Purpose: Diabetes mellitus (DM) develops neuropathy and angiopathy. This study aimed to quantify the effects of DM on baroreflex-mediated arterial pressure regulation. Methods: Type 1 DM was induced in rats by intraperitoneal streptozotocin. Four weeks later, baroreflex open-loop static characteristics were estimated in DM rats (blood glucose > 300 mg/dL) and normal control (NC) rats. Carotid sinus baroreceptor regions were isolated and carotid sinus pressure (CSP) was changed from 60 to 180 mmHg while sympathetic nerve activity (SNA) and arterial pressure (AP) were measured. Results: In the neural arc characteristics (the relationship of SNA versus CSP), the percent minimum SNA was significantly higher in DM than in NC. In the peripheral arc characteristics (the relationship of AP versus SNA), the slope of the regression line was significantly lower in DM than in NC. Conclusion: Streptozotocin-induced DM shows significant derangement in both central neural regulation and peripheral cardiovascular regulation.

In cells, 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA) is metabolized to protoporphylinIX (PPIX), which emits fluorescence. This study aimed to reveal theorigin of PPIX fluorescence seen in atherosclerotic plaque of micethat were administered with ALA. LDL-receptor knockout mice, fed withhigh cholesterol diet were intravenously administered with ALA. Theaorta were extracted and sliced for the observation by a confocallaser microscope. The adjacent slice was stained with anti-F4/80antibody for the identification of macrophage. In atheroscleroticplaque, fluorescence sites corresponded to the spots where macrophages(F4/80 positive) were confirmed. The sensitivity and specificity of the degree of agreement between the site exhibiting fluorescence and the macrophage (F4 / 80) positive site was 47% and 95%, respectively.Fluorescent imaging of ALA-induced PPIX might be a specific modalityfor detecting macrophages in atherosclerotic plaque.

We have developed a new catheter ablation methodology for tachyarrhythmia using photosensitization reaction using talaporfin sodium to reduce complications. We intend to use extracellular singlet oxygen production to realize immediate electrical conduction block by laser irradiation just after the photosensitizer administration. It is reported that the albumin structure different along animal species and binding and cell killing are different. We investigated the photosensitization reaction progress by fluorescence measurement around 700 nm and albumin oxidization by ultraviolet region absorbance using human, bovine, and canine albumin. We found that the albumin oxidization behavior using canine albumin was similar to that of human albumin. The bovine albumin was easily oxidized.

To study nerve injury by a photosensitization reaction ex vivo, we observed an uptake of talaporfin sodium into crayfish nerve and porcine phrenic nerve, we investigated influence of the reaction on electrophysiological conduction velocity of crayfish nerve. We found the drug uptake of inside the perineurium was lower than that of outside in porcine phrenic nerve. The crayfish nerve was immersed into 20 μg/ml talaporfin sodium and irradiated by a 663 nm laser light with 120 mW/cm2. Since we found the measured conduction velocity was decreased increasing the irradiation time, the nerve might not be resistant to the photosensitization reaction at atmospheric pressure. It was reported that the phrenic nerve was intact when an electro blockade using photosensitization reaction was performed in vivo. Low uptake of talaporfin sodium inside the perineurium and low oxygen partial pressure of nerve might be the mechanism to preserve phrenic nerve in vivo.

To obtain sufficient oxygen dissolute solution with perceiving oxygen environment and photosensitizer bleaching in a well for photosensitization reaction study, we applied a red blood cell suspension in the well and transmission absorption spectroscopy measurement. Red blood cells suspension medium containing talaporfin sodium as a photosensitizer in a cuvette with 1 mm optical path length was employed as an optical sample. The optical sample was irradiated by a 663 nm wavelength diode laser. Transmission visible absorption spectrum of the sample were measured before and after each irradiation condition. The spectroscopy was selected to distinguish oxygenated hemoglobin, deoxygenated hemoglobin, and met hemoglobin. And also to investigate photosensitizer bleaching using Q band absorption peak. Each hemoglobin concentration was estimated using a multiple regression analysis to the obtained absorption spectrum. Oxygen saturation and absorbance peak in the Q band decrease with increasing radiant exposure were revealed by our proposing measuring method.

Morbidity causes abnormality in concentration of specific protein. Serum protein fraction method has been utilized for understanding the disease state from fractionated concentration ratio of serum protein by electrophoresis. However, in the process of protein visualization, the staining fluid currently used contains harmful substances to human body. Therefore, we focused on Terahertz (THz) wave which is harmless and easily absorbed by biomaterials. We have reported that proteins fractionated by Cellulose Acetate (CA) membrane electrophoresis can be visualized by using THz wave. However, the obtained THz absorption image had low contrast, and the appearing band was also unclear. Therefore, in this report we constructed a coating method for CA membrane using material printer and a drying method after electrophoresis, evaluated the images obtained from the constructed methods. In addition, we examined an image processing method for extracting protein bands after reducing background noise of the image.

Early treatment is important for lymphedema patients but there is no appropriate method to detect lymphedema in early stage. The formation of lymphedema changes electrical properties of normal tissue so the purpose of this study was to establish a method for detecting early stage lymphedema by using electrical impedance tomography (EIT) method.Firstly, the electrical properties of normal condition and lymphedema condition were compared by a two-electrode experiment and phantoms of human upper arm were established to simulate the real condition of lymphedema formation. Then, a series of electrodes surrounding of phantom is placed to inject current and measure boundary voltage. From the boundary voltage the inverse problem was solved and the cross-section image of upper arm was reconstructed. From the image, the inhomogeneity which indicate early symptom of lymphedema was observed.From this study, the possibility of lymphedema early detection by EIT was shown.

The magnetic technique using a magnetic tracer and handheld magnetic probe with permanent magnet can be alternatives to the radioisotope technique as a noninvasive promising method for sentinel lymph node biopsy. To identify one sentinel lymph node, 5 mm spatial resolution of the probe is required because sentinel lymph nodes are often clustered in axillary lymph nodes. The aim of this study is to demonstrate a spatial resolution of the magnetic probe by a sensitivity mapping measurement with high spatial resolutions.The longitudinal sensitivity and lateral resolution of the probe was approximately 8 mm and 4 mm, respectively, for 5 μL of the magnetic tracer (Resovist). The probe discriminated the one phantom from two phantoms separated 4 mm in the lateral direction. These results indicate that the magnetic probe with the permanent magnet has the ability to identify one sentinel lymph node from the node clusters in actual usages.

3D stereoscopic endoscope device was developed in endoscopic surgery. In this system, special glasses, which bother the surgeons, are needed. Thus, we proposed an Integral-Videography(IV)-based endoscope system. IV-based method is glasses-free for displaying 3D images. In this method, the reflecting light ray of an object is constructed by placing an IV element image on the focal plane of a lens array. In the previous constructing method of the IV element image from the stereo endoscope images, there is a time delay of the image composition. In this paper, principle of IV element image acquisition method was confirmed by an optical system using a 0.25 pitch gradient index(GRIN) lens. IV element image was created by getting the images corresponding to a single lens and placing the acquired images at the corresponding position. By observing the IV image, we observed that the proposed method can express the depth relationship of the object.

Classifying leukocyte and examining their proportions is a very important for disease examination and diagnosis. This examination needs the knowledge of experts and a lot of time. Therefore, many automatic leukocyte images classification algorithms have been proposed. There is a method to classify 13 types blood cells using 1 vs 1 Support Vector Machine in one of them. In the conventional method, leukocyte images are classified with the 26-dimensional feature vectors. The feature vectors are composed of 18-dimensional feature vectors relating to the color of cell and 8-dimensional feature vectors relating to the form of cell. The classification accuracy, however, is poor with these feature vectors regarding granulocytes in this method. In this paper, we propose new feature vectors to improve the classification accuracy of promyelocytes, myelocytes, myelocytes, basophils, eosinophils with low classification accuracy among the leukocyte fractions. That is, we add two feature vectors in the proposed method.

Adipocyte diameter is one of the very important parameters representing adipocyte function. We newly developed a highly accurate and low-cost method for the measurement. Using rat's adipose tissue as a sample tissue, adipocytes were isolated with collagenase, fixed in formalin, and stained with oil red O. In this stage, droplets of spillage oil leaked from damaged adipocytes were hardly distinguishable from adipocytes because both shapes are very close to sphere. Therefore, we poured colorless liquid oil to wash out and lighten the red color of oil droplet only, and then adipocytes in light colored oil were suspended in water. After small amount of chloroform was added to sink and align them in monolayer to avoid defocus, clear microscopic images were captured on a PC, and cells were accurately and automatically detected as red circles to determine their diameters at once.

We previously reported that electrical stimulation (burst rate = 2 bursts/s; each burst was comprised of 10 pulses of 0.25-ms width with 25-ms intervals) to a rat sympathetic fascicle in unilateral sciatic nerve induced temporal blood glucose reduction with little change in plasma insulin (PI) 30 s after the onset of the stimulation. In the present study, we evaluated effects of the stimulation (microstimulation (MS)) on steady glucose uptake determined with euglycemic clamp (EC) in rats (n=9). Glucose infusion rate (GIR) of EC, during MS was significantly higher (p<0.01) than that obtained before the onset of MS. Even after the termination of MS, GIR was still higher (p<0.05). PI changed little during the EC period. The results suggest that the enhancement of glucose uptake due to MS is not a transient phenomenon, is independent of insulin, and may be maintained even after the termination of MS.

A surface acoustic wave (SAW)-based particle separation microfluidic device enables fast and continuous separation. A pair of interdigital transducers (IDTs) and a micro channel, which is placed between and parallel to the IDTs, are constructed on a piezoelectric substrate. Standing SAW (SSAW) is formed in the channel by applying high frequency voltage to the IDTs. The cells subjected to the SSAW field are driven by the acoustic radiation force. In this study, the computational model of SSAW-based cell separation device was constructed and the flow field was calculated by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. The motion of the cells in the channel was calculated considering acoustic radiation force, viscous force and pressure gradient force. The cell separation efficiency was assessed by considering the statistical dispersion of red and white blood cell volume and the injection position. The guideline to improve cell separation efficiency of the device was obtained.

Flow generation techniques using surface acoustic wave (SAW) have been developed. This technique is useful for the mixing/separation of particles in a small droplet and can be applied for the laboratory testing with extremely small amount of specimen. In this study, a hemispherical shaped micro water droplet with a volume of 30 μL was modeled and the SAW-driven flow in the droplet was numerically calculated. The calculation results show that a vortex generated around the SAW irradiation site moves toward the droplet center and it derives upward flow. The particles with the same degree as the density of water follows the flow field in the droplet and eventually pile on the peripheral area. The particles with high density moves toward the droplet center along the substrate surface and accumulate at the central area. The feasibility of cell separation was confirmed from the numerical simulation.

[Introduction] Currently, there is the blood clinical examination for a diagnostic method of electrolyte abnormality, but it can not be measured continuously. So we thought that it can be continuously measured by bioelectrical impedance method. [Purpose] : For this purpose, we aim to measure the electrolyte concentration continuously by using bioelectrical impedance method. [Results] : We investigated about the solution of NaCl and KCl with bioelectrical impedance method. We found that the impedance of each solution was decrease according to these concentration of solution. And the impedance frequency characteristics were different between the solution of NaCl and KCl. Especially the impedance of NaCl solution was high impedance, comparing with the KCl solution in high frequency range. We thought that this difference was due to the influence of H2O. [Summary] In these experiments, we thought that the bioelectrical impedance was able to measure the concentration of many ions in solution.

We are studying on measurement of tissue dynamics using very high-frame-rate ultrasound, which realizes a temporal resolution of over thousand Hertz. For measurement of tissue motion, the displacement of an object needs to be estimated using the received ultrasonic signal. However, the accuracy in lateral motion estimation is worse than that in axial motion estimation because the ultrasonic frequency in the lateral direction is lower than in the axial direction. To increase the ultrasonic frequency in the lateral direction, in the present study, the lateral modulation method [1] was used with adaptive beamforming. The basic experimental results using a phantom showed that the lateral modulation with adaptive beamforming realized a steeper lateral modulation than with the conventional lateral modulation method. [1] Jensen JA. A new method for estimation of velocity vectors. IEEE Trans. Ultrason.Ferroelectr. Freq. Control 1998;45:837-851.

Photoacoustic spectroscopy is an alternative technique for noninvasive glucose monitoring in diabetic patients. The near-infrared light irradiation penetrates a few millimeters into human tissue and an acoustic wave derived from the optical absorption is generated. The photoacoustic signal is detected by a piezoelectric transducer, and the glucose concentration in the human tissue is estimated from the magnitude of the signal. The irradiation geometry is crucial when photoacoustic signals are acquired with a transducer. Irradiation close to the center of the transducer is preferable because the fluence in the tissue decays exponentially with distance. However most transducers have with a narrow angular aperture along the axis of irradiation, because the irradiation is affected by the transducer dimensions. Herein, a photoacoustic sensor using a piezo film transparent in the near-infrared to irradiate tissue directly below the transducer is described. The capability of the proposed system was tested using a pure glucose tablet.

We are developing an ultrasound computed tomography (USCT) system for earlier breast cancer screening. USCT differs from mammography in having great advantages of no X-ray exposure and no compression.Like echography, USCT can show a reflection boundary (structure) image. In addition, sound speed (hardness) distribution in a subject is guessed from the time-of-flight information of transmitted ultrasound waves on the basis of an X-ray CT algorithm.Considering the wave nature of ultrasound to improve image quality generally increases the calculation burden.To achieve both high quality images and high throughput, we developed an iterative refraction calibration method. This method was applied to gel phantom data measured by a USCT prototype with a ring array 10 cm in diameter. As a result, we achieved a calculation speed seven times faster than that of a conventional bent-ray reconstruction with the same contrast on a sound speed image.

As a non-invasive, quantitative, and multi-index medical-imaging technology, ultrasound computed tomography (USCT) is very promising to be applied to early screening for breast cancer. A recently developed USCT prototype using a ring array can realize fully directional scanning, which is suitable for reconstructing sectional images from the transmission signal. However, its field of view, signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio, and accuracy for conventional incident patterns of plane-wave and spherical-wave are limited. We proposed a virtual-source incident pattern, formed by adjusting emission channels and focusing distance. It combines the merits of traditional plane-wave and spherical-wave while avoiding their demerits, and is experimentally shown to be effective for enlarging field of view while maintaining high S/N ratio and accuracy. Compared with the traditional patterns, the proposed virtual-source incident pattern makes it possible to expand applicable ranges of measurement conditions while using the same USCT hardware for imaging larger objects with higher attenuation.

We have proposed a simple optical technique for visualization of ultrasound fields using the focused shadowgraphy. To improve the quality of the field images, effects of coherency in the illuminating light source were investigated using a laser diode (LD) and a light-emitting diode (LED). An acoustic field of a 2.5-MHz ultrasound pulse was visualized. The results showed that the effect of noise in the LD beam, which was generated by interference of light diffraction, was not removed by the image subtraction, while the effect of noise in LED beam containing no interference noise was successfully removed. Also, the first order integration of the brightness waveform evaluated using the LED field image showed good agreement with the pressure waveform only in the case with the pinhole, indicating the possibility for evaluation of pressure waveform from an optical image of an ultrasound fields.

We formed aggregates with microbubbles attached around cells, and developed a technology to transport cells in the blood stream by using ultrasound apply to immunotherapy. We reported displacement and sustainability of aggregates by traveling wave, but this time we have manipulated aggregates by moving the acoustic distribution. The nodes of standing wave were moved within the view and aggregates were tracked by image processing. When nodes swept at 20μm/ s , aggregate moved at a rate of 30 to 60% respect to the sweep speed. Similar measurements also applied to T-cells, confirming that the kinetics could be controlled. Compared with the method of the previous study at high sound pressure, destruction of micro bubbles can be suppressed and the controllable duration time has been improved to over 30 s. It showed that the movement of acoustic distribution enable to control the dynamics of aggregates for a long time.

We have been studying sonoporation that promotes drug and gene delivery using ultrasound exposure in the presence of microbubbles. A sonoporation technique that utilizes drug-loaded microbubbles for efficient deliver is widely studied; however, their results showed low transduction rates of the technique. In this study, sonoporation phenomena under three types of exposure condition (continuous, repetitive, pulse) were observed in the presence of fluoresce dye-loaded microbubbles adjacent to cells using confocal microscopy. The results showed that different types of ultrasound exposure induce different types of membrane damage; however, the transduction was achieved only in one cell (3%), which was induced by exposure to pulsed ultrasound. In other cells, adhesion of the dye on cell membrane was frequently observed, suggesting that adhesion of bubble shell lipid to the cell bilayer lipid prevents the dye from transduction into cells. This suggests possibility for improving transduction rates by controlling affinity of microbubbles to cells.

While sonodynamic therapy is a promising double-targeting cancer therapeutic, its mechanisms are still unclear. We hypothesized that cytotoxic effect of sonodynamic therapy is due to sensitizer radicals generated by electron transfers from cavitation-induced hydroxyl radicals to dye-sensitizers. Carbon-centered radicals derived from dye-sensitizer is expected to proceed oxidation of cellular membrane with high efficiency than hydroxyl radicals because those have longer lifetime than hydroxyl radicals. Here we demonstrated that cytotoxic effect of AAPH derived oxygen-centered radicals to cultured tumour cells was enhanced by presence of Ce6, a typical well-known dye for photo and sonodynamic therapy. In vitro experiments showed that cytotoxic efficacy of 100 mM AAPH was enhanced more than 20-fold in presence of Ce6. Furthermore, phthalocyanine tetrasulfonate, a photosensitizer that possess electronically stable chemical structure, did not enhance cytotoxic efficacy of AAPH. As a future work, we will investigate whether cytotoxic effect by ultrasound exposure is similar trend as AAPH.

Nowadays, in many studies of multi-modality imaging, the ultrasound imaging in high magnetic environment are expected applying to not only RFA but also the diagnostic of breast cancer. We aim at developing the multi-modality imaging system with the probe enabled to use in high magnetic environment. We studied the positioning accuracy between them after estimating the probe position and B-mode image from MR image by no magnetic probe with MR marker. We made agar phantom having a cylindrical acryl and took MR image. We estimated B-mode image from MR image and fused. We evaluated fused image by measuring length between the bottom of phantom and cylinder in each image. In result, the error length was from 2.2 mm to 3.4 mm and the error causing is that resolution of B-mode image to slice direction is about 8 mm. In the future, we intend to improve positon accuracy by acoustic lens.

We have used three-dimensional Doppler-mode volumes to obtain the blood vessel structure for ultrasound therapy. However, since reconstructed Doppler-mode volumes showed expansion and deficiency problems, we propose a new blood vessel network reconstruction method by fusing B-mode and Doppler-mode volumes, which were acquired simultaneously in the same coordinate space. First, we configured a spiral tube to quantitatively evaluate the degrees of expansion and deficiency in both volumes. From the analysis of the results, we established the weight coefficients varied with the angle between the tangent vector of the centerline in the volume and the direction of ultrasound propagation to correct the shape of each volume. Finally, using these coefficients, we fused the corrected B- and D-volumes to reconstruct the shape of the spiral tube and human liver vessels. The results showed clear reproduction and reliable construction. We confirmed that the proposed method is effective for reconstructing human blood vessels.

Although we have already experimented to bend a thin catheter with acoustic radiation force using a single transducer, it is necessary to develop a method to bend a catheter to an arbitrary direction because installation position of ultrasound transducers on body surface is limited to adopt to various shape of in vivo blood vessel. Therefore, we examined to bend the thin catheter to the perpendicular direction to ultrasound propagation using a 2-dimensional array transducer, which realizes not only the tempo-spatial design but also dynamic variation of acoustic field. Forming two focal points with opposite phase, we have confirmed the phenomena to bent a thin catheter to the perpendicular direction to ultrasound propagation. From the results, the acoustic energy density in front and behind of the catheter is dominant for the performance bending thin catheter independent of ultrasound propagation.

Risk factors for aneurysm rupture have been studied extensively in the past, with several factors showing significant correlations with rupture status. We analysed seventy-one basilar tip aneurysms were included in this study, 22 ruptured and 49 unruptured. Patient data (age and sex), morphometric factors (aneurysm maximum height and volume, aspect ratio, bifurcation angle, bottleneck ratio, and neck-parent artery ratio) and hemodynamic factors (inflow coefficient and wall shear stress) were compared between ruptured and unruptured groups, and statistically analyzed. Aspect ratio, bifurcation angle, bottleneck ratio, and inflow coefficient were significantly correlated with the rupture status on univariate analysis. Logistic regression analysis showed that aspect ratio and bifurcation angle were predictors of rupture. Bifurcation angle correlated inversely with inflow coefficient which in turn correlated directly with wall shear stress on Pearson’s correlation coefficient Bifurcation angle and aspect ratio were independent predictors for aneurysm rupture.

A methodology allowing a combined analysis of pathological human thoracic aorta (TA) using both 4D flow MRI and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is presented. MR images from patient with aneurysm have been acquired with a 4D Flow MRI sequence. The segmentation of the aorta has been performed on the PCMRA image. A volumetric tetrahedral mesh with one inlet and four outlets was generated. In CFD simulations, blood density and viscosity were assumed to be 1060kg/m3 and 4.10-3 Pa.s, respectively. MRI velocity measurements have been used as boundary conditions. CFD simulations have been compared to MRI measurements both qualitatively and quantitatively. A visual evaluation using streamlines and volumetric flow rates at the outlets show good agreements. Moreover, hemodynamics parameters such as WSS have been computed and allow for the evaluation of stress areas. A methodology for a combined analysis of TA taking advantage of both MRI and CFD was proposed.

In the present study, the author constructed an EC-SMC co-culture model with SMCs 3D cultured in a collagen gel, and SMCs phenotype was controlled into a contractile state. Then, different magnitudes of shear stress (SS) were applied to the co-culture model and the results showed that a high SS of 10 Pa could induce higher matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) productions from SMC in the co-culture model. As to understand ECs influence on SMC responses, TGF-β1 (Transforming growth factor beta 1) expression from ECs were suppressed by an SiRNA transfection method in the present study. Compared to different MMP-2 production levels under different SS in the normal co-culture model, SMCs showed same MMP-2 production level under all SS conditions in the co-culture model with transfected ECs. This result means that TGF-β1 expression from ECs could influence SMCs response to SS in a co-culture model.

Restenosis is known as common problem during stent treatment. Stent optimization has been introduced to find the best design criteria in order to improve the endovascular treatment efficacy. Surrogate method is known as efficient method of optimization that has been built up from finite element method (FEM) simulation. Besides obtaining the optimized criteria, response surface plot which constructed by Kriging surrogate estimation process is also beneficial to study the behavior of design variables towards objective functions. In this study, we constructed the response surface map from stent design parameter configuration of strut size and inter-strut gap towards objective function. Our objective function is to minimizing the percentage of low wall shear stress area along deployment region. With this response surface, broad analysis on the stent performance can be clearly observed. More recommendations on how combinations between stent strut’s size and gap should be designed are successfully obtained by this study.

Endovascular devices are medical devices inserted into the arteries in case of aneurysm. This minimally invasive treatment is preferred in case of aged patient. The number of commercially available device designs increased on the market but no data exist regarding direct comparisons of their performance, difficult to perform in vivo. The purpose of this research is to create in vitro experimental platforms allowing the study of the influence of those medical devices by monitoring the hemodynamic changes occurred during their deployments. Precise multi-scale evaluation of pressure and flow rate into the arteries surrounding the aneurysm are performed and synchronized to each step of the medical procedure. Further analysis are also conducted on the geometry of the deployed devices and flow pattern changes after deployment. As a proof of concept, studies of the treatment of an abdominal aortic aneurysm and an intracranial aneurysm are presented.

Ultrasonic cavitation is of great interest in various biomedical applications. In cancer therapy, various ways to enhance chemotherapeutic agents has been explored. The present work emploies a two confocal transducers apparatus and a control loop with passive cavitation detector to generate cavitation in a controlled manner. Firstly, in vitro experiments show for stable cavitation the possibility to increase the efficacy of doxorubicin. Mechanistic studies suggest an indirect interaction between cavitation and the efficiency of DNA repair processes of the studied 4T1 tumor cells. Although this result was not observable in vivo, a safety study was conducted in vivo. Both the effect on healthy tissues and the potential metastatic spreading were assessed. Only slight damages were observed on healthy tissues. It was also shown a reduced metastatic spreading compared in mice which received ultrasound. This suggests the safety and the possibility to employ cavitation in vivo.

"In this study we characterize the mechanical behavior of human skin on its surface and volume, following an impact induced wave propagation. Spatial and temporal speed of the induced wave propagation are our physical criteria correlated to the skin rheological character. This study comports two main aspects of measurement on the forearm area: 1)The first aspect is the exploitation of the surface wave propagation induced by air blast impact to evaluate its viscoelastic mechanical behavior of the skin. 2)The second aspect is the use of the 20 MHz ultrasonic echography as monitoring tool, to follow the wave propagation in the skin volume and evaluate of the mechanical properties gradient. In order to validate the developed approaches, measurements have been realized on healthy volunteers representing age and gender effect. The obtained results confirm the efficiency of the developed instrumentation to evaluate the skin viscoelastic properties on surface and volume."

Changes in child care environment before and after the cultural transition progressing at present era are considered. After the transition, survival rate of children and longevity of elderly reach to the limit, but medical and social supports become indispensable through whole the life. Intergenerational commitments become effective so that elderly support child care of younger generation, and younger generation will support child care of the next generation lately. Life stages will be socially designed so that future people will keep a period for child care at adequate period in their life. When such changes are achieved at a time point in future, the cultural environment become stable and the human society will last through archeological time scale.

Possible contributions of biomagnetics and bioimaging to child rearing are discussed. Scientific approaches to child rearing are important to keep and improve a high quality and affectionate rearing of children in house and in society. Philosophy and essences of way of thinking of great person are referred, and potential bridges are tried to construct between child rearing and engineering mainly based on magnetic brain stimulation and imaging. The essences for child rearing and education are referred to Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, education of Helen Keller by Anne Sullivan, and quotes by Mother Teresa. In biomagnetics, magnetic brain stimulation or transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), magnetoencephalography (MEG), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), functional MRI, magnetic control of cell growth, and other potential therapeutic applications of magnetic techniques are introduced. Recent neurosciences such as reward circuit and default mode network are briefly discussed for potential bridges between child rearing and brain research.

We developed both a non-contact urination measuring system as a toilet sheet shape and a cloud network system to store and to utilize the urination data for diagnosis or nursing care. The measuring system consists of a non-contact thermal sensor, a vibration sensor, and wireless communication. Urination is measured by the non-contact thermal sensor. Personal identification is achieved by walking vibration. These data are transmitted via Wi-Fi and a mobile virtual network operator, and are stored in one database. The urination data is displayed on a tablet PC. This study was partly supported by SCOPE (162305003), Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications.

Research on measurement and management of urinary volume in the toilet has been conducted mainly from the demand in medical institutions and welfare facilities. We have proposed liquid flow estimation using image processing as a convenient and hygienic urinay volume measurement method. In this method, the streakline in the image is parabolic approximated and its initial radiation velocity is derived to obtain the volume by the multiple cylindrical model. Although it seems that the introduction have a significant hurdle to overcome when performing such image processing, in fact it is much-anticipated sufficient practical measurement accuracy even with an inexpensive single-board computer like Raspberry Pi and a general-purpose image processing library. In this research, we introduce the implementation by using Raspberry Pi and describe the image processing algorithm which can improve accuracy by specifying the error factor happened in the cheap camera system.

In currently available construction methods for artificial tissue, the internal structure of 3-D tissue is dependent on self- organization of cells. We hoped to provide a technology that enables more precise control of such internal structure in engineered 3-D tissue. In this report, we use cardiomyocytes differentiated from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS-CM), normal human arterial cardiac fibroblasts (NHCF) and human cardiac microvascular endothelial cells (HMVEC) as the models to construct multi-layered 3-D tissue. We aimed to deposit HMVECs in the 3-D tissue comprised of iPS-CM/NHCF using our inkjet printer head. In order to make the structure and the function closer to the natural tissue, we developed a new cell coating method using extracellular matrix (ECM). The result of this study demonstrates the potential of our new technologies in inkjet head and ECM-based cell coating to engineer functional 3-D tissue with improved precision in its internal structure.

There is great demand for development of in vitro three-dimensional (3D) tissues which could be used for research in the fields such as regenerative medicine and drug discovery. Piezoelectric drop-on-demand inkjet heads are attractive devices to deposit living cells in designated patterns with high precision and very high throughput. We have previously presented a novel inkjet head specialized for on-demand ejection of live cell suspensions.In this study, we constructed multi-layered 3D tissues using a process that combines ejection of cells by our inkjet heads and construction of hydrogels. We successfully produced 2-10 layer of cells stacked to 50-300um thickness by controlling the number of layers and thickness of hydrogels. These results demonstrate our inkjet heads as a powerful tool suitable for the effective ejection of living cells for the purpose of the biofabrication of living 3-D tissues.

The mechanical properties of a scaffold is one of the critical cues for differentiating stem cells. Although hydrogels reconstituted from cardiac ECM have been utilized as a scaffold to induce cardiac differentiation, how to obtain the appropriate mechanical properties of the hydrogel for cardiac differentiation has not been investigated. We modulated the mechanical properties of ventricular ECM hydrogels (vECM gels) using N-(3-Dimethylaminopropyl)-N'-ethylcarbodiimide hydrochloride (EDAC). The mechanical properties of vECM gels were investigated by means of compression test and analyzed by a non-linear viscoelastic model, which consists of two non-linear springs, the first determines the reversible elasticity and the second for the viscous dissipation. The first elastic modulus K1 in 12.5 mg/ml-vECM gels can be enhanced from 129.5 Pa to 3868.0 Pa by EDAC treatment as well as the second modulus K2 from 1956.3 Pa to 5915.9 Pa. The compatibility of the gels for cell culture was also investigated.

Cell based assay is an effective tool for low-cost and high-throughput drug screening. Recently a drug screening system with human iPS cell derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSCM) on a microelectrode array (MEA) was developed and has been widely used for detecting side effects of drugs on cardiac tissues. However, this system can be applied to detection of only direct effects on cardiac tissues but not indirect effects mediated by neurons that innervate cardiac tissues. Here, we developed hiPSCM and rat sympathetic neurons co-culture on MEA. hiPSCM and rat sympathetic neurons were cultured in culture chamber which was combined with MEA. Staining experiments indicated that axons grew and reached at hiPSCM. Electrical stimulation in neurons evoked neuronal activities and induced increase in beat rates of hiPSCM indicating that rat sympathetic neurons innervated functionally hiPSCM. These results suggest that our system enables us to regulate the neuronal control of beating rates in hiPSCM.