Potentiometric Glucose Detection by Paper-based Electrochemical Sensor on CMOS Chip

This paper presents a low cost portable medical device for biochemical sensor using CMOS chip and paper-based fluidic channel. We measured a potential produced by enzyme activity of glucose between the working and reference electrode on CMOS chip. A liquid sample is transported by paper-based fluidic channel, which is made of chromatography paper and silicone resin, and consists of the area for filtering a sample (filter layer) and that for reacting enzyme (enyzme layer). The paper-based fluidic channel is used by combining CMOS chip, and the solution with glucose is dropped from top of the paper-based fluidic channel. The concentrations of glucose are detected by potentiometry (open circuit potential time). The experimental results show that the glucose concentration is measured by CMOS chip and paper-based fluidic channel

Simultaneous Electrochemical Measurement using Paper Fluidic Channel on CMOS Chip

This paper described the new system of biosensing using CMOS chip. The system was expected to be used in various circumstances because it was suitable for miniaturization compared to the conventional system. To conduct electrochemical measurements, the new system used paper fluidic channel set on the CMOS chip to transport solution to the on-chip electrodes. The materials of paper fluidic channel were only paper and silicone resin, and these were biocompatible. In experiment, we carried out simultaneous detection of glucose and ethanol in liquid sample solutions on the 5mm square CMOS chip and paper fluidic channel. Furthermore, this system can detect various target molecules in addition to glucose and ethanol, and increase number of simultaneous measurement by adding some more process to the paper and CMOS chip.

Coset Construction of Noncompact Spin(7) and G_2 CFTs

We provide a new class of exactly solvable superconformal field theories that corresponds to type II compactification on manifolds with exceptional holonomies. We combine N=1 Liouville field and N=1 coset models and construct modular invariant partition functions of strings moving on these manifolds. The resulting theories preserve spacetime supersymmetry. Also we explicitly construct chiral currents in these models to realize consistent string theories.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, no figure. v2: typos corrected, references adde

A Surprisingly Non-attractiveness of Commercial Poison Baits to Newly Established Population of White-Footed Ant, Technomyrmex brunneus (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), in a Remote Island of Japan

The white-footed ant, Technomyrmex brunneus, was newly introduced and established in a remote island of Japan and has caused unacceptable damage to the daily life of residents. To establish proper control measures, the present study investigated whether T. brunneus is effectively attracted to commercially available poison baits used to exterminate common household pest ants and the Argentine ant in Japan. Cafeteria experiments using three types of nontoxic baits and eight types of commercial poison baits for ants were conducted in the field, and the attractiveness was compared among the baits. The liquid poison bait “Arimetsu,” which consists of 42.6% water, 55.4% sugar, and 2.0% borate, and nontoxic 10% (w/v) sucrose water showed the highest attractiveness. On the other hand, other commercial poison baits were not as attractive. Therefore, sucrose liquid is the most effective attractive component to use in poison baits for T. brunneus

Cascade of Special Holonomy Manifolds and Heterotic String Theory

We investigate hetrotic string theory on special holonomy manifolds including exceptional holonomy G_2 and Spin(7) manifolds. The gauge symmetry is F_4 in a G_2 manifold compactification, and so(9) in a Spin(7) manifold compactification. We also study the cascade of the holonomies: so(8) > Spin(7) > G_2 > su(3) > su(2). The differences of adjoining groups are described by Ising, tricritical Ising, 3-state Potts and u(1) models. These theories are essential for spacetime supersymmetries and gauge group enhancements. As concrete examples, we construct modular invariant partition functions and analyze their massless spectra for G_2 and Spin(7) orbifolds. We obtain the relation between topological numbers of the manifolds and multiplicities of matters in specific representations.Comment: 49 pages, LaTeX, no figure, minor changes, typos corrected, references adde

The millipede family Polydesmidae Leach, 1816 (Diplopoda, Polydesmida) from Vietnam, with a description of a new cavernicolous species

The millipede family Polydesmidae Leach, 1816 is reviewed in the scope of the Vietnamese fauna. The distribution of the species, Polydesmus vietnamicus Nguyen, 2009 is extended northward to Ha Giang Province. A new cavernicolous polydesmid, Pacidesmus tuachua sp. nov., is described from two caves in northwestern Vietnam, representing the first record of the genus from Vietnam. Extensive illustrations and DNA barcodes are provided for both species, a revised key is presented to all 12 species of Pacidesmus Golovatch, 1991, as well as a key to all eight genera of Asian Polydesmidae

Short communication: epidemiological evidence that simian T-lymphotropic virus type 1 in Macaca fuscata has an alternative transmission route to maternal infection.

Serological inspection of Simian T-lymphotropic Virus Type 1 was conducted for a wild colony of Macaca fuscata, which was captured in the middle Honshu, Japan. The increase of positive rate after the juvenile stage with the positive rate reaching 100% (or 35/35) in youngster and adult stages, was observed. This finding suggests that, in contrast with human T-lymphotropic Virus Type 1, horizontal transmission play an important role in increasing prevalence of STLV-1 with age among M. fuscata

Revisiting museum collections in the genomic era: potential of MIG-seq for retrieving phylogenetic information from aged minute dry specimens of ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) and other small organisms

Multiplexed inter-simple sequence repeat genotyping by sequencing – MIG-seq – is an effective PCR-based method for genome-wide SNP detection using the Next-Generation Sequencing platform, and it provides a potential solution to a central problem in museomics – the difficulties of obtaining useful sequence data from aged specimens with often degraded and / or low yields of DNA. We demonstrate and validate the cost effectiveness and utility of the MIG-seq workflow in obtaining useful and robust sequence data from aged museum specimens. We applied the MIG-seq approach to 55 aged (10 - 23 years old) millimeter-sized dry-mounted specimens of the hyper-diverse ant genus Pheidole. A total of 50,782,736 reads were generated from the 55 samples (259,902 - 3,693,375 reads per sample). The reads corresponded to 36,862 SNPs from 4,849 polymorphic loci; the SNP dataset was then used to construct a Bayesian phylogenetic tree. The topology of the phylogenetic tree was highly compatible with existing knowledge of phylogenetic relationships among species of Pheidole. Therefore, we recommend the MIG-seq method as a cost-effective and highly applicable pipeline for conducting phylogenetic and population genetic studies on aged museum specimens, potentially enhancing the relevance of specimen repositories in general towards modern biodiversity science and conservation biology

Semen quality of 1559 young men from four cities in Japan: a cross-sectional population-based study

Objectives: To provide information of semen quality among normal young Japanese men and indicate the frequency of reduced semen quality. Design: Cross-sectional, coordinated studies of Japanese young men included from university areas. The men had to be 18-24 years, and both the man and his mother had to be born in Japan. Background information was obtained from questionnaires. Standardised and quality-controlled semen analyses were performed, reproductive hormones analysed centrally and results adjusted for confounding factors. Setting: Four study centres in Japan (Kawasaki, Osaka, Kanazawa and Nagasaki). Participants: 1559 men, median age 21.1 years, included during 1999-2003. Outcome measures: Semen volume, sperm concentration, total sperm count, sperm motility, sperm morphology and reproductive hormone levels. Results: Median sperm concentration was 59 (95% CI 52 to 68) million/ml, and 9% and 31.9% had less than 15 and 40 million/ml, respectively. Median percentage of morphologically normal spermatozoa was 9.6 (8.8 to 10.3)%. Small, but statistically significant, differences were detected for both semen and reproductive hormone variables between men from the four cities. Overall, the semen values were lower than those of a reference population of 792 fertile Japanese men. Conclusions: Assuming that the investigated men were representative for young Japanese men, a significant proportion of the population had suboptimal semen quality with reduced fertility potential, and as a group they had lower semen quality than fertile men. However, the definitive role-if any-of low semen quality for subfertility and low fertility rates remain to be investigated