Transient plasma, or plasma during a formative true nonequilibrated phase, is studied as an ignition methodology in comparison with traditional spark ignition (2.5-3 ms and 80 mJ) in a ...single-cylinder gasoline internal combustion engine. Transient plasmas were generated by applying high-voltage pulses that had comparable energy but that were applied for times that were three to four orders of magnitude shorter-85-ns 60-mJ and 20-ns 57-mJ pulses. These created volume-distributed arrays of streamers, which produced electronically excited species during nanosecond time scales. Reductions in ignition delay, higher peak pressure, and increased net heat release ratio relative to conventional spark ignition were observed in these studies. Transient plasma ignition is demonstrated to initiate combustion rapidly, approaching an ideal constant volume cycle; has potential for improving lean combustion operation; is energy efficient; and is potentially useful for gasoline engine emissions reduction.
A robust method for inducing bone formation from adipose-derived stromal cells (ADSCs) has not been established. Moreover, the efficacy of strong osteogenic inducers including BMP-2 for ADSC-mediated ...bone engineering remains controversial. Meanwhile, the buccal fat pad (BFP), which is found in the oral cavity as an adipose-encapsulated mass, has been shown to have potential as a new accessible source of ADSCs for oral surgeons. However, to date, there have been no reports that define the practical usefulness of ADSCs from BFP (B-ADSCs) for bone engineering. Here, we report an efficient method of generating bone from B-ADSCs using rhBMP-2. The analyses show that B-ADSCs can differentiate in vitro toward the osteoblastic lineage by the addition of rhBMP-2 to culture medium, regardless of the presence of osteoinductive reagents (OSR), as demonstrated by measurements of ALP activity, in vitro calcification, and osteogenic gene expression. Interestingly, adipogenic genes were clearly detectable only in cultures with rhBMP-2 and OSR. However, in vivo bone formation was most substantial when B-ADSCs cultured in this condition were transplanted. Thus, B-ADSCs reliably formed engineered bone when pre-treated with rhBMP-2 for inducing mature osteoblastic differentiation. This study supports the potential translation for B-ADSC use in the clinical treatment of bone defects.
Abstract
Advanced regenerator materials of erbium and holmium binary nitrides, Er
x
Ho
1-
x
N (
x
= 0 - 1) were studied. Its specific heat
vs
. temperature curve, possesses a peak due to the magnetic ...phase transition at their Curie temperature. The cooling power at 4.2 K of a commercial 4K-GM cryocooler filled with the binary nitride of
x
= 0.625, 0.75, 0.875 or 1 was evaluated. It was found that the cooling power at 4.2 K has a good linear correlation with the heat quantity, which is calculated by integrating
C
with respect to
T
in the region of 4.2 - 7.0 K. Three binary nitrides (
x
= 0.625, 0.875 and 1) filled in series along the regenerator column gave 26% higher cooling power than that filled with HoCu
2
.
Background
Tumour budding is an important prognostic feature in early‐stage colorectal cancer, but its prognostic significance in metastatic disease has not been fully investigated.
Methods
Patients ...with stage IV disease who had primary colorectal tumour resection without previous chemotherapy or radiotherapy from January 2000 to December 2018 were reviewed retrospectively. Budding was evaluated at the primary site and graded according to the criteria of the International Tumor Budding Consensus Conference (ITBCC) (BD1, low; BD2, intermediate; BD3, high). Patients were categorized by metastatic (M1a, M1b) and resectional (R0/R1, R2/unresected) status. Subgroups were compared for overall (OS) and recurrence‐free (RFS) survival in R0/R1 subgroups; R2/unresected patients were evaluated for the rate of tumour progression, based on change in tumour size from baseline.
Results
Of 371 patients observed during the study, 362 were analysed. Patients with BD3 had a lower 5‐year OS rate than those with BD1 + BD2 (18·4 versus 40·5 per cent; P < 0·001). Survival analyses according to metastatic and resection status also showed that BD3 was associated with shorter OS than BD1 + BD2. In multivariable analysis, BD3 (hazard ratio (HR) 1·51, 95 per cent c.i. 1·11 to 2·10; P = 0·009), T4 status (HR 1·39) and R2/unresected status (HR 3·50) were associated with decreased OS. In the R0/R1 subgroup, the 2‐year RFS rate was similar for BD3 and BD1 + BD2 according to metastatic status. There was no significant difference between BD3 and BD1 + BD2 for change in tumour size in the R2/unresected subgroup (P = 0·094). Of 141 patients with initially unresectable metastases who had chemotherapy, 35 achieved conversion from unresectable to resectable status. The conversion rate was significantly higher for BD1 + BD2 than for BD3 (36 versus 18 per cent; P = 0·016).
Conclusion
Stage IV colorectal cancer with high‐grade tumour budding according to ITBCC criteria correlates with poor prognosis.
Antecedentes
La esofaguectomía por cáncer se asocia con un descenso de la calidad de vida relacionada con la salud (health‐related quality of life, HRQoL) a largo plazo. El objetivo de este estudio fue evaluar el efecto de las comorbilidades sobre la HRQOL entre pacientes supervivientes de cánceres de esófago o de la unión gastroesofágicas después de 10 años o más.
Métodos
Este estudio incluye una cohorte de base poblacional recogida de forma prospectiva que incluía todos los pacientes operados de cáncer de esófago o de la unión gastroesofágica en Suecia en 2001‐2005 con seguimiento hasta el 31 de diciembre de 2016. Todos los datos relacionados con las características de los pacientes y del tumor, detalles del tratamiento y HRQoL se recogieron en una base de datos prospectiva. Se utilizaron modelos de regresión multivariable ANCOVA, ajustados por edad, sexo, histología del tumor, estadio, y técnica quirúrgica, para calcular las puntuaciones medias ajustadas con los i.c. del 95% para todas las variables de la HRQoL.
Resultados
Un total de 92 (88%) supervivientes respondieron a los cuestionarios. En función del impacto de las comorbilidades en la salud en general, se clasificaron a los pacientes en los grupos de bajo versus alto impacto. Los resultados muestran que los pacientes en el grupo de alto impacto presentaban un descenso clínicamente significativo de la HRQoL y un aumento en el nivel de síntomas, pero las diferencias entre estos dos grupos no fueron estadísticamente significativas.
Conclusión
A los 10 años de la esofaguectomía por cáncer, las comorbilidades con un alto impacto sobre la salud general siguen contribuyendo en el deterioro de la HRQoL.
In stage IV colorectal cancer, tumour budding graded by International Tumor Budding Consensus Conference criteria is an important morphological marker that can predict prognosis and, possibly, tumour chemoresistance. The clinical relevance was maintained consistently in both resection subgroups (R0/R1 and R2/unresected).
Tumor budding and colorectal metastasis
Purpose
In Japan, a national surveillance study of antimicrobial consumption has never been undertaken. This study aimed to describe antimicrobial consumption and resistance to
Pseudomonas aeruginosa
...in 203 Japanese hospitals, to identify targets for quality improvement.
Methods
We conducted an ecological study using retrospective data (2010). Antimicrobial consumption was collected in the World Health Organization (WHO) anatomical therapeutic chemical/defined daily dose (ATC/DDD) format. Rates of imipenem (IPM), meropenem (MEPM), ciprofloxacin (CPFX), or amikacin (AMK) resistance were expressed as the incidence of non-susceptible isolates. Additionally, hospitals were asked to provide data concerning hospital characteristics and infection control policies. Hospitals were classified according to functional categories of the Medical Services Act in Japan.
Results
Data were collected from 203 Japanese hospitals (a total of 91,147 beds). The total antimicrobial consumption was 15.49 DDDs/100 bed-days (median), with consumptions for penicillins, carbapenems, quinolones, and glycopeptides being 4.27, 1.60, 0.41, and 0.49, respectively. The median incidences of IPM, MEPM, CPFX, and AMK resistance were 0.15, 0.10, 0.13, and 0.03 isolates per 1,000 patient-days, respectively. Antimicrobial notification and/or approval systems were present in 183 hospitals (90.1 %). In the multivariate analysis, the piperacillin/tazobactam, quinolones, and/or total consumptions and the advanced treatment hospitals showed a significant association with the incidence of
P. aeruginosa
resistant to IPM, MEPM, CPFX, and AMK adjusted
R
2
(a
R
2
) values of 0.23, 0.30, 0.22, and 0.35, respectively).
Conclusion
This is the first national surveillance study of antimicrobial consumption in Japan. A continuous surveillance program in Japan is necessary in order to evaluate the association among resistance, antimicrobial restriction, and consumption.
A new technique for quickly assessing extensive areas of large-scale landslides that uses digital elevation models (DEMs) extracted from high-resolution satellite images is presented in this paper. ...The proposed technique observes the elevation changes by using multitemporal DEMs. Five-meter-resolution DEMs from SPOT-5 images are applied to two large-scale landslide disasters: the landslides triggered by the 2004 Mid Niigata prefecture earthquake (magnitude 6.8; a moderate-topography area in Central Japan), and the landslides caused by the 2004 typhoon Mindulle (a steep-topography area in Central Taiwan). Both events yielded elevation changes in excess of 10 m. We assess the DEMs produced by the proposed method and their landslide application. We find three main results. 1) The elevation difference error increases with the slope angle. The root-mean-square error was 4-5 m on slopes lower than 30deg in both areas, whereas it was 5-6 m for slopes that exceeded 30deg in moderate topographies and 5-9 m in steep topographies. 2) The proposed technique well delineated the large-scale landslides. The total rate of successful area detection was over 70% for slopes under 40 deg but under 40% for slopes that exceeded 40 deg. 3) The landslide volume could be roughly estimated in units of 100times10 3 m 3 . The developed technique well supports damage assessments of large-scale landslides because the location, depth, and volume can be quantitatively determined by remote sensing
The strain induced martensitic transformation (SMT) of the austenite stainless steel (SUS 304) under cyclic loading and static loading was investigated directly using electron backscattered ...diffraction. Two different SMT characteristics are observed, which are attributed to the differences of plastic and twinning deformation. The maximum cyclic stress has a strong influence on the SMT. The total area fraction of the Fe-α′ phase increases significantly when the maximum cyclic load is >80% σ
UTS
. In other words, the SMT is apparently absent when the samples are loaded with less than σ
max
= 70% σ
UTS
, although such samples are fractured completely. Moreover, there is a clear R ratio effect on the SMT. For example, the loading condition R = −1 gives rise to a strong SMT compared to R = 0·1 due to the more severe strain caused by the compressive stress. In contrast, no clear frequency effect (1 versus 30 Hz) on the SMT is detected, which may be attributed to the same maximum cyclic stress. Like the SMT characteristics under cyclic loading, the proportion of Fe-α′ phase shows no clear increase until the sample is loaded statically to a tensile stress <70% σ
UTS
.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The corrosion and mechanical properties of cast aluminium alloys ADC6(Al-Mg) and ADC12(Al-Si-Cu) have been investigated. Specifically, cast samples with different microstructural characteristics were ...produced using two different casting techniques, namely, gravity casting (GC) and heated mould continuous casting (HMC). For ADC6, intergranular corrosion occurs mainly through the eutectic Mg
2
Si and Al
6
(Mn,Fe) phases and the precipitate free zone around the eutectic structures. On the other hand, pitting corrosion in the α-Al phase is the dominant feature for ADC12. Such corrosion characteristics can be interpreted from the material properties (polarisation resistance and electrode potential) of the individual structures, such as the α-Al phase, eutectic α-Al phase and precipitate phase. It also appeared that the extent of corrosion is affected by the size of the microstructure; the ADC6 sample with small second phases has a high corrosion resistance due to the limited area for corrosion. In addition, the higher proportion of solid solution in the α-Al phase of ADC6, arising from the high cooling rate, makes a high corrosion resistance because of the change of electrode potential. A different trend is obtained for ADC12 due to the pitting corrosion, where low corrosion resistance is obtained for the sample with tiny grain. The tensile strength and ductility for both HMC samples (ADC6 and ADC12) are higher than those for the GC equivalents, which is caused by the presence of tiny microstructures and uniform crystal orientation. However, the mechanical properties of HMC samples decrease dramatically during corrosion, although these are still high compared to those of the GC samples without corrosion.
Two phase I studies of darinaparsin have been conducted in patients with peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL) in Japan and Korea, respectively. Since use of an inorganic arsenic compound is limited by ...cardio toxicity, the potential of darinaparsin to prolong QTcF and any possible relationship between darinaparsin plasma concentration and change in QTcF was assessed in these studies.
Lipoteichoic acid (LTA) is a cell surface molecule specific to Gram-positive bacteria. How LTA localises on the cell surface is a fundamental issue in view of recognition and immunomodulation in ...hosts. In the present study, we examined LTA localisation using strain JCM 1131T of Lactobacillus gasseri, which is a human intestinal lactic acid bacterium, during various growth phases by immunoelectron microscopy. We first evaluated the specificity of anti-LTA monoclonal antibody clone 55 used as a probe. The glycerophosphate backbone comprising almost intact size (20 to 30 repeating units) of LTA was required for binding. The antibody did not bind to other cellular components, including wall-teichoic acid. Immunoelectron microscopy indicated that LTA was embedded in the cell wall during the logarithmic phase, and was therefore not exposed on the cell surface. Similar results were observed for Lactobacillus fermentum ATCC 9338 and Lactobacillus rhamnosus ATCC 7469T. By contrast, membrane vesicles were observed in the logarithmic phase of L. gasseri with LTA exposed on their surface. In the stationary and death phases, LTA was exposed on cell wall-free cell membrane generated by autolysis. The dramatic alternation of localisation in different growth phases and exposure on the surface of membrane vesicles should relate with complicated interaction between bacteria and host.
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