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International audience; Methionine oxidation is involved in regulating the protein activity and often leads to protein malfunction. However, tools for quantitative analyses of protein-specific methionine oxidation are currently unavailable. In this work, we developed a biological sensor that quantifies oxidized methionine in the form of methionine-R-sulfoxide in target proteins. The biosensor "tpMetROG" consists of methionine sulfoxide reductase B (MsrB), circularly permuted yellow fluorescent protein (cpYFP), thioredoxin, and protein G. Protein G binds to the constant region of antibodies against target proteins, specifically capturing them. Then, MsrB reduces the oxidized methionine in these proteins, leading to cpYFP fluorescence changes. We assessed this biosensor for quantitative analysis of methionine-R-sulfoxide in various proteins, such as calmodulin, IDLO, LegP, Sacde, and actin. We further developed an immunosorbent assay using the biosensor to quantify methionine oxidation in specific proteins such as calmodulin in animal tissues. The biosensor-linked immunosorbent assay proves to be an indispensable tool for detecting methionine oxidation in a protein-specific manner. This is a versatile tool for studying the redox biology of methionine oxidation in proteins.

This study is to confirm significant group determination for life logging. Six undergraduate students were participated in experiment. They were divided to two groups consist of three persons. Subjects were presented to sixteen movie clips relating to emotion of four categories. PPIs (Pulse to Pulse Intervals) extracted from PPG were analyzed. Pearson correlation was tested to PPIs between subjects. When the same emotional stimuli were presented, PPIs of twelve pairs were highly correlated significantly. These results showed the possibility to utilize criteria for synchrony for determining significant group.

Life logging in online space has recently been utilized to share emotion rather than to remember daily life.Therefore, this study is to determine social emotion in life logging. Social emotion was analized and collected from emotion vocabularies of 21 power blogging sites in Korea, such as Naver blog, Kakaotalk, Band, Facebook, Instagram, KaKaostory, and Daum. The collected vocabularies were sorted into morphemes and adjectives were extracted. The frequencies of the adjectives were analyzed, and their similarities was subjectively tested over 99 vocabularies showing high frequency. However, they showed insigniticant. In order to make up for the limition of this frequency analysis, 10 out of total 21 target sites were separately selected and 600 adjectives were extracted again. The extracted 600 vocabularies were sorted into 120 groups by Card sorting, and each group’s representative vocabulary was defined as soial emotion demensions.

In this paper, AC transport current loss of vertically (face-to-face) stacked HTS tapes is evaluated through numerical, analytical methods and experimental measurement as well. Single, two- and three-stacked tapes were fabricated and AC transport current losses were measured electrically. Numerical calculation, which uses electric scalar and magnetic vector potentials as unknowns, was also performed and it was confirmed that the numerically calculated losses coincide excellently with the measured ones. Two other analytical methods, which are basically from the Norris ellipse equation using degraded critical current, are proposed and the comparison of the loss data is addressed.

In this paper we investigate AC-transport current loss and current distribution of Bi-2223/Ag tapes which are arranged in edge-to-edge configuration. A numerical code was developed to estimate the transport current loss and the current distribution across the tapes. AC-loss measurements were also performed and the coincidence between the calculated and measured values is excellent. AC losses of the horizontally-attached tapes were larger than just a simple summation of each tape's loss but not as large as the loss from Norris equation. Discussions on these results are addressed using the current distribution obtained from numerical analysis.

Thirty ng/mm2 lumbrokinase, a potent fibrinolytic enzyme, was immobilized in a Korean type total artificial heart (KORTAH) valve by photoreaction; polyallylamine was used as a photoreactive linker. Lumbrokinase-immobilized polyurethane valves were then fitted to the total artificial hearts of 3 healthy 50 kg lambs. In the control lamb, the valves were untreated; in one other, only valves on the right were treated; and in the remaining animal, only those on the left. Implants were in place for up to 3 days, and cardiac output was 5 L/min. To facilitate thrombus formation, low doses of heparin were administered. In the control lamb, thrombi was observed only in the inlet parts of the valves. In the other 2 experiments, thrombi formed in untreated control valves but not in lumbrokinase treated valves. The grade of thrombus formation in untreated valves was 1.06+/-1.37 versus 0+/-0 in the treated part by one-sided Student's t-test (p < 0.1). After implantation, fibrinolytic activity was only observed in treated valves by fibrin plate methods. The proteolytic activity of the treated valves was 3 times higher than that of untreated valves using the azocasein method. These data show that lumbrokinase treated polyurethane valves lead to decreased thrombus formation in vivo and that their biocompatibility is therefore greater than that of untreated valves.

Approximately 10% to 15% of all patients implanted with left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) have required right heart support with another device. The necessity of aggressive biventricular support has already been proposed. Therefore, the totally implantable biventricular assist device (BVAD) was developed. The width of the BVAD main body was 87 mm, the thickness 67 mm, and the height 106 mm, while the weight was 785 g. The automatic control algorithm was developed to prevent lung edema and atrial rupture.

We developed an electrohydraulic ventricular assist device with magnetic coupling. The integrated system consists of a blood pump, a water conduit for pressure transmission, a bellows type pumping sac, an actuator for transforming the circular motion of a motor to the linear motion of a pusher plate attached to the pumping sac with magnetic coupling, and a controller. The purpose of the coupling was to prevent excessive sucking against the atrial wall. Number 21 Medtronic Hall (Irvine, CA) mechanical valves were used in the inflow and outflow ports of the blood pump. Maximum dynamic stroke volume was 48 ml, and against a mean afterload of 100 mm Hg, maximum pump output was 7 L/min. Chronic in vivo experiments were performed in three sheep, and during these evaluations the system showed no noticeable problems related to mechanical or electronic devices. When left atrial pressure decreased below 0 mm Hg, the magnetic coupling system decoupled the pumping sac and pusher plate with satisfactory reliability. The device was clinically applied in a postoperative patient with chronic dilating cardiomyopathy, and no significant device related problems ensued. These results prove that the electrohydraulic ventricular assist system with magnetic coupling is a suitable ventricular assist device.

Automatic physiological control of a moving-actuator type totally-implantable artificial heart occupies a pivotal position for clinical application. We developed a fuzzy logic and knowledge based automatic physiological control algorithm. The fuzzy logic used belongs to the velocity-type fuzzy P control, and the other parts were constructed from expert knowledge most of which have the IF-THEN forms. In vitro experiments were carried out, and we verified the good performance of our developed control algorithm.

The development of a control method for the totally implantable artificial heart (TAH) to regulate cardiac output according to the change in physiological demand was the goal of this study. The conventional proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller was used for the automatic regulation of the cardiac output. Furthermore, using a fuzzy gain-tuning algorithm, the PID controller parameters were adaptively tuned to the optimal operating point of the process, which varied with hemodynamic disturbances. To determine the physiological demand, the interventricular pressure (IVP) inside the TAH was used to estimate inflow conditions. The negative peak value of the IVP at each diastolic period has a linear relation to the corresponding atrial pressure. Based on the relationship of atrial pressure to the IVP, the automatic control algorithm proposed regulates the optimal pump rate in terms of sufficient cardiac output delivery under a given venous return. To maintain a well-balanced left and right pump output from the volumetrically coupled, circular moving actuator type TAH, the automatic control also adjusts an asymmetric amount of the moving actuator stroke angle, which provides a different net output of the ventricles. The in vitro performance of the newly developed automatic control method was assessed using a mock circulatory system. Over a physiological range of preload, -3–15 mmHg of right atrial pressure (RAP) and 80–120 mmHg of aortic pressure (AoP), the cardiac output varied from 4.2 to 6.31/min with the left atrial pressure (LAP) maintained below 15 mmHg.