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Outer membrane proteins (OMPs) are essential components of the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria. In terms of protein targeting and assembly, the current dogma holds that a ‘β-signal’ imprinted in the final β-strand of the OMP engages the β-barrel assembly machinery (BAM) complex to initiate membrane insertion and assembly of the OMP into the outer membrane. Here, we revealed an additional rule that signals equivalent to the β-signal are repeated in other, internal β-strands within bacterial OMPs, by peptidomimetic and mutational analysis. The internal signal is needed to promote the efficiency of the assembly reaction of these OMPs. BamD, an essential subunit of the BAM complex, recognizes the internal signal and the β-signal, arranging several β-strands and partial folding for rapid OMP assembly. The internal signal-BamD ordering system is not essential for bacterial viability but is necessary to retain the integrity of the outer membrane against antibiotics and other environmental insults.

A liver cyst is hepatic fluid-filled cavities often detected in clinical surveillances such as a health examination. Although the liver cyst is usually asymptomatic and observed without any therapeutic intervention, it can be symptomatic and needs treatment due to its enlargement, hemorrhage, and infection. A 74-year-old woman presented with upper abdominal pain and a huge liver cyst in the left lobe. Several examinations including image findings revealed that the symptom could be derived from the liver cyst. Although there is no definite guideline of treatment for symptomatic liver cysts, percutaneous ultrasound-guided drainage with sclerotherapy or surgery is often selected. Because of anatomical accessibility to the liver cyst and the patient’s wish, we performed endoscopic transgastric drainage with insertion of both an internal stent and an external nasocystic tube. Sclerotherapy with minocycline hydrochloride was performed through the nasocystic tube, and the liver cyst shrunk completely without any complications. This is the first reported method of administering minocycline hydrochloride through a nasocystic tube, which can be a therapeutic option for patients with symptomatic liver cysts.

This chapter introduces cyber-enhanced rescue canines that digitally strengthen the capability of search and rescue (SAR) dogs using robotics technology. A SAR dog wears a cyber-enhanced rescue canine (CRC) suit equipped with sensors (Camera, IMUs, and GNSS). The activities of the SAR dog and its surrounding view and sound are measured by the sensors mounted on the CRC suit. The sensor data are used to visualize the viewing scene of the SAR dog, its trajectory, its behavior (walk, run, bark, among others), and its internal state via cloud services (Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Maps, and camera server). The trajectory can be plotted on an aerial photograph captured by flying robots or disaster response robots. The visualization results can be confirmed in real time via the cloud servers on the tablet terminal located in the command headquarters and with the handler. We developed various types of CRC suits that can measure the activities of large- and mediumsize SAR dogs through non-invasive sensors on the CRC suits, and we visualized the activities from the sensor data. In addition, a practical CRC suit was developed with a company and evaluated using actual SAR dogs certified by the Japan Rescue Dog Association (JRDA). Through the ImPACT Tough Robotics Challenge, tough sensing technologies for CRC suits are developed to visualize the activities of SAR dogs. The primary contributions of our research include the following six topics. (1) Lightweight CRC suits were developed and evaluated. (2) Objects left by victims were automatically found using images from a camera mounted on the CRC suits. A deep neural network was used to find suitable features for searching for objects left by victims. (3) The emotions (positive as well as negative) of SAR dogs were estimated from their heart rate variation, which was measured by CRC inner suits. (4) The behaviors of SAR dogs were estimated from an IMU sensor mounted on the CRC suit. (5) The visual SLAM and inertial navigation systems for SAR dogs were developed to estimate trajectory in non-GNSS environments. These emotions, movements, and trajectories are used to visualize the search activities of the SAR dogs. (6) The dog was trained to search an area by controlling the dog with the laser light sources mounted on the CRC suit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]