Successful engraftment of unrelated cord blood stem cells for familial erythrophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis. Kinki Cord Blood Bank

PURPOSE: To describe a case of Felty syndrome (FS) in a child with (JRA) and review the previous literature on this rare entity. METHODS: Review of clinical data including results of serial blood counts, bone marrow aspirate, human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-typing, and abdominal sonography. RESULTS: Serial blood counts over 2 years revealed persistent leukopenia and thrombocytopenia. Bone marrow aspirate showed normal trilineage hematopoiesis, abdominal sonography demonstrated an enlarged spleen, but normal liver and portal circulation. HLA-typing was most significant for positivity of the DR 1 allele. CONCLUSION: This is only the third child, and the first preadolescent, to be reported with FS complicating juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. This condition needs to be considered in the differential diagnosis when leukopenia, thrombocytopenia, or both develop in patients with JRA.     

Vertical two-phase flow identification using advanced instrumentation and neural networks

Most two-phase flow measurements, including void fraction measurements, depend on correct flow regime identification. There are two steps taken towards the successful identification of flow regimes: first, develop a non-intrusive instrument to demonstrate area-averaged void fluctuations and second, develop a non-linear mapping approach to perform objective identification of flow regimes. In this paper, an advanced non-intrusive impedance void-meter provides input signals to neural networks which are used to identify flow regimes. After training, both supervised and self-organizing neural network learning paradigms performed flow regime identification successfully. The methodology presented holds considerable promise for multiphase flow diagnostic and measurement applications.     

Rain Attenuation at Millimeter Wavelength of 1.33 mm

Specific rain attenuation values calculated by using the four empirical raindrop-size distributions, that is, the Marshall and Palmer, the Joss, Thams and Walgvogel, the Ihara, Furuhama and Manabe, and the Weibull raindrop-size distributions. The millimeter wave measurement at 225 GHz (1.33mm) was compared with our calculations. It has been shown that the Weibull distribution has the best agreement with the measurements.     

T cell response to Borrelia garinii, Borrelia afzelii, and Borrelia japonica in various congenic mouse strains

The infectivity and T cell response to Borrelia garinii SIKA2, Borrelia afzelii BFOX, and Borrelia japonica 0612, the organisms that cause Lyme disease in Japan, were examined in various inbred and congenic strains of mice. Infectivity differed among the species: B. garinii SIKA2 and B. afzelii BFOX were each able to infect 90% to 100% of C3H/He mice; B. japonica 0612 was able to infect only 20% of C3H/He mice. The pattern of infectivity to various inbred and congenic strains of mice may influence the pathogenicity of the organism and the clinical signs of Lyme disease. Cross-reactivity between Borrelia antigens was observed, but there was no cross-reactivity between Borrelia antigens and Leptospira antigens. We evaluated the genetic control of the delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) reaction in the form of footpad swelling produced by Borrelia antigens using viable or sonicated bacteria as sensitization. Differences in strains of mice infected by viable antigen were observed. However, all strains of mice showed a strong DTH reaction using sonicated antigens without genetic background. A DTH reaction in the form of footpad swelling did not appear to be associated with genetic background. The footpad reaction was mediated by CD4+8- and Ia- T cells, as revealed by in vitro monoclonal antibody treatment. However, CD8+ T cells did not suppress footpad swelling. These results indicate that many antigenic epitopes of the Borrelia spirochete can stimulate the DTH reaction.     

Loop-parameter optimization of a PLL for a low-jitter 2.5-Gb/sone-chip optical receiver IC with 1: 8 DEMUX

A loop parameter optimization method for a phase-locked loop (PLL) used in wide area networks (WANs) is proposed as a technique for achieving good jitter characteristics. It is shown that the jitter characteristics of the PLL, especially jitter transfer and jitter generation, depend strongly on the key parameter ζω_n (ζ is a damping factor and ω_n is the natural angular frequency of the PLL), and that the optimization focusing on the ω_n dependence of the jitter characteristics make it possible to comprehensively determine loop parameters and loop filter constants for a PLL that will fully comply with ITU-T jitter specifications. Using the optimization method with the low-jitter circuit design technique, a low-jitter and low-power 2.5-Gb/s optical receiver IC integrated with a limiting amplifier, clock and data recovery (CDR), and demultiplexer (DEMUX) is fabricated using 0.5-μm Si bipolar technology (f_T = 40 GHz). The jitter characteristics of the IC meet all three types of jitter specifications given in ITU-T recommendation G.783. In particular, the measured jitter generation is 3.2 ps rms, which is lower than that of an IC integrated with only a CDR in our previous work. In addition, the pull-in range of the PLL is 50 MHz and the power consumption of the IC is only 0.68 W (limiting amplifier: 0.2 W, CDR (PLL): 0.3 W, DEMUX: 0.18 W) at a supply voltage of -3.3 V and only 0.35 W at a supply voltage of -2.5 V (without output buffers)     

A single p-i-n junction amorphous-silicon solar cell withconversion efficiency of 12.65%

A conversion efficiency of 12.65% was obtained at AM-1.5, 100 mW/cm² for a single p-i-n junction amorphous-Si solar cell of 1.05 cm², with a glass/SnO₂/p-i-n/back-electrode structure. The solar cell had a short-circuit current of 19.13 mA/cm², an open-circuit voltage of 0.885 V, and a fill factor of 74.7%. The reason why the efficiency of the produced solar cell was enhanced by hot-annealing treatment is considered to be due to the reduction of the minute leaks caused by the pinhole treatment and the reduction of the number of pinholes by reverse-bias annealing treatment. It is believed that because of the minute irregularities on the surface of SnO₂, the diffuse light in the solar cell increased the effective optical length in the i layer. Therefore the collection efficiency in the long-wavelength region was enhanced     

Effect of green tea rich in gamma-aminobutyric acid on blood pressure of Dahl salt-sensitive rats

A method of reducing the amount of data required to reconstruct an image is described. In this scheme, fully sampled low spatial frequency data are acquired up to a given cutoff frequency and above this point, only alternate lines are sampled. Two images are produced, one of low definition and one of high definition but aliased. The proposed algorithm unwraps the aliased data, which are then used to enhance the low pass image, yielding a best estimate of the true image. The reduced sampling technique is shown to afford biological images that are almost indistinguishable from those obtained from a complete data set.     

Glibenclamide-sensitive mechanism is involved in helodermin-produced vasodilatation in rat mesenteric artery

Helodermin-caused vascular relaxation was simultaneously measured with intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i) in rat mesenteric artery. Helodermin caused concentration-dependent relaxation in the mesenteric artery preconstricted with norepinephrine (NE). Helodermin-caused relaxation was accompanied by decrease in [Ca2+]i, D-cis-Diltiazem, a Ca2+ channel blocker, also lowered the [Ca2+]i and tension increased by NE. However, helodermin relaxed the artery more efficiently than D-cis-diltiazem, suggesting that the peptide decreased myofilament Ca2+ sensitivity. The vascular relaxation and the corresponding decrease in [Ca2+]i induced by helodermin were partly, but significantly attenuated by glibenclamide. Helodermin-induced vascular responses were mimicked by vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP) or forskolin. Furthermore, helodermin increased cAMP contents in the mesenteric artery. These findings show that vasodilatation induced by helodermin is attributable to lowered [Ca2+]i of arterial smooth muscle partly through the activation of glibenclamide-sensitive K+ channels, and to decrease in the myofilament Ca2+ sensitivity. The increase in the cellular cAMP content probably plays a key role in the peptide-induced vasorelaxation.     

Statistical investigation of surface fatigue cracks in large-sized turbine rotor shaft steel

Distribution properties of an initiation life N_i and a propagation life N_p of surface cracks, statistical characteristics of a crack growth rate dl/dN, and a relationship between a scatter of the distributions and a gradient a of S-log N curves in rotating bending fatigue tests were investigated for Ni-Cr-Mo-V steel, using for a large-sized turbine rotor shaft. The distributions of N_i and N_p were expressed as Weibull distributions, and the scatter of them for smooth specimens and for lower stress amplitude σ_a tests were larger than those for notched ones and for higher σ_a tests, respectively. The statistical properties of crack propagation rate were almost similar in both smooth and notched specimens. The relationship between the a and a coefficient of variation η for the distributions of N_i, N_p and a final fracture life N_f was expressed as η = c(a)^−b, where c and b are constants.     

Modal characteristics and bistability in twin microdisk photonic molecule lasers

We demonstrate coupled-mode characteristics and bistability in photonic molecule lasers composed of evanescent-coupled GaInAsP twin microdisks. First, we show room-temperature continuous-wave operation by photopumping and discuss the unique behavior of coupled modes, i.e., the anticrossing and splitting characteristics of bonding and antibonding modes. Next, we present the clear bistability, which is observed for the antibonding mode by nonuniform pumping with an effective power of nearly 40 /spl mu/W. It is explained by rate equation analysis, which assumes saturable absorption. The analysis also predicts mode switching by the carrier-induced refractive index change. A micron-sized device with a very low power consumption will allow large scale integration of optical memories, optical flip-flops, and so forth.