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When we decommission a reactor building, it is essential to identify the radiation source distribution for safety. It has been reported that the source distribution can be predicted from the measured air dose rates at appropriate observation points by minimizing an evaluation function using the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO). However, it is challenging to decide on suitable points in advance. Therefore, we estimate the posterior distribution from the prior distribution of the source amounts, calculated by the standard LASSO, using the Bayesian LASSO. We then assess the predictive distribution of the air dose rates at the candidate observation points from the posterior distribution. We select the additional observation points based on the variances of the predictive distributions. We confirmed that the method can estimate the source distribution with fewer additional observation points than when adding them randomly in most cases.

Background: The risk of coronary artery disease in peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is high, life prognosis is poor, and lipid-lowering treatment with statins has been reported to improve prognosis. In clinical practice, however, hypolipidemia is more common in patients with severe PAD and statin prescription rates appear to be low, but specific data are scarce in Japan. Therefore, we conducted this cross-sectional study in collaboration with other centers of vascular surgery to determine the rate of statin prescriptions for PAD patients in real-world practice, the rate of achievement of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol control targets, and whether statin non-use is a determinant factor of critical limb ischemia (CLI)., Methods: A total of 246 PAD patients (97 with CLI) from 5 sites were included in this study. Medical history and blood test data were obtained from medical records and interviews with patients, and were compared between CLI and non-CLI patients., Results: Statin prescription rate was only 34 %. The overall LDL cholesterol control target rate was 46 % of CLI cases and 51 % of non-CLI cases, according to the lipid management criteria of the Japanese Society for Atherosclerosis 2022 guidelines. Patients in the CLI group had a lower mean body mass index and lower LDL cholesterol levels than those in the non-CLI group, suggesting that these factors were responsible for the lower statin prescription rate. However, multivariate analysis revealed that statin non-use was one of the determinants of CLI., Conclusions: Statin prescription rates for PAD patients were low in real-world practice settings in the field of vascular surgery. Since statin non-use is a determinant of CLI, there is a need to educate physicians engaged in treatment regarding lipid-lowering treatment with statins., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest Masatsune Ogura has received lecture fees from Kowa and Amgen. The remaining authors have no competing interests to declare., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Cell competition in epithelial tissue eliminates transformed cells expressing activated oncoproteins to maintain epithelial homeostasis. Although the process is now understood to be of mechanochemical origin, direct mechanical characterization and associated biochemical underpinnings are lacking. Here, we employ tissue-scale stress and compressibility measurements and theoretical modeling to unveil a mechanical imbalance between normal and transformed cells, which drives cell competition. In the mouse intestinal epithelium and epithelial monolayer, transformed cells get compacted during competition. Stress microscopy reveals an emergent compressive stress at the transformed loci leading to this compaction. A cell-based self-propelled Voronoi model predicts that this compressive stress originates from a difference in the collective compressibility of the competing populations. A new collective compressibility measurement technique named gel compression microscopy then elucidates a two-fold higher compressibility of the transformed population than the normal population. Mechanistically, weakened cell-cell adhesions due to reduced junctional abundance of E-cadherin in the transformed cells render them collectively more compressible than normal cells. Taken together, our findings unveil a mechanical basis for epithelial homeostasis against oncogenic transformations with implications in epithelial defense against cancer., Competing Interests: Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests.

Introduction: Patients undergoing hemodialysis are at an increased risk of peripheral arterial disease, amputation of lower extremities, and decline of activities of daily living. Although a prosthesis is used to support activities of daily living, no previous study reported the association of prosthesis use with the change in activities of daily living following leg amputation in hemodialysis patients. The purpose of this study was to compare the changes in activities of daily living following amputation between those who created a prosthesis and those who did not., Methods: This study was a single-center, retrospective observational study. We screened medical records for hemodialysis patients who underwent below-knee amputation (BKA) and activities of daily living were examined two times with the functional independence measure (FIM) before BKA and at discharge. They were divided into two groups according to the creation of a prosthesis., Findings: We identified 28 eligible patients, among whom 12 patients used a prosthesis (prosthesis group), whereas 16 patients did not (non-prosthesis group). The FIM score was significantly decreased following BKA in the non-prosthesis group, whereas it was not significantly changed in the prosthesis group. The change in FIM score was significantly different between the two groups, and the difference remained significant after considering potential confounders., Discussion: The results of this study showed that use versus nonuse of a prosthesis was an independent factor associated with changes in activities of daily living in hemodialysis patients following BKA, supporting the important role of a prosthesis in maintaining activities of daily living in hemodialysis patients who need BKA., (© 2023 International Society for Hemodialysis.)