Impact of Serum Chemerin Levels on Liver Functional Reserves and Platelet Counts in Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Obesity-related metabolic abnormalities, including adipokine imbalance and chronic inflammation, are involved in liver carcinogenesis. Chemerin, a novel adipokine, plays a critical role in adipogenesis, energy metabolism, and inflammation. We evaluated the impact of serum chemerin levels on liver functional reserves in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients and on the recurrence and prognosis of HCC. This study included 44 patients with any stage of HCC who underwent curative treatment at Gifu Municipal Hospital (Gifu, Japan) between 2006 and 2007. Recurrence-free survival and overall survival were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method. Serum albumin levels (Pearson’s correlation coefficient; r = 0.3110, p = 0.0399), platelet counts (r = 0.4159, p = 0.0050), and prothrombin times (r = 0.3775, p = 0.0115) were significantly correlated with serum chemerin levels in patients with HCC, and they were inversely correlated with Child-Pugh scores (r = −0.3732, p = 0.0126), serum alanine aminotransferase levels (r = −0.3864, p = 0.0105), and total bilirubin levels (r = −0.4023, p = 0.0068). Among these variables, a multiple comparison test identified that platelet counts and total bilirubin levels were associated with serum chemerin levels (p < 0.0083). No significant correlation was found between serum chemerin levels and recurrence-free survival (p = 0.3691) or overall survival (p = 0.7916). In HCC patients, serum chemerin concentrations were correlated with liver functional reserves and platelet counts, but not with recurrence or prognosis.     

Numerical analysis of characteristics of microactuators driven by liquid crystals

For the purpose of developing liquid crystalline microactuators, the transient behaviors of a nematic liquid crystal between two parallel plates have been computed for various parameters such as applied voltage, the gap between the plates, and the twist and tilt angles at the plates. The Leslie-Ericksen theory has been selected as a constitutive equation. The twist angle has an effect on the induced velocity profiles; for example, the induced flow is planar at the twist angle of 0°, while the flow has an out-of-plane component when the twist angle is not 0°. Transient behaviors of shear stress acting on the plates, the flowrate, and the maximum values of the velocity, and the tilt angle between the plates have been reported. In addition, we have investigated the effects of the applied voltage, the gap between the plates, and the tilt angle at the plates on the above-mentioned values. We can develop microactuators with arbitrary characteristics by suitably controlling the applied voltage, the size of the actuators, and the director anchoring conditions.     

Effects of ventilation and pleural effusion on measurements of airway thermal volume and blood flow in dog lungs

We studied the effects of ventilation and pleural effusion on measurements of airway thermal volume (ATV) and pulmonary blood flow (PBF) by using the airway gas thermometry method of V. B. Serikov, M. S. Rumm, K. Kambara, M. I. Bootomo, A. R. Osmack, and N. C. Staub (J. Appl. Physiol. 72: 944-953, 1992) in 39 anesthetized dogs with or without lung edema or pleural effusion. To examine the differential effects of increased-pressure and increased-permeability lung edema on accuracy and sensitivity of ATV and PBF, two models of lung edema were induced by intravenous infusion of a Dextran 70 solution and alloxan monohydrate, respectively. Dogs were hyperventilated for 3 min by using a wide range of minute ventilation (VE) to produce two steady-state conditions of airway temperature. Higher levels of VE increased an estimated amount of ATV. The ATV produced by hyperventilation at VE values of 559, 158, and 72 ml.min-1.kg-1 was consistent with the gravimetric total lung mass, the blood-free wet lung weight, and the extravascular lung water volume, respectively. The coefficient of lung thermal conductivity, a practical index of the rate of heat conduction through tissue from lung vessels, was related to the ratio of the decrease in expired air temperature to VE, and estimated PBF was consistent with the thermodilution cardiac output. Pleural effusion had little effect on measurements of ATV and PBF. However, ATV and PBF showed increased variation in dogs with dextran-induced lung edema.     

Mechanical properties of amorphous alloy compacts prepared by different consolidation techniques

Amorphous alloy compacts of Fe₇₈B₁₃Si₉ prepared by three different techniques (explosive consolidation, high hydrostatic pressure consolidation and warm extrusion) were deformed in compression between 573 and 723 K at a strain rate ranging from 8.3×10^–5–4.2×10^–4s^–1. Explosively consolidated compacts had high strength ranging from 1.9–2.5 GPa below 623 K and could be plastically deformed to a strain of more than 50% at 673 K while preserving the amorphous state. Amorphous alloy compacts prepared by high hydrostatic pressure consolidation showed lower compressive strength. Those produced by warm extrusion were anisotropic in strength, the highest strength being as high as 2.74 GPa. It was also found that the geometry of the starting powders had a profound effect on the strength of the product compacts. Compacts prepared from flaky powders were stronger than those prepared from spherical ones. It is concluded that the mechanical properties of the amorphous alloy compacts depend on the consolidation technique, powder geometry and surface conditions of the powders, especially existence of oxide films.     

Autophagic Cell Death and Cancer

Programmed cell death (PCD) is a crucial process required for the normal development and physiology of metazoans. The three major mechanisms that induce PCD are called type I (apoptosis), type II (autophagic cell death), and type III (necrotic cell death). Dysfunctional PCD leads to diseases such as cancer and neurodegeneration. Although apoptosis is the most common form of PCD, recent studies have provided evidence that there are other forms of cell death. One of such cell death is autophagic cell death, which occurs via the activation of autophagy. The present review summarizes recent knowledge about autophagic cell death and discusses the relationship with tumorigenesis.     

Prevalence and growth characteristics of malignant stem cells in B-lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia

We used a stroma-supported culture method to study the prevalence and growth characteristics of malignant stem cells in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). In 51 of 108 B-lineage ALL samples, bone marrow-derived stroma not only inhibited apoptosis of ALL cells but also supported their proliferation in serum-free medium. When single leukemic cells were placed in the stroma-coated wells of microtiter plates, the percentage of wells with leukemic cell growth after 2 to 5 months of culture ranged from 6% to 20% (median, 15%; 5 experiments). The immunophenotypes and genetic features of cells recovered from these cultures were identical to those noted before culture. All cells maintained their stroma dependency and self-renewal capacity. Leukemic clones derived from single cells contained approximately 10(3) to 10(6) cells after 1 month of culture; other clones became detectable only after prolonged culture. Cell growth in stroma-coated wells correlated with the number of initially seeded cells (1 or 10; r = .87). However, the observed percentages of positive wells seeded with 10 cells always exceeded values predicted from results with single-cell-initiated cultures (P < .003 by paired t-test), suggesting stimulation of leukemic cell growth by paracrine factors. In conclusion, the proportion of ALL cells with clonogenic potential may be considerably higher than previously thought.     

Suppressed UDP-galactose: ceramide galactosyltransferase and myelin protein mRNA in twitcher mouse brain

To investigate the role of temporal processing in language lateralization, we monitored asymmetry of cerebral activation in human volunteers using positron emission tomography (PET). Subjects were scanned during passive auditory stimulation with nonverbal sounds containing rapid (40 msec) or extended (200 msec) frequency transitions. Bilateral symmetric activation was observed in the auditory cortex for slow frequency transitions. In contrast, left-biased asymmetry was observed in response to rapid frequency transitions due to reduced response of the right auditory cortex. These results provide direct evidence that auditory processing of rapid acoustic transitions is lateralized in the human brain. Such functional asymmetry in temporal processing is likely to contribute to language lateralization from the lowest levels of cortical processing.     

SEMICONTINUOUS ETHANOL FERMENTATION WITH SHOCHU DISTILLERY WASTE*

An effective utilization system using distillery waste discharged from Japanese traditional shochu factory was developed. Mugi (barley) shochu distillery waste discharged from a novel vacuum distillation procedure (35–40°C) contained a large number of viable yeast (7 × 10⁶ cells/ml), glucoamylase activity (19.7 units/ml), acid protease activity (940 units/ml), and neutral protease activity (420 units/ml). Ethanol fermentation was achieved with a mash composed of glucose as the sola carbon source and mugi shochu distillery waste. After ethanol fermentation was completed the fermented broth was again distilled at 35–40°C in vacuo and the non volatile residue used in the next ethanol fermentation. In this way, semicontinuous ethanol fermentation system of more than 10 cycles was developed. Even in the distillate of the mash of the 8th fermentation cycle, 7.9% of ethanol, 33.0 ppm of ethyl acetate, 28.5 ppm of isobutyl alcohol, and other aromatic compounds were present. A semicontinuous ethanol fermentation system has been developed for shochu distillery waste which conventionally is treated as wastewater.     

Development of virtual and real-field construction management systems in innovative, intelligent field factory

In this study, we proposed a concept of virtual and real-field construction management systems (VR-Coms), which is integrated with virtual construction simulation, planning, scheduling, and performance management systems to evaluate productivity and safety in virtual simulated and real-field constructions. And, we built up a computational environment to develop the VR-Coms. The VR-Coms offer supporting modules for learning and discovering solutions with objective to manage construction at right speed with improved humanware and constructability. The configuration of VR-Coms is described. This paper also shows an application of agent theory to construction management.     

Structure and function of the long terminal repeats of feline leukemia viruses derived from naturally occurring acute myeloid leukemias in cats

Long terminal repeats of feline leukemia viruses cloned from feline acute myeloid leukemias frequently contained direct repeats of 40 to 74 bp in the upstream region of the enhancer (URE). The repetitive URE conferred an enhancer function upon gene expression in myeloid cells, suggesting its association with tumorigenic potential in myeloid cells.