The result revealed that FTIR-ATR can be a simple solution for estimation of OH concentration on the glass surface.

We have developed novel μ-CE chips with “on chip” optical slit which cut off the stray light in order to improve the sensitivity of the optical absorption detection on μ-CE chips. Our chips which have an optical slit at the bonding interface have been successfully fabricated on synthesized quartz glass substrates using HF (hydrofluoric acid solution) bonding method [1],[2]. The signal level of UV absorption detection was improved about ten times by applying the “on chip” optical slit compared with that of conventional µ-CE chips.

The concept of a kind of new micro capillary electrophoresis chip (μ-CE) for DNA analysis is stated. The micro channel array with high aspect ratio is the key part, whose wall should have a slight inclination to ensure the fabrication. It is demonstrated that M2DXL (Moving Mask Deep X-ray Lithography) technology can successfully control the inclination and enables to integrate micro optical components such as micro lens into the chip which improve detection performance greatly.

In general, both unstructured and structured uncertainties coexist in an uncertain system. Therefore methods in which either type of uncertainties can be treated are not enough, and it is not assured that designed controllers can stabilize the uncertain system. Moreover, methods to design controllers which have robust performance even if the system is mutated are also required. In the paper, methods to design robust controllers for a nonlinear system where both unstructured and structured uncertainties, that is multiple uncertainties, exist. A neural network is effective in designing such a controller, and robustness can be drawn from the training. Effectiveness of proposed methods are shown by some numerical simulations.

Fabrication method and characteristics of micro capillary electrophoresis (μ-CE) chips fabricated on synthetic fused silica (quartz glass) substrates are described. A novel room temperature bonding method with hydrofluoric acid solution is applied [1], [2]. Advantages of this method are low thermal damage, low residual stress due to the room temperature bonding and simplicity of the bonding process which are expected for the assembly of microfluidic devices. The migration time variations are investigated to confirm the reproducibility of the fabricated μ-CE chips.

The LIGA (Lithographie Galvanoformung Abformung) process using synchrotron radiation lithography is applied to the microfabrication of capillary array electrophoresis (CAE) device. Laser-induced fluorescence detection system for the CAE device has been constructed by the modification of laser confocal fluorescence microscopy. DNA molecules were detected during migrating in the microchannels filled with polymer separation matrices under electric field to optimize the separation conditions for DNA analysis. Based on this observation, we demonstrated that microfabricated CAE device is realized the fast separation of DNA.

This paper describes the cultivation of primary cells in a microchamber and the real-time monitoring of small amounts of antibody secretion after the introduction of a minute amount of stimulus by a microinjector using time-resolved fluorescence anisotropy analysis.

A 4-vane-type Radio-Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) accelerator system for MeV ion implantation has been constructed and ion beams of boron and nitrogen have been accelerated successfully up to an energy of 1.01 and 1.22 MeV, respectively. The acceleration of phosphorus is now ongoing. The design was performed with two computer codes called SUPERFISH and PARMTEQ. The energy of the accelerated ions was measured by Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy. The obtained values agreed well with the designed ones. Thus we have confirmed the validity of our design and have found the possibility that the present RFQ will break through the production-use difficulty of MeV ion implantation.

The presence of 2-deoxy-2-[ 18 F]fluoro- d -mannose ([ 18 F]FDM) in 2-deoxy-2-[ 18 F]fluoro- d -glucose ([ 18 F]FDG) prepared by the reaction of 3,4,6-tri- O -acetyl- d -glucal (TAG) with [ 18 F]acetyl hypofluorite ([ 18 F]CH 3 COOF) or [ 18 F]F 2 was quantified by radio HPLC analysis of reacetylated [ 18 F]FDG. The solvent effects on the stereoselectivity of the reaction of TAG with [ 18 F]CH 3 COOF were examined in six kinds of solvent. Reaction of TAG with [ 18 F]CH 3 COOF in Freon-11 results in the least contamination of [ 18 F]FDM (4–5%). The presence of [ 18 F]FDM in the [ 18 F]FDG prepared from TAG with [ 18 F]F 2 was also indicated, but by careful chromatographic separation of hexopyranosyl difluorides the amount was reduced to nearly that resulting from the [ 18 F]CH 3 COOF method.

The Computer systems for on-line control purposes have become popular in Japan. High reliability, quick system response, high through put and expandability are the main needs in these systems. To satisfy these diversified needs, Hitachi Control Computer 80 system has been developed with the modular configuration phylosophy. The system architecture has been designed with emphasis on distributed load sharing functions using multiple processors. Especially we think it most important to offer a large-scaled computer system without the deterrioration of responsiveness. In the multi-computer system, the main functions are the message exchanges, the control of other computer tasks and the management of common resources, that is, files and input/output devices. These functions are implemented by the interruptions and switching mechanisms of input/output interfaces. In this paper, we present and discuss the details of technologies in which we utilize the reliable, shared memory as the centralized system information. The technologies of system reliability are also discussed.