Compatibility of U-67590A Sterile Solution with Normal Saline, Dextrose Solution, and Solita-T No. 3 with or without Aminophylline Injectable

The compatibility of U-67590A sterile solution (SS) with three drip fluids (normal saline, 5% dextrose solution, and Solita-T No. 3) and Neophylline^R (an aminophylline injectable) was studied. The entire volume of U-67590A SS in an ampoule was transferred into each of the drip fluid containers (500 mL fill). The container was laid under fluorescent light (ca. 1,200 lux) at room temperature. The physical appearance (color and precipitates), pH, U-67590A concentration, and degradation impurity levels were examined for 24 hr. The chemical and physical stability of U-67590A in these drip fluids was adequate enough so that any one of the three can be used for U-67590A administration. However, the stability was reduced when aminophylline co-existed in the admixtures because of increased pH levels. In this case, the stability depended on the strength of U-67590A SS added and the drip fluid used. In terms of chemical stability, Solita-T No. 3 was most favorable when admixed with aminophylline injectable. The fastest degradation was observed in normal saline containing aminophylline. This instability was caused by the higher ionic strength. Dextrose did not seem to affect the stability of U-67590A significantly. The Solita-T No. 3 admixture had the lowest pH, thereby overcoming the negative effect of ionic strength and giving the highest stability among the three admixtures. The stability of U-67590A in direct admixture with Neophylline^R also depended on the strength of U-67590A; the stability increased with strength of U-67590A.     

Conversion of the guanine nucleotide binding sites of ras protein resulting in the reduction of base specificity

A gene coding for the novel ras protein, p21^x, in which thedomains of guanine binding and phosphate binding were exchanged,was constructed and expressed in Escherichia coli. The geneproduct, p21^x, showed GTP binding activity, but no GPTase activity.In addition, p21^x revealed binding activity toward ATP and CTP.In a competitive binding assay, [³H]GTP binding to p21^x wasinhibited in the presence of ATP, CTP and UTP, ITP as well asGDP, GTP and dGTP.     

The insulo-acinar portal and insulo-venous drainage systems in the pancreas of the mouse, dog, monkey and certain other animals: a scanning electron microscopic study of corrosion casts

Scanning electron microscopy of vascular casts of the pancreas from monkies, cattle, pigs, dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs and mice showed certain species differences in the occurrence of intralobular and interlobular islets and in the microcirculatory pattern of these islets. Interlobularly located islets were frequently found in the mouse and guinea pig, as has been previously established in the rat (Murakami and Fujita, 1992); they emitted insulo-venous efferent vessels directly draining into veins. In contrast, the intralobular islets in the guinea pig usually issued insulo-acinar portal vessels continuous with the lobular capillary network. In the mouse, they usually emitted both the insulo-acinar portal and insulo-venous efferent vessels. The insulo-venous efferent vessels, including those of the interlobular islets, could partly be portal in nature since they occasionally issued portal branches directed to the lobular capillary network. In rabbits, cats, dogs, pigs, cattle and monkies, as in men (Murakami et al., 1992), essentially all islets in the pancreas were intralobular in location and usually emitted the portal vessels only. In the mouse and rabbit, as in the rat (Murakami and Fujita, 1992), the islet received afferent vessels in its superficial aspect and issued efferent vessels from its deep aspect. In the Formosan monkey, as previously reported in the rhesus monkey (Fujita and murakami, 1973), the afferent vessels usually ran deep into the islet which emitted vessels from its superficial aspect. In other animals examined in this study, as in humans (Murakami et al., 1992), no consistent rule concerning the microcirculatory pattern within the islet could be determined.     

Reflectance spectra of extreme ultraviolet mirrors for synchrotron radiation

Reflectance spectra have been measured for many materials in the wavelength range from 90 Å to 400 Å. The angle of incidence ranged from 20° to 85°. The samples were chemical-vapor-deposited silicon carbide (CVD-SiC), a single crystal of silicon with (100) surface, fused quartz, zerodur, pyrex, gold, platinum, copper and two kinds of steel. To obtain reflectances for surfaces for practical use, measurements were made on surfaces sufficiently exposed to air. Reflectances for s-polarized light (R_s) were measured for all samples. On CVD-SiC, gold and platinum, reflectances for p-polarized light (R_P) were also observed. At short wavelengths and large angles of incidence, the difference between R_s and R_P is small, and R_P happened to exceed R_s in contrast to the result from the Fresnel equation. This may be due to the deviation of the present surfaces of mirrors from an ideal plane. Reflectance spectra of surfaces prepared by some feasible techniques are also presented.     

Automatic scoliosis detection based on local centroids evaluationon moire topographic images of human backs

This paper presents a technique for automating human scoliosis detection by computer based on moiré topographic images of human backs. Scoliosis is a serious disease often suffered by teenagers. For prevention, screening is performed at schools in Japan employing a moiré method in which doctors inspect moiré images of subjects' backs visually. The inspection of a large number of moiré images collected by the school screening causes exhaustion of doctors and leads to misjudgment. Computer-aided diagnosis of scoliosis has, therefore, been requested eagerly by orthopedists. To automate the inspection process, unlike existent three-dimensional techniques, displacement of local centroids is evaluated two-dimensionally between the left-hand side and the right-hand side of the moiré images in the present technique. The technique was applied to real moiré images to draw a distinction between normal and abnormal cases. According to the leave-out method, the entire 120 image data (60 normal and 60 abnormal) were separated into three data sets. The linear discriminant function based on Mahalanobis distance was defined on the two-dimensional feature space employing one of the data sets containing 40 moiré images and classified 80 images in the remaining two sets. The technique finally achieved the average classification rate of 88.3%.     

Evaluation of the peripheral skin sympathetic function by cooling thermography in women with climacteric complaints

In this prospective study, the independent prognostic value of DNA ploidy in combination with the major clinico-pathological characteristics (histological grade, nodal status, tumor size, estrogen and progesterone receptor status, number of tumors, multicentricity, lympho-vascular infiltration) was evaluated in a series of 399 breast-cancer patients. The mean follow-up time was 4.5 years. The DNA content was measured using image cytometry on fresh tumor samples. The overall survival of tetraploid and slowly proliferating diploid cases was significantly different compared with that of aneuploid and rapidly proliferating diploid cases (p = 0.0002). Thus, DNA ploidy combined with S-phase estimate (DNA histogram type) appeared to be good prognostic factors. In a multivariate survival analysis, DNA histogram type was not an independent prognostic factor unless the histological grade was excluded. This effect of DNA histogram type on survival was also observed among patients with grade-I or -II tumors and patients with small tumors. In conclusion, DNA histogram type was a valuable prognostic factor in univariate analysis, and provided independent complementary information for patients considered at low or intermediate risk by classical pathological findings.     

Studies of the strong coupling and weak coupling methods in FSI analysis

The weak coupling methods in fluid–structure interaction analysis are newly classified into three types; the weak coupling method for solving structures with interfaces, the weak coupling method for solving fluids with interfaces, and the weak coupling method for solving both fluids and structures with interfaces. The consistent added matrices of these weak coupling methods are derived from the condensation of the strong coupling formulation. Some approximations for the consistent added matrices, which can avoid the matrix coupling, are proposed. The reasons for convergence difficulty in the weak coupling methods are clarified. A number of numerical results are presented to investigate the convergence properties and computational efficiency of these methods. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.