Metal Hydride-Based Materials as Negative Electrode for All- Solid-State Lithium-Ion Batteries

The recently developed metal hydride (MH)-based material is considered to be a potential negative material for lithium-ion batteries, owing to its high theoretical Li storage capacity, relatively low volume expansion, and suitable working potential with very small polarization. However, it suffers from the slow kinetics, poor reversibility, and unfavourable cyclability in conventional organic liquid electrolyte systems, which enormously limit its practical application. In this chapter, we describe an all-solid-state battery system consisting of MH working electrode, LiBH4 solid electrolyte, and Li metal counter electrode. The electrochemical properties of MgH2 and TiH2 composites are investigated, which showed much better performances using LiBH4 as solid-state electrolyte than using conventional organic liquid electrolyte

Regulation of Adrenomedullin and its Family Peptide by RAMP System – Lessons from Genetically Engineered Mice

Adrenomedullin (ADM), originally identified as a vasodilating peptide, is now recognized to be a pleiotropic molecule involved in both the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases and circulatory homeostasis. Homozygotes of ADM knockout mice (ADM-/-) were lethal at mid-gestation with abnormalities of vascular development and this finding clarified the angiogenic potency of ADM. Calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), which has a structure and function similar to that of ADM, has been identified as a family peptide of ADM. Unlike ADM-/-, CGRP-/- were apparently normal. Therefore, the study of knockout mice first clarified the distinctly different physiological roles between ADM and CGRP. In contrast, heterozygotes of ADM knockout mice (ADM+/-) were alive but showed blood pressure elevation, reduced neovascularization, and enhanced neointimal formation by arterial injury. Based on these observations, there was hope ADM would have a therapeutic use. However, ADM has a short half-life in the blood stream and its application in chronic disease has limitations. Therefore, we focused on the ADM receptor system. The calcitonin-receptor-like receptor (CLR), which is the ADM receptor, associates with one of the accessory proteins, called receptor activity-modifying proteins (RAMPs). By interacting with RAMP1, CLR exhibits a high affinity for CGRP, whereas by interacting with either RAMP2 or -3, CLR exhibits a high affinity for ADM. We generated RAMP knockout mice and found that vascular phenotypes similar to ADM-/- were reproduced only in RAMP2-/-. This shows that RAMP2 is the key determinant of the vascular functions of ADM. RAMP2 could be an attractive therapeutic target in cardiovascular diseases.ArticleCURRENT PROTEIN & PEPTIDE SCIENCE. 14(5):347-357 (2013)journal articl

Chemiluminescence behavior of fluorescent aromatics tethered 9-methylidene-10-methylacridans involving chemiluminescence resonance energy transfer (CRET) quenching

The chemiluminescence (CL) behavior, observed in the singlet oxygenation of three fluorescent aromatics tethered 9-methylidene-10-methylacridans bearing the pyrene, perylene, and stilbene moieties, was investigated. The CL spectrum of 9-(perylen-3′-ylidene)-10-methylacridan displayed a red-shifted emission different from the fluorescent products, while 9-(pyren-1′-ylidene)-10-methylacridan and 9-(4′-styrylbenzylidene)-10-methylacridan produced very weak CLs. A chemiluminescence resonance energy transfer (CRET) quenching of the excited aromatic aldehydes by the acridans remaining as the unreacted reactants was found to result in these unexpected CL behaviors.ArticleTetrahedron Letters. 54(11):1338-1343 (2013)journal articl

On R\'{e}nyi Differential Privacy in Statistics-Based Synthetic Data Generation

Privacy protection with synthetic data generation often uses differentially private statistics and model parameters to quantitatively express theoretical security. However, these methods do not take into account privacy protection due to the randomness of data generation. In this paper, we theoretically evaluate R\'{e}nyi differential privacy of the randomness in data generation of a synthetic data generation method that uses the mean vector and the covariance matrix of an original dataset. Specifically, for a fixed $\alpha > 1$, we show the condition of $\varepsilon$ such that the synthetic data generation satisfies $(\alpha, \varepsilon)$-R\'{e}nyi differential privacy under a bounded neighboring condition and an unbounded neighboring condition, respectively. In particular, under the unbounded condition, when the size of the original dataset and synthetic datase is 10 million, the mechanism satisfies $(4, 0.576)$-R\'{e}nyi differential privacy. We also show that when we translate it into the traditional $(\varepsilon, \delta)$-differential privacy, the mechanism satisfies $(4.00, 10^{-10})$-differential privacy.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figure

Benzene substituted with bipyridine and terpyridine as electron-transporting materials for organic light-emitting devices

New electron-transporting materials for organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) based on trisubstituted benzene with both bipyridine and terpyridine, 1,3-bisbipyridyl-5-terpyridylbenzene (BBTB) and 1-bipyridyl-3,5-bisterpyridylbenzene (BTBB), were developed. Glass transition temperatures of BBTB and BTBB were 93 degrees C and 108 degrees C, respectively, and BTBB was completely amorphous with no melting point. Electron mobilities of BTBB exceeded the order of 10(-4) cm(2) V-1 s(-1), while those of BBTB were very high and reached 10(-3) cm(2) V-1 s(-1) at an electric field of approximately 500 kV cm(-2). These high mobilities contributed to a low voltage operation. For example, in the case of the conventional aluminum trisquinolinol (Alq)-based fluorescent OLED with BTBB, current densities of 3.5 mA cm(-2) and 100 mA cm(-2) were reached at voltages of 3.0 V and 4.5 V, respectively. In addition, ionization potentials of BBTB (6.33 eV) and BTBB (6.50 eV) were sufficiently large to confine holes in common emissive layers.ArticleJOURNAL OF MATERIALS CHEMISTRY. 22(14):6765-6773 (2012)journal articl