Depth estimation of protoporphyrin IX objects in turbid media considering the fluorescence intensity ratio between two wavelengths of light for application in invasion diagnosis of gastric cancer

Optical Review - This paper demonstrates a method to estimate the depth of a fluorescence object in turbid media using dual-wavelength excited photodynamic diagnosis, to aid in the invasion depth...     

InGaAs/InAlAs Five Layer Asymmetric Coupled Quantum Well (FACQW) for Ultra-Wideband Ultrafast Optical Modulators

An InGaAs/InAlAs five-layer asymmetric coupled quantum well (FACQW) is expected to show very large electrorefractive index change. n in a wideband transparency region. Band structures of the FACQW are analyzed with Luttinger-Kohn Hamiltonian. The electrorefractive characteristics of the FACQW are discussed.     

Selective ablation of atherosclerotic lesions with less thermal damage by controlling the pulse structure of a quantum cascade laser in the 5.7-µm wavelength range

Cholesteryl esters are the main components of atherosclerotic plaques, and they have an absorption peak at the wavelength of 5.75 µm. To realize less-invasive ablation of the atherosclerotic plaques using a quasi-continuous wave (quasi-CW) quantum cascade laser (QCL), the thermal effects on normal vessels must be reduced. In this study, we attempted to reduce the thermal effects by controlling the pulse structure. The irradiation effects on rabbit atherosclerotic aortas using macro pulse irradiation (irradiation of pulses at intervals) and conventional quasi-CW irradiation were compared. The macro pulse width and the macro pulse interval were determined based on the thermal relaxation time of atherosclerotic and normal aortas in the oscillation wavelength of the QCL. The ablation depth increased and the coagulation width decreased using macro pulse irradiation. Moreover, difference in ablation depth between the atherosclerotic and normal rabbit aortas using macro pulse irradiation was confirmed. Therefore, the QCL in the 5.7-µm wavelength range with controlling the pulse structure was effective for less-invasive laser angioplasty.     

Determination of the scattering coefficient of biological tissue considering the wavelength and absorption dependence of the anisotropy factor

The anisotropy factor g, one of the optical properties of biological tissues, has a strong influence on the calculation of the scattering coefficient μ _s in inverse Monte Carlo (iMC) simulations. It has been reported that g has the wavelength and absorption dependence; however, few attempts have been made to calculate μ _s using g values by taking the wavelength and absorption dependence into account. In this study, the angular distributions of scattered light for biological tissue phantoms containing hemoglobin as a light absorber were measured by a goniometric optical setup at strongly (405 nm) and weakly (664 nm) absorbing wavelengths to obtain g. Subsequently, the optical properties were calculated with the measured values of g by integrating sphere measurements and an iMC simulation, and compared with the results obtained with a conventional g value of 0.9. The μ _s values with measured g were overestimated at the strongly absorbing wavelength, but underestimated at the weakly absorbing wavelength if 0.9 was used in the iMC simulation.     

Enhancement of Higgs to diphoton decay width in non-perturbative Higgs model

We investigate a possibility if a loop diagram via Higgsino can enhance the Higgs to diphoton decay width in supersymmetric models with an extension of Higgs sector. A model with an additional non-renormalizable term of Higgs fields is firstly analyzed where the higher order term can introduce the Higgs coupling to Higgsinos as well as charged Higgs bosons. We point out that a choice of the Higgs coupling to obtain a significant size of enhancement of diphoton decay width reduces the Higgs mass and/or a size of non-renormalizable term needs to be large and a cutoff scale is around the weak scale. Another model in which the Higgsino mass term is generated by a non-perturbative instanton effect via a strong dynamics in a context of SUSY QCD is also suggested. It is shown that the sign of the Higgs coupling to fermions is opposite from perturbative models due to an operator including bosonic fields in the denominator and a constructive contribution to the diphoton decay amplitude can be easily obtained in this kind of model.     

Interaction and arrangement of nitrogen and carbon atoms in fcc γ-iron

A Mössbauer effect measurement has been done for Fe?N, Fe?Al?C and Fe?Ni?C austenite in order to study the interaction between the interstitial atoms and their distribution among the octahedral sites of the fcc lattice, together with the influence of Al and Ni atoms. The spectra for Fe?N and Fe?Al?C austenite are decomposed into three components; one singlet γ₀, and two sets of doublet γ₁ and γ₂, with different quadrupole splittings, while no γ₂ component is found in the spectrum for Fe?Ni?C. By analyzing the component ratio in each spectrum, it is concluded that, in Fe?N and Fe?Al?C, the interaction between 2nd nearest neighboring nitrogen or carbon atoms is attractive, and is repulsive between 1st nearest for Fe?N, and that the interaction between 2nd nearest atoms is repulsive for Fe?Ni?C. By measuring the spectra of Fe?Ni?C in magnetic field, the sign of EFG for most of the γ₁ component is determined to be negative.     

Preparation of monodispersed vinylpyridine–divinylbenzene porous copolymer resins and their application to high-performance liquid chromatographic separation of aromatic amines

For the separation of aromatic amines, two types of monodispersed porous polymer resins were prepared by the copolymerization of 2-vinylpyridine and 4-vinylpyridine with divinylbenzene in the presence of template silica gel particles (particle size 5 μm), followed by dissolution of the template silica gel in an alkaline solution. The transmission electron micrographs and the scanning electron micrograph revealed that these templated polymer resins have a spherical morphology with a good monodispersity and porous structure. Using these monodispersed polymer resins, the high-performance liquid chromatographic separation of aromatic amines in the mobile phases of pHs 2.0, 2.9, 4.1, 7.2 and 11.7 were carried out. The 2-vinylpyridine–divinylbenzene copolymer resins showed slightly stronger retentions for aromatic amines than the 4-vinylpyridine–divinylbenzene copolymer resins. Under acidic conditions (around pH 2.0), aniline and the toluidines showed no retention on these copolymer resins due to the repulsion between the cationic forms of these amines and pyridinium cations in the stationary phase, whereas less basic aromatic amines or non-basic acetanilide showed slight retentions. Above pH 4.1, the separation of aromatic amines with these polymer resins showed a typical reversed-phase mode separation. Therefore, the separation patterns of aromatic amines are effectively tunable by changing the pH value of the mobile phases. A good separation of eight aromatic amines was achieved at pH 2.9 using the 2-vinylpyridine–divinylbenzene copolymer resins.     

Comparison of PAMAM-Au and PPI-Au nanocomposites and their catalytic activity for reduction of 4-nitrophenol

Dendrimer-Au nanocomposites are prepared in aqueous solutions using poly(amidoammine)dendrimers (PAMAM) (generation 2, 3, and 5) and poly(propyleneimine)dendrimers (PPI)(generation 2, 3, and 4) by wet chemical NaBH(4) method. The Au nanoparticles thus obtained are 2-4 nm in diameter for both dendrimers and no generation dependence on the particle size is observed, whereas the generations of the dendrimers are increased as stabilization of Au-nanoparticles is achieved with lower dendrimer concentrations. Studies of the reduction reaction of 4-nitrophenol using these nanocomposites show that the rate constants for the PAMAM dendrimers (generations 2 and 3) are higher than those for the PPI dendrimers (generations 2 and 3), while a distinct difference in the rate constants is not seen for the PAMAM dendrimer (generation 5) or the PPI dendrimer (generation 4). In addition, the rate constants for the reduction of 4-nitrophenol involving all the dendrimers decrease with increases in dendrimer concentrations.     

Flow injection analysis for traces of zinc with immobilized carbonic anhydrase

A small column packed with immobilized bovine carbonic anhydrase is used for determination of traces of zinc in aqueous solution, based on the measurement of recovered esterase activity of the metal-free apoenzyme after taking up zinc from the sample solution. Conditions for the removal of zinc from the immobilized enzyme and for activity measurement are established. A linear calibration graph is obtained between 1 × 10^?8 and 4 × 10^?7 g of zinc. Then the method is successfully applied to the determination of zinc in tea, sediment and spring water.