Temperature-sensitive aqueous microgels.

Functional polymer microspheres

Microgel particles as model colloids : theory, properties and applications

The last decade of research in the physical sciences has seen a dramatic increase in the study of nanoscale materials. Today, "nanoscience" has emerged as a multidisciplinary effort, wherein obtaining a fundamental understanding of the optical, electrical, magnetic, and mechanical properties of nanostructures promises to deliver the next generation of functional materials for a wide range of applications. While this range of efforts is extremely broad, much of the work has focused on "hard" materials, such as Buckyballs, carbon nanotubes, metals, semiconductors, and organic or inorganic dielectrics. Meanwhile, the soft materials of current interest typically include conducting or emissive polymers for "plastic electronics" applications. Despite the continued interest in these established areas of nanoscience, new classes of soft nanomaterials are being developed from more traditional polymeric constructs. Specifically, nanostructured hydrogels are emerging as a promising group of materials for multiple biotechnology applications as the need for advanced materials in the post-genomic era grows. This review will present some of the recent advances in the marriage between water-swellable networks and nanoscience.

Soft nanotechnology with soft nanoparticles.

Bacterial adhesion: From mechanism to control

Electrophoretic Mobility of Latex Particles Covered with Temperature-Sensitive Hydrogel Layers

Permeation control by thermosensitive shell layer of submicron microspheres

This paper discusses the stability of a two-dimensional (2-D) all-pole system, especially its relation to the phase characteristic. The discussion starts with Ekstrom's stability condition for the asymmetrical half-plane model, which is the most general as the 2-D infinite impulse response (IIR) system. The stability theorem known for the phase characteristic of the 1-D all-pole system is extended and applied to the 2-D case. The 2-D line spectrum pair is introduced as the intersection of the phase characteristic of the 2-D all-pole system and a particular set of planes. The stability theorem for the all-pole system is derived as the condition for such a system. Then, based on the stability theorem for the 2-D all-pole system, an approximation method for the phase by the all-pole system which ensures the stability is proposed.



It is shown that the proposed phase approximation method corresponds to a particular case of the signal restoration using only the phase data given by Oppen-heim et al. As an improvement of the proposed phase approximation method, the evaluation function by Oppen-heim based on the error of the equation is replaced by the evaluation function which is the phase error itself. The error minimization method is proposed.



Finally, as an application example, the phase compensation problem by the all-pass system is considered, and the usefulness of the proposed method is demonstrated.

Takayuki Kato

Papers

Electrophoretic Mobility of Latex Particles Covered with Temperature-Sensitive Hydrogel Layers

Permeation control by thermosensitive shell layer of submicron microspheres

A phase approximation method and stability conditions of all‐pole systems in terms of 2‐D line spectrum pair