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In antibody discovery, in-depth analysis of an antibody library and high-throughput retrieval of clones in the library are crucial to identifying and exploiting rare clones with different properties. However, existing methods have several technical limitations such as low process throughput from laborious cloning process and waste of the phenotypic screening capacity from unnecessary repetitive tests on the dominant clones. To overcome the limitations, we developed a new high-throughput platform for the identification and retrieval of clones in the library, TrueRepertoire™. TrueRepertoire™ provides highly accurate sequences of the clones with linkage information between heavy and light chains of the antibody fragment. Additionally, the physical DNA of clones can be retrieved in high throughput based on the sequence information. We validated the high accuracy of the sequences and demonstrated that there is no platform-specific bias. Moreover, the applicability of TrueRepertoire™ was demonstrated by a phage-displayed single-chain variable fragment (scFv) library targeting human hepatocyte growth factor (hHGF) protein.

The Roberval balance mentioned by E. Scott Barr presents a phenomenon against intuition that appears to violate the principle of torque equilibrium. Roberval called his balance a “static enigma.” This apparent paradox went unexplained for well over a century until L. Poinsot in 1804 explained that the thrusts created in the parallelogram canceled each other out, leaving only the downward force of the suspended thrusts. Others also attempted to explain the Roberval balance, specifically H. Richard Crane and Paul Chagnon, and a partial analysis was conducted with two exercises by E. J. Routh. Crane focused on the change of an object’s height; when tilted, there is no change in the potential energy even when the location of the object is changed. Chagnon noted that even when the location of the object is changed, the vertical force acting on balance remains constant. Despite the fact that these researchers attempted to explain the Roberval balance successfully in several other ways, their works all pertained to rotational equilibrium or the law of torque. One explanation is that students will typically use the force and torque to explain static equilibrium. In addition, E. S. Barr stated, “This device is intriguing to students, for the law of torque seems not to apply.”

A suction muffler is frequently used to control noise generated by impulsive pressure fluctuation induced by the piston/valve in a reciprocating compressor. However, the suction muffler adversely affects the compressor performance because it causes an additional pressure drop and heat transfer. In this study, with the aim of considering the complex interaction between acoustic waves and flow, both the flow performance and the acoustic performance of a suction muffler are simultaneously investigated by solving three-dimensional compressible Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations with high-order computational aeroacoustics schemes. To confirm the validity of the proposed numerical scheme for the simulation of acoustic waves, the transmission loss of a simple expansion muffler is predicted and compared with theoretical and experimental results. Then, performances of the target suction muffler are predicted and analyzed. On the basis of the analysis results, a new muffler is designed and its performances are predicted and compared with those of the original one. Finally, validation experiments are performed, whose results confirm improvements in the flow and acoustic performances of the new muffler design.

In this paper, we present a robust framework for facial pose estimation from binocular stereoscopic vision. Unlike prior work on the facial pose estimation that employs the whole landmarks even located in the wrong position, we propose a landmark selection method to remove the erroneous landmarks for better performance, especially in the large facial pose case. For this purpose, we train a convolutional neural network (CNN) in order to measure the confidence of each facial landmark detected by using a well-known landmark detection algorithm. Also, by fitting selected landmarks to 3D space, our framework becomes more robust even when a small number of landmarks are selected. Due to the absence of public dataset for the binocular stereo facial pose, we construct facial pose data sets using a motion sensor for performance validation. In our experiments, our method achieves the higher accuracy of the pose estimation than the previous method, especially for large facial pose cases.

BACKGROUND: Current dilemma working with surgically-induced OA (osteoarthritis) model include inconsistent pathological state due to various influence from surrounding tissues. On the contrary, biochemical induction of OA using collagenase II has several advantageous points in a sense that it does not involve surgery to induce model and the extent of induced cartilage degeneration is almost uniform. However, concerns still exists because biochemical OA model induce abrupt destruction of cartilage tissues through enzymatic digestion in a short period of time, and this might accompany systemic inflammatory response, which is rather a trait of RA (rheumatoid arthritis) than being a trait of OA. METHODS: To clear the concern about the systemic inflammatory response that might be caused by abrupt destruction of cartilage tissue, OA was induced to only one leg of an animal and the other leg was examined to confirm the presence of systemic degenerative effect. RESULTS: Although the cartilage tissues were rapidly degenerated during short period of time upon biochemical induction of OA, they did not accompanied with RA-like process based on the histology data showing degeneration of articular cartilage occurred only in the collagenase-injected knee joint. Scoring evaluation data indicated that the cartilage tissues in non-induced joint remained intact. Neutrophil count transiently increase between day 8 and day 16, and there were no significant change in other complete blood count profile showing a characteristics of OA disease. CONCLUSION: These study shows that biochemically induced cartilage degeneration truly represented uniform and reliable OA state.

Cell encapsulation has been reported to convey cytoprotective effects and to better maintain cell survival. In contrast to other studies, our report shows that the deposition of two major biomacromolecules, collagen type I (Col) and hyaluronic acid (HA), on mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) does not entirely block the cell plasma membrane surface. Instead, a considerable amount of the surface remained uncovered or only slightly covered, as confirmed by TEM observation and by FACS analysis based on quantitative surface labeling. Despite this structure showing openness and flexibility, the multilayer Col/HA films significantly increased cell survival in the attachment-deprived culture condition. In terms of stem cell characteristics, the MSCs still showed functional cell activity after film deposition, as evidenced by their colony-forming activity and in vitro osteogenic differentiation. The Col/HA multilayer films could provide a cytoprotective effect and induce osteogenic differentiation without deteriorating effect or inhibition of cellular attachment, showing that this technique can be a valuable tool for modulating stem cell activities.

The NF-κB system of transcription factors plays a crucial role in inflammatory diseases, making it an important drug target. We combined quantitative structure activity relationships for predicting the activity of new compounds and quantitative dynamic models for the NF-κB network with intracellular concentration models. GFA-MLR QSAR analysis was employed to determine the optimal QSAR equation. To validate the predictability of the IKKβ QSAR model for an external set of inhibitors, a set of ordinary differential equations and mass action kinetics were used for modeling the NF-κB dynamic system. The reaction parameters were obtained from previously reported research. In the IKKb QSAR model, good cross-validated q 2 (0.782) and conventional r 2 (0.808) values demonstrated the correlation between the descriptors and each of their activities and reliably predicted the IKKβ activities. Using a developed simulation model of the NF-κB signaling pathway, we demonstrated differences in IκB mRNA expression between normal and different inhibitory states. When the inhibition efficiency increased, inhibitor 1 (PS-1145) led to long-term oscillations. The combined computational modeling and NF-κB dynamic simulations can be used to understand the inhibition mechanisms and thereby result in the design of mechanism-based inhibitors.