A case of spontaneous hemopneumothorax occurred after thoracic drainage

A 21-year-old man; complaining of left chest pain and dyspnea, was admitted to our hospital with a diagnosis of spontaneous pneumothorax. Though chest X-ray on admission did not show hemothorax, chest drainage revealed intrapleural bleeding. As chest X-ray on the following day showed evident fluid level, emergency operation was carried out with a diagnosis of spontaneous hemopneumothorax. Bleeding point was a ruptured vessel between parietal pleura and bulla in apex of lung. The bulla was resected following hemostasis. After improvement of complicating postoperative re-expansive pulmonary edema, the patient was discharged on the 18th postoperative day. On treatment of spontaneous hemopneumothorax, existence of such a case as ours should be taken into account.     

Preparation of plasma-polymerized membranes from fluoroalkyl acrylates and methacrylates and gas permeability through the membranes

Summary Plasma-polymerized membranes were prepared from fluoroalkyl acrylates and methacrylates by two different directions of monomer injection and the permeation rates of O₂ and n₂ through the membranes were investigated. The chemical structure and composition of the plasmapolymerized membranes varied significantly by the direction of monomer injection. The optimum plasma conditions to yield maximum gas separation characteristics was obtained by the remote plasma excitation at the W/FM value of 20 J/mg, where W is the discharge power, F is the monomer flow rate and M is the molecular weight of the monomer.     

Postoperative changes in the coagulation and fibrinolytic systems in endoluminal stent-graft treatment of thoracic aortic aneurysms

Length of stay (LOS) predictions in acute pancreatitis could be used to stratify patients with severe acute pancreatitis, make treatment and resource allocation decisions, and for quality assurance. Artificial neural networks have been used to predict LOS in other conditions but not acute pancreatitis. The hypothesis of this study was that a neural network could predict LOS in patients with acute pancreatitis. The medical records of 195 patients admitted with acute pancreatitis were reviewed. A backpropagation neural network was developed to predict LOS >7 days. The network was trained on 156 randomly selected cases and tested on the remaining 39 cases. The neural network had the highest sensitivity (75%) for predicting LOS >7 days. Ranson criteria had the highest specificity (94%) for making this prediction. All methods incorrectly predicted LOS in two patients with severe acute pancreatitis who died early in their hospital course. An artificial neural network can predict LOS >7 days. The network and traditional prognostic indices were least accurate for predicting LOS in patients with severe acute pancreatitis who died early in their hospital course. The neural network has the advantage of making this prediction using admission data.     

Inhibition of experimental autoimmune uveoretinitis by transforming growth factor-beta 1 in B10. A mice

Experimental autoimmune uveoretinitis (EAU) in mice, an organ specific autoimmune disease, has been investigated as an animal model for human endogenous uveitis. In this study, we report on the immunosuppressive effect of transforming growth factor-beta 1 (TGF-beta 1) on the development of EAU in mice. Inhibition by TGF-beta 1 of proliferation of interphotoreceptor retinoid-binding protein (IRBP)-specific T cell lines in B10.A mice against IRBP antigen was dose-dependent. However, when spleen cells used as the antigen presenting cell were first cultured with TGF-beta 1, this anti-proliferation effect was abolished. When IRBP-immunized mice were injected intraperitoneally with TGF-beta 1, dose-dependent suppression of EAU was obtained. The proliferation response of lymph node cells from TGF-beta 1 injected mice with IRBP-induced EAU was suppressed compared with phosphate buffered saline (PBS)-injected mice. These findings suggest that TGF-beta 1 may be a cytokine that plays a role in suppressing IRBP induced EAU in mice.     

Reactive wetting of SiO<Subscript>2</Subscript> substrates by molten Al

The reactive wetting behavior of SiO₂ substrates by molten Al was investigated at temperatures between 800 °C to 1250 °C in a purified Ar-3 pct H₂ atmosphere of about 0.11 MPa using an improved sessile drop method. The time dependence of the changes in contact angle and droplet geometry was monitored and the wetting kinetics was identified. The initial equilibrium or quasi-equilibrium contact angles are generally larger than 90 deg and do not significantly vary with temperature. The subsequent remarkable decrease in the contact angle mainly results from the progressive decrease in the droplet volume rather than the advance of the solid-liquid interfacial front. The significant effect of temperature on the wetting kinetics is essentially related to its effect on the reaction and molten Al penetration progress. For systems with a considerable decrease in the droplet volume during reactive wetting, a criterion for evaluation of the true wetting improvement was proposed.     

Effectiveness of an antioxidant in preventing restenosis after percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty: the Probucol Angioplasty Restenosis Trial

OBJECTIVES: The Probucol Angioplasty Restenosis Trial was a prospective, randomized, controlled study that investigated the effectiveness of probucol therapy in reducing the rate of restenosis after percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA). BACKGROUND: Antioxidants have an inhibitory effect on smooth muscle cell growth in experiments in vitro and in vivo, which suggests a possible pharmacologic effect on restenosis after PTCA. METHODS: One hundred one patients were randomly assigned to receive 1,000 mg/day of probucol or control (no lipid-lowering) therapy 4 weeks before PTCA. After 4 weeks of premedication, both groups underwent PTCA. Probucol was continued until follow-up angiography 24 weeks after PTCA. Angiographic results were analyzed at a core laboratory by quantitative coronary angiography. RESULTS: Dilation was successful in 46 of 50 patients in the probucol group and 45 of 51 in the control group. At follow-up angiography 24 weeks after angioplasty, angiographic restenosis occurred in 9 (23%) of 40 patients in the probucol group and 22 (58%) of 38 in the control group (p = 0.001). Minimal lumen diameter was 1.49 +/- 0.75 mm (mean +/- SD) in the probucol group and 1.13 +/- 0.65 mm in the control group (p = 0.02). Percent diameter stenosis at follow-up angiography in the probucol group was significantly lower than that in the control group (43.9% vs. 56.4%, p = 0.009). The late loss was 0.37 +/- 0.69 mm in the probucol group and 0.60 +/- 0.62 mm in the control group (p = 0.13). The loss/gain ratio was 0.32 +/- 0.74 in the probucol group and 0.56 +/- 0.81 in the control group (p = 0.059). Net gain was greater in the probucol group than in the control group (0.77 +/- 0.70 vs. 0.48 +/- 0.59 mm, p = 0.053). CONCLUSIONS: Probucol administered beginning 4 weeks before PTCA appears to reduce restenosis rates.     

Digit recognition in a natural scene with skew and slant normalization

This paper proposes a method to recognize digits in a natural scene, such as telephone numbers on a signboard. Candidate regions of digits are extracted from an image through contrast enhancement, edge extraction, and labeling. Since the target text patterns are in a 3D space, unlike traditional character recognition problems, we have to deal with the image transformation effect due to the orientation in the 3D space and projection. We have to cancel the effect as much as possible before digit recognition. In our method, the image transformation effect is modeled as skew and slant. In the proposed method, simplified Hough transform is used for the skew normalization. After the skew normalization, the remaining effect of image transformation is corrected by circumscribing digit patterns with tilted rectangles and affine transformation. In experiments, we tested a total of 1,332 images of signboards with 11,939 digits. We obtained a digit extraction rate of 99.2% and a correct digit recognition rate of 98.8%.Received: 15 December 2003, Accepted: 21 October 2004, Published online: 2 February 2005     

Establishment of transgenic mice carrying human fetus-specific CYP3A7

OBJECTIVE: To determine the value of cytology in the follow-up of cervical cancer. STUDY DESIGN: The study group consisted of 230 patients with invasive cervical carcinoma who were followed for one to seven years. Forty-four patients developed recurrences or metastases. During this period, cytologic investigations involved 795 exfoliative smears from the cervix or vaginal vault, 10 fine needle aspirates and 5 fluids. RESULTS: Thirty-three patients had positive or inconclusive cervical or vault smears that were histologically proven to be recurrences, and the other 11 patients had clinically obvious recurrences that were not smeared. Cytology first alerted the clinicians to recurrence in eight patients. Of 25 cervical or vault smears reported as malignant, 24 (96%) were histologically confirmed, and 1 showed radiation change on biopsy. In all 22 cases of smears reported as inconclusive, a biopsy followed, and in 9 (41%) of these, recurrence was demonstrated histologically. Inability to distinguish radiation change from recurrent malignancy was the chief cause of inconclusive smears. Five fluids and seven fine needle aspirates were diagnosed as malignant, saving patients an invasive diagnostic procedure. CONCLUSION: Cytology is a useful, cost-effective, noninvasive and accurate investigation in the follow-up of cervical cancer.     

Studies of the network structure of rubber vulcanizates by cryoscopic methods: 2

The freezing point depression, ΔT, of swollen DCP-, TT- and sulphur-cured natural rubber in benzene was observed. The dependence of the parameter, a_H, introduced by Kuhn, was not affected by the type of structure of crosslink sites. It was found from the comparison of the experimental results and scaling law that a_H can reflect not only the difference in three-dimensional structure of network between a degraded and an undegraded rubber vulcanizates but also the difference in degraded network structures between rubber samples with various conditions of degradation.