Intricacies of Upper Blepharoplasty in Asian Burden Lids.

Differences between Oriental and Caucasian eyelids have been explained in great detail in several reports in the past. The purpose of this article is to discuss the functional aspects of Asian double fold upper blepharoplasty and to present techniques that help to improve both the functional and cosmetic outcomes and satisfaction after surgery. The eyes of Asians are relatively small with thick skin in the eyelids and periorbital area. They typically lack the upper eyelid crease (creating the so-called double eyelid) due to burden factors like thick skin, hypertrophied orbicularis oculi muscle (OOM), submuscular fibroadipose tissue, thick orbital septum, abundant preaponeurotic fat, and lower positioned transverse ligament. Asian eyes may also have a superior visual field defect due to skin overriding the upper lid margin (skin-OOM-fat complex slide down). These burden factors result in the eyelashes appearing short and becoming misdirected and pressed toward the globe, causing functional discomfort. As a compensatory mechanism, Asian people tend to engage the frontalis muscle to lift the eyebrow to help them open their eyes. Along with aesthetic enhancement, double-eyelid surgery in Asian burden lids can improve the functional deficiencies helping the patients to open the eyes more easily. In addition, treatment of the Mongolian fold (medial epicanthal fold), caused by medial hypertrophy of preseptal OOM, augments the surgical results. In this report, we present the appropriate preoperative assessment, surgical technique, and postoperative care that should be employed to achieve consistently good functional and aesthetic outcomes in these patients.

Jumping Tensegrity Robot Based on Torsionally Prestrained SMA Springs.

This paper introduces the addition of torsional prestrain into the manufacturing process of shape memory alloy (SMA) springs to form torsionally prestrained SMA springs. These springs have a better performance at the same power input for the same loads and same coil dimensions as regular SMA springs. A modified thermoconstitutive model was presented that can predict the behavior of the actuator based on the amount of torsional prestrain added into the manufacturing process, and a simple two-state model is used to predict its actuation stroke. These improved actuators were used in the development of a tensegrity robots capable of fast rolling motions and jumping both vertically and horizontally. This robot is capable of rolling at 0.14 BL/s (body length per second) and can jump up to nearly a full body length.

Long Shape Memory Alloy Tendon-based Soft Robotic Actuators and Implementation as a Soft Gripper.

Shape memory alloy (SMA) wire-based soft actuators have had their performance limited by the small stroke of the SMA wire embedded within the polymeric matrix. This intrinsically links the bending angle and bending force in a way that made SMA-based soft grippers have relatively poor performance versus other types of soft actuators. In this work, the use of free-sliding SMA wires as tendons for soft actuation is presented that enables large increases in the bending angle and bending force of the actuator by decoupling the length of the matrix and the length of the SMA wires while also allowing for the compact packaging of the driving SMA wires. Bending angles of 400° and tip forces of 0.89 N were achieved by the actuators in this work using a tendon length up to 350 mm. The tendons were integrated as a compact module using bearings that enables the actuator to easily be implemented in various soft gripper configurations. Three fingers were used either in an antagonistic configuration or in a triangular configuration and the gripper was shown to be capable of gripping a wide range of objects weighing up to 1.5 kg and was easily installed on a robotic arm. The maximum pulling force of the gripper was measured to be 30 N.

Improvement in the amine glass platform by bubbling method for a DNA microarray.

A glass platform with high sensitivity for sexually transmitted diseases microarray is described here. An amino-silane-based self-assembled monolayer was coated on the surface of a glass platform using a novel bubbling method. The optimized surface of the glass platform had highly uniform surface modifications using this method, as well as improved hybridization properties with capture probes in the DNA microarray. On the basis of these results, the improved glass platform serves as a highly reliable and optimal material for the DNA microarray. Moreover, in this study, we demonstrated that our glass platform, manufactured by utilizing the bubbling method, had higher uniformity, shorter processing time, lower background signal, and higher spot signal than the platforms manufactured by the general dipping method. The DNA microarray manufactured with a glass platform prepared using bubbling method can be used as a clinical diagnostic tool.

Deinococcus metallilatus sp. nov. and Deinococcus carri sp. nov., isolated from a car air-conditioning system.

Two bacterial strains, designated MA1002(T) and MA1003(T), were isolated from the air-conditioning system of a car. Cells of both strains were Gram-reaction-positive, non-motile, non-spore-forming coccoids, catalase- and oxidase-positive and UV-radiation resistant. The major fatty acids of strain MA1002(T) were iso-C17 : 0 and iso-C15 : 0 and those of strain MA1003(T) were iso-C16 : 0 and iso-C16 : 1 H. The polar lipid profile of MA1002(T) contained phosphatidylethanolamine, two unidentified phosphoglycolipids, an unidentified phospholipid, an unidentified aminophospholipid, an unidentified aminolipid and an unidentified lipid. MA1003(T) had three unidentified phosphoglycolipids, six unidentified phospholipids, two unidentified glycolipids and two unidentified polar lipids as the polar lipids. The G+C contents of the genomic DNA of MA1002(T) and MA1003(T) were 70.5 and 76.0 mol%, respectively. MK-8 was the predominant respiratory quinone for both strains. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis showed that strain MA1002(T) was phylogenetically related to Deinococcus apachensis DSM 19763(T), D. geothermalis DSM 11300(T), D. aerius TR0125(T) and D. aetherius ST0316(T) (92.9, 92.6, 92.0 and 91.9% sequence similarity, respectively), and MA1003(T) showed the highest sequence similarity to Deinococcus hopiensis KR-140(T) (92.9%) and D. xinjiangensis X-82(T) (91.4%). The results of genotypic and phenotypic characterizations showed that both strains could be distinguished from phylogenetically related species, and that the strains represented novel species within the genus Deinococcus, for which we propose the names Deinococcus metallilatus sp. nov. (type strain MA1002(T) = KACC 17964(T) = NBRC 110141(T)) and Deinococcus carri sp. nov. (type strain is MA1003(T) = KACC 17965(T) = NBRC 110142(T)).