Relationships Between Claim Structure and the Competitiveness of a Patent

A patent’s competitiveness becomes crucial for the enforcement of patent right to protect business and ensure profits of companies. This study quantitatively analyses patent applications related to patent infringement lawsuits filed in trial courts in Japan. The total number of independent claims (k) and the maximum number of independent claims within a single claim category (l) at the time of filing patent applications of winning patents are found to have significant positive correlation with the number of references listed in Japanese granted patent publications or the like (x) in the case of winning patents, but not in losing patents. These results indicate that ensuring of the maximal technological scope of invention while avoiding envisioned prior inventions at the time of filing patent applications is critical to obtain a competitive patent and that patent applications in competitive fields should have more independent claims

Environment-friendly utilization of squid pen with water: Production of β-chitin nanofibers and peptides for lowering blood pressure

Chitin, an abundant biopolymer on Earth, represents a resource for sustainable functional materials. However, traditional β-chitin production methods involve alkaline treatment at approximately 90 °C for its separation from the protein, thus not suitable as a functional peptide, as it is mixed with an alkaline aqueous solution. This study examined the conversion of squid pen into solid β-chitin and water-soluble peptides using only water at temperatures of 150–250 °C for 30–120 min. Solid β-chitin was converted to its nanofiber form and the physicochemical properties of the β-chitin nanofibers were almost the same as those produced by the traditional method. Because this method uses only water, the protein in the squid pen may also be a functional peptide for lowering blood pressure, by inhibiting the Angiotensin-1 converting enzyme. High-temperature water treatment is a promising environment-friendly technique for complete utilization of squid pen components, including β-chitin and protein.ArticleInternational Journal of Biological Macromolecules.189:921-929(2021)journal articl

Depolarization increases cellular light transmission

Application of optical methods to human brain tissue in vivo, e.g., measuring oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin concentration changes with near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), requires the a priori assumption that background optical properties remain unchanged during measurements1,2. However, fundamental knowledge about light scattering by brain cells per se remains sparse; many factors influence light transmission changes through living brain tissue, bringing into question what is being measured. We have observed slow wave-ring spreads of light transmission changes on the rat cerebral cortex during potassium-induced cortical spreading depression (CSD) and ascribed them to squeezing-out of blood from capillaries by swollen brain cells3,4. However, in rat hippocampal slices, where no blood components were involved, similar light transmission changes were observed during K+-induced CSD and ascribed to cell swelling and dendritic beading5,6,7. Here we show that two-dimensional light scattering changes occur through suspensions of osmotically swollen (depolarized) red blood cells, apparently arising from light scattering changes at the less curved, swollen surface of the steep electrochemical gradient coupled with water activity difference across the plasmic membrane. These optical property changes are likely to be relevant to interpretation of photometry or spectroscopy findings of brain tissue in vivo, where neurons are polarizing and depolarizing during brain function

Out-of-Distribution Detection with Reconstruction Error and Typicality-based Penalty

The task of out-of-distribution (OOD) detection is vital to realize safe and reliable operation for real-world applications. After the failure of likelihood-based detection in high dimensions had been shown, approaches based on the \emph{typical set} have been attracting attention; however, they still have not achieved satisfactory performance. Beginning by presenting the failure case of the typicality-based approach, we propose a new reconstruction error-based approach that employs normalizing flow (NF). We further introduce a typicality-based penalty, and by incorporating it into the reconstruction error in NF, we propose a new OOD detection method, penalized reconstruction error (PRE). Because the PRE detects test inputs that lie off the in-distribution manifold, it effectively detects adversarial examples as well as OOD examples. We show the effectiveness of our method through the evaluation using natural image datasets, CIFAR-10, TinyImageNet, and ILSVRC2012.Comment: Accepted at WACV 202

Regularization with Latent Space Virtual Adversarial Training

Virtual Adversarial Training (VAT) has shown impressive results among recently developed regularization methods called consistency regularization. VAT utilizes adversarial samples, generated by injecting perturbation in the input space, for training and thereby enhances the generalization ability of a classifier. However, such adversarial samples can be generated only within a very small area around the input data point, which limits the adversarial effectiveness of such samples. To address this problem we propose LVAT (Latent space VAT), which injects perturbation in the latent space instead of the input space. LVAT can generate adversarial samples flexibly, resulting in more adverse effects and thus more effective regularization. The latent space is built by a generative model, and in this paper, we examine two different type of models: variational auto-encoder and normalizing flow, specifically Glow. We evaluated the performance of our method in both supervised and semi-supervised learning scenarios for an image classification task using SVHN and CIFAR-10 datasets. In our evaluation, we found that our method outperforms VAT and other state-of-the-art methods.Comment: Accepted at ECCV 2020 (Oral

Lower tropospheric vertical distribution of aerosol particles over Syowa Station, Antarctica from spring to summer 2004

Vertical distributions of atmospheric aerosol particles were measured nine times up to 5200 m a.s.l. using an aircraft over Syowa Station, East Antarctica during September-December 2004. Measurements were made for number concentrations of condensation nuclei (CN, Dp>10 nm), number-size distribution larger than 0.3 μm diameter, air temperature, humidity, and GPS position. During spring, the vertical profile of CN concentration showed large variability (100-1000 cm^(-3)), but it was mostly constant in summer. Vertical profiles of number-size distribution larger than 0.3 μm showed a systematic shift at altitudes greater than 4000 m. Both concentrations of aerosol number for Dp>0.3 μm and integrated volume between 0.3 and 1.0 μm showed constantly lower values at altitudes greater than 4000 m. These data suggest that the shift of aerosol parameters results from depletion of coarse particles such as sea salts. Maximum concentrations of the volume and CN were obtained respectively from the profiles on 7 October and 29 November 2004. These events are interpreted as sources and transport processes based on synoptic meteorological data, an ocean color index produced by SeaWiFS, and backward air trajectory analysis

Seasonal variation of chemical composition of aerosols at Syowa Station, Antarctica in 2001

Antarctic aerosols collected at Syowa Station in 2001 were analyzed to investigate their seasonal variations and long-range transport of anthropogenic aerosols. The measured chemical species were elemental carbon(E.C.) and organic carbon(O.C.) using a combustion technique, SO_4^, NO_3^-, Cl^-, Na^+, NH_4^+, K^+, Ca^ and Mg^ using ion chromatographs, and metals such as Al, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Zn and Pb using an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer. Total mass concentration of aerosols ranged from 0.366 to 2.72μg/m^3 and increased from winter to spring. The NO_3^- concentration was lower than 0.01μg/m^3 in March-July; in contrast, it was higher than 0.02μg/m^3 in August-November. Concentration of elemental carbon was relatively low in April-June and was high in March, October and November. In October and November, NO_3^- concentration was also high. Therefore, the air mass was possibly affected by biomass burning. The concentration of SO_4^- was low around 0.02μg/m^3 in May-July, and it increased to higher than 0.1μg/m^3 in August-December. The concentrations of Al, V, Co, Ni and Pb were sometimes lower than the detection limits. Nevertheless, spikes of the highest concentrations of V, Cr, Fe, Co, Ni, Zn and Pb were recorded in August-October, while V and Fe showed second spikes in March. The enrichment factors of Cr, Ni, Zn and Pb were high during 13-20 September and 12-22 October. The E.C. concentrations in these periods were also relatively higher than before and after the sampling periods. Moreover, blizzards occurred in these periods

Predicting the Route of Delivery in Women with Low-Lying Placenta Using Transvaginal Ultrasonography: Significance of Placental Migration and Marginal Sinus

Background/Aims: To examine the significance of placental migration and the presence of a placental marginal sinus to predict the eventual route of delivery in low-lying placenta. Methods: 49 women with a low-lying placenta after 30 weeks' gestation were studied. The distance between the internal os and leading edge of the placenta was measured weekly using transvaginal ultrasonography until 37 weeks' gestation. The relationship between the rate of placental migration, the presence of a placental marginal sinus and the eventual mode of delivery was investigated. Results: Although the cesarean section rate was 56.3% (9/16) in the 'slow' migration (0-2.0 mm/week) group, no patient (0/33) in the 'fast' (>2.0 mm/week) migration group underwent a cesarean section (p<0.01). The cesarean section rate was 71.4% (5/7) in patients with a placental marginal sinus, significantly greater than the rate of 9.5% (4/42) in patients without a marginal sinus (p<0.01). Conclusion:A decreased rate of placental migration until 37 weeks' gestation and the presence of a placental marginal sinus were associated with subsequent cesarean delivery because of antepartum vaginal bleeding. These parameters may be useful for predicting the route of delivery in women with a low-lying placenta.ArticleGYNECOLOGIC AND OBSTETRIC INVESTIGATION. 73(3):217-222 (2012)journal articl