With the increasing frequency of laparoscopic surgery, interest in the application of polymeric ligation clips as a method for ligating blood vessels has grown. Automatic clip appliers with built-in polymeric ligation clips have been developed to reduce ligation time. As the built-in clip is loaded into the jaw of the applier for ligation, a high spring constant, the elastic property of the clip is required to load properly. As the built-in clip loses its elastic properties due to stress relaxation over time, a polymeric ligation clip with a high spring constant is needed to increase the shelf life of the applier. In this study, four design factors of the cavity at the clip hinge (length, width, eccentricity, and angle of the cavity) were derived and applied to the Taguchi optimization method using finite element analysis to evaluate which factor was critical. The four design factors explained 93.5% of the variation in the spring constant. The factors related to cavity width and eccentricity were significant at p<0.05. Cavity width was the most crucial factor, explaining 70.8% of the variation in the spring constant. The spring constant of the improved clip model increased by 55.4% compared with the existing model.

Assay of biomolecules based on absorption spectroscopy is a sensitive, minute, quantitative, rapid and real-time process. UV-vis spectrometry has inherent advantages for use in analytical applications. To reduce the consumption of scarce samples, a new generation of miniaturized UVvis spectrometric systems has been developed. This study determined empirically and through simulations the feasibility of assaying biomolecules by means of UV-vis spectrometry. This paper also reports a fully integrated portable micro-detection equipment system that utilizes a microoptical path for analysis of micro-volume samples.

In this paper, effect of temperature in TiN-coating by arc ion plating on surface characteristics of a TiN coated high speed steel is investigated by experiments. Hardness, surface roughness, TiN-coating thickness and adsorption force are measured in order to evaluate the effects. For evaluation of the experimental data, one-way ANDVA method is used. It is concluded that the furnace temperature in the range 400℃~500℃ in AIP processing has a little influence on the TiN coating of the SKH51 steels.

In this paper, the effect of TiN-coating on product quality such as dimensional accuracy and surface roughness is experimentally investigated. A punch of SKDll material in cold forging an automotive bearing shaft and its related process found in a cold forging company are selected as the test example. The effect of TiN-coating is revealed in a quantitative manner. It is to be noted that TiN-coating is effective in controlling the dimensional accuracy and surface roughness as well as in increasing tool life.