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Objective Long-term outcomes of patients with ruptured hepatocellular carcinoma (rHCC) remain scant. This study aimed to assess disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) after surgical resection of rHCC compared to non-ruptured HCC (nrHCC). Methods Patients with rHCC and nrHCC were collected from 8 centers in Europe, Asia, and North America. Resected rHCC patients were matched 1:1 to patients undergoing surgery for nrHCC using propensity score and nearest-neighbor method (matching criteria: age, tumor size, cirrhosis, Child-Pugh score, Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer stage, resection status, grade, and microvascular invasion). Survival rates were calculated using Kaplan-Meier method. Results A total of 2033 patients were included: 226 rHCC patients (172 operated: 68 with upfront surgery and 104 after embolization) and 1807 nrHCC patients. Median DFS and OS of rHCC patients (all treatments confounded) were 10 months (95% CI 7–13) and 22 months (95% CI 13–31). Prognostic factors for worse OS among rHCC patients were absence of preoperative arterial embolization (HR 2.3, 95% CI 1.2–4.6, p=0.016), cirrhosis Child B/C (HR 2.4, 95% CI 1.1–5.4, p=0.040), and R1/R2 margins (HR 2, 95% CI 1–5, p=0.049). Survivals were similar between Western and Eastern rHCC patients. After propensity score matching, 106 rHCC patients and 106 nrHCC patients displayed similar characteristics. Patients with rHCC had shorter median DFS (12 months, 95% CI 7–17 vs. 22 months, 95% CI 12–32, p=0.011), but similar median OS compared to nrHCC patients (43 months, 95% CI 21–65 vs. 63 months, 95% CI 21–105, p=0.060). Conclusion In this large dataset including Eastern and Western patients, rHCC was associated with shorter DFS compared to nrHCC, while OS was similar.

The luminous flux and temperature characteristics of InGaN-based white light-emitting diodes (LEDs) intended for automotive headlamps were greatly enhanced by bonding a yellow phosphor to the LED chip using surface activated bonding. The performance of these LEDs was found to be suitable for use as headlamps.

Background Human epidermal growth factor 2 (HER2) is a potential driver oncogene. Although HER2-targeted precision therapy has been tested in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the demographic characteristics of HER2-positive NSCLC have not been systematically defined. Methods Patients with pathologically confirmed stage IIIB/IV or recurrent NSCLC, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status 0 to 2, were prospectively registered. HER2 immunohistochemistry (IHC) and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) assays were performed to screen patients. HER2 mutations were identified by using direct gene sequencing. The aim of this study was to clarify the frequency, characteristics, and outcome of HER2-positive NSCLC. HER2 was defined as positive if the tumor harbored IHC3+, IHC2+/FISH+, or exon 20 insertion mutations. Results Of the 1,126 tumors screened, 34 (3.0%) were IHC3+, and 34 (3.0%) were IHC2+/FISH+. Among the 724 epidermal growth factor receptor wild-type tumors, 21 (2.9%) were HER2-mutant tumors, including A775-G776insYVMA (n = 15). Interestingly, the IHC3+ tumors and mutant tumors were entirely exclusive. Female patients had HER2-mutant tumors more frequently, whereas both IHC3+ and IHC2+/FISH+ tumors were detected more often in male subjects and smokers. Patients with an HER2-aberrant tumor had a significantly worse prognosis than those with epidermal growth factor receptor-positive and anaplastic lymphoma kinase-positive tumors, possibly due to the low proportion that received HER2-targeted therapies (n = 15 [26%]) and low response rates of 0% and 14% in patients with HER2-overexpressing and HER2-mutant tumors, respectively. Conclusions This prospective large-scale cohort study is the first to show comprehensively the frequency and clinical demographic characteristics of those with HER2-positive advanced lung tumors in detail, providing critical historical data for future drug development against HER2-positive NSCLC. Future treatment strategies would be developed stratified according to the types of HER2 aberrations. Trial Registry UMIN Registration No. 000017003; URL: https://upload.umin.ac.jp/cgi-open-bin/ctr_e/ctr_view.cgi?recptno=R000019691

It is not known whether perioperative chemotherapy, compared with adjuvant chemotherapy alone, improves disease-free survival (DFS) in patients with upfront resectable colorectal liver metastases (CLM). The aim of this study was to estimate the impact of neoadjuvant 5-fluorouracil, leucovorin and oxaliplatin (FOLFOX) on DFS in patients with upfront resectable CLM.Consecutive patients who presented with up to five resectable CLM at two Japanese and two French centres in 2008-2015 were included in the study. Both French institutions favoured perioperative FOLFOX, whereas the two Japanese groups systematically preferred upfront surgery plus adjuvant chemotherapy. Inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) and Cox regression multivariable models were used to adjust for confounding. The primary outcome was DFS.Some 300 patients were included: 151 received perioperative chemotherapy and 149 had upfront surgery plus adjuvant chemotherapy. The weighted 3-year DFS rate was 33·5 per cent after perioperative chemotherapy compared with 27·1 per cent after upfront surgery plus adjuvant chemotherapy (hazard ratio (HR) 0·85, 95 per cent c.i. 0·62 to 1·16;Compared with adjuvant chemotherapy, perioperative FOLFOX does not improve DFS in patients with resectable CLM, provided adjuvant chemotherapy is given successfully.Se desconoce si la quimioterapia perioperatoria en comparación con la quimioterapia adyuvante sola mejora la supervivencia libre de enfermedad (Se incluyeron pacientes consecutivos que presentaban hasta cinco CLM resecables en dos centros japoneses y dos centros franceses entre 2008 a 2015. Ambas instituciones francesas favorecían FOLFOX perioperatorio, mientras que los dos grupos japoneses utilizaban sistemáticamente la cirugía de entrada y quimioterapia adyuvante. Se utilizaron la probabilidad inversa del tratamiento ponderado (Se incluyeron 300 pacientes (grupo de quimioterapia perioperatoriaEn comparación con la quimioterapia adyuvante, el FOLFOX perioperatorio no mejora la DFS en CLM resecables siempre y cuando la quimioterapia adyuvante se administre de forma efectiva.

We have implemented laser Thomson scattering for local plasma measurement of electron and ion temperatures, electron density, flow velocity, and charge state. The electron density increases by two times in the interaction of two plasma flows, indicating collisionless interaction. The density and velocity show fluctuations only at t = 40 ns, and the density suddenly decreases, indicating the plasma ejection from the interaction region, which can be explained by a magnetic reconnection. The electron temperature in the double-flow is larger than that in the single flow. This may be explained by the energy transfer from the plasma kinetic energy to thermal energy. The ion temperature is much larger than electron temperature in the double-flow, and this may be explained by collisional effects between two plasmas, and/or possibly interpreted as a thermalization due to magnetic reconnection.

We report an experimental investigation of the magnetic field effect (MFE) in polymer bulk heterojunction devices at temperatures below 10 K using photocarrier extraction by linearly increasing voltages. The examined devices were composed of an active layer of poly(3-hexylthiophene) and [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester. In the experiments, the delay time (td) dependence of the MFE was investigated in detail. For td 0.2 T. For td > 8 ms, only a positive MFE proportional to B2 was observed. For the photocurrent pulse detected immediately after light irradiation, the MFE was negligibly small. In a high magnetic field of 15 T, a significant MFE exceeding 80% was observed at 1.8 K for td = 800 ms. We discuss the results based on a model of triplet–singlet (or singlet–triplet) conversion in the magnetic field and estimate the exchange integral for the charge-transfer exciton in this photovoltaic cell.

The first fossil record of Duboisia (Boselaphini, Bovidae) from Thailand confirms that this genus is no longer endemic to Java, Indonesia. The new fossil material is a calvarium with horn cores (older than the Middle Pleistocene) collected from a sandpit at Tha Chang, Nakhon Ratchasima Province, north-eastern Thailand. The present specimen is provisionally allocated to a species of Duboisia aff. D. santeng, which has weaker precornual ridges and anterior keels on the horn cores than D. santeng from Early and Middle Pleistocene deposits of Java, but these species share basic characteristics of horn cores as follows: the lower half inclined backwards; the upper half curved upwards; cross section rounded triangular, antero-posteriorly compressed, and with medial and lateral keels. Morphological similarities between D. aff. santeng and D. santeng support a strong faunal interchange between continental South East Asia and Java before the Middle Pleistocene, and suggest that the genus Duboisia diverged from the other genera of Boselaphini in the “Siva-Malayan” region.

Lande g-factor which characterizes the response of electrons to external magnetic field is one of the most important factors in semiconductor opto-magnetic effects. In this report effects of quantum confinements on the electron g-factor in semiconductor quantum wells are discussed. First we introduce Ivchenko's method of calculating g-factor based on k・p high-order perturbation method. Then we examine a simplified k・p method to obtain g-factor in quantum wells. It is found that the simplified method exhibits a good agreement with the experimental trends not only in the unstrained QWs but also in strained QWs.

Summary We report a case of chromomycosis caused by Fonsecaea pedrosoi that developed in the left buttock of a 63-year-old female farmer. About 4 years ago, the patient developed erythema in the left buttock, which gradually spread. At the first consultation, we noted a well-defined, red-brown, infiltrated erythematous plaque (8 × 6 cm). Histopathological examination revealed a granulomatous lesion, containing sclerotic cells, associated with giant cells in the upper dermis. The causative fungus was difficult to identify due to low conidiogenesis, but was eventually identified by slide culture as F. pedrosoi. Excision and skin graft were performed, and no recurrence has been observed after 2 years. In Japan, 212 cases of dematiaceous fungal infection were reported in the period from 1982 to 2001. The causative fungus was F. pedrosoi in the majority of cases (126/212; 66%), followed by Exophiala jeanselmei (36/212; 19%). Similar incidence of dematiaceous fungal infection was reported in male and female patients. The upper limbs were affected most frequently in both male and female patients. Ten cases were associated with visceral lesions.

Second harmonic plasma breakdown using electron cyclotron (EC) waves has been studied experimentally in the helical-heliotron device Heliotron J. The magnetic field and the injected EC beam parameters such as power, polarization and injection angle are scanned. The experimental results show that the plasma starts up around the crossing point between the injected EC beam and the resonance layer. The initial plasma moves as the crossing point is shifted. The breakdown is earliest when the beam crosses the resonant layer around the magnetic axis with the X-mode polarization. These results indicate that the single pass absorption has the dominant role on the breakdown rather than the multi-reflection absorption, although the linear absorption is quite low. The bumpiness component in the magnetic field spectrum is also scanned from negative to positive values with the resonance located on-axis. The breakdown is most delayed when the bumpiness component is zero, suggesting that the confinement of accelerated electrons is important.

Considering the frequent changes in market needs, real-time production management will produce huge additional value for manufacturers. As scheduling of shop floor operations is a local and partial decision in enterprises, the distributed local scheduling problems should be integrated at the enterprise level. Since decisions at the shop floor are very valuable, the next generation of production management will be performed as a decentralized system. This paper proposes architecture for scheduling-intensive production management. In the architecture, referred to as collaborative agents for production planning and scheduling, system integration is only achieved by communication among agents, i.e. a system is composed of loose connections between agents. As an implementation method, the paper introduces a standard specification for the communications among agents. The specification is recommended by PSLX, the Japan-based consortium for production planning and scheduling. The paper also shows some emerging bu...

Spontaneous transition of the plasma confinement mode was observed in the helical-axis heliotron device Heliotron J for three different plasma heating schemes, i.e. ECH-only, NBI-only and the combination of ECH and NBI. The transition seems to occur above a certain critical density. In addition to the confinement transition, a spontaneous shift of the hitting position of the divertor plasma flux on the wall was observed. This shift could be related with the change of the edge field topology caused by non-inductive toroidal currents.

This note considers the swinging up of a cart-pendulum system with viscous friction by energy control. An experimental result indicates that a complete swinging up of the pendulum cannot be achieved by the control strategy of Lozano et al. when the effects of the friction are not negligible. It is shown that the performance is improved when a slight modification is introduced to the control algorithm by cancellation of the friction term in the closed-loop equation of the pendulum. The effectiveness of the proposed controller is demonstrated experimentally.

The plasma confinement properties of Heliotron J plasmas and the toroidal current are investigated. A plasma energy of 2.5 kJ has been achieved by 70 GHz‐0.35 MW electron cyclotron heating (ECH). The energy confinement time is within the expected values as determined by the stellarator scaling law. In the high density region, however, better confinement plasmas are observed. The transition phenomena characterized by Hα signal drop are sometimes observed in such a region. The toroidal current generally affects plasma confinement since it generates a poloidal magnetic field. From this point of view, toroidal current control is studied in terms of field-component variation and electron cyclotron current drive. The zero current condition is found in the inner vertical field scan. Current control using the electron cyclotron wave is also demonstrated.

Studies of global energy confinement and toroidal plasma current behaviour for the second harmonic 70 GHz ECH at B = 1–1.5 T are described with emphasis on the magnetic configuration effects in the helical-axis heliotron 'Heliotron J'. At low densities of , the electron temperature reached Te ≈ 1 keV in the core region, indicating the production of collision-less plasmas of electron collisionality ν* 0.1, where ν* = ν/(ve/π R0q). For medium densities of , the preferable energy confinement time, 1.5–2 times larger than that of the ISS95 scaling, was obtained under the condition of localized central heating at B ≈ 1.25 T for the standard configuration of Heliotron J. The measurements of the toroidal current under perpendicular microwave injection revealed the change of the current flow direction as a function of the poloidal magnetic field. The measured current behaviour was found to be qualitatively consistent with that of the bootstrap current predicted from neoclassical theory. The observed flow reversal showed that a proper selection of the field configuration could control the bootstrap current in the helical-axis heliotron. In addition, the current control through the electron cyclotron current drive scenario with oblique injection of microwaves was experimentally examined.

Ferroelectric thin films have been widely expected for nonvolatile ferroelectric random access memory (FeRAM) application. Production process of depositing Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (PZT) thin films has been developed by using RF-magnetron sputtering method. It is very important to study stability of Pb content in the PZT films, uniformity of film thickness on large (8 in.) substrate and maintenance periodicity of the sputtering chamber (coping with particles) for the production. The stability for 1000 wafer deposition and the thickness uniformity of 5% were realized. Improving the sputtering equipment, the shield life until particle-break-out became long.

Structural changes in GaN layers grown by electron–cyclotron-resonance plasma-excited molecular beam epitaxy using hydrogen–nitrogen mixed plasma were investigated. A columnar structure with a faceted surface and stacking faults was observed in a GaN layer grown with hydrogen, indicating the growth mode of GaN changed from two-dimensional layer growth to three-dimensional columnar growth by using hydrogen–nitrogen mixed plasma. At the early stage of the GaN growth, island growth with a mesa shape occurred. The effects of hydrogen on the structure of GaN are discussed and the growth mechanism of the columnar structure in the GaN layers grown with hydrogen is proposed.

This paper presents a full-wave analysis of a ground penetrating radar (GPR) using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The antenna treated here consists of a resistor-loaded bow-tie antenna, which is covered with a rectangular conducting cavity of which inner walls are coated partially or fully with ferrite absorber. Some techniques are introduced into the FDTD analysis to obtain the accurate results and to save the computer resources. The validity of the FDTD analysis is confirmed experimentally. Furthermore, the effects of the ferrite absorber on the GPR characteristics are theoretically investigated in detail. The FDTD results indicate that the remarkable improvement of the antenna characteristics for the GPR system cannot be attained by the ferrite absorber.

CD40 ligand (CD40-L), a member of the tumor necrosis family of transmembrane glycoproteins, is rapidly and transiently expressed on the surface of recently activated CD4+ T cells. Interactions between CD40-L and CD40 induce B cell immunoglobulin production as well as monocyte activation and dendritic cell differentiation. Since these features characterize rheumatoid arthritis (RA), the expression and function of CD40-L in RA was examined. Freshly isolated RA peripheral blood (PB) and synovial fluid (SF) T cells expressed CD40-L mRNA as well as low level cell surface CD40-L. An additional subset of CD4+ RA SF T cells upregulated cell surface CD40-L expression within 15 min of in vitro activation even in the presence of cycloheximide, but soluble CD40-L was not found in SF. CD40-L expressed by RA T cells was functional, since RA PB and SF T cells but not normal PB T cells stimulated CD40-L-dependent B cell immunoglobulin production and dendritic cell IL-12 expression in the absence of prolonged in vitro T cell activation. In view of the diverse proinflammatory effects of CD40-L, this molecule is likely to play a central role in the perpetuation of rheumatoid synovitis. Of importance, blockade of CD40-L may prove highly effective as a disease modifying therapy for RA.

Deficient CD40 ligand (CD40L) expression by neonatal T cells has been proposed to explain the diminished Ig production by newborns. Therefore, we examined the expression and function of CD40L on activated neonatal CD4+ T cells isolated from cord blood. Anti-CD3 activation of neonatal T cells resulted in the expression of CD40L demonstrated with specific mAb or a soluble CD40.G1 construct. The level of expression was comparable to that of adult memory CD4+ T cells. In contrast, PMA and ionomycin induced only minimal CD40L expression by neonatal T cells, whereas adult memory T cells expressed CD40L comparably after stimulation with PMA and ionomycin or anti-CD3. The expression of CD40L was blocked by cyclosporine and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2). IL-2 IL-4 partially reversed the inhibition of CD40L expression by cyclosporine, and IL-2 reversed the inhibition by PGE2. CD40L expressed by neonatal T cells was functionally active, since neonatal T cell-dependent production of IgG4 and IgE was inhibited by a soluble CD40.G1 construct. Moreover, neonatal T cells supported the secretion of significantly more IgG, IgA, and IgE than CD40L-deficient hyper-IgM T cell clones. In addition, neonatal CD4+ T cells induced CD86 B7-2) expression by neonatal B cells that was blocked by anti-CD40L but not by control mAb. The results indicate that neonatal T cells activated through the TCR/CD3 complex express CD40L and use it to promote CD86 expression, Ig secretion and heavy chain isotype switching by neonatal B cells.

To assess the potential of CD40 ligand (CD40L) and the related molecules CD27 ligand (CD27), CD30 ligand (CD30L), and membrane TNF-alpha to stimulate B cell responses, expression of these proteins in the baculovirus system was performed. Sf9 cells expressing these membrane molecules were cultured with normal human B cells and a variety of B cell lines to assess the functional outcome. The signal provided by CD40L promotes aggregation of B cells, stimulates vigorous proliferation, and induces germ-line transcription of downstream heavy chain constant region genes in the absence of cytokine costimulation. In contrast, CD27L, CD30L, and TNF-alpha had no effects on B cell proliferation. CD27L and TNF-alpha had no effect on the induction of germ-line transcripts, whereas CD30L consistently inhibited constitutive and CD40L-induced germ-line transcription of the epsilon gene by B cell lines that express CD30. These results demonstrate the various members of the TNF family exert specific effects on human B cell function, with CD40L and CD30L providing powerful, but opposing, effects on l epsilon transcription.