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The identity of the nitric oxide synthase (NOS) isoform expressed in freshly dispersed rabbit gastric smooth muscle cells and in cultured rabbit gastric, human intestinal and guinea pig taenia coli smooth muscle cells was determined. Findings indicate the presence of a constitutive NOS in smooth muscle cells of the intestines in various species, except for guinea pig taenia coli.

In neurosurgery, surgeons sometimes retract brain tissue to prepare an operating field around a lesion. In addition, they are required to plan a safe surgical pathway for deep-brain regions while considering tissue damage caused by excessive stress. The goal of this study is to develop a technique for automatically generating a surgery pathway for lesions in the deep-brain region, focusing on securing an operating field around the lesion as a first step and also considering brain tissue deformation. In previous studies, securing the operating field has been treated as a single-objective optimization problem in order to maximize the viewable area of the lesion. However, in this study, the task of securing the operating field is formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem. Using a technique that combines finite element analysis and an optimization method, the principal stress on the brain is constrained to less than a certain threshold value, and the position and orientation of the surgical instrument are optimized for safe retraction of the brain according to various weighting factors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: ABO-mismatched transfusions caused by human error are among the most serious problems in transfusion therapy. The major cause is misidentification of a recipient or a blood component at the bedside.Study Design and Methods: A network computer-assisted transfusion-management system has been developed with bar coding as a fail-safe/fool-proof system for accurate component-recipient identification at the bedside, which allows us to monitor the usage of blood components in real time. The efficacy of this system was evaluated to prevent human errors by monitoring the transfusion process via the network and analyzing voluntary and mandatory reports with regard to transfusion errors over a 3-year period. The crossmatch-to-transfusion ratio for operations and outdate rate of RBCs were calculated to assess economic benefit.Results: More than 60,000 blood components have been transfused perfectly to the intended recipients via the network, and one human error was prevented by the system. After establishment of the network system, the crossmatch-to-transfusion ratio for operations and outdate rate of RBCs have been gradually reduced from around 2.5 to 1.8 and from 3.9 to 0.32 percent, respectively.Conclusion: The network computer-assisted management system greatly contributes to safe and efficient transfusion therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]