Effects of gamma-ray irradiation on electronic and non-electronic equipment of Large Helical Device

In a deuterium operation on the Large Helical Device, the measurement and control equipment placed in the torus hall must survive under an environment of radiation. To study the effects of gamma-ray irradiation on the equipment, an irradiation experiment is performed at the Cobalt-60 irradiation facility of Nagoya University. Transient and permanent effects on a personal computer, media converters, programmable logic controllers, isolation amplifiers, a web camera, optical flow meters, and water sealing gaskets are experimentally surveyed. Transient noise appears on the web camera. Offset of the signal increases with an increase of the integrated dose on the programmable logic controller. The DeviceNet module on the programmable logic controller is broken at the integrated dose of 72 Gy, which is the expected range of the integrated dose of the torus hall. The other equipment can survive under the gamma-ray field in the torus hall

PD-L1-expressing cancer-associated fibroblasts induce tumor immunosuppression and contribute to poor clinical outcome in esophageal cancer

The programmed cell death 1 protein (PD-1)/programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) axis plays a crucial role in tumor immunosuppression, while the cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) have various tumor-promoting functions. To determine the advantage of immunotherapy, the relationship between the cancer cells and the CAFs was evaluated in terms of the PD-1/PD-L1 axis. Overall, 140 cases of esophageal cancer underwent an immunohistochemical analysis of the PD-L1 expression and its association with the expression of the α smooth muscle actin, fibroblast activation protein, CD8, and forkhead box P3 (FoxP3) positive cells. The relationship between the cancer cells and the CAFs was evaluated in vitro, and the effect of the anti-PD-L1 antibody was evaluated using a syngeneic mouse model. A survival analysis showed that the PD-L1+ CAF group had worse survival than the PD-L1- group. In vitro and in vivo, direct interaction between the cancer cells and the CAFs showed a mutually upregulated PD-L1 expression. In vivo, the anti-PD-L1 antibody increased the number of dead CAFs and cancer cells, resulting in increased CD8+ T cells and decreased FoxP3+ regulatory T cells. We demonstrated that the PD-L1-expressing CAFs lead to poor outcomes in patients with esophageal cancer. The cancer cells and the CAFs mutually enhanced the PD-L1 expression and induced tumor immunosuppression. Therefore, the PD-L1-expressing CAFs may be good targets for cancer therapy, inhibiting tumor progression and improving host tumor immunity

Investigation of irradiation effects on highly integrated leading-edge electronic components of diagnostics and control systems for LHD deuterium operation

High-temperature and high-density plasmas are achieved by means of real-time control, fast diagnostic, and high-power heating systems. Those systems are precisely controlled via highly integrated electronic components, but can be seriously affected by radiation damage. Therefore, the effects of irradiation on currently used electronic components should be investigated for the control and measurement of Large Helical Device (LHD) deuterium plasmas. For the precise estimation of the radiation field in the LHD torus hall, the MCNP6 code is used with the cross-section library ENDF B-VI. The geometry is modeled on the computer-aided design. The dose on silicon, which is a major ingredient of electronic components, over nine years of LHD deuterium operation shows that the gamma-ray contribution is dominant. Neutron irradiation tests were performed in the OKTAVIAN at Osaka University and the Fast Neutron Laboratory at Tohoku University. Gamma-ray irradiation tests were performed at the Nagoya University Cobalt-60 irradiation facility. We found that there are ethernet connection failures of programmable logic controller (PLC) modules due to neutron irradiation with a neutron flux of 3  ×  106 cm−2 s−1. This neutron flux is equivalent to that expected at basement level in the LHD torus hall without a neutron shield. Most modules of the PLC are broken around a gamma-ray dose of 100 Gy. This is comparable with the dose in the LHD torus hall over nine years. If we consider the dose only, these components may survive more than nine years. For the safety of the LHD operation, the electronic components in the torus hall have been rearranged

Notch Filter in 70 GHz Range for Microwave Plasma Diagnostics

A notch filter for the rejection of stray light from gigahertz range heating sources was developed to protect a vulnerable microwave plasma diagnostic system. As one of the applications, we consider the installation of the notch filter into the receiver of a collective Thomson scattering diagnostic in the Large Helical Device. Experimental observations indicate that two types of notch filters are required for main and spurious mode rejection; they have very narrow, steep shapes to avoid disturbing the diagnostic signal. On the basis of numerically simulated results, notch filters were fabricated, and their performance was evaluated. An attenuation level of 35 dB at 74.746 GHz with a 3 dB bandwidth of 0.49 GHz is achieved by two pairs of resonator cavities. This attenuation is acceptable in our study