Silicon nanocavity with a quality factor of 6.7 million fabricated by a CMOS-compatible process.

Here, we report on the increase of the quality-factors of photonic crystal nanocavities fabricated by a CMOS-compatible process. We fabricated nanocavities with the same cavity design but used either a binary photomask or a phase-shift photomask in the photolithography step to assess the impact of the photomask-type on the fabrication accuracy of the air holes. We characterized 62 cavities using time-resolved measurements and the best cavity had a quality-factor of 6.65 × 106. All cavities exhibited a quality-factor larger than 2 million and the overall average was 3.25 × 106. While the estimated magnitude of the scattering loss due to the air hole variations in the 33 cavities fabricated with the phase-shift photomask was slightly lower than that in the 29 cavities fabricated with binary photomask, the phase-shift photomask did not provide a significant improvement in the fabrication accuracy. On average, the scattering loss in these samples is more than 3 times larger than that of nanocavities fabricated using electron-beam lithography, which indicates room for further improvement.

Automatic Classification of Adult Males With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder by Non-contact Measurement of Autonomic Nervous System Activation.

People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit atypicality in various domains of behavior. Previous psychophysiological studies have revealed an atypical pattern of autonomic nervous system (ANS) activation induced by psychosocial stimulation. Thus, it might be feasible to develop a novel assessment tool to evaluate the risk of ASD by measuring ANS activation in response to emotional stimulation. The present study investigated whether people with ASD could be automatically classified from neurotypical adults based solely on physiological data obtained by the recently introduced non-contact measurement of pulse wave. We video-recorded faces of adult males with and without ASD while watching emotion-inducing video clips. Features reflective of ANS activation were extracted from the temporal fluctuation of facial skin coloration and entered into a machine-learning algorithm. Though the performance was modest, the gradient boosting classifier succeeded in classifying people with and without ASD, which indicates that facial skin color fluctuation contains information useful for detecting people with ASD. Taking into consideration the fact that the current study recruited only high-functioning adults who have relatively mild symptoms and probably developed some compensatory strategies, ASD screening by non-contact measurement of pulse wave could be a promising assessment tool to evaluate ASD risk.

A reduced physiological 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose uptake in the brain and liver caused by malignant lymphoma being deprived of the tracer.

Purpose : To investigate whether or not the physiological brain and liver FDG uptake are decreased in patients with highly accelerated glycolysis lesions. Methods : We retrospectively analyzed 51 patients with malignant lymphoma. We compared the FDG uptake in the brain and liver of the patients with that in a control group. In 24 patients with a complete response (CR) or partial response (PR) to treatment, we compared the brain and liver uptake before and after treatment. Results : The maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) and total glycolytic volume (TGV) of the brain as well as the SUVmax and mean standardized uptake value (SUVmean) of the liver in malignant lymphoma patients were 13.1 ±â€…2.3, 7386.3 ±â€…1918.4, 3.2 ±â€…0.5, and 2.3 ±â€…0.4, respectively ; in the control group, these values were 14.9 ±â€…2.4, 8566.2 ±â€…1659.5, 3.4 ±â€…0.4, and 2.5 ±â€…0.3, respectively. The SUVmax and TGV of the brain and the SUVmean of the liver in malignant lymphoma patients were significantly lower than the control group. The SUVmax and TGV of the brain after treatment were significantly higher than before treatment. Both the SUVmax and SUVmean of liver after treatment were higher than before treatment, but not significant. Conclusion : A decreased physiological brain and liver FDG uptake is caused by highly accelerated lesion glycolysis. J. Med. Invest. 68 : 181-185, February, 2021.

[Radioactive caesium contamination in Inago and sustainability of Inago cuisine in Fukushima].

Inago (edible grasshoppers, Oxya spp.) was a popular food in the Fukushima area, before the reactor accident at Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station in March 2011. We investigated the radioactivity of Cs-134 and Cs-137 contained in Inago captured in Sukagawa, Motomiya, Inawashiro, Date, and Iidate in Fukushima prefecture in 2011 and 2012. The maximum combined radioactivity of Cs-134 and Cs-137 in Inago was 60.7 Bq/kg, which is below the maximum permitted level (100 Bq/kg) in foods established by the government of Japan in April 2012. Furthermore, conventional cooking processes decreased the radioactivity in cooked Inago to under 15.8 Bq/kg, a quarter of that in uncooked Inago. Therefore, we concluded that the health risk of eating Inago is low.