Mesoscopic Multimodal Imaging Provides New Insight to Tumor Tissue Evaluation : An Example of Macrophage Imaging of Hepatic Tumor using Organosilica Nanoparticles

Multimodal imaging using novel multifunctional nanoparticles provides new approach to biomedical field. Thiol-organosilica nanoparticles containing iron oxide magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) and rhodamine B (thiol OS-MNP/Rho) were applied to multimodal imaging of hepatic tumor of Long−Evans Cinnamon (LEC) rat. The magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of LEC rats revealed tumors in the liver clearly and semi-quantitatively due to a labeling of macrophages in liver. The fluorescent imaging (FI) showed abnormal fluorescent patterns of the liver at the mesoscopic level that was between macroscopic and microscopic level. We performed correlation analysis between optical imaging including FI and MRI. We found that the labeled macrophages located specific area in the tumor tissue and influenced the tumor size on MRI. In addition histological observation showed the labeled macrophages related specific tissue in the pathological region. We demonstrated a new approach to evaluate tumor tissue at the macroscopic and microscopic level as well as mesoscopic level using multimodal imaging

An All-Recombinant Protein-Based Culture System Specifically Identifies Hematopoietic Stem Cell Maintenance Factors.

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are considered one of the most promising therapeutic targets for the treatment of various blood disorders. However, due to difficulties in establishing stable maintenance and expansion of HSCs in vitro, their insufficient supply is a major constraint to transplantation studies. To solve these problems we have developed a fully defined, all-recombinant protein-based culture system. Through this system, we have identified hemopexin (HPX) and interleukin-1α as responsible for HSC maintenance in vitro. Subsequent molecular analysis revealed that HPX reduces intracellular reactive oxygen species levels within cultured HSCs. Furthermore, bone marrow immunostaining and 3D immunohistochemistry revealed that HPX is expressed in non-myelinating Schwann cells, known HSC niche constituents. These results highlight the utility of this fully defined all-recombinant protein-based culture system for reproducible in vitro HSC culture and its potential to contribute to the identification of factors responsible for in vitro maintenance, expansion, and differentiation of stem cell populations

A novel locally operated master-slave robot system for single-incision laparoscopic surgery

Purpose: Single-incision laparoscopic surgery (SILS) provides more cosmetic benefits than conventional laparoscopic surgery but presents operational difficulties. To overcome this technical problem, we have developed a locally operated master-slave robot system that provides operability and a visual field similar to conventional laparoscopic surgery. Material and methods: A surgeon grasps the master device with the left hand, which is placed above the abdominal wall, and holds a normal instrument with the right hand. A laparoscope, a slave robot, and the right-sided instrument are inserted through one incision. The slave robot is bent in the body cavity and its length, pose, and tip angle are changed by manipulating the master device; thus the surgeon has almost the same operability as with normal laparoscopic surgery. To evaluate our proposed system, we conducted a basic task and an ex vivo experiment. Results: In basic task experiments, the average object-passing task time was 9.50 sec (SILS cross), 22.25 sec (SILS parallel), and 7.23 sec (proposed SILS). The average number of instrument collisions was 3.67 (SILS cross), 14 (SILS parallel), and 0.33 (proposed SILS). In the ex vivo experiment, we confirmed the applicability of our system for single-port laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Conclusion: We demonstrated that our proposed robot system is useful for single-incision laparoscopic surgery.ArticleMINIMALLY INVASIVE THERAPY & ALLIED TECHNOLOGIES. 23(6):326-332 (2014)journal articl

KOTONOHA : A Corpus Concordance System for Skewer-Searching NINJAL Corpora

National Institute for Japanese Language and LinguisticsNational Institute for Japanese Language and LinguisticsPicolab Inc.National Institute for Japanese Language and LinguisticsNational Institute for Japanese Language and LinguisticsNational Institute for Japanese Language and LinguisticsNational Institute for Japanese Language and LinguisticsNational Institute for Japanese Language and LinguisticsNational Institute for Japanese Language and LinguisticsNational Institute for Japanese Language and LinguisticsThe National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, Japan (NINJAL, Japan), has developed several types of corpora. For each corpus NINJAL provided an online search environment, \u27Chunagon\u27, which is a morphological-information-annotation-based concor-dance system made publicly available in 2011. NINJAL has now provided a skewer-search system \u27Kotonoha\u27 based on the \u27Chunagon\u27 systems. This system enables querying of multiple corpora by certain categories, such as register type and period

『日本語歴史コーパス』における原文KWIC表示機能の実装

会議名: 言語資源活用ワークショップ2017, 開催地: 国立国語研究所, 会期: 2017年9月5日-6日, 主催: 国立国語研究所 コーパス開発センター日本語史研究の基礎資料は，残された文献に見られる用例である。用例の原文は今日一般に用いられる表記とは大幅に異なる形である場合が少なくない。例えば，『万葉集』は万葉仮名で，キリシタン資料は当時のポルトガル語のローマ字で表記されている。こうした資料をコーパスとして形態論情報を付与し，現代人に読みやすいものとするためには，原文を校訂して漢字平仮名交じりにした読み下し本文を用意する必要がある。一方で，読み下し本文では失われてしまう情報も少なくないため，用例には原文を併せて表示することが求められる。『日本語歴史コーパス』では従来，原文情報を保持しつつ必要な修正を行った上で形態論情報を付与して公開してきたが，原文情報の提供は限定的だった。今回新たに，コーパス検索アプリケーション「中納言」上で，原文の前後文脈付きで検索結果を表示できる機能を実装した。本発表ではこの原文KWIC表示機能について述べる

エキタイ 3HE エノ 4HE ヨウカイド ノ ソクテイ

The solubility of ^4He in liquid ^3He have been measured from 500mK to 25mK by detecting tiny amount of ^4He-film appearing below the phase- separation temperature, using a dielectric technique. The capacitor to detect the ^4He-film has narrow gap, ～2μm, between electrodes. To prevent the film flow of ^4He out of the cell through the filling tube, a valve tight for the superfluid was attached to the cell. Saam et al. proposed a equation on ^4He solubility in liquid ^3He predicting the exponential decrease to almost zero, 10^ ppm, at 30mK. Our experimental results indicated that the ^4He solubility at very low temperatures in much larger that their prediction, which presents a new problem on the interaction between ^4He and ^3He in the dilute solution of ^4He in liquid ^3He