1000 serum samples from blood donors were tested for human parvovirus B19 (B19) DNA by a nested PCR assay: six samples were positive for B19 DNA. The frequency was 1/167 (0.6%), considerably higher than previous surveys (0.004-0.03%). Five of the six samples were also positive for anti-B19 IgM, indicating an acute phase of infection. It is recommended to screen for B19 DNA in blood products to prevent transfusion mediated viral infection for those susceptible such as immunocompromised patients and pregnant women.

Micromachining Teflon was achieved by direct exposure to synchrotron radiation and the microstructures made had the smallest surface detail down to 20 μm with structural height of more than 200 μm, that is, aspect ratio on the order of 10. The quality of micromachining Teflon by this process was found to be critically dependent on photon flux of the synchrotron radiation. Analysis of the mass distribution of gaseous species formed upon this process suggested that photochemical processes rather than pyrolytic processes may still dominate.

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Synchrotron radiation (SR) direct micromachining of polymers was developed and high-aspect-ratio microparts of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) were made. The limitation of critical dependence on the photon flux was eliminated by processing PTFE at a temperature of 200–250°C, so that the process was greatly simplified and the aspect-ratios were improved with reducing the smallest surface detail to less than ten microns and achieving the largest structural height of one thousand microns. The decomposition mechanism was discussed with a comparison between the SR micromachining and laser ablation.

It is believed that Borna disease virus (BDV), an etiological agent of progressive polioencephalomyelitis in horses and sheep, is closely associated with psychiatric disorders in humans since the prevalence of BDV is higher in psychiatric patients than in blood donors. We investigated whether or not BDVs in humans are derived from infected domestic animals, by characterizing the BDVs in blood donors and horses derived from the same region of Hokkaido island, Japan. The seroprevalences (2.6 to 14.8%) of BDV were significantly higher in the blood donors from four regions where most horse farms are concentrated, compared with only 1% in the blood donors from Sapporo, the largest city in Hokkaido.BDV RNA was also detected in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from most of the seropositive horses and blood donors by nested reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction. These findings support that BDV may be horizontally transmitted, at least in part, from infected horses to humans.