Cerebral aneurysms have significantly different rupture rates depending on their size and location. The mechanisms underlying these differences are unclear. We examined whether anatomic rupture risks ...are dependent on the hemodynamic environment on the aneurysmal surface.
Patient-specific geometries and flow rates of 84 cerebral aneurysms (42 anterior communicating artery and 42 MCA aneurysms) were acquired from our clinical study, the Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis of Blood Flow in Cerebral Aneurysms: Prospective Observational Study. Pulsatile blood flow was simulated to calculate hemodynamic metrics with special attention to wall shear stress magnitude and temporal disturbance. Multivariate analyses were performed to identify associations between hemodynamic metrics and known rupture predictors (age, sex, hypertension, smoking history, location, and size).
All the wall shear stress magnitude-based metrics showed a significant negative association with size and location (
< .03), but not other risk factors. All the wall shear stress disturbance-based metrics were significantly related to size (
< .001). Only normalized transverse wall shear stress, a metric for multidirectional wall shear stress disturbance, was related to location (
= .03). The normalized transverse wall shear stress had the highest odds ratio for location and size among hemodynamic metrics (odds ratios, 1.275 and 1.579; 95% confidence intervals, 1.020-1.693 and 1.238-2.219, respectively). Among the arterial geometric parameters, the aspect ratio had the second strongest association with all hemodynamic metrics, after our newly proposed aspect ratio-asphericity index.
The differences in aneurysm rupture rates according to size and location may reflect differences in hemodynamic environments in qualitatively different ways. An enhanced multidirectional wall shear stress disturbance may be especially associated with aneurysm rupture.
In humans, the composition of gut commensal bacteria is closely correlated with obesity. The bacteria modulate metabolites and influence host immunity. In this study, we attempted to determine ...whether there is a direct correlation between specific commensal bacteria and host metabolism. As mice aged, we found significantly reduced body weight and fat mass in Atg7
mice when compared with Atg7
mice. When mice shared commensal bacteria by co-housing or feces transfer experiments, body weight and fat mass were similar in both mouse groups. By pyrosequencing analysis, Bacteroides acidifaciens (BA) was significantly increased in feces of Atg7
mice compared with those of control Atg7
mice. Wild-type C57BL/6 (B6) mice fed with BA were significantly more likely to gain less weight and fat mass than mice fed with PBS. Of note, the expression level of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha (PPARα) was consistently increased in the adipose tissues of Atg7
mice, B6 mice transferred with fecal microbiota of Atg7
mice, and BA-fed B6 mice. Furthermore, B6 mice fed with BA showed elevated insulin levels in serum, accompanied by increased serum glucagon-like peptide-1 and decreased intestinal dipeptidyl peptidase-4. These finding suggest that BA may have potential for treatment of metabolic diseases such as diabetes and obesity.
THE EARTHCARE SATELLITE Illingworth, A. J.; Barker, H. W.; Beljaars, A. ...
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society,
08/2015, Letnik:
96, Številka:
8
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The collective representation within global models of aerosol, cloud, precipitation, and their radiative properties remains unsatisfactory. They constitute the largest source of uncertainty in ...predictions of climatic change and hamper the ability of numerical weather prediction models to forecast high-impact weather events. The joint European Space Agency (ESA)–Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Earth Clouds, Aerosol and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) satellite mission, scheduled for launch in 2018, will help to resolve these weaknesses by providing global profiles of cloud, aerosol, precipitation, and associated radiative properties inferred from a combination of measurements made by its collocated active and passive sensors. EarthCARE will improve our understanding of cloud and aerosol processes by extending the invaluable dataset acquired by the A-Train satellitesCloudSat, Cloud–Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO), andAqua. Specifically, EarthCARE’s cloud profiling radar, with 7 dB more sensitivity thanCloudSat, will detect more thin clouds and its Doppler capability will provide novel information on convection, precipitating ice particle, and raindrop fall speeds. EarthCARE’s 355-nm high-spectral-resolution lidar will measure directly and accurately cloud and aerosol extinction and optical depth. Combining this with backscatter and polarization information should lead to an unprecedented ability to identify aerosol type. The multispectral imager will provide a context for, and the ability to construct, the cloud and aerosol distribution in 3D domains around the narrow 2D retrieved cross section. The consistency of the retrievals will be assessed to within a target of ±10 W m−2on the (10 km)² scale by comparing the multiview broadband radiometer observations to the top-of-atmosphere fluxes estimated by 3D radiative transfer models acting on retrieved 3D domains.
Background
The appropriate surgical procedure for patients with upper third early gastric cancer is controversial. We compared total gastrectomy (TG) with proximal gastrectomy (PG) in this patient ...population.
Methods
A multicenter, non-randomized trial was conducted, with patients treated with PG or TG. We compared short- and long-term outcomes between these procedures.
Results
Between 2009 and 2014, we enrolled 254 patients from 22 institutions; data from 252 were included in the analysis. These 252 patients were assigned to either the PG (
n
= 159) or TG (
n
= 93) group. Percentage of body weight loss (%BWL) at 1 year after surgery, i.e., the primary endpoint, in the PG group was significantly less than that of the TG group (− 12.8% versus − 16.9%;
p
= 0.0001). For short-term outcomes, operation time was significantly shorter for PG than TG (252 min versus 303 min;
p
< 0.0001), but there were no group-dependent differences in blood loss and postoperative complications. For long-term outcomes, incidence of reflux esophagitis in the PG group was significantly higher than that of the TG group (14.5% versus 5.4%;
p
= 0.02), while there were no differences in the incidence of anastomotic stenosis between the two (5.7% versus 5.4%;
p
= 0.92). Overall patient survival rates were similar between the two groups (3-year survival rates: 96% versus 92% in the PG and TG groups, respectively;
p
= 0.49).
Conclusions
Patients who underwent PG were better able to control weight loss without worsening the prognosis, relative to those in the TG group. Optimization of a reconstruction method to reduce reflux in PG patients will be important.
Probiotics are live microorganisms that potentially confer beneficial outcomes to host by modulating gut microbiota in the intestine. The aim of this study was to comprehensively investigate effects ...of probiotics on human intestinal microbiota using 454 pyrosequencing of bacterial 16S ribosomal RNA genes with an improved quantitative accuracy for evaluation of the bacterial composition. We obtained 158 faecal samples from 18 healthy adult Japanese who were subjected to intervention with 6 commercially available probiotics containing either Bifidobacterium or Lactobacillus strains. We then analysed and compared bacterial composition of the faecal samples collected before, during, and after probiotic intervention by Operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and UniFrac distances. The results showed no significant changes in the overall structure of gut microbiota in the samples with and without probiotic administration regardless of groups and types of the probiotics used. We noticed that 32 OTUs (2.7% of all analysed OTUs) assigned to the indigenous species showed a significant increase or decrease of ≥10-fold or a quantity difference in >150 reads on probiotic administration. Such OTUs were found to be individual specific and tend to be unevenly distributed in the subjects. These data, thus, suggest robustness of the gut microbiota composition in healthy adults on probiotic administration.
Summary
Background
Although many new disease entities of autoimmune bullous disease (AIBD) have recently been recognized, satisfactory immunological diagnostic methods and comprehensive ...classifications for various AIBDs have not been established.
Objectives
To identify immunological diagnostics and comprehensive classifications for AIBDs.
Methods
We selected and examined 4774 patients with various AIBDs from our cohort of 5063 patients with difficult AIBDs, whose sera and information were sent for our diagnostic method from other institutes in either Japan or other countries over the last 19 years. We examined the sera by our immunological diagnostic methods including various immunofluorescence, immunoblotting and enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay tests to make final diagnoses.
Results
By our immunological diagnostic methods, we successfully made final diagnoses for approximately three‐quarters of the difficult cases of AIBD, although the remaining cases could not be diagnosed. Using the results, we suggest the most extensive and newest classification of AIBDs, and also propose the most efficient algorithm of immunological tests for the diagnosis of various AIBDs.
Conclusions
The results in this study of 4774 patients with various AIBDs indicate that our immunological diagnostic method is useful for making diagnoses for most patients with AIBD. However, we need further improvements including new immunological techniques to establish more satisfactory methods.
What's already known about this topic?
There are many different autoimmune bullous diseases (AIBDs) that are diagnosed by immunological tests, in addition to clinical and histopathological examinations.
As one of the centres for diagnosis of AIBDs in Japan, we have collected sera and information for more than 5000 difficult cases of various AIBDs over the last 19 years, and have performed various serological tests.
What does this study add?
This study presents the current classification and algorithm for immunological diagnosis in AIBDs.
This study also presents the final diagnoses for our 4774 patients with AIBDs, which were made by our immunological diagnostic method.
What is the translational message?
This study proposes a comprehensive novel classification of AIBDs, which should be useful for precise and detailed diagnoses of various AIBDs in the clinical field.
The large number of immunological and molecular methods described in this study should also facilitate clinical practice, such as for diagnoses and appropriate selection of treatments, for various AIBDs.
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