Evaluation of ambipolar carrier mobility in alkyl-substituted phthalocyanine thin film

Yuki Nishikawa, Yuya Nakata, Shigehiro Ikehara, Akihiko Fujii, and Masanori Ozaki "Evaluation of ambipolar carrier mobility in alkyl-substituted phthalocyanine thin film," Journal of Photonics for Energy 8(3), 032214 (15 May 2018). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JPE.8.03221

Interprofessional education in Japanese university nursing programs : Current status and evaluation of its impact

This study was aimed to identify the current status and the evaluation of the impact of interprofessional education (IPE) on nursing education in Japanese universities. Two hundred Japanese universities with nursing programs were the target of this study. Backward Binary Logistic Regression Analysis (Pin = 0.14, Pout = 0.15) was performed to determine the relationship between subjective evaluations of IPE and 24 indices such as the founding year of the university and the department of nursing, and the participation or nonparticipation of departments and each profession. One hundred ten valid responses (55.0%) were collected. Among those responses, 58 universities implemented IPE (52.7%) and 52 did not have an IPE program at their institute (47.3%). These results indicated that the significance of IPE program on nursing education tended to be highly evaluated when students of the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, and Occupational Therapy participated in the program, whereas the significance of IPE tended to be considered low with the participation of students of the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences. Regarding the treatment or support of their clients (i.e., patients), when the IPE participating students shared the areas of responsibility of their intended professions, the impact of IPE was more likely to have the high evaluation score. On the contrary, the tendency of the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences (DSL&HS) indicated that the significance of IPE received low evaluations due to the low recognition by other professions for the contents of DSL&HS’s high expertise

Small airway disease associated with Sjögren’s syndrome: Clinico-pathological correlations

SummaryBackgroundRelationships among clinical, physiological, imaging and pathological findings of small airway disease associated with Sjögren’s syndrome have remained unclear.Subjects and methods: We retrospectively studied 14 patients who underwent surgical lung biopsy and who were diagnosed with small airway disease associated with primary or secondary Sjögren’s syndrome. We compared clinical, bronchoalveolar lavage, physiological, imaging and pathological findings between primary and secondary Sjögren’s syndrome. We scored HRCT and pathological abnormalities and investigated correlations among physiological, HRCT and pathological data, changes in physiological parameters and in HRCT scores after two years of treatment, as well as correlations between these values and pathological scores.ResultsBronchoalveolar lavage fluid, physiological, imaging and pathological findings of the airways did not significantly differ between primary and secondary Sjögren’s syndrome. Air trapping on HRCT negatively correlated with MEF50 and MEF25. Although lymphoid cell infiltration and peribronchiolar fibrosis were the most common pathologies, constrictive change scores correlated negatively with MEF50 and MEF25, positively with air trapping scores and negatively with improvements after therapy in MEF50, MEF25 and air trapping.ConclusionsConstrictive change was the most significant determinant of physiological and imaging presentations and of changes in these factors after therapy for small airway disease associated with Sjögren’s syndrome

Straightforward synthesis of silicon vacancy (SiV) center-containing single-digit nanometer nanodiamonds via detonation process

Silicon vacancy (SiV) color centers in diamond have attracted widespread attention owing to their stable photoluminescence (PL) with a sharp emission band in the near-infrared region (ZPL 738 nm). Especially, SiV center containing single-digit nanometer-sized nanodiamonds (single-digit SiV-NDs) are desirable for various applications such as bioimaging and biosensing because of their extremely small size, comparable to many biomaterials. Therefore, several attempts have been made to fabricate the single-digit SiV-NDs. However, there are no reports on the successful fabrication of such materials in reasonable scale of production. Here, we report the successful synthesis of single-digit SiV-NDs via straightforward detonation process, which is known to have the high productivity in fabrication of single-digit NDs. Triphenylsilanol (TPS), as a silicon source, was mixed with explosives (TPS/TNT/RDX = 1/59/40 wt%) and the detonation process was carried out. The obtained single-digit NDs exhibit PL at approximately 738 nm, indicating that single-digit SiV-NDs were successfully synthesized. Moreover, we conjectured that the physics behind this achievement may be attributed to the aromatic ring of TPS under the consideration of ND formation mechanism newly built up based on the results of time-resolved optical emission measurements for the detonation reaction

Interleukin-10-Producing Plasmablasts Exert Regulatory Function in Autoimmune Inflammation

SummaryB cells can suppress autoimmunity by secreting interleukin-10 (IL-10). Although subpopulations of splenic B lineage cells are reported to express IL-10 in vitro, the identity of IL-10-producing B cells with regulatory function in vivo remains unknown. By using IL-10 reporter mice, we found that plasmablasts in the draining lymph nodes (dLNs), but not splenic B lineage cells, predominantly expressed IL-10 during experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). These plasmablasts were generated only during EAE inflammation. Mice lacking plasmablasts by genetic ablation of the transcription factors Blimp1 or IRF4 in B lineage cells developed an exacerbated EAE. Furthermore, IRF4 positively regulated IL-10 production that can inhibit dendritic cell functions to generate pathogenic T cells. Our data demonstrate that plasmablasts in the dLNs serve as IL-10 producers to limit autoimmune inflammation and emphasize the importance of plasmablasts as IL-10-producing regulatory B cells

Structural basis for PPARγ transactivation by endocrine-disrupting organotin compounds

Harada, S., Hiromori, Y., Nakamura, S. et al. Structural basis for PPARγ transactivation by endocrine-disrupting organotin compounds. Sci Rep 5, 8520 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep08520