A surgical case of liposarcoma in the chest wall within the thoracic cavity of a young patient

A 21-year-old man presented to our hospital on June 7, 1990, asymptomatic but with an abnormal shadow in his chest roentgenogram. A well-demarcated tumorous shadow was seen in the left hilum of the lung in the frontal view of the chest X-ray, and adjacent to the posterior chest wall in the lateral view. A percutaneous needle biopsy was performed, and since there were no malignant findings, the tumor was left untreated for future examinations. However, since the tumor was observed to be enlarging gradually in subsequent chest X-rays, it was resected surgically on June 18, 1991. The tumor was fist-sized and its surface smooth, and was protruding into the thoracic cavity. At surgery, the tumor was separated from the chest wall. The tumor, weighing 170 grams, was diagnosed pathologically as a liposarcoma (myxoid type). It was confirmed that there was no infiltration into the surrounding tissue and that total resection had been performed. There are few reports of liposarcomas within the thoracic cavity developing in the extra-mediastinal chest wall. As our case is the second in Japan occurring in a young patient, we present it here together with a review of the literature.     

Effect of 8 MeV electron irradiation on electrical properties of CuInSe2 thin films

Radiation damages due to 8 MeV electron irradiation in electrical properties of CuInSe₂ thin films have been investigated. The n-type CuInSe₂ films in which the carrier concentration was about 3×10¹⁶ cm⁻³, were epitaxially grown on a GaAs(0 0 1) substrate by RF diode sputtering. No significant change in the electrical properties was observed under the electron fluence <3×10¹⁶ e cm⁻². As the electron fluence exceeded 10¹⁷ e cm⁻², both the carrier concentration and Hall mobility slightly decreased. The carrier removal rate was estimated to be about 0.8 cm⁻¹, which is slightly lower than that of III–V compound materials.     

k-NN classification of handwritten characters via accelerated GAT correlation

This paper addresses the problem of reinforcing the ability of the k-NN classification of handwritten characters via distortion-tolerant template matching techniques with a limited quantity of data. We compare three kinds of matching techniques: the conventional simple correlation, the tangent distance, and the global affine transformation (GAT) correlation. Although the k-NN classification method is straightforward and powerful, it consumes a lot of time. Therefore, to reduce the computational cost of matching in k-NN classification, we propose accelerating the GAT correlation method by reformulating its computational model and adopting efficient lookup tables. Recognition experiments performed on the IPTP CDROM1B handwritten numerical database show that the matching techniques of the simple correlation, the tangent distance, and the accelerated GAT correlation achieved recognition rates of 97.07%, 97.50%, and 98.70%, respectively. The computation time ratios of the tangent distance and the accelerated GAT correlation to the simple correlation are 26.3 and 36.5 to 1.0, respectively.     

Encapsulation of radioactive metals inside multilayered polyhedral shells of carbon as a barrier to radionuclide release

A carbon nanoencapsulate has a polyhedral outer shell of nested, concentric layers of carbon. The shell defines an internal cavity where a metal is encapsulated. Although the rare-earth carbides readily hydrolyze in moist air, the carbides in these carbon shells did not degrade after exposure to air for considerable lengths of time. This means that the carbide particle is physically enclosed within the carbon cavity completely, and the cavity protects it perfectly against attack of water molecules. Considering intrinsic chemical stability of carbon under oxygen free condition, this structure may be a perfect barrier to extremely long-term release of radionuclides. Because encapsulation of LaC₂ within carbon nanoparticles increased drastically from by-product to major product, it would be possible to find the optimized condition that complete encapsulation is achieved. Intrinsic stability of carbon and carbon coated waste nanoparticles may provide an improved barrier to radionuclide release by groundwater.     

Impact of Shear Strain and Quantum Confinement on $ langlehbox{110}rangle$ Channel nMOSFET With High-Stress CESL

In this paper, we propose a new analytical electron mobility model in strained Si inversion layers suitable for implementation in a drift-diffusion simulator. Using our new model, a numerical study in conjunction with comprehensive bending experiments has demonstrated that (100)-Si has the optimum channel direction along <110> in terms of the device performance of strained 65-nm-node nMOSFETs with contact etch stop layer and that both the shear-strain component and the quantum confinement effect are key factors in contributing to this superiority.     

Effect of proton irradiation on electrical properties of CuInSe2 thin films

High-energy proton irradiation (380 keV and 1 MeV) on the electrical properties of CuInSe₂ (CIS) thin films has been investigated. The samples were epitaxially grown on GaAs (0 0 1) substrates by Radio Frequency sputtering. As the proton fluence exceeded 1×10¹³ cm⁻², the carrier concentration and mobility of the CIS thin films were decreased. The carrier removal rate with proton fluence was estimated to be about 1000 cm⁻¹. The electrical properties of CIS thin films before and after irradiation were studied between 80 and 300 K. From the temperature dependence of the carrier concentration in CIS thin films, we found N_D=9.5×10¹⁶ cm⁻³, N_A=3.7×10¹⁶ cm⁻³ and E_D=21 meV from the fitting to the experimental data on the basis of the charge balance equation. After irradiation, a defect level was created, and N_T=1×10¹⁷ cm⁻³ for a fluence of 3×10¹³ cm⁻², N_T=5.7×10¹⁷ cm⁻³ for a fluence of 1×10¹⁴ cm⁻² and E_T=95 meV were also obtained from the same fitting. The new defect, which acted as an electron trap, was due to proton irradiation, and the defect density was increased with proton fluence.     

Transformation of skin from larval to adult types in normally metamorphosing and metamorphosis-arrested salamander, Hynobius retardatus

Transformation of skin from larval to adult types in a salamander, Hynobius retardatus, which had been reported to show neotenic reproduction in a specific environment, was examined morphologically in normally metamorphosing, precociously metamorphosing and metamorphosis-arrested larvae. Typical larval skin was composed of an epidermis constituted by three types of cells such as apical, Leydig, and basal cells. The Leydig cells were larval specific, and thus disappeared and were replaced by adult epidermal cells during the metamorphosis. Disappearance of the Leydig cells was accomplished by apoptosis as confirmed by the terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP-biotin nick-end-labeling method and electron microscopy during the normal metamorphosis and precocious metamorphosis induced by exogenously applied triiodothyronine. Typical adult skin was composed of epidermis constituted by stratified squamous cells and of dermis mainly occupied with two types of dermal glands, mucous and serous glands. When the metamorphosis was arrested by different procedures (thyroidectomy, hypophysectomy, goitrogen treatment, and rearing at low temperature), the larval-specific Leydig cells fully remained in the epidermis, suggesting that the disappearance of these depended on the thyroid activity. Contrary to this, dermal glands behaved differently from the Leydig cells, though they developed and differentiated from epidermal basal cells and constituted the same skin. Those in the metamorphosis-arrested (thyroidectomized, hypophysectomized, or goitrogen-treated) larvae, except in the larvae reared at 4 degrees C, appeared a little later than in the controls. Thus, the aged, metamorphosis-arrested larvae had skin which consisted of larval type epidermis (Leydig cells) and adult type dermis (mucous and serous glands).     

A method for detecting service interactions

A method for detecting interactions among services and service features in communication systems is proposed. The method uses three types of knowledge: knowledge for clarifying and completing the specification of each feature, knowledge for identifying the implicit relationships among the features, and knowledge for detecting the interactions from the extended feature specifications derived from the first two types of knowledge. Six types of nontrivial interaction are outlined     

Stacking number dependence of size distribution of vertically stacked InAs/GaAs quantum dots

Vertically stacked layer structure is useful for controlling the size distribution of quantum dots. The dependence of the size distribution of quantum dots on the stacking numbers is theoretically and experimentally investigated. We show that the size distribution of quantum dots decreases with increasing the stacking number, and it occurs drastically when the stacking number is changed from 1 to 2. The quantitative analysis on in-plane strain energy distribution is also performed for the explanation.