A mesoporous membrane composed of nanochannels with a uniform diameter has a potential use for precise size-exclusive separation of molecules. Here, we report a novel method to form a hybrid membrane composed of silica-surfactant nanocomposite and a porous alumina membrane, by which size-selective transport of molecules across the membrane becomes possible. The nanocomposite formed inside each columnar alumina pore was an assembly of surfactant-templated silica-nanochannels with a channel diameter of 3.4 nm; the channel direction being predominantly oriented along the wall of the columnar alumina pore. Molecules could be transported across the membrane including the silica-surfactant nanocomposite with a capability of nanometre-order size-exclusive separation. Our proposed membrane system has a potential use not only for separation science, but also catalysis and chip technologies.

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Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is defined by estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 negativity. Patients with TNBC frequently undergo an aggressive clinical course due to the unavailability of specific targeted therapies. Androgen receptor (AR) was reported to be expressed in up to 60% of TNBC cases but there have been controversies as to the roles of androgen signaling through AR in TNBC. Therefore, in this study, we analyzed the status of AR in combination with androgen synthesizing enzymes (5a-reductase type 1 (5aR1) and 17b-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 5 (17bHSD5)] in order to further understand androgenic actions in TNBC. Androgen receptor, 5aR1, and 17bHSD5 were immunolocalized in a cohort of 203 TNBC patients from Thailand and Japan. We then correlated the findings with clinicopathological characteristics (age, stage, tumor diameter, lymph node invasion, metastatic spread, Ki-67 labeling index, disease-free survival, and overall survival) of the patients. Univariate analysis revealed that AR+/enzyme+ cases were associated with a significantly lower Ki-67 labeling index than AR−/enzyme− samples. Multivariate analysis indicated the presence of significant positive correlations between AR and enzyme status in tumor cells, and between tumor diameter, lymph node invasion, and distant metastasis. Significant negative correlations were also detected between Ki-67 labeling index and AR status (P = 0.04) or 5aR1 (P < 0.001). Cox proportional hazards analysis showed that Ki-67 labeling index and stage were the only factors predicting disease-free and overall survival of the patients, although univariate KaplanMeier analysis revealed AR/5aR1 negativity suggested a more adverse clinical course up to 80 months after surgery. These results suggest that the presence of androgen synthesizing pathways in addition to AR expression in tumor cells could confer a better clinical outcome through suppression of cell proliferation. (Cancer Sci 2013; 104: 639-646) B reast cancer is the most common malignancy in women (1) and, although recent advances in clinical management have significantly improved the survival rates of the great majority of breast cancer patients, (2) one subtype, so-called triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) continues to be associated with an adverse prognosis.(3) Triple negative breast cancer is characterized by the absence of estrogen receptor-a (ERa), progesterone receptor (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) expression in the tumor cells and constitutes approximately 6-60% of all breast cancer cases, depending on the cohort evaluated. (4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23) This subtype is considered to be far more diverse compared to other subtypes of breast malignancy. (24)(25)(26) Triple negative breast cancer is generally associated with relatively adverse clinical outcome (27)(28)(29)(30) primarily due to the lack of specific therapies, higher rates of tumor cell proliferation, and m...

Our results indicate that nuclear KLF15 expression suppresses breast cancer cell proliferation at least partially through p21 up-regulation and subsequent cell cycle arrest. This is a first study addressing the role of KLF15 in breast cancer development.

A semi-synchronous circuit is a circuit in which every register is ticked by a clock periodically, but not necessarily simultaneously. A feature of semi-synchronous circuits is that the minimum delay between registers may be critical with respect to the clock period of the circuit. In this paper, we discuss a delay insertion method which makes such a semi-synchronous circuit faster. The maximum delay-to-register ratio of the cycles on the circuit gives a lower bound of the clock period. We show that this bound is achieved in the semi-synchronous framework by the proposed gate-level delay insertion method on the assumption that the delay of each element on the circuit is unique.