Radiation therapy for stage I-II non-small cell lung cancer in patients aged 75 years and older

Vaccination with peptides that induce a specific immune response is a potential prophylactic or therapeutic strategy against viral infections and tumors. Because of the extensive polymorphism of the HLA loci, synthetic peptide vaccines must consist of a cocktail of peptides that bind specifically to different HLA molecules. Such cocktails should be optimized for the target population as each population has its specific HLA gene frequencies. To achieve maximum population coverage with a minimum number of peptides, information is needed on the ranking of the most frequent HLA phenotypes. We introduce the minimal phenotype panel, which is the smallest combination of HLA antigens selected so that the proportion of individuals in a population that express at least one of the antigens in the panel exceeds a desired minimum value. We developed a method for assembling minimal phenotype panels based on known HLA class I gene frequencies. We give an example based on a set of 2446 well-defined HLA-typed, random, healthy, unrelated, Dutch Caucasoid individuals. In addition, we discuss the possibility of assembling minimal phenotype panels based on two-locus haplotypes, which enables the assembly of phenotype panels from the antigens of both loci.     

Adenophostin, a potent agonist of the inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptor, is useful for fertilization of mouse oocytes injected with round spermatids leading to normal offspring

Relaxin plays a major role in promoting the growth and softening of the cervix that occurs during the second half of pregnancy in the rat. There is limited evidence that prostaglandins play a role in cervical softening in mammalian species. Accordingly, this study was conducted to determine if prostaglandins mediate relaxin's effects on the rat cervix. To attain that objective, indomethacin was used to inhibit cyclooxygenase, the key enzyme in the conversion of arachidonic acid to prostaglandins. Twenty-six nonpregnant female rats were ovariectomized when they were 78 days old (day 1 of treatment). At ovariectomy (O), each rat was fitted with silicon tubing implants containing progesterone (P) and estrogen (E) in doses that provided blood levels similar to those during late pregnancy in rats. Rats were randomly assigned to three treatment groups. Group OPE controls (n = 8 rats) received 2 ml indomethacin vehicle (0.5% methyl cellulose, 0.025 Tween 80 in water) via gavage at 0900 h on days 8 and 9 and 0.5 ml relaxin vehicle (0.9% NaCl) s.c. at 6-h intervals from 1200 h on day 8 through 0600 h on day 10. Group OPER (n = 9 rats) was treated as group OPE except that 20 microg highly purified porcine relaxin was administered. Group OPERI (n = 9 rats) was treated as group OPER except that indomethacin was administered at a dose (20 mg/kg BW) that reduced cervical PGE2 levels by more than 90%. Between 0800 h and 1000 h on day 10, the cervices were removed, trimmed of fat, weighed, and placed in ice-cold Krebs-Ringer bicarbonate buffer, pH 7.5. Cervical extensibility (degree of softening) was determined within 4 h of tissue collection. Both the mean cervical wet weight and the mean cervical extensibility in the relaxin-treated group OPER rats were markedly greater (P < 0.01) than in the group OPE controls. Treatment with indomethacin did not diminish relaxin's effects on either cervical wet weight or cervical extensibility. In conclusion, this study provides evidence that relaxin's effects on cervical growth and softening in the rat are not mediated through prostaglandins.     

A Method for Automatic Detection of Vocal Fry

Vocal fry (also called creak, creaky voice, and pulse register phonation) is a voice quality that carries important linguistic or paralinguistic information, depending on the language. We propose a set of acoustic measures and a method for automatically detecting vocal fry segments in speech utterances. A glottal pulse-synchronized method is proposed to deal with the very low fundamental frequency properties of vocal fry segments, which cause problems in the classic short-term analysis methods. The proposed acoustic measures characterize power, aperiodicity, and similarity properties of vocal fry signals. The basic idea of the proposed method is to scan for local power peaks in a ldquovery short-termrdquo power contour for obtaining glottal pulse candidates, check for periodicity properties, and evaluate a similarity measure between neighboring glottal pulse candidates for deciding the possibility of being vocal fry pulses. In the periodicity analysis, autocorrelation peak properties are taken into account for avoiding misdetection of periodicity in vocal fry segments. Evaluation of the proposed acoustic measures in the automatic detection resulted in 74% correct detection, with an insertion error rate of 13%.     

Colorimetric microdetermination of sulphites in foods by use of the modified rankine apparatus. IV.

Summary Detection and determination of traces of sulphites in foods was attempted by use of the modified Rankine apparatus and pararosaniline colorimetry. Replacement of alkaline titration reported previously by pararosaniline colorimetry lowered the absolute detection limit from 30 g (titration method) to 2 g. In view of clean analysis, in the color developing system, 0.1 N-sodium hydroxide was used in place of mercuric chloride solution commonly used as an absorbant of sulphites. In order to prevent oxidative decomposition of sulphites during operation, nitrogen gas was used as carrier instead of air. Dimedone and sodium azide were used for the elimination of aldehydes and nitrites, respecitvely, in the sample, which will disturb the color development of sulphites with pararosaniline-formaldehyde reagents. With this improved method, it was possible to determine the residual sulphites in frozen peeled shrimps, sugared beans and other foods with low sulphite contents accurately.

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Colorimetrische Mikrobestimmung von Sulfiten in Lebensmitteln bei Anwendung der modifizierten IV. Rankine Apparatur

Zusammenfassung Geringe Sulfitmengen in Lebensmitteln (geschälte Garnelen, gezuckerte Bohnen) können colorimetrisch bestimmt werden. Die neuentwickelte Methode beruht auf einer Kombination von colorimetrischer Bestimmung mittels p-Rosanilin und der Bestimmungsmethode nach Rankine. Auf diese Weise lassen sich Gehalte von 2 g noch genau bestimmen. Bei der Farbentwicklung wurde das giftige Quecksilbertetrachlorid durch 0.1 n-NaOH ersetzt, anstelle von Luft Stickstoff als Trägergas verwendet und somit eine Oxydation des Sulfits während der Bestimmung vermieden. Da Nitrit und Aldehyde die Farbentwicklung stören, wurde ihr Einfluß durch Dimedon und Natriumazid ausgeschaltet.

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Studies on the Analyses of Sulphites in Foods (IV)     

Development of a simple capillary electrophoretic determination of glucosamine in nutritional supplements using in-capillary derivatisation with o-phthalaldehyde

A simple capillary electrophoretic method was developed for the determination of glucosamine using in-capillary derivatisation. Glucosamine in commercial products was extracted with purified water. The CE separation was achieved on an uncoated fused-silica capillary using a 20 mM borate buffer (pH 9.2) containing 5 mM o-phthalaldehyde (OPA) and 5 mM 3-mercaptopropionic acid (MPA) at 25 kV, followed by UV detection at 340 nm. The detector response was linear (r² > 0.999) in the concentration range 10–1000 μg/mL. The limit of detection (LOD) was 1.3 mg/g. Spiked glucosamine recoveries at 50 and 100 mg/g level were 95.1% and 104.3%, respectively. The method was applied to 16 commercial products. The concentrations of glucosamine were 109–705 mg/g, and the ratios of detected glucosamine content to the labelled value were 88.8–124%. No significant bias was observed (r² = 0.989, p < 0.01), between results obtained by the proposed CE method and an official colorimetric method (Japanese Health Food & Nutrition Food Association).     

Effect of oxygen potential on the sintering behavior of MgO-based heterogeneous fuels containing (Pu, Am)O2−x

The effect of oxygen potential on the sintering behavior of MgO-based heterogeneous fuels containing (Pu, Am)O_2−x was experimentally investigated. Sintering tests in various atmospheres, i.e. air, moisturized 4%H₂-Ar, and 4%H₂-Ar atmosphere, were carried out. The sintering behavior was found to be significantly affected by the oxygen potential in the sintering atmosphere. The sintered density decreased with decreasing oxygen potential. The (Pu, Am)O_2−x phase sintered in a reductive atmosphere had hypostoichiometry. The aggregates of the (Pu, Am)O_2−x phase sintered in the reductive atmosphere grew, in comparison with those in the oxidizing one. The sintering mechanism was discussed in terms of the difference in sintering behavior of (Pu, Am)O_2−x and MgO.     

Raman amplification of 1.50-µm laser diode light in a low fiber loss region

Raman amplification utilizing the second Stokes line of 1.32-μm Nd:YAG laser light in a single-mode silica fiber was observed. Raman gains of 24 dB have been obtained for 1.50-μm laser diode light in the low-loss region. In addition, the signal-to-noise characteristics of Raman amplification using the second Stokes line was investigated. As a result, it became clear that theS/Nratio was inferior to that in 1st Stokes line by about one order of magnitude.     

Study of the preparation of ruthenia based catalytic materials by heating their precursors

Thermal behaviour of hydrous ruthenia (RuO₂·nH₂O) and ruthenia containing 10% titania ((RuO₂)_0.9–(TiO₂)_0.1nH₂O) was characterised on heating in air by emanation thermal analysis (ETA), thermogravimetry (TG), differential thermal analysis (DTA) and evolved gas analysis (EGA). The anhydrous ruthenia and ruthenia containing 10% titania samples were prepared by heating their hydrous precursors at 500°C in air. The temperature intervals of the samples dehydration and crystallisation were determined. XRD, TEM and surface area measurements were also used for the characterisation of the samples. The ETA results, evaluated by a mathematical model, brought about new information about surface area and microstructure development of the intermediate products of the oxides under in situ conditions of the heating in air. A good agreement between ETA and the results of other methods was obtained. The NO_x reduction by CO was used to test the catalytic properties of these samples.     

An insect cell line discrimination method by RAPD-PCR

Orbital hydatid cyst is rare. We present a case with CT and MRI, emphasizing the superiority of the latter.     

The elevated mRNA content as a potential indicator of precancerous states of the gallbladder mucosa in patients with pancreaticobiliary maljunction

Pancreaticobiliary maljunction (PBM) patients have a high incidence of cancer in the gallbladder. In the present study, we showed that precancerous lesions in the gallbladder of PBM such as hyperplasia or metaplasia, indicated high concentration of the amount of total mRNA. The mRNA content could be easily measured by our new technique utilizing a GenePlate, which is a poly (dT) oligonucleotide immobilized plastic plate, and Yoyo-1, a fluorescent DNA intercalator. To standardize the mRNA contents, we utilized which was defined as the ratio of total mRNA contents to total nucleic acids in a same sample. The mRNA index of the proliferating cells was significantly higher than that of the resting cells, and the mRNA index of cancer cells, such as gastric cancer, colon cancer, bile duct cancer, and gallbladder cancer also showed significantly higher concentration than that of normal mucosa. In the study of precancerous lesion, PBM, the mRNA index was significantly higher than that of mild cholecystitis but less than that of gallbladder cancer, suggesting that in the gallbladder mucosa of PBM, a precancerous state was able to be diagnosed by the mRNA index.