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A rapid method of detection using a portable diagnostic genetic device with miniaturized systems is useful for point-of-care testing. The DNA amplification technique such as PCR is high sensitive, and provides the useful information for patient treatments. However, it is a time-consuming method including the detection process. In this review, the microfluidic PCR and the isothermal DNA amplification techniques for the rapid amplification is introduced. And the electrochemical techniques for the detection of DNA amplification in order to the development of the simplified portable device are reviewed. The electrochemical DNA detection is a highly amenable to miniaturization as it offers label-free, rapid measurements with low power consumption.

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In realizing portable instruments for point-of-care testing, electrochemical devices are attractive. Components in the devices such as electrodes can be formed by microfabrication techniques, which improves portability of the devices and instruments used for detection. Various critical compounds such as gases, ions, metabolites, proteins, DNAs as well as enzyme activity can be measured based on this principle. Improvement of the performance of the devices can be expected through the use of nanotechnology. In this short review, the progress of microchip technologies directed to point-of care-testing is reviewed

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ICT technology, especially mobile computing has been changing our daily life these days. It is also changing the field of medicine. Telemedicine for consultation has been used however the usage was very limited. After the development of iPhone, doctors and healthcare providers use mobile terminals to access patient data and transfer patient information. There still remain many issues such as security.
In this paper, I will describe about the current status and aspects of mobile healthcare in Japan.

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Very recently, mobile devices as intelligent data terminals have become widely popular in the world, which are expected to contribute to medical/health information and communication technology (ICT). As it is recognized to be critical to share medical/health information between patients and healthcare providers electronically, a variety of electronic health record (EHR) and personal health record (PHR) systems have been developed. Furthermore, advances in mobile and cloud computing technologies nowadays enable us to transmit information anywhere at any time, and provide better environment for EHR/PHR. It will be of great importance to promote research and development of a novel mobile/cloud system to integrate dispersedly stored pieces of patients' healthcare information into virtually combined one. Those records include not only static previously collected medical records, but also currently occurring dynamic data of patients such as vital signs, adherence to medication, and emergency medical records. We particularly focus on better clinical outcome, as well as efficacy, safety, and security matters achieved by those innovative systems in the various medical/health fields. Through development of new sensor devices and ICT, a systematic methodology would be strongly required to establish virtual space of ubiquitous health information.

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The number of annual death accidents while bathing has been estimated at approximately 14000 in Japan. The death accidents could be avoided by recognizing the bather's situation and treating them quickly, as well as preventive measures. In previous study, fall detection system using CCD camera, infrared sensor and ultrasonic sensors have been researched and developed, but those system is an invasion of privacy and high cost. This paper presents a system for high accuracy the detection of bather's fall using photodetecters at a low cost. In addtion, the action is detected using improved histograms of oriented gradients. The comparative experiments have shown that the rate of detecting hit of the front, and hit of back has increased by 14%, 9% respectively. Moreover, the experimental result of using the proposed system in the bathroom have shown that the efficiency of the photodetectors can hardly be reduced by shower, steams and outside light.

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This article critically discusses van der Waals and capillary forces as a function of relative humidity (RH) measured by atomic force microscope (AFM), which, as recently reported, show a discontinuous behavior at a low and high RH. We measure adhesion forces systematically on hydrophilic aluminum and copper oxide sample surfaces in a controlled humid environment using three different AFM probes, an AFM cantilever with a standard probe tip, super sharp probe tip, and an AFM tipless cantilever. In addition, we estimate the van der Walls and capillary forces by a prolate spheroid-plane, oblate spheroid-plane, or tilted plane-plane geometry in view of the actual AFM probe shapes, and compare with the experimental data in adhesion force measurements. Our studies indicate that a discontinuous behavior of capillary force on the hydrophilic surface at low RH is due to the influence of the sample surface roughness, and that at high RH is due to the effect of shape of the AFM probe. The modified formulations predict adhesion force better than conventional ones between the AFM probe and sample surface in the RH range of 10-85%.

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The use of physical security technology is becoming important to prevent intruders from stealing or vandalizing property, and leaking personal information, as well as to secure personal safety. At many important facilities, fences are installed along the boundary of the premises to prevent any intrusion. However, intrusion-detection sensors must still be additionally installed since such fences can be climbed over or cut, given their physical limitations in terms of height and strength. Vibration sensors need to be easily fixed to the fences even around intricately shaped premises for monitoring a wide range of areas. We have proposed and implemented a vibration sensor integrated with optical fiber and an optical interference system. This sensor features a structure of Sagnac interferometer based on the fiber-optic gyroscope and has exhibited high performance and reliability. In order to prevent any false or missing alarms, we have also investigated a signal processing system that can be used to judge whether an alarm is triggered by a natural phenomenon, small animals, or human intrusion. The sensor was installed on the perimeter fence of an electric power plant, and the performance of vibration sensor and the validity of signal processing to judge human intrusion was verified.

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We have proposed and experimentally demonstrated an environmentally friendly, simple, and inexpensive etching method for metal by ozone water. We experimentally measured the dependencies of ozone water etching on the temperature and ozone concentration for several metals (Cr, Ni, Al, Au, and Ti) and we also evaluated the surface roughness of the etched surface. The etching mechanism by ozone water can be explained by activation energy obtained by Arrhenius plot and a pH-potential diagram. As a result, it was found that the etching rate was proportional to the dissolved ozone concentration and temperature and that atomically flat surface was obtained after etching with ozone water, even though it was found that the etching rate was very low at a few tens of nanometers per hour. It is therefore difficult to use it for performing conventional macro- and micro-scale etching, whereas its rate is sufficiently high to use it for the nanoscale (i.e., a few tens of nanometers) metal etching in nanoscience and nanotechnology.

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We fabricated an ultrasonic probe with a through hole for needle puncture. The probe consists of a ring-shaped transducer around the hole for detecting needle tip and 12 fan-shaped transducers around the ring-shaped transducer for observing a lesion area. A B-mode image was obtained for inserting a needle into the pig liver. We investigated the phase of signals from the needle tip using an ultrasonic probe having separated elements of transmitter and receiver. From the experimental results the detection principle of the needle tip was explained by edge waves.

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A Si-PZT (PbZrTiO₃) hybrid XY-microstage with “carbon nanotube (CNT)-carbon composite” hinges is designed and fabricated. The CNT-carbon composite is partially used for the flexible hinge parts in the Si-PZT hybrid XY-microstage. The CNT-carbon composite has a low elastic constant and no mechanical hysteresis. The CNT-carbon hinge parts are formed by the process including micromolding and pyrolysis. Then, two stacked PZT actuators are assembled into the XY-microstage.

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