Hepatic actinomycosis infiltrating the diaphragm and right lung

Hepatic actinomycosis is a rare infectious disease caused by an anaerobic gram-positive bacterium of the genus Actinomyces. Herein, we describe an unusual case of hepatic actinomycosis involving the diaphragm and right lung. A 41-yr-old man was admitted to Wakayama Medical School Hospital presenting with right back pain and cough. Computed tomography and magnetic resonance image revealed a 5 x 10 cm tumor in the anterior superior segment of the liver, which extended to the diaphragm and right lung. Angiography demonstrated a hypervascular tumor and the enlarged right inferior phrenic artery feeding around the tumor. The patient underwent a hepatectomy with partial resections of the diaphragm and the right middle pulmonary lobe. Microscopically, the specimen showed sulfur granules and was positive for Gram stain and Grocott stain and negative for Ziehl-Neelsen stain. These findings were consistent with actinomycosis of the liver. His postoperative course was uneventful and no recurrence was observed 1 yr postoperatively. Although there are at least 36 well-documented cases until 1993, no other report has been found infiltrating the diaphragm and lung.     

Autodoping effects of Ge in vapor-grown GaAsl-xPx layers on the Ge substrates

Epitaxial growth of GaAs_1-xP_x layer on the Ge substrate has been investigated under the optimized growth conditions for reducing vapor etching of the substrate, using a Ga-PCl₃-AsH₃-H₂ system. The free carrier concentration, ?N_D⁺?N_A^??, and the electroluminescent properties of GaAs_1-xP_x layers with $\text{x ? 0·4}$ are studied, and are correlated with the Ge concentration involved. In the lightly doped region below 1×10¹⁷ atoms/cm³, bright electroluminescence is observed at room temperature from forward-biased p-n junctions fabricated by a zinc-diffusion technique. However, in the narrow region of 1×10¹⁷?4×10¹⁷ atoms/cm³, the enhanced amphoteric behavior of Ge leads to concentration quenching of visible-light emission. The ?N_D⁺?N_A^?? reaches its maximum at ～ 1×10¹⁷ atoms/cm³. Nearly complete self-compensation is observed above 4×10¹⁷ atoms/cm³ due to the increase of the concentration of deep-lying Ge acceptors.     

A Day and Night Vision MOS Imager With Robust Photonic-Crystal-Based RGB-and-IR

This paper demonstrates a day and night vision MOS imager with red, green, blue (RGB) and extra near-infrared filters placed over individual pixels. The on-chip RGB and IR filters are fabricated from an inorganic photonic crystal color filter (PCCF) technology, thereby realizing a robust and reliable camera module for indoor and outdoor use without mounting a mechanical IR-cut filter. These PCCFs allow the IR band as well as the RGB bands to pass through to the RGB photodiodes from which RGB signals, each involving some amount of IR component, are derived. During the daytime, however, chromatically almost pure RGB colors are reproduced by subtracting a weighed IR signal of an extra IR pixel from the raw RGB signals of the surrounding IR pixels. As a result, the IR components in the resultant RGB signals are minimized from 25%, 21%, and 50% to 9%, 4%, and 21%, respectively. During the night, on the other hand, an IR image having a resolution match with a conventional IR imager can be captured by using the IR components of the raw RGB signals with the IR signal.     

Degradation-free MOS image sensor with photonic crystal color filter

This letter demonstrates a long-term reliable MOS image sensor equipped with a novel photonic crystal color filter (PC-CF). PCs are periodically structured dielectric media, generally possessing a photonic band gap. In the newly developed PC-CF, it is clarified that the desirable spectral property, i.e., peak wavelength and spectral passband, can be achieved by modifying the thicknesses of the defect layers, which act just like a "defect" in a PC. The spectral characteristics with the peak wavelengths at 450 (blue), at 530 (green), and at 610 nm (red) are realized in this letter. Moreover, the fabricated image sensor guarantees high reliability of longer than 200 000 h and heat resistance of above 300 /spl deg/C.     

Study on failure modes of steel truss bridge gusset plates related to tension and shear block failure

Tension and shear block failure is a limit state which occurs in the connection of tension steel members. The failure mechanism is a combination of tensile failure on one plane and shear failure on the perpendicular plane. The design strength equations for the tension and shear block failure are described in the well known design codes. However, they provide inconsistent levels of safety when they are used in different types of connections. In this paper, the authors survey the design strength equations in the various codes. Then, the pertinent strength equations for the gusset plates of steel truss bridges are selected. Moreover, the authors propose a pair of strength equations for compression and shear block failure for gusset plates subjected to compressive force. And to examine the applicability of proposed equations and to investigate the mechanical behavior of compression gusset plates, parametric analyses on the various thicknesses of gusset plates were conducted.     

A 2.0-/spl mu/m pixel pitch MOS image sensor with 1.5 transistor/pixel and an amorphous Si color filter

In this paper, an ultrafine pixel size (2.0/spl times/2.0 /spl mu/m/sup 2/) MOS image sensor with very high sensitivity is developed. The key technologies that realize the MOS image sensor are a newly developed pixel circuit configuration (1.5 transistor/pixel), a fine 0.15-/spl mu/m design rule, and an amorphous Si color filter (Si-CF). In the new pixel circuit configuration, a unit pixel consists of one photodiode, one transfer transistor, and an amplifier circuit with two transistors that are shared by four neighboring pixels. Thus, the unit pixel has only 1.5 transistors. The fine design rule of 0.15 /spl mu/m enables reduction of wiring area by 40%. As a result, a high aperture ratio of 30% is achieved. A newly developed Si-CF realizes the 1/10 thickness of that of the conventional organic-pigment CF, giving rise to high light-collection efficiency. With these three technologies combined, a high sensitivity of 3400 electrons/lx/spl middot/s is achieved even with a pixel size of 2.0/spl times/2.0 /spl mu/m/sup 2/.