Suppression of Vortex Precession in a Non-Contact Handling Device by a Circular Column

Vortex levitation attains non-contact handling by injecting air through a tangential nozzle into a cylindrical cup generating the swirling flow. The precessing of the swirling flow causes pressure fluctuation. This phenomenon becomes apparent as the gap between the cup and workpiece increases, which significantly disturbs the stability of conveyance. In this paper, suppression of pressure fluctuation by a cylindrical column that stabilizes the vortex levitation is described and its mechanism is mentioned. According to the experimental set up, the pressure was measured at the center of the workpiece and the wall of the cup; velocity field under the work piece was visualized by PIV. The result suggested that the larger diameter column denoted the effect on suppression of the fluctuation because the precessing of the swirling flow became stable. On the other hand, variation of the column thickness had insignificant effect on suppressing the fluctuation, but sucking force became weakened since the swirling velocity decreased.ArticleJournal of Flow Control, Measurement & Visualization. 4:70-78 (2016)journal articl

Suppression of Vortex Precession in a Non-Contact Handling Device by a Circular Column

Vortex levitation attains non-contact handling by injecting air through a tangential nozzle into a cylindrical cup generating the swirling flow. The precessing of the swirling flow causes pressure fluctuation. This phenomenon becomes apparent as the gap between the cup and workpiece increases, which significantly disturbs the stability of conveyance. In this paper, suppression of pressure fluctuation by a cylindrical column that stabilizes the vortex levitation is described and its mechanism is mentioned. According to the experimental set up, the pressure was measured at the center of the workpiece and the wall of the cup; velocity field under the work piece was visualized by PIV. The result suggested that the larger diameter column denoted the effect on suppression of the fluctuation because the precessing of the swirling flow became stable. On the other hand, variation of the column thickness had insignificant effect on suppressing the fluctuation, but sucking force became weakened since the swirling velocity decreased

Community-driven development for computational biology at Sprints, Hackathons and Codefests

Background: Computational biology comprises a wide range of technologies and approaches. Multiple technologies can be combined to create more powerful workflows if the individuals contributing the data or providing tools for its interpretation can find mutual understanding and consensus. Much conversation and joint investigation are required in order to identify and implement the best approaches. Traditionally, scientific conferences feature talks presenting novel technologies or insights, followed up by informal discussions during coffee breaks. In multi-institution collaborations, in order to reach agreement on implementation details or to transfer deeper insights in a technology and practical skills, a representative of one group typically visits the other. However, this does not scale well when the number of technologies or research groups is large. Conferences have responded to this issue by introducing Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) sessions, which offer an opportunity for individuals with common interests to intensify their interaction. However, parallel BoF sessions often make it hard for participants to join multiple BoFs and find common ground between the different technologies, and BoFs are generally too short to allow time for participants to program together. Results: This report summarises our experience with computational biology Codefests, Hackathons and Sprints, which are interactive developer meetings. They are structured to reduce the limitations of traditional scientific meetings described above by strengthening the interaction among peers and letting the participants determine the schedule and topics. These meetings are commonly run as loosely scheduled "unconferences" (self-organized identification of participants and topics for meetings) over at least two days, with early introductory talks to welcome and organize contributors, followed by intensive collaborative coding sessions. We summarise some prominent achievements of those meetings and describe differences in how these are organised, how their audience is addressed, and their outreach to their respective communities. Conclusions: Hackathons, Codefests and Sprints share a stimulating atmosphere that encourages participants to jointly brainstorm and tackle problems of shared interest in a self-driven proactive environment, as well as providing an opportunity for new participants to get involved in collaborative projects

Automated Workflow for Preparation of cDNA for Cap Analysis of Gene Expression on a Single Molecule Sequencer

Background: Cap analysis of gene expression (CAGE) is a 59 sequence tag technology to globally determine transcriptional starting sites in the genome and their expression levels and has most recently been adapted to the HeliScope single molecule sequencer. Despite significant simplifications in the CAGE protocol, it has until now been a labour intensive protocol. Methodology: In this study we set out to adapt the protocol to a robotic workflow, which would increase throughput and reduce handling. The automated CAGE cDNA preparation system we present here can prepare 96 ‘HeliScope ready ’ CAGE cDNA libraries in 8 days, as opposed to 6 weeks by a manual operator.We compare the results obtained using the same RNA in manual libraries and across multiple automation batches to assess reproducibility. Conclusions: We show that the sequencing was highly reproducible and comparable to manual libraries with an 8 fold increase in productivity. The automated CAGE cDNA preparation system can prepare 96 CAGE sequencing samples simultaneously. Finally we discuss how the system could be used for CAGE on Illumina/SOLiD platforms, RNA-seq and fulllengt

Connexin-43 in the osteogenic BM niche regulates its cellular composition and the bidirectional traffic of hematopoietic stem cells and progenitors

Connexin-43 (Cx43), a gap junction protein involved in control of cell proliferation, differentiation and migration, has been suggested to have a role in hematopoiesis. Cx43 is highly expressed in osteoblasts and osteogenic progenitors (OB/P). To elucidate the biologic function of Cx43 in the hematopoietic microenvironment (HM) and its influence in hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) activity, we studied the hematopoietic function in an in vivo model of constitutive deficiency of Cx43 in OB/P. The deficiency of Cx43 in OB/P cells does not impair the steady state hematopoiesis, but disrupts the directional trafficking of HSC/progenitors (Ps) between the bone marrow (BM) and peripheral blood (PB). OB/P Cx43 is a crucial positive regulator of transstromal migration and homing of both HSCs and progenitors in an irradiated microenvironment. However, OB/P Cx43 deficiency in nonmyeloablated animals does not result in a homing defect but induces increased endosteal lodging and decreased mobilization of HSC/Ps associated with proliferation and expansion of Cxcl12-secreting mesenchymal/osteolineage cells in the BM HM in vivo. Cx43 controls the cellular content of the BM osteogenic microenvironment and is required for homing of HSC/Ps in myeloablated animal

The DBCLS BioHackathon: standardization and interoperability for bioinformatics web services and workflows. The DBCLS BioHackathon Consortium*

Web services have become a key technology for bioinformatics, since life science databases are globally decentralized and the exponential increase in the amount of available data demands for efficient systems without the need to transfer entire databases for every step of an analysis. However, various incompatibilities among database resources and analysis services make it difficult to connect and integrate these into interoperable workflows. To resolve this situation, we invited domain specialists from web service providers, client software developers, Open Bio* projects, the BioMoby project and researchers of emerging areas where a standard exchange data format is not well established, for an intensive collaboration entitled the BioHackathon 2008. The meeting was hosted by the Database Center for Life Science (DBCLS) and Computational Biology Research Center (CBRC) and was held in Tokyo from February 11th to 15th, 2008. In this report we highlight the work accomplished and the common issues arisen from this event, including the standardization of data exchange formats and services in the emerging fields of glycoinformatics, biological interaction networks, text mining, and phyloinformatics. In addition, common shared object development based on BioSQL, as well as technical challenges in large data management, asynchronous services, and security are discussed. Consequently, we improved interoperability of web services in several fields, however, further cooperation among major database centers and continued collaborative efforts between service providers and software developers are still necessary for an effective advance in bioinformatics web service technologies

Efficacy and safety of single-dose ivermectin in mild-to-moderate COVID-19: the double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled CORVETTE-01 trial

BackgroundTo investigate whether ivermectin inhibits SARS-CoV-2 proliferation in patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 using time to a negative COVID-19 reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test.MethodsCORVETTE-01 was a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study (August 2020–October 2021) conducted in Japan. Overall, 248 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 using RT-PCR were assessed for eligibility. A single oral dose of ivermectin (200  μg/kg) or placebo was administered under fasting. The primary outcome was time to a negative COVID-19 RT-PCR test result for SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid, assessed using stratified log-rank test and Cox regression models.ResultsOverall, 112 and 109 patients were randomized to ivermectin and placebo, respectively; 106 patients from each group were included in the full analysis set (male [%], mean age: 68.9%, 47.9 years [ivermectin]; 62.3%, 47.5 years [placebo]). No significant difference was observed in the occurrence of negative RT-PCR tests between the groups (hazard ratio, 0.96; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.70–1.32; p = 0.785). Median (95% CI) time to a negative RT-PCR test was 14.0 (13.0–16.0) and 14.0 (12.0–16.0) days for ivermectin and placebo, respectively; 82.1% and 84% of patients achieved negative RT-PCR tests, respectively.ConclusionIn patients with COVID-19, single-dose ivermectin was ineffective in decreasing the time to a negative RT-PCR test.Clinical Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04703205

地域において働き盛り世代が青少年の育成活動に参加する意義

本研究の目的は働き盛り世代の住民が地域において青少年の育成活動に参加する意義を明らかにし、 これからの地域づくりについて考察することである。地区の青少年育成部の活動に今年度参加した9名（全員）を対象に構造化インタビューを行った。また、 フイールドワークとして青少年育成部の活動に参加した保健師養成課程の学生10名が、その特長についてラベルに書き出した。KJ法を用いて分析した結果、活動は対象となる子どもだけでなく、地域住民や活動する働き盛り世代にも良い影響を与えていた。このような活動は今後の生き生きとした地域づくりのきっかけになると考えられる

2019年度 八戸工業大学公開講座

Last updated: 6/15/201