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Tomoko Tajiri,1 Motohiko Suzuki,2,3 Takeo Kutsuna,4 Hirono Nishiyama,1 Keima Ito,1 Norihisa Takeda,1 Kensuke Fukumitsu,1 Yoshihiro Kanemitsu,1 Satoshi Fukuda,1 Takehiro Umemura,1 Hirotsugu Ohkubo,1 Ken Maeno,1 Yutaka Ito,1 Tetsuya Oguri,1 Masaya Takemura,1 Kosho Yoshikawa,4 Akio Niimi1 1Department of Respiratory Medicine, Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Nagoya City University, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan; 2Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Nagoya City University, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan; 3Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Nagoya City East Medical Center, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan; 4Department of Respiratory Medicine, Daido Hospital, Nagoya, Aichi, JapanCorrespondence: Tomoko Tajiri, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Nagoya City University, 1 Kawasumi, Mizuho-cho, Mizuho-ku, Nagoya, Aichi, 467-8601, Japan, Tel +81-52-853-8216, Email tomokot@med.nagoya-cu.ac.jpObjective: Omalizumab has demonstrated clinical efficacy in patients with severe allergic asthma sensitized to perennial allergens and/or severe pollinosis through inhibition of IgE-dependent allergic response. When considering the “one airway, one disease” concept, sensitization to pollen could predict responsiveness to omalizumab. This study aimed to assess whether the pretreatment specific IgE response could be a predictor of responsiveness to omalizumab in severe allergic asthma sensitized to perennial allergens.Methods: In this retrospective study, 41 adult patients with severe allergic asthma sensitized to perennial allergens (27 females; mean age 59 years) who had completed 52-week omalizumab treatment were enrolled. The Global Evaluation of Treatment Effectiveness was performed, and demographic characteristics and the positive ratios of specific IgE responses classified into five subgroups (pollen, dust mite, house dust, mold, and animal dander) were compared between responders and non-responders. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to identify predictors of responsiveness to omalizumab.Results: Thirty-one patients (76%) were identified as responders. The number of sensitized aeroallergen subgroups and sensitization to pollens were significantly higher in responders than in non-responders (both p< 0.05). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that sensitization to pollen (OR = 8.41, p = 0.02) was independently associated with the effectiveness of omalizumab.Conclusion: Pretreatment serum pollen-specific IgE could be a predictor of responsiveness to omalizumab.Keywords: omalizumab, antigen-specific IgE, pollen, allergic rhinitis, allergic asthma

Keima Ito,1 Tomoko Tajiri,1 Hirono Nishiyama,1 Ryota Kurokawa,1 Jenifer Maries Go Yap,1 Norihisa Takeda,1 Kensuke Fukumitsu,1 Yoshihiro Kanemitsu,1 Satoshi Fukuda,1 Takehiro Uemura,1 Hirotsugu Ohkubo,1 Ken Maeno,1 Yutaka Ito,1 Tetsuya Oguri,1,2 Masaya Takemura,1,2 Akio Niimi1 1Department of Respiratory Medicine, Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Nagoya City University Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Nagoya, Japan; 2Department of Education and Research Center for Community Medicine, Nagoya City University Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Nagoya, JapanCorrespondence: Tomoko Tajiri, Email tomokot@med.nagoya-cu.ac.jpPurpose: Recently, single-inhaler triple therapy (SITT) has demonstrated efficacy in patients with uncontrolled asthma who were symptomatic despite treatment with inhaled corticosteroids/long-acting β 2 agonists. However, the characteristics of patients who benefit from SITT remain unclear in the real-world. The aim of this study was to examine the predictors of responsiveness to SITT in patients with asthma.Patients and Methods: A total of 45 patients with asthma who had regularly visited our respiratory clinic and were started on SITT from March 2019 to March 2021 were retrospectively analyzed. Patients’ demographic characteristics, residual respiratory symptoms, type 2 biomarkers, and lung function before SITT were assessed from the patients’ medical records. Predictors of responsiveness to four-week SITT were evaluated in these patients. The definition of responders was based on the physician-assessed global evaluation of treatment effectiveness.Results: Thirty-four (75%) of 45 patients were identified as responders to SITT. Non-responders showed significantly lower forced vital capacity (FVC) (%predicted) values, and complained of dyspnea more frequently than responders before SITT (p = 0.01 and p = 0.02, respectively). There were no significant differences in demographic characteristics and type 2 biomarkers between responders and non-responders. Clinical predictors of poor response to SITT were residual dyspnea (OR = 0.14, p = 0.02), low FVC (%predicted) values (OR = 1.05, p = 0.01), and FVC (%predicted) < 80% (OR = 0.11, p = 0.02). Multivariate analysis showed that poor response to SITT was associated with residual dyspnea before SITT (OR = 0.14, p = 0.02). On the other hand, patients with residual dyspnea had significantly lower FEF25– 75 (%predicted) values than patients without residual dyspnea before SITT (p = 0.04).Conclusion: Residual dyspnea, reflecting small airways dysfunction, may predict poor responsiveness to short-term SITT in patients with asthma.Keywords: single-inhaler triple therapy, long-acting muscarinic antagonists, asthma, small airways dysfunction, dyspnea

A new X-ray stress measuring technique, namely the pseudo-ψ angle-changing method, has been developed to measure the circumferential stress on a round corner located at the bottom of a deep groove such as the tooth root of a gear or the cold-rolled fillet of a crankshaft. This is a multiple-point measurement technique applicable to a curved surface having a uniform stress state. An X-ray path is taken in the plane that does not intersect the sidewalls near the corner. Instead of ψ rotation, the irradiation position is changed along the circumference of the corner with the specimen's attitude against the X-ray path unchanged; diffraction angles at ψ&VeryThinSpace;&VeryThinSpace;=&VeryThinSpace;&VeryThinSpace;0° are measured for different positions of the corner. The position change causes a shift in the diffraction peak since the irradiated area forming a part of the round corner has a different angle of inclination to the incident X-rays. The circumferential stress on the corner is obtained from the relation between the irradiation position and the diffraction angle at ψ&VeryThinSpace;&VeryThinSpace;=&VeryThinSpace;&VeryThinSpace;0°. The validity of this method was verified by applying this technique and the conventional method to model specimens of a rack and a gear having an almost uniform residual stress state introduced by sand blasting, and comparing the stresses measured by the two different methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The High-Intensity Proton Accelerator Project, named J-PARC, is in progress, with the aim of enabling studies on the latest basic science and the advancement of nuclear technology. In the project, a high-energy proton accelerator complex with the world's highest instantaneous intensity is under construction. In order to establish a reasonable shielding design, both simplified and detailed design methods were used in the shielding design of J-PARC. This paper reviews the present status of the radiation safety design study for J-PARC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new measuring technique utilizing X-ray diffraction is proposed in order to estimate the circumferential distributions of residual stresses on convex/concave cylindrical surfaces. This technique requires neither tilting X-ray beams in the circumferential direction in which the X-ray incident angle tends to be limited nor adjusting the normal of the irradiation area to the reference axis of the ψ angle. The circumferential distributions of the circumferential stress and of the axial stress are estimated from the diffraction angles at ψ = 0° and the axial stresses obtained by the stress measurement on multiple inclined areas on the cylindrical surfaces under the configuration of the axial stress measurement using the iso-inclination scanning method. This estimate technique was applied to two round bars of steel, one with circumferential distributions of the residual stresses and the other with almost uniform stresses. The distribution functions of the residual stresses were expanded to a couple of Fourier series, and the coefficients of them were determined by the least-squares method. The estimated distributions of the residual stresses were in good agreement with the actual ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A new method - the irradiation size-changing technique - is proposed to estimate the circumferential stress on a cylindrical surface without tilting X-ray beams in the circumferential direction. In this method, the X-ray path is restricted in the plane, including the central axis of the cylinder, and the diffraction angles at the ψ angle of zero degree are measured for various X-ray irradiation areas with different circumferential sizes instead of measuring diffraction angles at various ψ angles. The circumferential stress is calculated from the estimation formula showing the relation between the stress, the diffraction angle and the irradiation size; the formula is obtained on the basis of the weighted average of the diffraction peak angle expressed as the function of the stress, irradiation size, the radius of curvature, the absorption factor and ψ angle by considering the translational effect, the rotational effect and the absorption effect. In the formula, an approximately linear relationship is established between the circumferential stress and the shifting rate of the diffraction peak at the ψ angle of zero degree with the square of the normalized irradiation size (a ratio of the irradiation size to the radius of curvature). The proportional constant depends on materials, characteristic X-rays, radii of curvature and surface configurations (convex or concave); when the radius of curvature is larger than about 2 mm, the proportional constant is almost independent of these conditions. The verification was done with a convex cylinder; the circumferential residual stress on a round bar of spheroidized carbon tool steel was measured by using this new method and the conventional technique respectively. The stresses evaluated by these two methods were in good agreement. The accuracy of the estimation and the restriction on the application of the estimate formulae were shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]