Acupuncture for urinary incontinence in patients with chronic spinal cord injury. A preliminary report

PURPOSE: We investigated the possible use of acupuncture for the treatment of urinary incontinence caused by detrusor hyperflexia in patients with chronic spinal cord injury. METHOD: A total of 8 male chronic spinal cord injured patients with urinary incontinence were treated by acupuncture. Their ages ranged from 20 to 33 years (mean 27). The level of lesion was cervical in 4 and thoracic in 4. Detrusor hyperreflexia with uninhibited bladder contraction was confirmed by urodynamic studies in all of them. Acupuncture was performed using a disposable stainless needle (0.3 mm in diameter, 60 mm in length), which was inserted into bilateral BL-33 (Zhongliao) points and was rotated manually for 10 minutes. The treatment was conducted every week for 4 weeks. Urodynamic studies were repeated, immediately after the beginning of and a week after the completion of the treatment. Urinary symptoms were also checked before and after the treatment. RESULTS: No side effects were recognized throughout the treatment period. Among 8 patients, incontinence was controlled completely in 3 (38%) and partially in 3 (38%). The average maximum cystometric bladder capacity increased significantly, from 42.3 +/- 37.9 ml to 148.1 +/- 101.2 ml by the treatment (p < 0.05), while the average maximum bladder pressure was not changed. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that acupuncture could be a promising alternative for conventional therapies for urinary incontinence caused by detrusor hyperreflexia in patients with chronic spinal cord injuries.     

Elevated field insulator (ELFIN) process for device isolation of ultrathin SOI MOSFETs with top silicon film less than 20 nm

New device isolation process, called elevated field insulator (ELFIN) process, for ultrathin SOI devices with top silicon film less than 20 nm has been proposed and successfully demonstrated. In ELFIN process, gate oxidation and subsequent gate poly-Si deposition is followed by conventional STI process. ELFIN process has a field region elevated compared with active silicon region, leading to prevention of silicon edge from being wrapped around by gate poly-Si. It is found that thin-film SOI NMOSFETs with ELFIN process have better reverse narrow channel effect about 50% at W/sub G/=0.3 /spl mu/m than that with conventional shallow trench isolation (STI) process.     

Peroneal osteocutaneous flap raised on reconstructed popliteal artery for delayed union following open tibial fractures

Cardiac function was assessed in long-term survivors of malignant bone tumors who were treated according to Rosen's T5 or T10 protocol, both including doxorubicin. Thirty-one patients, age 10-45 years (median age 17.8 years) were evaluated 2.3-14.1 years (median 8.9 years) following completion of treatment. Cumulative doses of doxorubicin were 225-550 mg/m2 (median dose 360). The evaluation consisted of a history, physical examination, electrocardiogram (ECG), signal averaged ECG, 24-hour ambulatory ECG, echocardiography and radionuclide angiography. Eighteen of 31 (58%) patients showed cardiac toxicity, defined as having one or more of the following abnormalities: late potentials, complex ventricular arrhythmias, left ventricular dilation, decreased shortening fraction, or decreased ejection fraction. The incidence of cardiac abnormalities increased with length of follow-up (P< or = .05). No correlation could be demonstrated between cumulative dose of doxorubicin and cardiac status, except for heart rate variability. When adjusted to body surface area, the left ventricular posterior wall thickness (LVPW index) was decreased in all patients. The incidence of doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity is high and increases with follow-up, irrespective of cumulative dose. Life-long cardiac follow-up in these patients is warranted. The results of our study suggest that heart rate variability and LVPW index could be sensitive indicators for cardiotoxicity.     

High-speed electroabsorption modulators buried with ruthenium-doped SI-InP

InGaAlAs-InAlAs electroabsorption modulators are successfully fabricated using ruthenium (Ru)-doped semi-insulating (SI)-InP burying technology. A comparison of measured and calculated microwave characteristics reveals that there is no additional microwave loss because zinc diffusion is inhibited by the use of Ru-doped SI-InP layers. A small-signal electrooptical response with a -3-dB electrical bandwidth of over 50 GHz is demonstrated.     

16.7-fA/cell tunnel-leakage-suppressed 16-Mb SRAM for handling cosmic-ray-induced multierrors

Tunnel-leakage currents become the dominant form of leakage as MOS technology advances. An electric-field-relaxation scheme that suppresses these currents is described. Cosmic-ray-induced multierrors have now become a serious problem at sea level. An alternate error checking and correction architecture for the handling of such errors is also described, along with the application of both schemes in an ultralow-power 16-Mb SRAM. A test chip fabricated by using 0.13-/spl mu/m CMOS technology showed per-cell standby-current values of 16.7 fA at 25/spl deg/C and 101.7 fA at 90/spl deg/C. The chip provided a 99.5% reduction in soft errors under accelerated neutron-exposure testing.     

Image template matching based on edge‐spin correlation

This paper proposes a new method for image template matching that is based on the correlation between edge‐spins. The edge‐spin is defined by the direction of the change of edge directions between neighboring pixels. When an edge direction rotates to the left from an objective pixel to its right neighboring pixel, the edge‐spin has the value 1. When an edge direction rotates to the right, the edge‐spin has the value 0. The edge‐spin is a binary data that represents the rotation of the edge direction. The edge‐spin is supposed to be robust to the change of brightness because the edge direction is not influenced by the linear change of brightness. The experimental results show that the proposed method has the superior reliability for the matching about most inferior experimental conditions in comparison with the conventional image template matching methods. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 153(2): 45–51, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20184     

Three-Dimensional Nonlinear Dynamic Analysis of Complex High-Rise Building Structures

Abstract: Recently, designs of high-rise buildings have become more complex. Various types of buildings result, such as buildings with a semicircular plan, and buildings in which the upper floors are larger than the lower floors.
The authors have developed a three-dimensional (3-D) dynamic analysis system, 'Super DYNAMICS', which considers the nonlinear behavior of each structural member in order to analyze the structural behavior of such complex steel buildings under severe earthquakes.
This system is mainly operated on a supercomputer because of the large number of calculations required for the member level dynamic analysis.
This paper first describes the general concepts of the system and the 3-D dynamic response analysis methods, based on the nonlinear behavior of each member under axial force and biaxial bending moments, and then examines and demonstrates the precision of the yield surface of steel members created by multispring models, and the ability of the system to trace the behavior of members and frames after yielding. It shows, in addition, actual examples of a static and a dynamic analysis by three-direction ground motion applied to a 19-story steel-framed office building.     

Specific Heat Anomaly in Solid 3He due to Vacancy Waves

We observed the excess specific heat (anomaly) other than nuclear origins above 10 mK in bcc solid ³ He of 24.21 cm ³/mole. We checked whether it arises from spin polarons due to vacancies out of equilibrium by applying a strong magnetic field, in which vacancies should diffuse and vanish due to high polarization. The specific heat is the same before and after applying a magnetic field of 10 T. This fact indicates that vacancies did not vanish even in a strong field or the anomaly arises from the origin different from vacancies.