Perfectly Aligned Shallow Ensemble Nitrogen-Vacancy Centers in (111) Diamond

We report the formation of perfectly aligned, high-density, shallow nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers on the ($111$) surface of a diamond. The study involved step-flow growth with a high flux of nitrogen during chemical vapor deposition (CVD) growth, which resulted in the formation of a highly concentrated (>$10^{19}$ cm$^{-3}$) nitrogen layer approximately $10$ nm away from the substrate surface. Photon counts obtained from the NV centers indicated the presence of $6.1$x$10^{15}$-$3.1$x$10^{16}$ cm$^{-3}$ NV centers, which suggested the formation of an ensemble of NV centers. The optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) spectrum confirmed perfect alignment (more than $99$ %) for all the samples fabricated by step-flow growth via CVD. Perfectly aligned shallow ensemble NV centers indicated a high Rabi contrast of approximately $30$ % which is comparable to the values reported for a single NV center. Nanoscale NMR demonstrated surface-sensitive nuclear spin detection and provided a confirmation of the NV centers depth. Single NV center approximation indicated that the depth of the NV centers was approximately $9$-$10.7$ nm from the surface with error of less than $\pm$$0.8$ nm. Thus, a route for material control of shallow NV centers has been developed by step-flow growth using a CVD system. Our finding pioneers on the atomic level control of NV center alignment for large area quantum magnetometry.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

The Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor α (PPARα) Agonist Pemafibrate Protects against Diet-Induced Obesity in Mice

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Staging the tumor and staging the host: A two centre, two country comparison of systemic inflammatory responses of patients undergoing resection of primary operable colorectal cancer

Background: How systemic inflammation-based prognostic scores such as the modified Glasgow Prognostic Score (mGPS) and neutrophil:lymphocyte ratio (NLR) differ across populations of patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) remains unknown. The present study examined the mGPS and NLR in patients from United Kingdom (UK) and Japan. Methods: Patients undergoing resection of TNM I-III CRC in two centres in the UK and Japan were included. Differences in clinicopathological characteristics and mGPS (0-CRP≤10 mg/L, 1-CRP>10 mg/L, 2-CRP>10 mg/L, albumin<35 g/L) and NLR (≤5/>5) were examined. Results: Patients from UK (n = 581) were more likely to be female, high ASA and BMI, present as an emergency (all P < 0.01) and have higher T stage compared to those from Japan (n = 559). After controlling for differences in tumor and host characteristics, patients from Japan were less likely to be systemically inflamed (OR: mGPS: 0.37, 95%CI 0.27–0.50, P < 0.001; NLR: 0.53, 95%CI 0.35–0.79, P = 0.002). Conclusion: Systemic inflammatory responses differ between populations with colorectal cancer. Given their prognostic value, reporting of systemic inflammation-based scores should be incorporated into future studies reporting patient outcomes. Summary: Although the systemic inflammatory response is recognised as a prognostic factor in patients with colorectal cancer, it is not clear how these may differ between distinct geographical populations. The present study examines differences in the prevalence of elevated systemic inflammatory responses (modified Glasgow Prognostic Score and neutrophil:lymphocyte ratio) between two populations undergoing resection of colorectal cancer in the United Kingdom and Japan

Bilateral coronary ostial stenosis and aortic regurgitation in a patient with cardiovascular syphilis

AbstractCardiovascular syphilis is associated with the tertiary stage of syphilis infection; it involves the ascending aorta and can cause aortic aneurysm, aortic regurgitation, and coronary ostial stenosis. We report a surgical case of bilateral coronary ostial lesion and aortic regurgitation due to syphilitic aortitis.<Learning objective: Syphilitic aortitis involves the ascending aorta, resulting in aortic aneurysm, aortic regurgitation, and coronary ostial stenosis. Unlike atherosclerosis, coronary ostial stenosis is caused by aortic wall thickening, and coronary lesions distal to the ostia occur only rarely. After surgery, long-term follow up is mandatory as a result of aortic dilatation involving the sinuses of Valsalva, occurrence of prosthetic valve dehiscence, or graft failure caused by continuous infection of the aortic wall.

Development of new deliquoring method with bypass discharge mechanism in centrifuge

application/pdfPresentationDate: 9-11 November 2017 Place: Buzan, South Koreaconference objec

Investigation to answer three key questions concerning plant pest identification and development of a practical identification framework

The development of practical and robust automated diagnostic systems for identifying plant pests is crucial for efficient agricultural production. In this paper, we first investigate three key research questions (RQs) that have not been addressed thus far in the field of image-based plant pest identification. Based on the knowledge gained, we then develop an accurate, robust, and fast plant pest identification framework using 334K images comprising 78 combinations of four plant portions (the leaf front, leaf back, fruit, and flower of cucumber, tomato, strawberry, and eggplant) and 20 pest species captured at 27 farms. The results reveal the following. (1) For an appropriate evaluation of the model, the test data should not include images of the field from which the training images were collected, or other considerations to increase the diversity of the test set should be taken into account. (2) Pre-extraction of ROIs, such as leaves and fruits, helps to improve identification accuracy. (3) Integration of closely related species using the same control methods and cross-crop training methods for the same pests, are effective. Our two-stage plant pest identification framework, enabling ROI detection and convolutional neural network (CNN)-based identification, achieved a highly practical performance of 91.0% and 88.5% in mean accuracy and macro F1 score, respectively, for 12,223 instances of test data of 21 classes collected from unseen fields, where 25 classes of images from 318,971 samples were used for training; the average identification time was 476 ms/image.Comment: 40 pages, 10 figure

Simultaneous Wide-field Imaging of Phase and Magnitude of AC Magnetic Signal Using Diamond Quantum Magnetometry

Spectroscopic analysis of AC magnetic signal using diamond quantum magnetometry is a promising technique for inductive imaging. Conventional dynamic decoupling like XY8 provides a high sensitivity of an oscillating magnetic signal with intricate dependence on magnitude and phase, complicating high throughput detection of each parameter. In this study, a simple measurement scheme for independent and simultaneous detection of magnitude and phase is demonstrated by a sequential measurement protocol. Wide-field imaging experiment was performed for an oscillating magnetic field with approximately 100$\mu$m-squared observation area. Single pixel phase precision was $2.1^\circ$ for 0.76$\mu$T AC magnetic signal. Our method enables potential applications including inductive inspection and impedance imaging.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Capillary Electrophoretic Characterization of Carbon Nanodots Prepared from Glutamic Acid in an Electric Furnace

Carbon nanodots (CNDs) prepared from glutamic acid or glutathione in an electric furnace were characterized by capillary electrophoresis. Two major peaks were detected in the electropherograms by capillary zone electrophoresis, corresponding to anionic and less-charged CNDs. The effective electrophoretic mobility of the anionic CND formed from glutamic acid was almost identical over neutral to weakly alkaline pH range, and the CND would not contain significant amount of amino group. On the other hand, the effective electrophoretic mobility tended to decrease with decreasing pH at weakly acidic pH conditions, suggesting the functional groups of carboxylate moiety on the anionic CNDs. Dodecyl sulfate ion was added in the separation buffer to give anionic charge to the less-charged CND by adsorption. However, the anionic charge induced was little, and the dodecyl sulfate ion was not likely adsorbed on the less-charged CND and the CND would be hydrophilic

The K1.8BR spectrometer system at J-PARC

A new spectrometer system was designed and constructed at the secondary beam line K1.8BR in the hadron hall of J-PARC to investigate $\bar K N$ interactions and $\bar K$-nuclear bound systems. The spectrometer consists of a high precision beam line spectrometer, a liquid $^3$He/$^4$He/D$_2$ target system, a Cylindrical Detector System that surrounds the target to detect the decay particles from the target region, and a neutron time-of-flight counter array located $\sim$15 m downstream from the target position. Details of the design, construction, and performance of the detector components are described.Comment: 33 pages, 25 figure