Search

CHORUS is an experiment searching for nu(mu) --> nu(tau) oscillation in the CERN wide band neutrino beam with a hybrid setup consisting of a nuclear emulsion target followed by electronic detectors. The experiment has been taking data from 1994 through 1997. A subset of the neutrino interactions collected in 1994 and 1995 have been analyzed, looking for nu(tau) charged current interactions where the tau lepton decays to mu(mu)nu(tau). In a sample of 31,423 nu(mu) charged current interactions, no nu(tau) candidates were found. For large Delta m(mu tau)(2) values, a limit on the mixing angle of sin(2)2 theta(mu tau) < 3.5 x 10(-3) at 90% C.L. can be set, thus improving the previous best result. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.

Part of the neutrino events collected in 1994-1995 by the CHORUS experiment has been analysed. A search was performed for nu(tau) charged current interactions followed by the tau lepton decay into a single charged negative hadron, a possible indication for nu(mu) --> nu(tau) oscillation. A sample of 6844 events without an identified muon has been located in the emulsion target. Within the selection criteria, no tau(-) candidate has been found. Combining this result with the one from the search fur nu(tau) interactions using the muonic decay mode (36182 events with an identified muon), a 90% C.L. limit on the mixing angle sin(2)2 theta(mu tau) < 1.8.10(-3) (at large Delta m(2)) has been derived. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Porcine hepatocytes are used in the hybrid artificial liver support system that we are developing because of their high level of liver functions in vitro and because human hepatocytes can not be used in Japan for ethical reasons. Spherical multicellular aggregates or spheroids have been found to be effective in vitro for long-term maintenance of liver functions. Therefore, we formed spherical multicellular aggregates (spheroids) of primary porcine hepatocytes using a polyurethane foam (PUF) as a culture substratum and analyzed their drug metabolic functions in vitro. Primary porcine hepatocytes inoculated into the pores of a flat PUF plate (25 x 25 x 1 mm), spontaneously formed spheroids within the range of 100 to 150 mum in diameter 24 to 36 h after inoculation. The formed spheroids were attached to the bottom surface of the PUF pores, and their morphology and viability were maintained for more than 12 days. The P-450 activity in the spheroids of porcine hepatocytes was demonstrated by detecting production of monoethylglycinexylidide from lidocaine. In addition, the conjugation enzyme activity was demonstrated by detecting glucuronidation and sulfation of acetaminophen. These activities were maintained for 12 days at a level twice as high as in the monolayer culture. This result shows that the porcine hepatocyte spheroids formed by using PUF can maintain the drug metabolic functions important in a hybrid artificial liver device. Consequently, culturing porcine hepatocyte spheroids using PUF seems to be promising for development of a hybrid artificial liver.

In our studies of the development of a hybrid artificial liver, we investigated the formation of cylindrical multicellular aggregate (cylindroid) of primary rat hepatocytes on a pressed sheet of polyurethane foam (pressed-PUF) as a culture substratum. Hepatocytes formed cylindroids by attaching to a pressed-PUF surface, peeling off from the surface and aggregating. The diameter and length of most cylindroids were approximately 200-500 mum and 500 mum-2 mm, respectively. The activities of liver specific functions (albumin secretion and ammonia metabolism) of hepatocyte cylindroids were equivalent to or higher than those of hepatocyte spheroids. These results suggest that hepatocyte cylindroids can maintain highly differentiated functions longer than hepatocyte spheroids, and that a PUF/cylindroid culture may be effective to develop of a hybrid artificial liver.

GaN/AlGaN device technologies are reviewed aiming at the applications to power switching systems. SL (Super Lattice) capping and QA (Quaternary Alloy) over-layer techniques have been developed to reduce the on-resistance of GaN/ AlGaN HFET. Further, we achieved GaN on Silicon epitaxial growth technology with almost the same mobility keeping the same 2DEG density, which will make the cost comparable to conventional Si one. The experimentally obtained RonA of the FET is 1.9 m?cm2, which is 14 times lower than that of Si ones. Additionally, a novel approach to realize enhancement mode operation of GaN/AlGaN FET is proposed using minority carrier injection by the gate.

The Theta+ was searched for via the K+p -> pi+X reaction using the 1.2 GeV/c K+ beam at the K6 beam line of the KEK-PS 12 GeV Proton Synchrotron. In the missing mass spectrum of the K+p -> pi+X reaction, no clear peak structure was observed. Therefore a 90 % C.L. upper limit of 3.5 ub/sr was derived for the differential cross section averaged over 2degree to 22degree in the laboratory frame of the K+p -> pi+Theta+ reaction. This upper limit is much smaller than the theoretical calculation for the t-channel process where a K0* is exchanged. From the present result, either the t-channel process is excluded or the coupling constant of g_{K*N\Theta} is quite small.

We have performed ToO observations for three bright GRBs with the Japanese X‐ray satellite “Suzaku”. Suzaku strongly supports the follow‐up observations by Swift, especially in the late time afterglow phase, with its capabilities of larger effective area and wider energy band compared with Swift/XRT. In this presentation, mainly focusing on the X‐ray afterglow of GRB 060904A, we introduce these ToO observation results. In GRB 060904A, we found rapid spectral softening with the photon indices from 1.5 to 5.3 during the steep decay (prompt tail) phase in the BAT and XRT data. This ultra soft spectra suddenly disappeared at the transition time from the prompt tail phase to the shallow decay one. After that, typical afterglow spectra with the photon indices of 2.0 are continuously and preciously monitored by both XRT and Suzaku/XIS up to 1 day since the burst trigger time. To explain this ultra soft spectra, we introduce a spectral cutoff model instead of power‐law, and investigate the possibility of the maxi...

We report on the observational results of GRBs by the Suzaku Wide‐band All‐sky Monitor (WAM) in these two years since the Suzaku launch. Using the WAM data, we can investigate the spectral properties of the prompt emission of GRBs with a wider energy band and the highest sensitivity than any previous GRB missions. We found that the spectral properties between short and long GRBs, such as the spectral parameter distribution, the hardness ratio, the spectral lag, and the total emitting energy are clearly different even in the MeV energy band. This result implies that different progenitors or different bulk Lorentz factors of the ejecta are likely causes for the difference between these two classes.We also found that there is a strong correlation between the peak energy and the isotropic equivalent luminosity of the time‐resolved spectra of the bright long GRB 061007, and found that this correlation can be separated well between rising and decay phase of each pulse. This indicates that the physical condition...

This paper discusses the heating properties of a new type hyperthermia system composed of a re-entrant type resonant cavity applicator for a deep tumor of the abdominal region. In this heating method, a human body is placed between the two inner electrodes, and is heated with electromagnetic fields stimulated in the cavity without contact between the surface of the human body and the applicator. First, the experimental heating results of an agar-muscle equivalent phantom were presented. Second, we performed an experiment with a lard-agar phantom. The center region of the agar phantom could be heated selectively without generating hot spots in the lard layers. From these results, it was found that our newly developed heating method is useful for a deep-seated tumor hyperthermia treatment.

We successfully developed a 0.246-μm2 embedded 6T-SRAM for high performance system LSIs. The 45-nm CMOS platform, which features reversed extension and S/D formation, achieves both high performance logic transistors (TV.) and SRAM integration. To take the worst case of process variations into consideration, cell layout is decided by a novel method using SRAM macros, which include over 100 sorts of parametrically designed cell layouts. As a result, the 0.246-μm2 SRAM has been successfully developed with 140 mV of static noise margin (SNM) at 0.6 V and Vccmin of 0.9 V.

Al-induced layer-exchanged Ge (ALILE-Ge) combined with epitaxy is a promising way to fabricate advanced electronic optical devices on foreign substrates as well as Si large-scale integrated circuits. The presence of Ge islands on the surface of the ALILE-Ge seed layer was a problem because the islands deteriorated the crystal quality of the epitaxial layer. This paper gives a solution to this problem: the Ge islands were selectively etched by H2O2 treatment. The ALILE-Ge seed layer was protected by using the oxidized Al membrane, prepared between Ge and Al, as an etching mask. By initially preparing the thick Ge layer and then removing the excess Ge islands, we improved the coverage of the ALILE-Ge seed layer on the substrate. The resulting ALILE-Ge provided a high (111) orientation fraction (96%) and large grains (> 100 μm). This Ge layer appears promising for use in seed layers for epitaxial Ge, group III-V compound semiconductors, and other advanced materials.

To elucidate the effect on movement-related potentials (MRPs) of anticipatory postural adjustments (APAs) accompanied by voluntary focal movement, we examined the MRPs of shoulder flexion movement under standing and sitting postural conditions in 12 normal subjects. MRPs were evaluated based on three components: readiness potential (RP), motor potential (MP), and movement-monitoring potential. APAs were observed in the activities of postural muscles including the biceps femoris and erector spinae muscles only under standing conditions. The amplitudes of the three MRP components were larger under standing conditions than under sitting conditions for all recorded electrode positions, and the RP and MP amplitudes at the vertex position, which lies over the supplementary motor area (SMA), showed a prominent increase under standing conditions with the highest statistical significance. These results suggest that a recruited neural process of the cortical area including the SMA may be necessary to generate voluntary movement accompanied by APA.

Microplasma has been studied with gaps from 10 to 1000 ?m at near atmospheric pressure in a scanning electron microscope (SEM) chamber using CNTs for cathode. The field emission and gas discharge experiments were carried out at the same configuration. It was confirmed that field electron emission effectively provided primary electrons into the gap, which ignited discharge easily. In the case of gas discharge using carbon nanotubes for cathode, the cathode surface was not damaged even if the discharge current was more than 150 mA.

Forging is a manufacturing process in which metal is pressed, pounded or squeezed under great pressure and, often, under high strain rates into high-strength parts known as forgings. The process is typically performed hot by preheating the metal to a desired temperature before it is worked. The forging process can create parts that are stronger than those manufactured by any other metal working process. Forgings are almost always used where reliability and human safety are critical. Forgings are normally component parts contained inside assembled items such airplanes, automobiles, tractors, ships, oil drilling equipment, engines missiles, and all kinds of capital equipment Forgings are stronger than castings and surpass them in predictable strength properties, producing superior strength that is assured, part to part.

This paper describes a technique for mapping objects such as insects and plants that exist in the field on a blank map in mobile learning. We propose to use man’s geographic recognition in addition to a GPS for mapping objects. With the help of man’s ability to recognize placement of objects and geographical relations between objects, objective geographic information with small error given by a GPS is effectively compensated. A mobile map-making learning system has been developed. Usability studies of the system and the map produced by the system are also provided.

In this study, we investigated culture conditions of primary porcine hepatocytes for development of a hybrid artificial liver using polyurethane foam (PUF)/spheroid culture. Porcine hepatocytes in the pores of hydrophilic PUF only formed spheroids spontaneously within 1.5 days of culture, and maintained ammonia detoxification activity in Williams’ E medium supplemented with 10∼20% fetal bovine serum (FBS) for a week. The porcine hepatocyte spheroids in multi-channel (MC) PUF packed-bed module also expressed the highest activities of ammonia detoxification and albumin production at an immobilized cell density of 1.0×107 cells/cm3 module and at an intrachannel medium velocity range from 60 to 80 cm/min.

A unique technique of the fabricating sub micron sized silicon (Si) cones structure has been found. (Yoshimura, 2002) The technique consists of two processes: 1) depositing fine metal particles or layer, 2) etching in microwave plasma with negatively bias. A size distribution of unevenness on the surface of deposited aluminum (Al) layer was observed from samples after several minutes etching. A similar distribution of the cone shaped products were observed from 60 minutes etched samples also. The change of shape of the unevenness and cone shaped products under varied etching time was observed by using FE-SEM. The EDX spectrum of Al vs. Si was observed. In this paper, the relationship of distribution between the unevenness on Al layer and size of the cone products will be presented

The hard X-ray detector (HXD-II) onboard Astro-E2 consists of the main detector which has its energy range from 10 to 600 keV and the active shield detector for background reduction. This shield detector (anti detector) is designed to not only for the background reduction but also for the soft gamma-ray all sky monitor of gamma-ray bursts (GRB) and black hole binaries. The asymmetric shape and large size of BGO scintillators for the anti counter make the gamma-ray response very complicated, and thus we need the careful calibration before the launch. We then performed preflight calibrations of HXD-II in 2003-2004. For the anti detector, we measured the pulse height spectra and stopping power of the unit detector before integration by exposing it to the collimated gamma-ray. After integration of HXD-II, we measured the pulse height spectra and stopping power of the anti detector by irradiating the gamma-ray source from various directions. Furthermore, we performed the same measurement after placing the HXD-II detector on the Astro-E2 spacecraft. Taking into account these experimental results, we construct the gamma-ray response by the Geant4 Monte Carlo simulation. The response developed in this work was found to reproduce the experimental spectra and the count distributions of each unit counter with 10-20% accuracy.

We present a high power AlGaN/GaN HFET fabricated on a conductive Si substrate with a source-via grounding (SVG) structure. The device has a very low specific on-state resistance of 1.9 m/spl Omega//spl middot/cm/sup 2/ and a high off-state breakdown voltage of 350 V, and a current handling capability of 150 A. In addition, a sub-nano second switching t/sub r/ of 98 psec and t/sub f/ of 96 psec, with a current density as high as 2.0 kA/cm/sup 2/ is demonstrated for the first time.

This paper describes a technique for mapping objects such as insects and plants in the field on a blank map in mobile learning. We propose map creating system that utilizes man's subjective geographic recognition in addition to a GPS. With the help of man's ability of recognizing placement of objects and geographical relations between objects, objective geographic information with small error given by a GPS is effectively compensated.

A variety of strategies have been implemented to bring installation costs to near metallic wire levels, in consideration of suiting the layout of house and efficiency for FTTH drop and indoor lines.

H-reflexes were elicited in the soleus muscle in subjects standing on a force platform in a water tank, under different loading conditions at the ankle joint. The joint loading was altered by changing the combination of buoys and weights attached to lower limb segments, while the total body mass was kept the same. The results revealed that as the joint load was reduced the H-reflex was significantly enhanced as compared to that under the control condition, while it decreased as the joint load was increased, despite the same background EMG activity level. It was demonstrated that the augmented load information from the lower limb joints has an inhibitory effect on the soleus H-reflex, suggesting that this might be one of underlying neural mechanisms responsible for the suppression of H-reflex during human upright standing.

Recurrent-convergence decision circuits include the historic Hopfield neural networks as well as prospective turbo decoders. For these applications, we propose two novel circuit elements: (1) a quick-response synaptic weight with high symmetry in both small-signal and large-amplitude operations and (2) an open-loop, quick-response and symmetrically parallel neuron circuit that has inverse and non-inverse outputs with delay-time equality and high signal-amplitude symmetry. We report the characteristics of these elements in a fabricated associative memory chip. We also analyze how the recalling statistics depend on the variation of the symmetry and delay equality of the elements. It is demonstrated that the proposals are very effective to improve the neural association performance.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate effect of un-loading lower limb on H-reflex and motor evoked potentials (MEPs) induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) during bed rest.

The incidence of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (AF) is affected by circadian variations in the vago-sympathetic balance. It is well known that both sympathetic and vagal effects increase the onset of paroxysmal AF, due to the shortened action potential duration. However, the reason why the vagally-mediated paroxysmal AF is maintained more than the adrenergically-mediated paroxysmal AF has remained unclear. In order to clarify this, we performed the following computer simulations. First, we constructed a homogeneous two-dimensional myocardial sheet (4.5 x 2.25 cm), using a bidomain ion channel model. The sympathetic and vagal effects were achieved by modifications of the ion channel conductance (Sympathetic effect: increased gSI and increased gK. Vagal effect: increased gK and increased gKl with or without the dispersion of refractoriness). We found that the sympathetic effect shortened the action potential duration and flattened the restitution slope; therefore, this effect promoted spiral wave induction and restrained the spiral wave breakup. On the other hand, we found that the vagal effect also shortened the action potential duration and flattened the restitution slope; however, this effect promoted spiral wave breakup, due to the increase in both the IK1 and the dispersion of refractoriness. Overall, the differences between the sympathetic and vagal effects on the tendency toward spiral wave break-up may explain the reason why adrenergically-mediated paroxysmal AF terminates spontaneously and vagally-mediated paroxysmal AF tends to be maintained. In conclusion, our results may be helpful in understanding the difference in the action of sympathetic and vagal effects on paroxysmal AF.

This paper reports the quantitative evaluation of the H-reflex exhibited by parabolic flight with exposure to micro and high-gravity. With respect to previous findings in parabolic flights and short-term space missions, the analysis focused on reflex activity in weightlessness. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of gravity on H-reflex and motor evoked potentials (MEP) in soleus muscle (SOL) during parabolic flight.

It has been well known that balance instabilities after long-term exposure to microgravity (e.g., Anderson et al. 1986) or bedrest (BR) can be related to alterations and/or adaptations to postural control strategies. Little is known, however, how the reduced muscular activity affects the activation pattern of the lower limb muscles during quiet standing (QS). The purpose of this study was to investigate whether or not any changes in the lower limb muscle activation patterns during QS would occur after BR.

The authors describe a person counting system using a distributed touch sensor on stairs. The sensor has 96*84 detecting elements on four treads. The size of each sensor element is 10 mm*12.7 mm. Footprint images can be successively obtained from the sensor. The system counts the number of persons from these images. >

The authors describe a method for recognizing the position and orientation of 3D prismatic objects with double slit lights in the conditions of a natural environment. The position and orientation of a prismatic object are measured using hierarchical Hough transform. Fusing images of double slit lights into a shading image, one can get stable results from a minimum amount of surface information. Since one extracts infrared rays reflected by a hot mirror and passed through an interference filter, one can apply the method in a natural environment. The method has the potential of being applied to the acquisition of the position and orientation of moving objects. Experimental results on the indication of the precise position and orientation of a prismatic object are presented. >

A robot has its original error of link length and angular offsets. Consequently, it has low absolute positioning accuracy, although the robot has good repeatability. For this reason, calibration of the manipulator is required. This paper proposes a calibration method using information obtained through a vision sensor, which is installed on the hand. First, the robot makes a series of movements with a vision sensor. Next, the sensor projects a laser onto an object and takes an image at each position. Finally, parameters are calibrated using the error of 3D position by the Newton method. >

Robot vision is very useful for correcting the absolute position error during position control of a robot hand. However it still has difficulties in practical use. The objective of the authors' research is to design a stable vision sensor system used for a space robot, by the method of sensor fusion with multi-agents, which is very effective in the actual environment. By this approach, the system will be able to adapt to environmental alterations. >

In order to locate a robot hand accurately, a vision sensor plays a key role by measuring the relative position. We consider a system with two 5-DOF manipulators to fit a bolt and nut in cooperative operation. We propose a novel method for measuring the relative position between the robot hand and an object using a vision sensor which is installed on the hand of one of the robots. Using the vision sensor, we can improve depth measurement accuracy. The method of compensation of the robot hand position is also given. >

TFT-LCDs (thin-film transistor liquid-crystal displays) of symmetric subdot design that are 8.6 in measured diagonally have been developed. Each dot is divided into two subdots. These two subdots are symmetrical with respect to a source-busline. This configuration cancels the DC offset difference which is induced by the alignment tolerance and is especially effective for large-size TFT-LCDs. >

A 10.4-in-diagonal full-color a-Si TFT-LCD (thin-film transistor liquid crystal display) for OHP (overhead projector) systems has been developed. The light degradation of LCD performance has been suppressed by new self-aligned a-Si TFTs and a new driving method (floating gate driving method). Both an ES (etching stopper)-SiN/sub x/ layer and a mu c-Si(n+)a-Si(i) layer were formed by the self-alignment technique. This structure is considered to be effective for decreasing the photocarrier injected into the gate-insulator. High stability under high intense light-exposure has been obtained. The driving method makes the difference of the potential between the gate and drain electrode constant. It improved the off characteristics and decreased the shift of the gate bias voltage transparency characteristics. >

The authors describe a three-dimensional vision sensor which fuses discrete range data obtained by a FG (fiber grating) vision sensor and a 2-D intensity image obtained by a CCD (charge coupled device) camera of the sensor. The range image obtained by the sensor is coarsely sampled data. Therefore, one cannot recognize a 3-D object accurately. On the other hand, though one can get features (such as outlines, edge lines, and vertices) from an intensity image, one cannot determine their locations on 3-D space without some restrictions. To solve these problems, the authors propose a method that can recognize a 3-D object by fusing both information obtained from a discrete range image and an abstracted 2-D image. >

A three-dimensional robot vision sensor based on both active triangulation and a method using astigmatism is described. Range data obtained through active triangulation have comparatively high accuracy. However, range cannot be determined uniquely from a single-input image. On the other hand, range data obtained by the method using astigmatism are determined uniquely, but one cannot expect a high degree of accuracy. To improve the performance of the sensor, a novel method that fuses the range data obtained by these methods is proposed. Measurement results of the pilot system and verification of the performance of the system are presented. >

A novel architectural extension, in which floating-point data are transferred directly from main memory to floating-point registers, has been successfully implemented in a superscalar RISC processor. This extension allows main memory access throughput of 1.2 Gbyte/s, and effective performance reaches 267 MFLOPS (89% of the peak performance) for typical floating-point applications. The processor utilizes 0.3-micron 4-level metal CMOS technology with 2.5 V power supply and contains 3.9 million transistors in 15.7 mm/spl times/15.7 mm die size. Only 4.5% of the die area is used for the extension. Pipeline stage optimization and scoreboard-based dependency check method allow the extension to be realized without affecting the operating frequency.

There is a strong demand for an automatic detection system of damage on the surface of a container. The system has to detect holes or cracks and distinguish from paint, dirt, dents, rust and so on. It is very difficult to distinguish these features using an image obtained from a 2D CCD camera. To overcome this problem, the authors propose a method for detecting holes and cracks easily by using controlling lights. This method actively detects the condition of the surface and is based on the photometric stereo method.

This paper presents the design and evaluation of high-radix parallel dividers for high-speed signal and data processing applications. The presented divider designs are based on the unified high-radix division algorithm proposed by the authors. By prescaling the operands and converting the representation of each partial remainder into partially non-redundant representation, the quotient digit can be obtained directly from the integer part of the partial remainder without using quotient digit selection tables. Performance evaluation shows that the proposed radix-4 and radix-8 divider architectures achieve faster computation with less hardware complexity, in comparison with the binary counterparts. This paper also presents the experimental fabrication of the radix-4 divider in 0.35 /spl mu/m CMOS technology.

The effect of the underlayer on the Al-induced crystallized (AIC) Ge thin film is investigated to achieve a high-quality Ge layer on a conducting-layer-coated glass substrate. We found that the crystal orientation and the grain size of the AIC-Ge layer strongly depend on the underlayer material. We explain that this phenomenon is related to the interfacial energy between Ge and the underlayer material and/or the crystal property of the underlayer material, since the Ge nucleation likely occurs at the interface under the growth condition employed in this study. Among the samples with Al-doped ZnO, ITO, and TiN conducting underlayers, the TiN sample yields the highest crystal quality: the (111) orientation fraction of 96% and the average grain size of approximately 100 µm. Therefore, the selection of the conducting underlayer material is significantly important to design advanced photovoltaic devices based on Ge thin films on glass.

The crystal orientation of a polycrystalline Ge thin film is controlled by selecting the underlayer material during Al-induced low-temperature (325 °C) crystallization. A TiN underlayer yields highly (111)-oriented Ge with large grains (nearly 100 μm), which is useful as a buffer layer for III–V compound semiconductors and other advanced materials.

Midkine (MK), a heparin-binding growth factor, is overexpressed in a wide range of human carcinomas and is believed to contribute to tumorigenesis and tumor progression. To develop an antitumor reagent, we designed a phosphorothioate antisense oligodeoxynucleotide molecule based on the secondary structure of MK mRNA. The antisense MK at the dosage of 5 microM suppressed MK production by CMT-93 mouse rectal carcinoma cells after cationic liposome-mediated transfection, to 13% of that in control cultures. The growth of CMT-93 cells and their colony formation in soft agar were inhibited by the addition of the antisense MK, whereas the control reagent, the sense MK, showed no effects. On s.c. injection into nude mice, CMT-93 cells transfected with the antisense MK formed tumors much smaller than those by control cells. Finally, untreated CMT-93 cells were inoculated to nude mice, and 7 days later the antisense MK (50 microM) with atelocollagen was directly injected into the preformed tumor region to evaluate the curative effect; the injection was repeated at the interval of 2 weeks. During the period of 10-41 days after initiation of therapy, the rate of increase of tumor volume treated with the antisense MK was found to be about 4.2-fold lower than that seen after treatment with the sense MK. On this occasion, proliferation of tumor cells as estimated by 5-bromodeoxyuridine incorporation was strongly inhibited, whereas angiogenesis was less affected. These findings strongly suggested the usefulness of MK antisense oligodeoxynucleotide as a new reagent for cancer therapy.

A 70-year-old male was hospitalized with a diagnosis of gastric cancer. Multiple liver metastases were detected by CT scan and ultrasonography, but no other metastases were found. After distal gastrectomy with lymphadenectomy, an intra-arterial catheter was inserted and hepatic arterial infusion (HAI) chemotherapy was started with the following regimen: epirubicin, 40 mg (once in 4 weeks); MMC, 4 mg (once in 2 weeks); and 5-FU, 500 mg (once a week). Oral administration of 300 mg/day of tegafur-uracil (UFT) was given concurrently. The metastatic liver tumors were gradually reduced, and then disappeared. The patient has been free from recurrence after HAI. As gastric cancer tends to spread (e.g. peritoneal dissemination) more than colorectal cancer, the indication for HAI in cases of gastric cancer is limited. However, the present case suggests that it may be useful in achieving long-term survival for patients with metastases localized in the liver.

We report a case of cephalic tetanus presenting with opisthotonus. A 49-year-old man was admitted because of repeated convulsions. The patient was a garbage truck driver known to be alcoholic, who fell down to suffer an injury of the left face two days before the onset of convulsion. Intravenous administration of diazepam and phenytoin partially relieved the convulsions. Anti-tetanus human immuno-globulin was also administered despite absence of typical clinical sign. Six hours later, however, the patient became unable to open the mouth, i.e. lockjaw developed, and the diagnosis of tetanus was made. Additional anti-tetanus human immunoglobulin of 3,000 units and 4,500 units on the next day rapidly relieved the lockjaw, convulsion, and general muscle rigidity without sequalae. The patient showed transient bilateral facial palsy and rotatory nystagmus during the course. Cephalic tetaus is characterized by a history of an injury of the head and a short latency before developing generalized tonic convulsion or opisthotonus. While a typical case presents with lockjaw, our case presented with opisthotonus, presumably because of early systemic lymphatic spreading of tetanus toxin. Early diagnosis and treatment is important to prevent generalized convulsions which are more frequent and sometimes lethal in cephalic tetanus than the common form.

The risk of xenozoonosis infections poses the greatest obstacles against the clinical application of hybrid-artificial liver support system (HALSS). To resolve this issue, we used human hepatoma cell lines (Hep G2, Huh 7) in a type I collagen-coated monolayer culture system, and analyzed liver specific functions such as ammonia removal and albumin synthesis capacity. Ammonia removal activity (nmol/10(6) nuclei/hour) and albumin synthesis activity (microgram/10(6) nuclei/day) were upregulated in both Hep G2 and Huh 7 by type I collagen-coated monolayer culture. In particular, Hep G2 cultured in type I collagen-coated monolayer demonstrated relatively high ammonia removal and albumin synthesis capacity. These results indicate the possibility of the application of human hepatocytes to HALSS.