National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology

About: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology is a government organization based out in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Catalysis & Thin film. The organization has 22114 authors who have published 65856 publications receiving 1669827 citations. The organization is also known as: Sangyō Gijutsu Sōgō Kenkyū-sho.

Ror-family receptor tyrosine kinases in noncanonical Wnt signaling: Their implications in developmental morphogenesis and human diseases

Abstract: The Ror-family receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) play crucial roles in the development of various organs and tissues. In mammals, Ror2, a member of the Ror-family RTKs, has been shown to act as a receptor or coreceptor for Wnt5a to mediate noncanonical Wnt signaling. Ror2- and Wnt5a-deficient mice exhibit similar abnormalities during developmental morphogenesis, reflecting their defects in convergent extension movements and planar cell polarity, characteristic features mediated by noncanonical Wnt signaling. Furthermore, mutations within the human Ror2 gene are responsible for the genetic skeletal disorders dominant brachydactyly type B and recessive Robinow syndrome. Accumulating evidence demonstrate that Ror2 mediates noncanonical Wnt5a signaling by inhibiting the beta-catenin-TCF pathway and activating the Wnt/JNK pathway that results in polarized cell migration. In this article, we review recent progress in understanding the roles of noncanonical Wnt5a/Ror2 signaling in developmental morphogenesis and in human diseases, including heritable skeletal disorders and tumor invasion.

Temperature and Pressure Dependence of the Viscosity of the Ionic Liquids 1-Methyl-3-octylimidazolium Hexafluorophosphate and 1-Methyl-3-octylimidazolium Tetrafluoroborate

Abstract: The viscosities of the ionic liquids 1-methyl-3-octylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate, [OMIM]PF6, and 1-methyl-3-octylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate [OMIM]BF4, have been measured between (0 and 80) °C and at pressures to 176 MPa ([OMIM]PF6) and 224 MPa ([OMIM]BF4) with a falling-body viscometer. The overall uncertainty is estimated at ± (2 to 3) %. Modified Litovitz and Vogel−Fulcher−Tammann equations are used to represent the temperature and pressure dependence. The T0 parameter for the latter is found to be consistent with Angell's relationship linking T0 and the strength parameter D with the glass temperature Tg. Densities between (0 and 90) °C at atmospheric pressure are also reported for both substances. These have an overall uncertainty estimated at ± 0.00005 g·cm-3. The in-built viscosity correction for the Anton-Paar DMA5000 densimeter was confirmed using high-viscosity reference standards to an upper limit of 16 Pa·s.

Synthesis and electrochemical performance of nano-sized Li4Ti5O12 with double surface modification of Ti(III) and carbon

Abstract: Spinel Li4Ti5O12 nano-particles with double conductive surface modification of Ti(III) and carbon were synthesized by a facile solid-state reaction, in which the polyaniline (PANI) coated TiO2 particles and a lithium salt were used as precursors. On heat treatment under an argon atmosphere containing 5% H2, the carbonization of PANI effectively restricted the particle-size growth of Li4Ti5O12 and reduced the surface Ti(IV) into Ti(III). The surface modification combined with tailored particle size can improve the surface conductivity and shorten the Li-ion diffusion path. Furthermore, both the Ti(III) surface modification and the tailored particles (50–70nm) have the potential to increase the solid solution (single-phase insertion/extraction) during the electrochemical process. Electrochemical analysis indicated that the presence of the solid solution is beneficial for Li-ion mobility. Thereby, the prepared Li4Ti5O12 displays high power performance.

Plasma–Liquid Interactions at Atmospheric Pressure for Nanomaterials Synthesis and Surface Engineering

Abstract: Plasma-induced non-equilibrium liquid chemistry (PiLC) offers enhanced opportunities over solution chemistry for developing new nanomaterials and tailoring their functional properties. Recent advances in the design and scientific understanding of microplasma devices operating at atmospheric pressure offer simple and effective routes to non-equilibrium chemistry for both scientific study and future nanomanufacturing. This paper presents a short review of our recent work on atmospheric pressure plasma–liquid interactions used in the fabrication and functionalization of nanoparticles. A brief discussion of possible electron-liquid reactions highlights outstanding scientific and engineering questions.

A new hierarchical parallelization scheme: Generalized distributed data interface (GDDI), and an application to the fragment molecular orbital method (FMO)

Abstract: A two-level hierarchical scheme, generalized distributed data interface (GDDI), implemented into GAMESS is presented. Parallelization is accomplished first at the upper level by assigning computational tasks to groups. Then each group does parallelization at the lower level, by dividing its task into smaller work loads. The types of computations that can be used with this scheme are limited to those for which nearly independent tasks and subtasks can be assigned. Typical examples implemented, tested, and analyzed in this work are numeric derivatives and the fragment molecular orbital method (FMO) that is used to compute large molecules quantum mechanically by dividing them into fragments. Numeric derivatives can be used for algorithms based on them, such as geometry optimizations, saddle-point searches, frequency analyses, etc. This new hierarchical scheme is found to be a flexible tool easily utilizing network topology and delivering excellent performance even on slow networks. In one of the typical tests, on 16 nodes the scalability of GDDI is 1.7 times better than that of the standard parallelization scheme DDI and on 128 nodes GDDI is 93 times faster than DDI (on a multihub Fast Ethernet network). FMO delivered scalability of 80-90% on 128 nodes, depending on the molecular system (water clusters and a protein). A numerical gradient calculation for a water cluster achieved a scalability of 70% on 128 nodes. It is expected that GDDI will become a preferred tool on massively parallel computers for appropriate computational tasks.