Study of sexual function in male hemodialysis patients--a sexual function survey using a questionnaire

Sexual dysfunction is a well-documented complication among male hemodialysis patients. To evaluate it in detail, we conducted a sexual function survey using the Sapporo Medical University Sexual Function Questionnaire. Two hundred five male patients receiving outpatient hemodialysis were entered into this study. Patients with diabetes mellitus and severe anemia (Hb value < 8.0 g/dl) were excluded. The control group consisted of 3,462 healthy male subjects. Of male hemodialysis patients, 33.7% showed deterioration of libido, while 44.4% showed deterioration of potency, both of them decreased greatly with age. Ejaculatory ability correlated with potency. We compared the frequency of sexual intercourse in male hemodialysis patients with that in normal males. Twelve point nine percent of hemodialysis patients (HP) ranging from 30 to 39 in age versus 3.5% of age-matched normal males had no sexual intercourse and 22.4% of HPs from 40 to 49 versus 3.0% of age-matched normal males, 52.2% of HPs from 50 to 59 versus 7.5% of age-matched normal males, and 89.3% of HPs from 60 to 69 versus 18.0% of age-matched normal males had no sexual intercourse. These results revealed that the sexual frequency in hemodialysis patients decreased more than that in normal males in all age groups and with age.     

A 10 bit 20 MS/s 3 V supply CMOS A/D converter

A 10 bit CMOS A/D converter with 3 V power supply has been developed for being integrated into system VLSI's. In this A/D converter, redundant binary encoders named “twin encoders” enhance tolerance to substrate noise, together with employing differential amplifiers in comparators. The bias circuit using a replica of the amplifier is developed for biasing differential comparators with 3 V power supply. Subranging architecture along with a multilevel tree decoding structure improves dynamic performance of the ADC at 3 V power supply. The A/D converter is fabricated in double-polysilicon, double-metal, 0.8 μm CMOS technology. The experimental results show that the ADC operates at 20 MS/s and the twin encoders suppress the influence of substrate noise effectively. This ADC has a single power supply of 3 V, and dissipates 135 mW at 20 MS/s operation     

PTCR Characteristics in Barium Titanate Ceramics with Curie Points Between 60° and 360°C

PTCR characteristics in porous semiconducting barium titanate ceramics with Curie points from 60° to 360°C were investigated. The magnitude of the PTCR effect in these cerumics decreases self-onsistently with increasing Curie point within this temperature range. A PTCR efSect of more than 4 orders of magnitude was ahserved, for a Ba_0.44Pb_0.6TiO₃ ceramic with a Curie point of 360°C .     

Rapid ethanolysis procedure for jojoba wax analysis by gas liquid chromatography

A rapid ethanolysis procedure for preparing jojoba wax for gas liquid chromatographic analysis is described. The wax esters are hydrolyzed by refluxing 4 drops of jojoba wax in 5% HCl in anhydrous ethanol in a test tube. The resulting fatty acid ethyl esters and fatty alcohols are separated and quantitated by a single gas liquid chromatographic run. Analysis of duplicate samples by this procedure gives essentially the same results as a procedure which requires 10 times more sample and reagents and considerably more time.     

Single muscle fiber analysis of myoclonus epilepsy with ragged-red fibers

We examined two muscle biopsy specimens from a proband and her mother with myoclonus epilepsy with ragged-red fibers (MERRF), both obtained at an interval of about 10 years, using histochemistry, in situ hybridization, and single-fiber polymerase chain reaction. Total (wild-type and mutant) mitochondrial DNAs (mtDNAs) were greatly increased in ragged-red fibers (RRF) over non-RRF in all muscle specimens analyzed. The proportion of mutant mtDNA was also significantly higher in RRF than in non-RRF. By comparing the first and second muscle biopsied specimens in each patient, we found that while the proportion of RRF, cytochrome coxidase deficient fibers, and mutant DNA in muscle changed over a 10-year period, the proportion of wild-type and mutant mtDNAs in RRF and in non-RRF was similar between the two specimens. These results suggest that the ratio of wild-type to mutant mtDNAs in RRF and non-RRF in MERRF is at a steady state level in each muscle fiber, without replicative advantage of mutant mtDNA.     

Chromosomes of Damaliscus (Artiodactyla, Bovidae): simple and complex centric fusion rearrangements

G- and C-banded karyotypes of Damaliscus hunteri, D. lunatus and D. pygargus were compared using the standard karyotype of Bos taurus. Chromosomal complements were 2n = 36 in D. lunatus jimela, 2n = 38 in D. pygargus phillipsi and D. p. pygargus, and 2n = 44 in D. hunteri. The fundamental number in all karyotypes was 60. Among the three species of Damaliscus, seven autosomal pairs and the X chromosomes were conserved. Y-chromosome differences were attributed to heterochromatic additions or deletions. Banded karyotypes of the two subspecies of D. pygargus exhibited complete homology. Chromosomal complements of D. pygargus and D. lunatus differed by a simple centric fusion. However, karyotypes of D. pygargus and D. lunatus differed from D. hunteri by numerous centric fusions, several of which were related by monobrachial chain complexes. Between the karyotypes of D. hunteri and D. pygargus or D. lunatus, there were two chain complexes, one involving five chromosomes (chain V) and the other involving 12 in pygargus (chain XII) or 13 in lunatus (chain XIII). There were also two simple centric fusions between D. hunteri and D. lunatus/D. pygargus; acrocentric chromosomes 13, 15, 20 and 22 in D hunteri were fused as 13;15 and 20;22 in D. lunatus and D. pygargus.     

Fluorescence polarization study of a salt bridge between a single-chain Fv and its antigen ribonuclease A

The interaction between a single-chain Fv (sFv) of the monoclonal antibody 3A21 and its antigen, bovine pancreatic ribonuclease A (RNase A), was studied by site-directed mutagenesis of the hypervariable regions and fluorescence polarization analysis. The affinity constants of wild-type sFv and a mutant sFv D31A (Asp31 of heavy chain was replaced by Ala) for RNase A were found to be 2.7 x 10(7) and 4.7 x 10(6) M-1 in PBS at pH 7.2 and 37 degrees C, respectively. While the affinity constant of D31A is not affected by NaCl concentration, that of wild-type sFv is almost the same as that of D31A in the presence of more than 1 M NaCl. These results demonstrate that Asp31 of the heavy chain interacts electrostatically with a positively charged amino acid residue of RNase A.     

A New Monte Carlo Method for Evaluating System-Failure Probability

This paper proposes, under a rare-event assumption, a new ``Coverage Monte Carlo' method for evaluating the top-event probability of a coherent fault tree. All the min cuts are assumed to be known. A Karp-Luby Monte Carlo (KLM) estimator with minimum variance is derived in a different manner. The KLM evaluates an inclusion-exclusion formula excluding the first sum of products. A new coverage Monte Carlo (NCM) estimator evaluates the formula excluding the first and the second sums of products. The NCM yields an estimator with a smaller variance than the KLM which becomes a linear time procedure in the number of min cuts. Upper bounds on the numbers of trials necessary to attain a given coefficient of variation are derived for KLM and NCM. The bounds can be calculated before any Monte Carlo trials. The KLM requires at least 8 times more trials than the NCM. Given sufficient computer memory to implement an alias sampling method, the NCM requires less computation time than the KLM when an accurate estimate is required. The NCM is more favorable when the deterministic bounding practice based on the first and second sums of products yields a smaller relative error. The NCM is consistent with the fact that deterministic bounds have been computed.     

Supercritical CO2 extraction of pigment components with pharmaceutical importance from Chlorella vulgaris

BACKGROUND: Chlorella vulgaris is a green microalgae that contains various pigment components of carotenoids and chlorophylls. Supercritical CO₂ is widely used for extraction of pharmaceutical compounds because it is non‐oxic and easily separated from extracted material by simply depressurizing. In this work, pharmaceutical compounds from Chlorella vulgaris have been extracted using supercritical CO₂ with or without entrainer at various extraction conditions. RESULTS: Based on high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis, the extracts contained pigment components, such as lutein, β‐carotene, chlorophyll a and b. Higher extraction pressure and temperature promoted higher lutein extraction by supercritical CO₂. The optimum pressure and temperature for extraction were obtained as 50 MPa and 80 °C. Ethanol as an entrainer was more effective than acetone for the extraction of pigment components. Pigment components in the extract obtained by supercritical CO₂ with and without entrainer were compared with the extract obtained by a conventional extraction method. CONCLUSION: Supercritical CO₂ has been successfully applied for the extraction of pigment components from Chlorella vulgaris. Supercritical CO₂ enabled high selectivity for lutein extraction; however, the lutein yield was lower than that obtained by extraction using supercritical CO₂ with ethanol and soxhlet. Copyright © 2008 Society of Chemical Industry     

Characterization of Pseudomonas paucimobilis FP2001 which forms flagella depending upon the presence of rhamnose in liquid medium

A bacterial strain FP2001 isolated from the exudate of land reclaimed for municipal waste was identified as Pseudomonas paucimobilis. Cells of strain FP2001 were mobile by means of polar monotrichous flagellum, only when rhamnose was added as a carbon source in the liquid medium. The replacement of rhamnose by arabinose, galactose, glucose or xylose did not lead to the formation of flagella.