Pregnancy by Assisted Reproductive Technology Is Associated with Shorter Telomere Length in Neonates

Telomere length (TL) influences the development of lifestyle-related diseases, and neonatal TL may influence their prevalence. Various factors have been reported to affect neonatal TL. Although the fetus is exposed to multiple conditions in utero, the main factors affecting the shortening of neonatal TL are still not known. In this study, we sought to identify factors that influence fetal TL. A total of 578 mother-newborn pairs were included for TL analysis. TL was measured in genomic DNA extracted from cord blood samples using quantitative PCR. The clinical factors examined at enrollment included the following intrauterine environmental factors: maternal age, assisted reproductive technology (ART) used, body mass index (BMI), gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), maternal stress, smoking, alcohol consumption, preterm delivery, small-for-gestational-age, neonatal sex, and placental weight. Univariate and multivariate regression analyses were used to verify the relationship between neonatal TL and these clinical factors. The median neonatal TL to single-copy gene ratio was 1.0. Pregnancy with ART was among the 11 factors associated with shorter neonatal TL. From multiple regression analysis, we determined that neonatal TL was significantly shorter for pregnancies in the ART group than in the other groups. We conclude that pregnancy with ART is associated with shorter neonatal TL.     

A durable, shock-resistant electromagnetic optical scanner withpolyimide-based hinges

This paper presents a moving-coil electromagnetic optical scanner with newly developed hinge structure consisting of multilayered polyimide films with aluminum lead wires in between. The main purpose is to obtain a scanner with good durability and shock resistance for practical use. Polyimide has both features, and the aluminum lead wires, connecting the moving-coils and fixed electrode pads, are more reliable, because they are located inside the hinge, where the stress caused by torsional deformation and atmospheric degradation are minimal. An electromagnetic actuator is used to satisfy the following requirements; a millimeter-sized mirror, resonant and galvanometric operation, and scan angle control. Scanner prototypes with two different specifications (i.e., fast scanner and slow scanner) were fabricated and characterized. Driven with a sinusoidal current of ±20 mA, the fast scanner and the slow one vibrated with an optical scan angle (&thetas;_o) of 1° at the resonant frequency (f_r) of 1.7 kHz and &thetas;_o of 60° at f_r of 72 Hz, respectively. Durability was demonstrated with a shock test of 2500 G and a life test of over 13 000 h. By substituting sputtered aluminum driving coil with electroplated copper coil, improved &thetas;_o of 16.8° was obtained at f_r of 2.7 kHz     

Moderately high speed impact of two identical spheres

This paper deals with impacts between two identical spheres in moderately high speed range. Impact of spheres is one of basic problems in mechanical dynamics. Severity of impact is generally characterized by the coefficient of restitution. However, influence of material property on the coefficient of restitution has not been clarified yet. The authors previously investigated direct central impacts of two identical spheres in low speed range and revealed that strain rate sensitivity of material properties could not be ignored even in the low speed impacts. Therefore, this paper investigates the direct central impact of two identical spheres in higher speed range. The impact experiments were performed in range of impact speed 10 m/s–20 m/s by using air-gun setup. It was confirmed that the expressions for the coefficient of restitution and the contact time derived from the low speed impact remained effective in the moderately high speed range. Then numerical simulations by using Finite Element Method (F.E.M) have been carried out, in which the material properties and the strain rate effect were taken into account. The coefficient of restitution, contact time, sphere’s compression and contact circle diameter obtained by experiments and F.E.M. were compared and they matched well. Contact pressure distributions at maximum contact force were investigated. The contact pressure at sphere center varied little with impact speed but the contact pressure increased with impact speed near contact edge. Theoretical expression for prediction of the coefficient of restitution proposed by C. Thornton was examined to the experimental results of this study. To provide an accurate prediction, it is necessary to estimate the contact pressure depending on material properties. Finally, the Meyer analysis was applied to the case of this study and it was found that the Meyer’s law holds in the moderately high speed impact between two identical spheres.     

Gas Transport Parameters for Compacted Reddish-Brown Soil in Sri Lankan Landfill Final Cover

Gas exchange through the compacted final cover soil at landfill sites plays a vital role for emission, fate, and transport of toxic landfill gases. This study involved measuring the soil-gas diffusivity (Dp/Do, the ratio of gas diffusion coefficients in soil and free air) and air permeability (ka) for differently compacted soil samples (reddish-brown soil) from the final cover at the Maharagama landfill in Sri Lanka. The samples were prepared by either standard Proctor compaction or hand compaction to dry bulk densities of 1.60–1.94??g?cm-3. Existing and modified models for predicting Dp/Do and ka were tested against the measured data. The simple, single-parameter Buckingham model predicted measured Dp/Do values across compaction levels equally well or better than a dry bulk density (DBD) dependent model and a soil-water retention (SWR) dependent model. The measured ka values for differently compacted samples were highly affected by the compaction level and the sample moisture preparation method. Also, for air permeability, a single-parameter Buckingham-type ka model was most accurate in predicting ka in the differently compacted soil samples. Equivalent air-filled pore diameters (the effective diameter of the drained pores active in leading air through the sample) for gas flow, deq, were calculated from the measured Dp/D0 and ka values. The deq increased with compaction level, suggesting that a very high compaction level creates well-connected macropores in the reduced total pore space of the cover soil. This is an important consideration when designing cover soils for optimally low water and high oxygen exchange while minimizing climate and toxic gas emissions from the waste layer to the atmosphere.     

Mobilization and Leaching of Natural and Water Dispersible Colloids in Aggregated Volcanic Ash Soil Columns

Colloid-facilitated transport enhances migration of strongly sorbing compounds (e.g., radionuclides, phosphorus, heavy metals) in soil and groundwater. Mobilization, transport and deposition of soil colloids are the underlying processes governing colloid-facilitated contaminant transport. Although significant progress has been made in simulating mobilization and transport/deposition of model colloids in different collector systems, it may be inadequate for the prediction of natural colloidal behavior in the subsurface. This study quantifies the leaching of natural volcanic ash soil colloids (NC) as well as the simultaneous transport of applied water dispersible soil colloids (WDC) in aggregated volcanic ash soil columns. Two water-saturated soil columns were irrigated with artificial irrigation water (AIW) at an intensity of 80 mm/hr for 60 hours. Two additional columns were irrigated at the same intensity, but a colloidal suspension of 5 mg/L was applied after 20 hours for a period of 20 hours. Effluent colloid concentrations were measured in each experiment. HYDRUS-1D was used for the simulation and estimation of colloid transport parameters. The results clearly showed different kinetics for applied colloid transport and natural colloid leaching. Transport of applied WDC followed first-order attachment kinetics, while the two-site equilibrium/kinetic model with equal fractions of equilibrium and kinetic sites best described the leaching of NC. Coupling these best model approaches well predicted the simultaneous leaching of natural and applied colloids, hereby providing a useful tool for the design of colloid-based in-situ soil remediation systems.     

Assessment of SGS closure for isochoric combustion of hydrogen-air mixture

Direct numerical simulation (DNS) data of freely propagating turbulent premixed flame of stoichiometric hydrogen air mixture inside a closed vessel is analysed to study a sub-grid combustion closure based on unstrained flamelet approach. This modeling framework needs closures for the sub-grid scale (SGS) reaction rate and scalar dissipation rate. The results show that the closure models for these two SGS quantities work quite well. The dissipation rate closure involves a scale dependent parameter, ${\beta }_c$, which is related to the flame curvature induced effects. The reactivity of reactant mixture increases with time in isochoric combustion because the mixture temperature and pressure increase with time. This also influences the parameter ${\beta }_c$ and thus the dynamic evaluation of this parameter is investigated using the DNS data.     

Novel fabrication of nano-pattern with optical function by selective doping of dye vapor into novolac resin

We report selective doping of vapor of yellow dye, ferrocenedimethanol into exposed (UV-irradiated) areas of novolac resin films. When vapor of the dye was contacted with micro-patterned resin films containing both exposed and unexposed areas, the dye was doped only into the exposed areas, resulting in fabrication of micro-pattern containing the dye. On the contrary, ferrocene and other ferrocene derivatives were doped both exposed and unexposed areas of the resin. A contact angle measurement of aqueous drops on each dye indicated that the chemical affinity between hydroxyl groups of ferrocenedimethanol and exposed areas of the novolac resin will enhance selective doping of the dye into the exposed areas.     

Numerical Verifications of Solutions for Nonlinear Parabolic Equations in One-Space Dimensional Case

In this paper, we describe a numerical method to verify the solutions with guaranteed error bounds for nonlinear parabolic problems in one dimensional case. It is based on Plum's method for formulating the problem and weak formulation for estimating explicitly the inverse norm of the linearized operator. We introduce some weighted norms on time-dependent Sobolev spaces, which play an important role in the application of our method. We present detailed verification procedures by using this weighted norm and show some numerical examples.     

Human placenta gangliosides

Gangliosides extracted from human placenta were composed of four major components (G1–G4), which were purified by silica beads column chromatography. The structures of these gangliosides were analyzed by exoglycosidase treatments, 400 MHz proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and were concluded to be as follows: Gangliosides containing more than 10 sugar residues were observed in addition to the above four major components. But ganglio-series gngliosides were undetectable in the placenta.