Development of active icosahedron and its application to virtual clay modeling

We have developed an active link mechanism for physical man-machine interaction. We report an active icosahedron consisting of intelligent cylinders and its application to virtual clay modeling. Intelligent pneumatic cylinders are newly developed to realize active link mechanisms. This cylinder aims at a novel cylinder in which various sensors and control devices are built. Active link mechanisms are highly integrated and enhanced by intelligent cylinders. A control system is built for the active icosahedron. In the control system, a key element is a control program implementing drawing of a virtual model on display and controlling of active links. Virtual clays are deformed by the program based on the apex positions converted from cylinder lengths. The active icosahedron realized dynamic interaction with virtual objects in PC, showing the potential of the devices as a haptic interface.</p

Ontology Mapping of PATO to YATO for the improvement of interoperability of quality description

To facilitate broad interoperability for phenotype information between different ontological frameworks, we developed a reference ontology, PATO2YATO_Quality, with the careful mapping of terms of PATO which is a quality ontology commonly used for biological phenotype annotation to the latest top-level ontology, YATO, which represents advanced modeling of quality-related concepts. As a result, YATO framework enabled to describe changes of phenotypic qualities along the courses of time in ontologically correct way and sophisticated classification and representation of interrelationships among quality-related concepts to provide fully integration of qualitative values and quantitative values obtained from phenotyping experiments and advanced representation of more detailed quality description. Thus, PATO2YATO_Quality will contribute to advanced integration of phenotypic qualities

Gait Design for a Snake Robot by Connecting Curve Segments and Experimental Demonstration

This paper presents a method for designing the gait of a snake robot that moves in a complicated environment. We propose a method for expressing the target form of a snake robot by connecting curve segments whose curvature and torsion are already known. Because the characteristics of each combined shape are clear, we can design the target form intuitively and approximate a snake robot configuration to this form with low computational cost. In addition, we propose two novel gaits for the snake robot as a design example of the proposed method. The first gait is aimed at moving over a flange on a pipe, while the other is the crawler gait aimed at moving over rough terrain. We demonstrated the effectiveness of the two gaits on a pipe and rough terrain in experiments

Drell-Yan Production of Z' in the Three-Site Higgsless Model at the LHC

In the Higgsless models, there are extra gauge bosons which keep the perturbative unitarity of a longitudinally polarized gauge boson. The three-site Higgsless model is a minimal Higgsless model and contains three extra gauge bosons, $W^{\prime \pm}$ and Z'. In this paper, we report the discovery potential of the Z' gauge boson via Drell-Yan production with Z'(mass=380, 500, 600 GeV) $\rightarrow WW \rightarrow \ell\nu qq$ ($\ell=e$, $\mu$) at the LHC ($\sqrt{s}$=14 TeV).Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures included. References revise

Coherent control of a flux qubit by phase-shifted resonant microwave pulses

The quantum state of a flux qubit was successfully pulse-controlled by using a resonant microwave. We observed Ramsey fringes by applying a pair of phase-shifted pi/2 microwave pulses without introducing detuning. With this method, the qubit state can be rotated on an arbitrary axis in the x-y plane of the Bloch sphere in a rotating frame. We obtained a qubit signal from a coherent oscillation with an angular velocity of up to 2pi*11.4 Grad/s. In combination with Rabi pulses, this method enables us to achieve full control of single qubit operation. It also offers the possibility of orders of magnitude increases in the speed of the arbitrary unitary gate operation.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figure

Leukocyte-mimetic liposomes possessing leukocyte membrane proteins pass through inflamed endothelial cell layer by regulating intercellular junctions

Nanoparticles such as liposomes have been applied for the treatment of various diseases such as cancer and inflammatory diseases by utilizing the enhanced permeability and retention effect. However, their entry into inflammation sites is still limited since passive delivery of nanoparticles is often hampered by the presence of endothelial barriers. As leukocytes can pass through the inflamed endothelium via utilizing membrane protein functions, we hypothesized that incorporating leukocyte membrane proteins onto liposomal membranes may impart leukocyte-mimicking functions to liposomes, allowing for their adherence to and active passage through the inflamed endothelium. Herein, we developed leukocyte-mimetic liposomes (LM-Lipo) by leukocyte membrane protein transfer and evaluated their function in vitro. Transfer of membrane proteins from human leukemia cells onto liposomal membranes allowed for significant association of the liposomes with inflamed human endothelial cells, and subsequent passage through inflamed endothelial cell layer. The confocal images showed that LM-Lipo significantly induced vascular endothelial-cadherin displacement. These results indicate that LM-Lipo adhered to and regulated intercellular junctions of inflamed endothelial cell layer, resulting in passage through the layer, by mimicking the function of leukocytes. Furthermore, it is suggested that liposomes possessing leukocyte-like functions could be useful for drug delivery to inflammation sites by overcoming endothelial barriers

Intraoperative electrocorticography and successful focus resection in a case of Sturge-Weber syndrome

This paper reports a surgically treated case of Sturge-Weber syndrome (SWS) in which the epileptic foci and haemangiomatosis were successfully resected under monitoring of intraoperative electrocorticography. The patient was a 19-month-old female infant who was referred to our hospital because of frequent hemi-tonic-clonic convulsions that were resistant to anticonvulsant therapy. Serial MRI showed progressive atrophy in the left fronto-parieto-temporal lobe, and gyral enhancement by gadolinium corresponded to venous haemangiomatosis of SWS. Three-dimensional reconstruction of the MR images was performed using the Viewing Wand System. Conventional EEG taken before the operation showed slow activity in the left frontal lobe. Intraoperative ECoG revealed spike focus at the posterior temporal cortex to the margin of the haemangiomatosis. Lesionectomy with lobar corticectomy of the total frontal and parietal lobe and part of the temporal lobe was performed. The epileptogenic focus detected by ECoG in the posterior temporal lobe was also resected. In post-excisional ECoG, epileptogenic activities had disappeared. The patient had hemiparesis and hemihypesthesia just after the surgery, but gradually recovered from the paresis and almost has normal motor function except for right-hand clumsiness up to 1 year after surgery. The present study demonstrated that lobar corticectomy of the haemangiomatosis-affected cortex with resection of the neighbouring epileptogenic focus is a good surgical alternative even if a haemangiomatosis of the SWS affected multilobar corti of the hemisphere