This paper presents a proposal for a novel integrated tun-able coupler device called programmable coupler ladder, based on Titanium diffused lithium niobate waveguide and Y-junction reflector. Unlike the traditional serial to parallel converter, the coupler ladder sorts the output bits in the time axis using a built-in delay waveguide. With a proper control signal it can perform signal processi...

Non-linear ion transport through nanoscale structures can be used in new types of microcircuit, inspired by biological processes such as adenosine triphosphate synthesis and neural transmission. The non-linear current resulting from preferential direction of ion flow can be used for signal transmission as well as signal processing, for example, ionic current rectification and amplification as i...

The store-operated Ca2+ channel (SOC) located on the plasma membrane (PM) mediates capacitative entry of extracellular Ca2+ following depletion of intracellular Ca2+ stores in the endoplasmic or sarcoplasmic reticulum (ER/SR). It plays important roles in a variety of cell signaling processes, including proliferation, apoptosis, gene regulation and motility. In skeletal muscle, the L-type Ca2+ c...

Primary hepatocyte cultures suffer from the progressive occurrence of dedifferentiation followed by spontaneous apoptosis. This is associated with modifications in the expression of connexins (Cxs), which are the building stones of hemichannels that in turn form gap junctions between neighboring cells. Specifically, a shift is observed from the adult hepatocellular Cx32 species toward the fetal...

This study describes the numerical simulation of three-dimensional droplet formation and the following motion in a cross-junction microchannel by using the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM). Our aim is to develop the three-dimensional binary fluids model, consisting of two sets of distribution functions to represent the total fluid density and the density difference, which introduces the repulsive...

Atrial inflammation is critical to atrial fibrillation initiation and progression. Although left atrial dilatation is a risk factor for atrial fibrillation, the mechanism linking atrial dilatation and inflammation is unclear. We evaluated the mechanisms underlying infiltration of macrophages induced by stretch of atrial myocytes. Murine macrophages were co-cultured with HL-1 murine atrial myocy...

In the brain, astrocytes represent the cellular population that expresses the highest amount of connexins (Cxs). This family of membrane proteins is the molecular constituent of gap junction channels and hemichannels that provide pathways for direct cytoplasm-to-cytoplasm and inside-out exchange, respectively. Both types of Cx channels are permeable to ions and small signaling molecules allowin...

A p-i-n junction diode based on the selectively doped single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) had been investigated, in which two opposite ends of individual SWCNT channel were doped into the p- and n-type SWCNT respectively while the middle segment of SWCNT was kept as the intrinsic. The symmetric and asymmetric contacts were used to fabricate the p-i-n junction diodes respectively and studied t...

BACKGROUND Delayed afterdepolarizations (DADs) have been well characterized as arrhythmia triggers, but their role in generating a tissue substrate vulnerable to reentry is not well understood. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that random DADs can self-organize to generate both an arrhythmia trigger and a vulnerable substrate simultaneously in cardiac tissue as a...

Revertant mosaicism (RM) is a naturally occurring phenomenon where the pathogenic effect of a germline mutation is corrected by a second somatic event. Development of healthy-looking skin due to RM has been observed in patients with various inherited skin disorders, but not in connexin-related disease. We aimed to clarify the underlying molecular mechanisms of suspected RM in the skin of a pati...