Development of Art Fashion by Integrating Art and Digital Textile Printing

[NICOGRAPH International 2022] 4-5 June 2022, virtual conference.Recently digital art using digital technology has emerged and has been well recognized. On the other hand, digital textile printing technology has recently emerged in the fashion world, making it relatively easy to produce small-lot, high-mix garments. Combining this digital art with digital textile printing creates new possibilities for art to enter our everyday life as clothing. In this paper, we will describe the contents of our attempt to create fashion from digital art under the concept of "wearing art" through joint research between companies and universities

Band-resolved Caroli–de Gennes–Matricon states of multiple-flux-quanta vortices in a multiband superconductor

Superconductors are of type I or II depending on whether they form an Abrikosov vortex lattice. Although bulk lead (Pb) is classified as a prototypical type-I superconductor, we show that its two-band superconductivity allows for single-flux-quantum and multiple-flux-quanta vortices in the intermediate state at millikelvin temperature. Using scanning tunneling microscopy, the winding number of individual vortices is determined from the real space wave function of its Caroli–de Gennes–Matricon bound states. This generalizes the topological index theorem put forward by Volovik for isotropic electronic states to realistic electronic structures. In addition, the bound states due to the two superconducting bands of Pb can be separately detected and the two gaps close independently inside vortices. This yields strong evidence for a low interband coupling

Establishment of a reborn MMV-microarray technology: realization of microbiome analysis and other hitherto inaccessible technologies

BACKGROUND: With the accelerating development of bioscience, the problem of research cost has become important. We previously devised and developed a novel concept microarray with manageable volumes (MMV) using a soft gel. It demonstrated the great potential of the MMV technology with the examples of 1024-parallel-cell culture and PCR experiments. However, its full potential failed to be expressed, owing to the nature of the material used for the MMV chip. RESULTS: In the present study, by developing plastic-based MMVs and associated technologies, we introduced novel technologies such as C2D2P (in which the cells in each well are converted from DNA to protein in 1024-parallel), NGS-non-dependent microbiome analysis, and other powerful applications. CONCLUSIONS: The reborn MMV-microarray technology has proven to be highly efficient and cost-effective (with approximately 100-fold cost reduction) and enables us to realize hitherto unattainable technologies

Deposition transfection technology using a DNA complex with a thermoresponsive cationic Branched polymer

A novel non-viral gene transfection method in which DNA complexes were kept in contact with a deposition surface (deposition transfection) was developed. We designed a novel aqueous thermoresponsive adsorbent material for DNA deposition, which was a star-shaped copolymer with 4-branched chains. Each chain is comprised of a cationic poly(N,N-dimethylaminopropyl acrylamide) (PDMAPAAm) block (Mn: ca. 3000 g center dot mol(-1)), which formed an inner domain for DNA binding and a thermoresponsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) block (Mn: ca. 6000 g center dot mol(-1)), which formed an outer domain for surface adsorption. Complex formation between the copolymer and the luciferase-encoding plasmid DNA occurred immediately upon simple mixing in an aqueous medium; polyplexes approximately 100 nm in size were formed. Because the lower critical solution temperature of the polyplexes was approximately 35 degrees C, they could deposit on the substrate by precipitation from an aqueous solution upon warming, which was confirmed by quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) method and water contact angle measurement. When COS-I cells were cultured on the polyplex-deposited substrate in a culture medium, the luciferase activity observed was higher than that observed on a DNA-coated substrate with or without the cationic polymer before and after complete adhesion and by conventional solution transfection using the polyplexes. The activity was enhanced with an increase in the charge ratio (surfactant/pDNA) with permissible cellular cytotoxicity. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Instability of skyrmions in magnetic fields

In this combined experimental and theoretical work, we report on the evolution of the skyrmion radius and its destruction in the system Co/Ru(0001) when an out-of-plane magnetic field is applied. At low fields, skyrmions are metastable and display an elliptical instability in which along the short axis, the spin texture approaches that of the spin-spiral phase and the long axis expands in order to go back to the spin-spiral ground state. At high fields, we observe round skyrmions of finite size up to the collapse field Bc, where they are destroyed and the topological charge is annihilated. We estimate Bc via numerical methods based on magnetization dynamics simulations parametrized by density functional theory calculations and compare it to experimental scanning tunneling microscopy observations obtained at ≈ ≈ 30 mK

Screening of Mild Cognitive Impairment Through Conversations With Humanoid Robots: Exploratory Pilot Study

BackgroundThe rising number of patients with dementia has become a serious social problem worldwide. To help detect dementia at an early stage, many studies have been conducted to detect signs of cognitive decline by prosodic and acoustic features. However, many of these methods are not suitable for everyday use as they focus on cognitive function or conversational speech during the examinations. In contrast, conversational humanoid robots are expected to be used in the care of older people to help reduce the work of care and monitoring through interaction. ObjectiveThis study focuses on early detection of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) through conversations between patients and humanoid robots without a specific examination, such as neuropsychological examination. MethodsThis was an exploratory study involving patients with MCI and cognitively normal (CN) older people. We collected the conversation data during neuropsychological examination (Mini-Mental State Examination [MMSE]) and everyday conversation between a humanoid robot and 94 participants (n=47, 50%, patients with MCI and n=47, 50%, CN older people). We extracted 17 types of prosodic and acoustic features, such as the duration of response time and jitter, from these conversations. We conducted a statistical significance test for each feature to clarify the speech features that are useful when classifying people into CN people and patients with MCI. Furthermore, we conducted an automatic classification experiment using a support vector machine (SVM) to verify whether it is possible to automatically classify these 2 groups by the features identified in the statistical significance test. ResultsWe obtained significant differences in 5 (29%) of 17 types of features obtained from the MMSE conversational speech. The duration of response time, the duration of silent periods, and the proportion of silent periods showed a significant difference (P<.001) and met the reference value r=0.1 (small) of the effect size. Additionally, filler periods (P<.01) and the proportion of fillers (P=.02) showed a significant difference; however, these did not meet the reference value of the effect size. In contrast, we obtained significant differences in 16 (94%) of 17 types of features obtained from the everyday conversations with the humanoid robot. The duration of response time, the duration of speech periods, jitter (local, relative average perturbation [rap], 5-point period perturbation quotient [ppq5], difference of difference of periods [ddp]), shimmer (local, amplitude perturbation quotient [apq]3, apq5, apq11, average absolute differences between the amplitudes of consecutive periods [dda]), and F0cov (coefficient of variation of the fundamental frequency) showed a significant difference (P<.001). In addition, the duration of response time, the duration of silent periods, the filler period, and the proportion of fillers showed significant differences (P<.05). However, only jitter (local) met the reference value r=0.1 (small) of the effect size. In the automatic classification experiment for the classification of participants into CN and MCI groups, the results showed 66.0% accuracy in the MMSE conversational speech and 68.1% accuracy in everyday conversations with the humanoid robot. ConclusionsThis study shows the possibility of early and simple screening for patients with MCI using prosodic and acoustic features from everyday conversations with a humanoid robot with the same level of accuracy as the MMSE