Brachial plexopathy usually results from an iatrogenic brachial plexus injury and can sometimes cause severe chronic pain and disability. There are a number of possible treatments for this condition, ...including medication, physical therapy, nerve blocks, and neuromodulation, but they are not always successful. Recently, combined spinal cord stimulation (SCS) and peripheral nerve stimulation (PNS) have been tried for various chronic pain diseases because of their different mechanisms of action.Here, we describe the case of a 54-year-old man who was diagnosed with brachial plexopathy 8 years ago. He underwent video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery to remove a superior mediastinal mass. However, his brachial plexus was damaged during the surgery. Although he had received various treatments, the pain did not improve. For the management of intractable severe pain, he underwent SCS 2 years ago, which initially reduced his pain from numeric rating scale (NRS) 10/10 to NRS 4 - 5/10, but the pain then gradually increased, reaching NRS 8/10, 6 months ago. At that time, he was refractory to other treatments, and we therefore applied PNS in combination with SCS. The PNS electrode was positioned on the radial nerve under ultrasound guidance. After combined PNS and SCS, his background pain disappeared, although a breakthrough pain (NRS 3 - 4/10) was caused intermittently by light touch. Furthermore, the patient's need for analgesics decreased, and he was satisfied with the outcome of this combined treatment. We concluded that combined SCS and PNS is a very useful treatment modality, which can stimulate the target nerve both directly and indirectly, and hence, relieve pain from brachial plexopathy.
A surface profilometry technique was used to characterize the surfaces of paper products. A stylus-contact type profilometer capable of simultaneously generating both surface roughness- and ...friction-profiles was used. As a stylus for the profilometer, a conical shape whose tip was rounded to have a 0.5 mm curvature radius was designed and successfully employed in both printing & writing (P&W) papers and hygiene papers such as bathroom tissues and kitchen towel. From the profiles, the mean absolute deviation (MAD) from the averages, i.e., R-MAD from the roughness average and F-MAD from the average coefficient of friction, were suggested as the new surface characterization parameters. To elucidate the surface roughness profiles by fractal dimension analysis, the variogram method was applied to get the fractal dimensions of the paper products. Generally, the value of the fractal dimension increased as the surface roughness increased. The surface profilometry technique with the fractal dimension analysis with the variogram method looks promising to gain additional insight on the surface characteristics of paper products.
We developed KEK Isotope Separation System (KISS) in RIKEN Nishina center to produce neutron-rich isotopes around N = 126 for the study of β-decay properties from astrophysical interests. The KISS is ...an argon-gas-cell-based on laser ion source with ISOL, and, therefore, allows us to extract heavy refractory elements and investigate neutron-rich isotopes around N = 126. We extracted the laser-ionized unstable nuclei in the vicinity of 198Pt, and performed β-γ spectroscopy and in-gas-cell laser ionization spectroscopy successfully.
A new multi-reflection time-of-flight mass spectrograph for nuclear mass measurements with high precision has been constructed at the SLOWRI facility at RIKEN-RIBF. We aim to couple this new device ...to a cryogenic gas cell operated at the BigRIPS facility of RIBF. It is part of the SLOWRI project for slowing down and stopping intense radioactive ion beams provided downstream of RIKEN’s superconducting ring cyclotron accelerator. In particular, this device is dedicated to be located at the end of the BigRIPS beam line to access ions that are presently guided to beam dumps during in-beam experiments. In this article the apparatus is described in detail.
Doughnut-shaped gas cell for KEK Isotope Separation System Hirayama, Y.; Watanabe, Y.X.; Mukai, M. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section B, Beam interactions with materials and atoms,
12/2017, Letnik:
412
Journal Article
Recenzirano
We have developed a doughnut-shaped argon gas cell with a rotating target for the KEK Isotope Separation System (KISS). The new gas cell increased extraction yields for target-like fragments (TLFs) ...produced in multi-nucleon transfer (MNT) reactions. KISS is an on-line isotope separator, which makes use of a laser ion source combined with an argon gas cell as a gas catcher for TLFs. This system has been implemented for nuclear spectroscopy of neutron-rich isotopes in the region of N=126. A gas flow simulation was performed to optimize the design of the gas cell for efficient and fast transport of TLFs. To confirm the performance expected at the design stage, we performed off- and on-line experiments by using iridium atoms evaporated from a filament in the gas cell and TLFs produced by a 136Xe beam and 198Pt target system respectively. We could increase the extraction yield by more than an order of magnitude by applying a doughnut-shaped gas cell with a rotating target. Thus, we could perform nuclear spectroscopy in this heavy region with the use of KISS.
The metabolism of arachidonic acid, in particular the generation of prostaglandins (PGs), has been proposed to play a key role in the regulation of labor. Moreover, several extracellular proteins ...have been reported to modulate PG synthesis in amnion cells. In this study, we found that lipid components dissolved in the amniotic fluid modulate PG synthesis in WISH human amnion cells and identified one of these components as a sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P). WISH cells express several S1P receptors including S1P1, S1P2, and S1P3. When WISH cells were stimulated with S1P, PGE2 synthesis increased in a concentration-dependent manner, showing maximal activity at around 100 nm. S1P treatment also caused the up-regulation of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) mRNA and protein, which was apparent within 3–12 h of stimulation. In terms of the intracellular signaling pathway of S1P-induced WISH cell activation, we found that S1P stimulated two kinds of MAPK, ERK, and p38 kinase. We examined the roles of these two MAPKs in S1P-induced COX-2 expression. S1P-induced COX-2 expression was blocked completely by PD-98059 but not by SB-203580, suggesting that ERK has a critical role in the process. Transfection of S1P1 or S1P3 but not of S1P2 antisense oligonucleotide inhibited S1P-induced COX-2 expression and PGE2 production in WISH cells, indicating the involvements of S1P1 and S1P3 in the processes. This study demonstrates the physiological role of S1P in amniotic fluid and its effect on the modulation of COX-2 expression and PGs synthesis in WISH cells.
A dual-mode synchronous rectification (SR) controller supporting both the continuous-conduction mode and discontinuous-conduction mode is developed to improve the power efficiency of a flyback ...converter. The dual-mode SR controller ensures nonoverlapped turning-on of the primary and secondary switches by monitoring the voltage level of the secondary switch. The dual-mode SR controller requiring four pins and only one external resistor has been implemented in a 0.35-μm BCDMOS process and applied to a 50-W flyback converter. The efficiency of the flyback converter is improved by upto 6.8% when the dual-mode SR controller is employed compared to the one employing the conventional SR controller.
Summary
The Toll‐like receptors (TLRs) are related to innate immunity. TLR9, a member of TLRs, is expressed in immune cell–rich tissues and mediates cellular response. We investigated the association ...between TLR9 polymorphisms and kidney allograft outcomes. To investigate whether TLR9 polymorphisms are associated with acute rejection after renal transplantation, two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of TLR9 gene (rs187084 ‐1486; rs352140, G2848A) were selected and genotyped by direct sequencing in 342 renal transplant recipients. SNPStats, SNPAnalyzer, Helixtree and Haploview version 4.2 were used to analyse genetic data. Multiple logistic regression models (codominant, dominant, recessive and log‐additive) were used to evaluate odds ratios (ORs), 95% confidence intervals (CIs) and P values. Both SNPs, TLR9 rs187084 ‐1486 and rs352140 G2848A, of recipients were associated with the risk of acute rejection in renal transplantation. C allele of rs187084 ‐1486 and A allele of rs352140 G2848A were protective genotype for acute rejection (OR 0.6, 95% CI 0.40–0.92; P = 0.018, OR 0.64, 95% CI 0.42–0.98; P = 0.04, respectively). rs187084 ‐1486 CT and rs352140 G2848A GA genotype were associated with a lower eGFR after a year of renal transplantation. TLR9 polymorphisms, rs187084 and rs352140, of recipients were associated with the risk of acute rejection in renal transplantation. The patients with rs187084 ‐1486 CT and rs352140 G2848A GA genotype showed a lower eGFR after a year of renal transplantation.
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