PBC: Animal Models of Cholangiopathies and Possible Endogenous Viral Infections

Primary Biliary Cirrhosis (PBC) is considered an autoimmune disease characterized by immune-mediated destruction of the intrahepatic bile ducts and its characteristic serologic marker, the anti-mitochondrial antibody (AMA). Several factors were proposed to clarify the pathological and immunological mechanisms of PBC. Immunological reaction with a bacterial or a viral association was identified in the previous report, and it seems probable that PBC was thought to have such an etiology. The majority of patients with PBC was reported to have both RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry evidence of human betaretrovirus infection in lymph nodes or in 2008, the patient who developed PBC with high HIV viral load had an antiviral therapy and recovered. To understand the etiology of PBC associated with infection, several factors should be considered and especially animal models may be useful. In this paper, we introduce three typical animal models of PBC: the dominant-negative form of transforming growth factor-β receptor type II (dnTGFβRII) mouse, IL-2Rα−/− mouse and NOD.c3c4 mouse, are enumerated and described, and we discuss previous reports of viral infection associated with PBC and consider the etiology of PBC from our analysis of results in NOD.c3c4 mouse

Room Temperature Ferromagnetic Semiconductor Rutile Ti1-xCoxO2-\delta Epitaxial Thin Films Grown by Sputtering Method

Room temperature ferromagnetic semiconductor rutile Ti1-xCoxO2-\delta (101) epitaxial thin films were grown on r-sapphire substrates by a dc sputtering method. Ferromagnetic magnetization, magnetic circular dichroism, and anomalous Hall effect were clearly observed at room temperature in sputter-grown films for the first time. The magnetization value is nearly as large as 3\mu B/Co that is consistent with the high spin state Co2+ in this compound recently established by spectroscopic methods. Consequently, its originally large magneto-optical response is further enhanced.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

Multifunctional Logic Gate by Means of Nanodot Array with Different Arrangements

Multifunctional logic gate devices consisting of a nanodot array are studied from the viewpoint of single electronics. In a nanodot array, the dots come in a random variety of sizes, which sometimes has a negative effect on the performance of electrical device applications. Here, this feature is used in a positive sense to achieve higher functionality in the form of flexible logic gates with low power consumption in which the variability of logic functions is guaranteed. Nanodot arrays with two input gates and one control gate in a variety of arrangements are considered, in which the two-input logic functions (such as NAND, NOR, or exclusive-OR (XOR) gates) are selected by changing the voltage applied to the control gate. To ensure the flexibility of the device, it is important to guarantee the performance with any one of the six important logic functions: NAND, AND, NOR, OR, XOR, and XNOR. We ran a selection simulation using a nanodot array consisting of six nanodots with different dot arrangements to clarify the relation between the variability of the logic functions and the dot arrangements

Multifunctional Logic Gate by Means of Nanodot Array with Different Arrangements

Multifunctional logic gate devices consisting of a nanodot array are studied from the viewpoint of single electronics. In a nanodot array, the dots come in a random variety of sizes, which sometimes has a negative effect on the performance of electrical device applications. Here, this feature is used in a positive sense to achieve higher functionality in the form of flexible logic gates with low power consumption in which the variability of logic functions is guaranteed. Nanodot arrays with two input gates and one control gate in a variety of arrangements are considered, in which the two-input logic functions (such as NAND, NOR, or exclusive-OR (XOR) gates) are selected by changing the voltage applied to the control gate. To ensure the flexibility of the device, it is important to guarantee the performance with any one of the six important logic functions: NAND, AND, NOR, OR, XOR, and XNOR. We ran a selection simulation using a nanodot array consisting of six nanodots with different dot arrangements to clarify the relation between the variability of the logic functions and the dot arrangements

Silenced Expression of NFKBIA in Lung Adenocarcinoma Patients with a Never-smoking History

Nuclear factor of κ-light polypeptide gene enhancer in B cells inhibitor α (NFKBIA), which is a tumor suppressor gene, was found to be silenced in lung adenocarcinomas. We examined NFKBIA expression, mutations in the EGFR and K-ras genes, and EML4-ALK fusion in 101 resected lung adenocarcinoma samples from never-smokers. NFKBIA expression was evaluated using immunohistochemistry. NFKBIA expression was negative in 16 of the 101 samples (15.8%). EGFR and K-ras mutations and EML4-ALK fusion were detected in 61 (60.5%), 1 (1.0%), and 2 (2.0%) of the 101 samples, respectively, in a completely mutually exclusive manner. Negative NFKBIA expression was observed significantly more frequently among the tumors with none of the three genetic alterations compared to those with such alterations (p＝0.009). In addition, negative NFKBIA expression was significantly more frequent among the EGFR-wild type samples compared to the EGFR-mutant samples (p＝0.013). In conclusion, NFKBIA expression was silenced in adenocarcinomas without EGFR/K-ras mutations or EML4-ALK fusion, suggesting that the silencing of NFKBIA may play an important role in the carcinogenesis of adenocarcinomas independent of EGFR/K-ras mutations or EML4-ALK fusion

Automatic mobile menu customization based on user operation history

Mobile devices are becoming more and more difficult to use due to the sheer number of functions now supported. In this paper, we propose a menu customization system that ranks functions so as to make interesting functions, both frequently used functions and rarely used functions, easy to access. Concretely, we define the features of phone functions by extracting keywords from the manufacturer's manual, and propose the method that ranks the functions based on user operation history by using Ranking SVM (Support Vector Machine). We conduct a home-use test for one week to evaluate the efficiency of customization and the usability of menu customization. The results show that the average rank of used functions on the last day of the test is half of that of first day and almost 70 % of the users are satisfied with the ranking provided by menu customization and the usability of menus. In addition, interviews show that automatic mobile menu customization is more appropriate for mobile phone beginner rather than the master users