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The reconstruction technique of the human anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) has been improved in the last decade. Current ACL reconstruction surgery aims to make femoral bone tunnels for graft fixation as close to the anatomical position of the ACL insertion site; the posterior-superior border of the lateral wall of the intercondylar notch of the femur1,2). Such a surgical technique is called “anatomical ACL reconstruction”. Biomechanical studies indicated that joint stability is highly restored in the anatomical ACL reconstruction as compared with the conventional ACL reconstruction3). In addition, the cortical bone beneath the ACL attachment site is thicker4), therefore it is beneficial to use the area for graft fixation. In order to succeed the anatomical ACL reconstruction, it is the most crucial to microscopically identify the anatomical site of the ACL insertion site. Previous studies indicated that the Resident’s ridge is located just anterior to the ACL femoral attachment4–6), therefore, can be used as a reference landmark for the anatomical ACL reconstruction. Although the Resident’s ridge seems to win endorsements of the role in the ACL reconstruction, no explanation was proposed so far as regard with the reason for ridge formation. The author believes that the formation of the Resident’s ridge can be biomechanically explained. Therefore, the objective of the present study was to propose a biomechanical hypothesis as regard with the Resident’s ridge formation, and to validate the hypothesis through a finite element method (FEM) analysis of ACL force-induced bone remodeling.Copyright © 2011 by ASME

Background Large volumes of lymph can be collected from the eye-sacs of bubble-eye goldfish. We attempted to induce vitellogenin (Vtg) in the eye-sac lymph of bubble-eye goldfish and develop a method for visualizing Vtg incorporation by zebrafish oocytes using FITC-labeling. Methods Estrogen efficiently induced Vtg in the eye-sac lymph of goldfish. After FITC-labeled Vtg was prepared, it was injected into mature female zebrafish. Results Incorporation of FITC-labeled Vtg by zebrafish oocytes was detected in in vivo and in vitro experiments. The embryos obtained from zebrafish females injected with FITC-labeled Vtg emitted FITC fluorescence from the yolk sac and developed normally. Conclusion This method for achieving Vtg incorporation by zebrafish oocytes could be useful in experiments related to the development and endocrinology of zebrafish oocytes.

ES-CN to the same extent: ICP/MAP at 10Hz ES-CN was 20.9 1.3 % after iv vehicle, 25.3 3.3 % (P 0.001) after iv vardenafil, and 26.3 4.9 % and 26.6 5.2 % after BAY 60-4552 0.03 mg/kg (P 0.01) and 0.3 mg/kg (P 0.001) respectively. The combined iv administration of vardenafil and BAY 60-4552 in CN crushed rats exerted additive effects and totally restored erectile responses to ES-CN equivalent to sham rats ( ICP/MAP at 10Hz ES-CN : 34.0 4.4 % after BAY 604552/vardenafil combination vs 39.2 3.7 % in sham rats, ns). CONCLUSIONS: The present study supports the concept that the combined administration of a sGC stimulator, BAY 60-4552 and vardenafil provides synergistic beneficial effects and might therefore salvage patients with insufficient response to PDE5 inhibitors after RP.

SAMURAI project aims to open a new research field in nuclear physics by the use of a large acceptance spectrometer for kinematically complete measurements of multiple particles emitted in RI-beam induced reactions. The SAMURAI spectrometer consists of a large gap superconducting dipole magnet, heavy ion detectors, neutron detectors, and proton detectors. What is special about the SAMURAI system is that projectile-rapidity protons or neutrons are detected with large angular and momentum acceptance in coincidence with heavy projectile fragments. With an effective combination of these equipments, the SAMURAI system allows us to perform various experiments: electromagnetic dissociation, various direct reactions, polarized deuteron induced reactions, and EOS studies. SAMURAI project is currently underway at RIBF. The construction of the superconducting dipole magnet will start in autumn 2010 and finish in spring 2011. The detectors are also being constructed in parallel. The first commissioning run will be performed in early 2012.

A 55-year-old male was referred to our hospital with the chief complaint of painless right scrotal swelling. Serum tumor marker levels were all within the normal range. A right radical orchiectomy was performed and the histopathological diagnosis was plasmacytoma. Chest and abdominal computed tomographic scan and bone scintigraphy did not show metastasis. Serum and urine protein electrophoresis and bone marrow biopsy were negative. Diagnosis was primary testicular plasmacytoma (extramedullary plasmacytoma). Eleven months after the operation, multiple bone lesions appeared and our diagnosis was conversion to multiple myeloma.

The first total synthesis of psychotrimine (I) is accomplished via an asymmetric Ireland—Claisen rearrangement to construct the quaternary carbon center, thereby establishing the absolute configuration.

We retrospectively reviewed 190 patients with germ cell tumors of testis or extragonadal origin who were treated in our hospital between 1980 and 2007. Five (2.6%) of them had brain metastasis. We studied the clinical features and treatment outcome of these patients. Median age was 30 years old (23-48). The clinical stage was III in all the patients, except one with stage I disease. Two patients had brain metastasis at the initial presentation. All patients underwent multiple regimens of chemotherapy. As local therapies for brain metastases, surgical resection was done in 4 and gamma knife was in 1. Whole brain irradiation was added to surgery in 2 patients. All patients died of the disease within one year after brain metastasis development, except 1 patient who was free of disease 47 months after the presentation. The long survivor had solitary brain metastasis at the initial presentation and received 4 regimens of chemotherapy, 2 surgical resections of brain metastases and whole brain irradiation. Finally, chemotherapy consisting of irinotecan and nedaplatin resulted in normalization of the tumor markers and complete remission was proved by the subsequent surgical resection. Although most patients with brain metastasis have a poor clinical outcome, aggressive local treatment and employment of novel anticancerous agents may contribute to improve clinical course of selected patients with germ cell tumors and brain metastasis.

The first total synthesis of (±)-psychotrimine, a novel trimeric indole alkaloid isolated from Psychotria rostrata, was achieved. In the total synthesis, the copper-mediated intramolecular and intermolecular aminations of halobenzenes, which respectively contributed to the construction of a pyrrolidinoindoline core and the installation of a third tryptamine unit, were used as key steps.

The first total synthesis of (+/-)-psychotrimine, a novel trimeric indole alkaloid isolated from Psychotria rostrata, was achieved. In the total synthesis, the copper-mediated intramolecular and intermolecular aminations of halobenzenes, which respectively contributed to the construction of a pyrrolidinoindoline core and the installation of a third tryptamine unit, were used as key steps.

For long years, image processing researchers pay tremendous effort to develop visual inspection systems. To develop the visual inspection systems requires long and severe effort of image processing experts. But in many cases, human operators can detect the defects, very easily. Here, the visual inspection system with human operator's sensitivity simulator is discussed. To develop the simulator, the human sensitivity model for visual inspection should be accomplished. To have the model, several experiments to evaluate the human sensitivity have been required. In this paper, some experiences to evaluate the human sensitivity have been introduced.

Proton knockout reactions on carbon isotopes, p(9–16C,2p)8‐15B, at 250MeV/A were performed for systematic information on weakly to strongly bound 1p valence protons and deeply bound 1s protons. Various information such as energy gap between 1s and 1p orbits, widths of momentum distributions for 1s and 1p orbits, relative (p,2p) yields are obtained.

Excited states in 12C nuclei play a very important role in the nucleosynthesis in the universe. 12C nuclei are synthesized by the triple α reaction. Normally this process proceeds via the 0+2 state (Hoyle state) at Ex = 7.65 MeV in 12C, however, at high temperature T > 109 the highly excited 3α resonant states such as the 3−1 state at Ex = 9.64 MeV and the 2+2 state at Ex = 9.84 MeV play a part of the triple α reaction. Unfortunately, the γ-decay probability of the 3p state has not been determined, therefore we planned to determine the 7- decay probability using the inverse kinematic reaction 1H(12C, 12Cp) without measuring γ-rays. The test experiment was carried out at the cyclotron facility in RCNP. The results of the test experiment are reported in the present paper.

An active target system MAIKo (μ-PIC based active target for inverse kinematics.) is under development at RCNP. MAIKo is designed to investigate inelastic scattering at forward angles with a radio isotope (RI) beam. The active target is a promising device to study excited states above particle decay thresholds in unstable nuclei. In the present paper, the detailed design of the detector system is described. The first experiment using an accelerated beam was performed to study the detector performance under high counting rate. Preliminary results of the experiment are also discussed.

Cross sections for the alpha inelastic scattering exciting the low-lying monopole states in 12C, 16O, 24Mg, 28Si, and 40Ca were measured and compared with the distorted- wave Born-approximation (DWBA) calculation to examine the puzzle of the missing monopole strength of the Hoyle state. It was found the DWBA calculation using the density-dependent aN interaction systematically overestimates the cross sections for the 0+ transitions, and the puzzle is a universal problem in light nuclei but not special in the Hoyle state. Since the DWBA calculation using the density-independent interaction reasonably well reproduces the experiment, this puzzle might be related to the density dependence of the effective interaction. The coupled-channel effect for the alpha inelastic scattering is also examined. The coupled- channel effect reduces the calculated cross section, and solve the puzzle of the missing monopole strengths in part, but the improvement of the density dependence of the effective interaction is still necessary to solve the puzzle.

Two new tryptamine-related alkaloids, chimonamidine and chimonanthidine, were isolated from the seeds of Chimonanthus praecox Link. and their structures including absolute configuration were elucidated by spectroscopic analysis and biomimetic total synthesis from tryptamine.

The 12C+12C fusion reaction plays a crucial role during stellar evolution. The astrophysically important energy range spans from 1 MeV to 3 MeV. However, its cross section has not been determined with enough precision, despite numerous studies, due to the extremely low reaction cross sections and the large experimental background. To allow measurements of the 12C+12C fusion at astrophysical energies, we developed an efficient thick-target method using large-area silicon strip detectors. Further measurements at even lower energies will be performed using coincidences between a silicon-detector and a Ge-detector array, at the high-current accelerator under construction at the University of Notre Dame. Since the coincidence method does not allow obtaining information about the channels without gamma-ray emission, a solenoid spectrometer has been constructed for complementary measurements. Meanwhile, we are also investigating the 24Mg(α, α') reaction using the Grand Raiden Spectrometer at RCNP to search for potential resonances in the 12C+12C fusion reaction. Preliminary results from these measurements will be presented.

The first asymmetric total synthesis of psychotrimine, a trimeric indole alkaloid, was accomplished via an asymmetric Ireland-Claisen rearrangement to construct a chiral quaternary carbon center, thereby establishing the absolute configuration of psychotrimine.

The data for the proposed structure of isochimonanthine, a dimeric pyrrolidinoindoline alkaloid that was synthesized from tryptamine, were not identical with those of the natural product. Careful structure reinvestigationled to the conclusion that the so-called isochimonanthine was a ca. 1:1 mixture of (+)-chimonanthine and meso-chimonanthine.

Treatment of 2-(ethylthiomethyl)phenyllithium with copper(I) bromide afforded a polymeric coordination compound in which 2,2′-bis(ethylthiomethyl)biphenyl molecules were linked by copper(I) bromide cores. This polymeric complex dissociates on dissolution in organic solvents and reforms on recrystallization from the solution. Other copper(I) salts also gave similar compounds, when reacted with the lithium compound.