Analysis of cases allowed to cease erythromycin therapy for diffuse panbronchiolitis--comparative study between patients with cessation of the therapy and patients continuing the therapy

We investigated the effect of erythromycin (EM) in patients with diffuse panbronchiolitis (DPB) who were divided into 2 groups, the short term group with 8 patients who were treated for at least 2 years and the long term group with 7 patients who were treated for more than 3 years. Each mean value of %VC, FEV1.0, FEV1.0% and PaO2 two years after administration to these patients was improved than before administration of EM, with the exception of PaO2 in the long term group. There was no change in %VC, FEV1.0, FEV1.0% or PaO2 in each group between one year after the therapy and thereafter, with the exception of the fact that FEV1.0% in the short term group, except patients restarting EM therapy, 2 years after the therapy was significantly higher than in the long term group. One patient was readministered EM because of recurrence of DPB after cessation of EM therapy, whose %VC, FEV1.0 and PaO2, but not FEV1.0%, one year after the therapy were increased in those before the therapy. The Neutrophil proportion in the bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid in this patient was still high after the therapy (94.5%), while that in the patients with cessation of the therapy was improved to the level of less than 8%. Neutrophil proportion in BAL fluids in the patients with continuation of the therapy revealed a high or low level after the therapy. These results suggest that the patients, whose %VC, FEB1.0% and PaO2 were improved and whose proportion of neutrophils in BAL fluid reduced to a normal level compared with those before EM therapy, can be allowed to cease therapy after 2 years or more of EM therapy.     

Biopsy for diagnosis of tuberculosis

Recent advances of molecular techniques make diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis rapid and easier comparing to conventional techniques. However, diagnosis for tuberculosis, especially tuberculous pleuritis, tuberculous lymphadenitis and non-pulmonary tuberculosis, is not easy. Transbroncheal lung biopsy (TBLB) is a helpful examination for not only pulmonary tuberculosis but also malignant diseases. The pleural biopsy using Cope needle was commonly used as a method for diagnosis of tuberculous pleuritis, and the sensitivity of pleural biopsy is about 50% or more. Furthermore, the pleural biopsy using thoracoscopy was reported to show a higher sensitivity for the diagnosis of tuberculous pleuritis. A lymph node biopsy is also a useful method for diagnosis of tuberculous lymphadenitis. Thus, a biopsy method is the reliable tool for diagnosis of not only pulmonary tuberculosis, but also other organ tuberculosis.     

Design of Automatic Equalizer Including a Decoder of Error-Correcting Code

A new proposed automatic equalizer including a decoder of error-correcting code (AEDEC) is obtained by the joint adaptive operation of an automatic equalizer and a decoder. This AEDEC can reduce misadjustment of tap values and error propagation owing to decision errors, and stabilize convergence even without a known training signal in noisy channels.     

Three dimensional electron spin resonance (ESR) imaging of internal organs in living mice

In vivo electron spin resonance imaging (ESR imaging) was applied to living mice after peroral administration of a nitroxide radical spin probe. A 3D ESR imaging procedure was applied in vivo in order to obtain the exact distribution of the spin probe in a living animal. The imaging pictures demonstrated that the administered spin probe was firstly located in the stomach, then delivered to the liver, kidney and heart of the animal.     

Twelve cases of systemic lupus erythematosus in boys]

We compared clinical findings in 12 cases of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in boys with those in 49 cases in girls. The age at which SLE developed in boys was consistent with that of infantile SLE and there was no age specificity. Momy cases in boys were diagnosed earlier as compared with cases in girls. Symptoms of infantile SLE, such as fever, arthalgia, butterfly rash, and urinary abnormalities, did not differ between boys and girls. However, a higher percentage of boys (58.3%) had central nervous system complications at onset than did girls (30.6%). Platelet counts tended to be higher in boys than in girls, a finding that suggests SLE tends to be more severe in boys than in girls. The incidence in the appiarance of LE cells, anti-Sm antibodies and immune complexes was higher in boys than in girls. Type IV or V renal pathologic changes (World Health Organization Histologic Classification) were present in 70% of boys. Our findings suggest that SLE in boys is more severe than that in girls and is more likely to be associated with central nervous system complications and severe renal complications.     

Effects of citrate ions on the formation of ferric oxide hydroxide particles

The effects of citrate ions on the formation of - and -FeOOH particles were investigated using various techniques. The formation and crystallization of both particles were inhibited by citrate ions, and their particle sizes decreased with increase in the concentration of these ions. Finally, aggregated amorphous particles were formed. The effects of citrate ions appeared to be more significant for -FeOOH than for -FeOOH. This difference could be explained by the pH dependence of the affinity of citrate ions to Fe³⁺ ions. The amorphous -FeOOH particles prepared in the presence of > 10 mol% citrate ions selectively adsorbed water molecules.     

Preparation of Au-paste by liquid-phase reaction

Preparation of Au-paste by sol-gel-like reactions from the liquid phase was investigated. The Au-paste thus obtained was a well dispersed colloidal gold. The films sintered from the paste were good metallic conductors. These films showed good resistivity despite the presence of included metal oxides such as titania or zirconia in the matrix. The resistivity of the films thus obtained is about 3.0×10^–7m, which is not so different from that of pure gold (2.35 ×10^–8m).     

Spike pattern recognition using artificial neuron and spike-timing-dependent plasticity implemented on a multi-core embedded platform

The objective of this work is to use a multi-core embedded platform as computing architectures for neural applications relevant to neuromorphic engineering: e.g., robotics, and artificial and spiking neural networks. Recently, it has been shown how spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) can play a key role in pattern recognition. In particular, multiple repeating arbitrary spatio-temporal spike patterns hidden in spike trains can be robustly detected and learned by multiple neurons equipped with spike-timing-dependent plasticity listening to the incoming spike trains. This paper presents an implementation on a biological time scale of STDP algorithm to localize a repeating spatio-temporal spike patterns on a multi-core embedded platform.     

Effect of residual stress on the strength of alumina-steel joint with Al-Si interlayer

The effect of residual stress on the strength of an alumina-steel joint with the Al-Si interlayer was studied. Alumina rods, 32 mm in diameter and 9 mm in length and steel pipes were diffusion bonded at 873 K and at a contact pressure of about 5 M Pa for 30 min in a vacuum of 24×10^–2Pa. The interlayer of aluminium sheet clad with Al-10% Si alloy on both sides was used. The tensile strength of the joints is influenced by the thickness of the interlayer or the intermetallic compound formed between the interlayer and the steel. The strength increases with increasing interlayer thickness and with decreasing intermetallic compound thickness. It is found that the residual stress measured by Sachs method is much lower than that by the elastic calculation. The stress decreases with increasing interlayer thickness. Increase in thickness of the aluminium core of the interlayer is effective in improving the joint strength. This improvement can be explained by considering the stress of the joint.     

Generalization of phase-encoded NMR chemical shift imaging

An echo-time encoding NMR chemical shift imaging proposed by Dixon is generalized to be applicable to multiline chemical shift imaging. The method utilizes the phase differences among nuclei encoded by shifting the position of the rf pulse in the spin echo sequence to resolve chemical shift images. The inevitable phase error caused by the static field inhomogeneity is corrected by using phase images of phantom images measured under the same conditions as the actual measurements. The minimum number of encodings can be reduced to half the number of chemical shifts without sacrificing spatial resolution. The experiments were carried out for 3-line 1H chemical shifts using benzene, water, and acetone at 0.5 T. All the chemical shift images could be clearly resolved with only two scans when the field inhomogeneity was larger than the maximum chemical shift difference.