Role of nitric oxide in pathogenesis of gastric mucosal damage induced by compound 48/80 in rats

We examined the effects of various nitric oxide synthase (NOS) inhibitors on development of gastric lesions induced by compound 48/80 (48/80) in rats and investigated the roles of NO and inducible NOS (iNOS) in inflammatory gastric responses. Animals were given 48/80 (1 mg/kg, i.p.) once daily for 4 days, and the stomachs were examined for lesions 24 h after the final administration. NOS inhibitors such as L-NAME, L-NMMA, aminoguanidine or dexamethasone were administered for 4 days during 48/80 treatment. The repeated administration of 48/80 caused damage in the stomach with severe edema in the submucosa. These lesions induced by 48/80 were dose-dependently prevented by concurrent administration of L-NAME. The protective effect of L-NAME on 48/80-induced gastric lesions was mimicked by L-NMMA, aminoguanidine as well as dexamethasone, and significantly antagonized by co-administration of L-arginine but not by D-arginine. Acid secretion was slightly decreased after 48/80 treatment, but was significantly augmented by the combined administration of L-NAME with 48/80. The mucosal MPO activity, TBA reactants and vascular permeability in the stomach were all increased after 48/80 treatment, but these changes were also significantly mitigated by co-administration of L-NAME. The Ca(2+)-independent NOS activity in the mucosa was increased four times during 48/80 treatment, and this change was also inhibited by dexamethasone. These results suggest that: 1) the repeated administration of 48/80 induced inflammatory gastric lesions in the rat stomach; 2) the pathogenic mechanism of these lesions involves endogenous NO produced by iNOS, in addition to oxyradical formation; and 3) the deleterious role of NO during 48/80 treatment may be accounted for by a cytotoxic action of peroxynitrite, which is formed in the presence of NO and superoxide radicals.     

Experiment and analysis of shell model in-water frequencies of a 1/24th-scale core barrel model

Natural frequencies of a 1/24th-scale core barrel/vessel model in air and in water are measured by determining frequency responses to applied forces. The measured data are analyzed by the use of the one-dimensional fluid-structure computer code, MULTIFLEX, developed to calculate the hydraulic force. The fluid-structure interaction in the downcomer annulus is computed with a one-dimensional network model formed to be equivalent to two-dimensional fluid-structure interaction. The structural model incorporated in MULTIFLEX is substantially simpler than that necessary for structural analyses. Proposed for computation of structural dynamics is the projector method that can deal with the beam mode by modal analysis and the other shell modes by a direct integration method. Computed in-air and in-water frequencies agree fairly well with the experimental data, verifying the above MULTIFLEX technique.     

Dural haemangioma with extracranial component

A rare case of dural haemangioma with extracranial component is described. A subcutaneous frontal tumour was thought before operation to have originated in the skull. Angiography showed drainage into the superior sagittal sinus via a cortical vein. Dural haemangioma is thought to be a clinical rarity. Also, an arteriovenous malformation draining into the superior sagittal sinus is rarely encountered.     

Resource recovery from excess sludge by subcritical water combined with magnesium ammonium phosphate process.

The amount of excess sludge produced in municipal wastewater treatment plants in Japan is increasing every year as the urban population increases. Phosphorus in excess sludge could be a potential phosphorus resource since at present, phosphate rock is being exhausted all over the world. Every year, Japan imports large quantities of phosphorus from abroad but much is discharged as excess sludge. Therefore, the solubilization process, one method of recovering phosphorus from sludge, could be a promising solution. In this study, a subcritical water process, a new technology that solubilizes sludge under subcritical conditions, was applied before the phosphorus in sludge was recovered with the magnesium ammonium phosphate (MAP) process. As a result, the solubilization rate of excess sludge achieved approximately 80% and about 94-97% of the phosphorus could be recovered.     

Role of nitric oxide in regulation of gastric acid secretion in rats: effects of NO donors and NO synthase inhibitor

1. The role of nitric oxide (NO) in the regulation of acid secretion was examined in the anaesthetized rat. 2. A rat stomach was mounted in an ex vivo chamber, instilled with 2 ml of saline every 15 min, and the recovered sample was titrated at pH 7.0 against 0.1 N NaOH by use of an automatic titrator for acid secretion. Gastric mucosal blood flow (GMBF) was measured simultaneously by laser Doppler flowmeter. 3. Intragastric application of NO donors such as FK409 (3 and 6 mg ml[-1]) and sodium nitroprusside (SNP; 6 and 12 mg ml[-1]) as well as i.p. administration of cimetidine (60 mg kg[-1]), a histamine H2-receptor antagonist, significantly inhibited the increase in acid secretion in response to pentagastrin (60 microg kg(-1) h(-1), i.v.), in doses that increased gastric mucosal blood flow (GMBF). 4. Intragastric application of FK409 (6 mg ml[-1]) increased both basal and stimulated acid secretion induced by YM-14673 (0.3 mg kg(-1), i.v.), an analogue of thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH), but had no effect on the acid secretory response induced by histamine (4 mg kg(-1) h(-1), i.v.). 5. Pretreatment with N(G)-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME; 10 mg kg(-1), i.v.) did not affect basal acid secretion, but significantly potentiated the increase in acid secretion induced by YM-14673 and slightly augmented the acid secretory response to pentagastrin. 6. Both pentagastrin and YM-14673 increased the release of nitrite plus nitrate (NOx), stable NO metabolites, into the gastric lumen, and these changes were completely inhibited by prior administration of L-NAME (10 mg kg(-1), i.v.). 7. Pentagastrin caused an increase in luminal release of histamine and this response was significantly suppressed by intragastric application of FK409 (6 mg ml[-1]). 8. These results suggest that either exogenous or endogenous NO has an inhibitory action on gastric acid secretion through suppression of histamine release from enterochromaffin-like (ECL) cells.     

Growth temperature dependence of InP nanopyramids grown by selective-area flow rate modulation epitaxy

We have grown InP nanopyramids by selective-area flow rate modulation epitaxy and investigated their structures with a high-resolution scanning electron microscope. The shape of InP nanopyramids strongly depends on growth temperature. At lower growth temperatures, InP forms two horns toward 1 1 1A directions. At higher growth temperatures, there were some thermal pits on {1 1 1}A sidewalls of InP nanopyramids. Furthermore, some droplets were observed on InP nanopyramids. In contrast, {1 1 1}B facets were stable even at high growth temperatures. The behaviors were discussed in relation to a crystallographic model.     

Fatigue fracture mechanism maps for a type 304 stainless steel

Fatigue fracture mechanism maps at room temperature and 573 K for a type 304 stainless steel were constructed by correlating the crack propagation rate with information obtained on the fracture surface. Depending on the crack propagation rate, ranging from 1 × 10⁻⁶ to 1 × 10⁻¹¹ m/cycle, three types of fracture surfaces were observed. One was a striation region; the second was a “featureless” fracture region, which appeared rough under scanning electron microscope (SEM) observation; and the third was crystallographic fracture region, which appeared smooth under SEM observation. The area fractions and the indexes of the fracture surfaces were quantified and identified by the etch-pit method. From the results, crack initiation and propagation mechanisms were cleared and fatigue fracture mechanism maps were constructed. The maps may be useful for investigating the cause of the fatigue failure accident of structures made of type 304 steels.     

Efficient transfer of the pheromone-independent Enterococcus faecium plasmid pMG1 (Gmr) (65.1 kilobases) to Enterococcus strains during broth mating

Plasmid pMG1 (65.1 kb) was isolated from a gentamicin-resistant Enterococcus faecium clinical isolate and was found to encode gentamicin resistance. EcoRI restriction of pMG1 produced five fragments, A through E, with molecular sizes of 50.2, 11.5, 2.0, 0.7, and 0.7 kb, respectively. The clockwise order of the fragments was ACDEB. pMG1 transferred at high frequency to Enterococcus strains in broth mating. pMG1 transferred between Enterococcus faecalis strains, between E. faecium strains, and between E. faecium and E. faecalis strains at a frequency of approximately 10(-4) per donor cell after 3 h of mating. The pMG1 transfers were not induced by the exposure of the donor cell to culture filtrates of plasmid-free E. faecalis FA2-2 or an E. faecium strain. Mating aggregates were not observed by the naked eye during broth mating. Small mating aggregates of several cells in the broth matings were observed by microscopy, while no aggregates of donor cells which had been exposed to a culture filtrate of E. faecalis FA2-2 or an E. faecium strain were observed, even by microscopy. pMG1 DNA did not show any homology in Southern hybridization with that of the pheromone-responsive plasmids and broad-host-range plasmids pAMbeta1 and pIP501. These results indicate that there is another efficient transfer system in the conjugative plasmids of Enterococcus and that this system is different from the pheromone-induced transfer system of E. faecalis plasmids.     

Analyses of subcooled CCFL tests for evaluation of W̱COBRA/TRAC applicability

The W̱COBRA/TRAC-MOD7A, Rev. 1 code is currently licensed for best estimate large break LOCA analyses of 3 and 4 loop PWRs with emergency core cooling system injection located in the cold legs. As a part of the licensing effort to extend the code applicability to an upper plenum injection plant, the codes ability to predict subcooled flooding on a perforated plate was assessed by analyses of GE counter current flow limit tests and by comparison to the Bankoff flooding correlation (Bankoff, S.G., Tankin, R.S., Yuen, M.C., Hsieh, C., 1981). Counter current flow of air/water and steam/water through a horizontal perforated plate, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer, 24 (8) 1382). The observed code model bias for subcooled CCFL can be eliminated by applying multiplication factors to the interfacial condensation and the interfacial drag models.     

Metaiodobenzylguanidine and heart rate variability in heart failure

It is assumed that the low-frequency power (LF) of heart rate variability (HRV) increases with progress of congestive heart failure (CHF), therefore positively correlating with cardiac 123I-metaiodobenzylguanidine (MIBG) washout. It is demonstrated here that HRV, including normalized LF, correlated inversely with MIBG washout and positively with the ratio of heart-to-mediastinum MIBG activity in controls and CHF patients, whereas these correlations were not observed within CHF patients. Thus MIBG washout may increase and HRV including normalized LF may decrease with CHF, although the HRV and MIBG measures may not similarly change in proportion to the severity of the cardiac autonomic dysfunction in CHF.