Effects of Electrical Muscle Stimulation on Waist Circumstance in Adults with Adbominal Obesity: A Randomized, Double-blind, Sham-Controlled Trial.

Introduction: We investigated the effects of electrical muscle stimulationon waist circumference as compared with an identical device providing transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation as control in adults with abdominal obesity.

Methods: This was a randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled trial. Sixty patients with abdominal obesity received electrical muscle stimulation or transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation randomly five times a week for 12 weeks.

Pork Loin Treated with High Hydrostatic Pressure as a Food Processing Technology: Subacute Toxicity of the Freeze-Dried Powder and Cytotoxicity of the Methanol Extracts.

High hydrostatic pressure (HP) treatment is used in food processing owing to its sterilization effect. Meat or meat products are sterilized and become tender by HP processing. Therefore, the variety of HP-processed meat products has increased worldwide.

Photoinduced reversible transmittance modulation of rod-coil type diblock copolymers containing azobenzene in the main chain.

Photoinduced reversible transmittance modulation was achieved with the self-assembled block copolymer micelles. A large conformational change of the well-defined rod-coil diblock copolymers containing azobenzene and ether groups in the main chain of the rod block induced a remarkable macroscopic change which can be observed with the naked eye.

Spectroscopic properties of nanotube-chromophore hybrids.

Recently, individual single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) functionalized with azo-benzene chromophores were shown to form a new class of hybrid nanomaterials for optoelectronics applications. Here we use a number of experimental and computational techniques to understand the binding, orientation, and nature of coupling between chromophores and the nanotubes, all of which are relevant to future optimization of these hybrid materials. We find that the binding energy between chromophores and nanotubes depends strongly on the type of tether that is used to bind the chromophores to the nanotubes.

One-Step Direct-Patterning Template Utilizing Self-Assembly of POSS-Containing Block Copolymers.

We report the self-assembly of organic-inorganic block copolymers (BCP) in thin-films by simple solvent annealing on unmodified substrates. The resulting vertically oriented lamellae and cylinders are converted to a hard silica mask by a single step highly selective oxygen plasma etching. The size of the resulting nanostructures in the case of cylinders is less than 10 nm.

Rapid and reversible gel-sol transition of self-assembled gels induced by photoisomerization of dendritic azobenzenes.

An asymmetric bis-dendritic gelator (1) consisting of an azobenzene dendron and an aliphatic amide dendron was synthesized to achieve a photoresponsive self-assembly. The compound gelled in a wide range of organic solvents, even at concentrations as low as 0.02% (w/v) in cyclohexane.

Spontaneous one dimensional arrangement of spherical Au nanoparticles with liquid crystal ligands.

Spontaneous one dimensional arrangements of spherical Au nanoparticles were accomplished by using a liquid crystalline thiol ligand, 4'-(12-mercaptododecyloxy)biphenyl-4-carbonitrile. Simple thermal treatment of Au nanoparticles with the ligands showed 1D ordering of the Au nanoparticles.