Charge carrier control is a key issue in the development of electronic functions of semiconductive materials. Beyond the simple enhancement of conductivity, high charge carrier accumulation can realize various phenomena, such as chemical reaction, phase transition, magnetic ordering, and superconductivity. Electric double layers (EDLs), formed at solid-electrolyte interfaces, induce extremely large electric fields. This results in a high charge carrier accumulation in the solid, much more effectively than solid dielectric materials. In the present review, we describe recent developments in the field-effect transistors (FETs) with gate dielectrics of ionic liquids, which have attracted much attention due to their wide electrochemical windows, low vapor pressures, and high chemical and physical stability. We explain the capacitance effects of ionic liquids, and describe the various combinations of ionic liquids and organic and inorganic semiconductors that are used to achieve such effects as high transistor performance, insulator-metal transitions, superconductivity, and ferromagnetism, in addition to the applications of the ionic-liquid EDL-FETs in logic devices. We discuss the factors controlling the mobility and threshold voltage in these types of FETs, and show the ionic liquid dependence of the transistor performance.

The authors' four patients are the first successful cases of regenerative surgery for microtia using cultured ear chondrocytes. The benefits of the technique include minimal surgical invasion, lower donor-site morbidity, lessened chance of immunologic rejection, and implantation stability.

Electrostatic carrier injection and electrochemical doping of octathio[8]circulene thin films is examined for six kinds of ionic liquids using in situ cyclic voltammetry (CV) and conductivity measurements. The frequency dependence of the capacitance measurements indicates that the ionic liquids form electric-double-layers (EDLs) below 10 2 Hz. The performance of the EDL-organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) of octathio[8]circulene demonstrates that the transistor carrier mobility shows a linear decrease with an increase in the capacitance of the ionic liquids. In contrast, the electrochemical oxidation potentials and the threshold voltage of the EDL-OTFT are governed only by one component of the ionic liquid; namely, the electrostatic and electrochemical hole injections are significantly affected by the anions.

Highly satisfactory results were achieved in cases of both syndromic and nonsyndromic craniosynostosis when gradual distraction was performed.

Coagulation enzyme factor Xa (FXa) is a particularly promising target for the development of new anticoagulant agents. We previously reported the imidazo[1,5-c]imidazol-3-one derivative 1 as a potent and orally active FXa inhibitor. However, it was found that 1 predominantly undergoes hydrolysis upon incubation with human liver microsomes, and the human specific metabolic pathway made it difficult to predict the human pharmacokinetics. To address this issue, our synthetic efforts were focused on modification of the imidazo[1,5-c]imidazol-3-one moiety of the active metabolite 3a, derived from 1, which resulted in the discovery of the tetrahydropyrimidin-2(1H)-one derivative 5k as a highly potent and selective FXa inhibitor. Compound 5k showed no detectable amide bond cleavage in human liver microsomes, exhibited a good pharmacokinetic profile in monkeys, and had a potent antithrombotic efficacy in a rabbit model without prolongation of bleeding time. Compound 5k is currently under clinical development with the code name TAK-442.