Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection represents a serious health-care problem. Previously we reported the identification of NA255 from our natural products library using a HCV sub-genomic replicon cell ...culture system. Herein, we report how the absolute stereochemistry of NA255 was determined and an enantioselective synthetic method for NA255 derivatives was developed. The structure–activity relationship of the NA255 derivatives and rat pharmacokinetic profiles of the representative compounds are disclosed.
We develop maximum a posteriori (MAP) method for X-ray computed tomography (CT). We present a mixture prior to represent the knowledge that the human body is composed of a finite number of material ...kinds whose CT values are roughly known in advance. The tomographic image and material classes are simultaneously estimated in an alternating manner, where a graph cut algorithm is used to minimize the MAP objective function. Experiments show that the proposed algorithm performs better than the existing methods in severe situations where samples are limited or metals are inserted into the body.
A 59-year-old man with hepatitis C virus infection who had undergone micro wave coagulation therapy for 2 cm of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in 2004 developed multiple recurrence in January 2011 ...and referred to our hospital. In spite of hepatic artery chemo embolization therapy, sorafenib, hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy, and oral S-1, the tumors increased in size and number. Serum AFP and PIVKA II levels were also elevated. After administration of 180 μg of Peg-INFα-2a every week, the levels of AFP and PIVKA II had markedly decreased. Eleven months after the initiation of 180 μg of Peg-INFα-2a treatment, the multiple hepatic tumors and lung metastases which were observed during the course disappeared. Although the recurrence of S3 appeared afterward, lobectomy of left lobe segment was successfully performed, resulting in normalization of serum AFP and PIVKAII. Peg-IFNα-2a might be a possible therapeutic option for advanced HCC.
An 86-year-old male was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, and he was treated with interferon (IFN) therapy 20 years ago. He achieved a sustained virological ...response (SVR) and was followed up with blood tests and ultrasonography twice a year. Twenty years later, a high-echoic nodule with 15 mm diameter was detected by ultrasonography and diagnosed as a hepatocellular carcinoma by magnetic resonance imaging and hepatic angiography. The patient was treated with transcatheter arterial chemoembolization followed by radiofrequency ablation. Long-term follow-up may be needed for patients with HCV even after the achievement of SVR to IFN therapy.
Spontaneous speech often contains hesitations, such as stammering, word substitutions, filler words and repetitions, unlike speech that is produced when reading aloud. These additional utterances ...create noise for Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) systems, negatively affecting recognition accuracy. In this study, we propose an End-to-End (E2E) ASR system which can recognize these hesitations, as well as extra syllables, in spontaneous Japanese speech by training the ASR model using labeled data. Hesitation speech is then automatically labeled and ignored during speech recognition. Our experiments confirm that both the Character Error Rate (CER) and the Sentence Error Rate (SER) improved for all of the evaluation data sets in comparison to a baseline ASR method. In addition, when examining the actual recognition results, it was observed that the labels were inserted in the correct positions, suggesting that the model is able to correctly learn the meanings of the labels. Furthermore, by deleting the labeled utterances from there cognition results, we were able to obtain grammatically correct target sentences.
More than 90% of synovial sarcomas (SSs) possess a non-random chromosomal translocation t(X;18)(p11;q11) and express SYT-SSX fusion gene products originating from the translocation. To test whether ...it is possible to detect the SYT-SSX mRNA on archival formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded SS tissue sections using PCR-based in situ amplification technique, we performed reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction in situ hybridization (RT-PCR ISH) for the SYT-SSX fusion gene mRNA. In three types of SSs, monophasic fibrous, biphasic and poorly differentiated, NBT/BCIP signals corresponding to SYT-SSX mRNA were uniformly and predominantly positive in the sarcoma cell cytoplasm. Our results indicated that SS cells uniformly possessed the SYT-SSX fusion genes and expressed their transcripts. Furthermore, our results were thought to support monoclonal origin of epithelial and spindle cell components of biphasic SSs. Thus, specific chromosomal translocation t(X;18) is likely to be an early event in the development of SSs, and the expression of SYT-SSX fusion gene products is thought to be crucial for the tumorigenesis of SSs.
We propose a new reconstruction procedure for X-ray computed tomography (CT) based on Bayesian modeling. We utilize the knowledge that the human body is composed of only a limited number of materials ...whose CT values are roughly known in advance. Although the exact Bayesian inference of our model is intractable, we propose an efficient algorithm based on the variational Bayes technique. Experiments show that the proposed method performs better than the existing methods in severe situations where samples are limited or metal is inserted into the body.
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