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Skeletal muscle myosin (SkM) molecules are procoagulant both in vitro and in vivo. The association of plasma SkM isoforms with blood coagulability and hemostatic capacity has not been defined.We hypothesized that coagulopathy in acutely injured patients is associated with procoagulant plasma SkM heavy chain levels.To test this hypothesis, citrated whole blood and plasma from 104 trauma patients were collected and studied to obtain data for rapid thrombelastography, international normalized ratios, and plasma SkM levels. Coagulability parameters were dichotomized by the threshold for the hypercoagulable trauma-induced coagulopathy.Lower plasma full-length SkM heavy chain (full-SkM) levels were associated with higher international normalized ratio values (1.3) (p = .03). The full-SkM levels were also associated with a lower rate of clot propagation (thrombelastography angle65°) (p = .004), and plasma full-SkM levels were positively correlated with the thrombelastography angle (rIn acutely injured trauma patients, lower levels of plasma full-SkM levels are linked to hypocoagulability in trauma-induced coagulopathy, implying that SkM plays a role in the hemostatic capacity in trauma patients and may contribute to trauma-induced coagulopathy.

The large-scale laminar/turbulent spiral patterns that appear in the linearly unstable regime of counter-rotating Taylor–Couette flow are investigated from a statistical perspective by means of direct numerical simulation. Unlike the vast majority of previous numerical studies, we analyse the flow in periodic parallelogram-annular domains, following a coordinate change that aligns one of the parallelogram sides with the spiral pattern. The domain size, shape and spatial resolution have been varied and the results compared with those in a sufficiently large computational orthogonal domain with natural axial and azimuthal periodicity. We find that a minimal parallelogram of the right tilt significantly reduces the computational cost without notably compromising the statistical properties of the supercritical turbulent spiral. Its mean structure, obtained from extremely long time integrations in a co-rotating reference frame using the method of slices, bears remarkable similarity with the turbulent stripes observed in plane Couette flow, the centrifugal instability playing only a secondary route. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Taylor–Couette and related flows on the centennial of Taylor’s seminal Philosophical transactions paper (Part 2). KD’s research was supported by Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE170100171). BW, RA, FM and AM research was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (grant numbers FIS2016-77849-R and FIS2017-85794-P) and Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (grant number PID2020-114043GB-I00), and the Generalitat de Catalunya (grant 2017-SGR-785). BW’s research was also supported by the Chinese Scholarship Council (grant CSC No. 201806440152). FM is a Serra-Húnter Fellow.

Background Purified skeletal muscle myosin (SkM) binds factor Xa and is procoagulant. The molecular forms of SkM in human plasma have not been characterized. Method Human plasma SkM heavy chain (HC) isoforms of different molecular weights were detected by a newly developed immunoblotting protocol. In this pilot study, the distribution of SkM HC antigen isoforms in plasmas of healthy subjects and young adult patients with venous thrombosis was analyzed. Results Multiple SkM HC antigen bands were detected in human plasmas, corresponding to full-length SkM HC, heavy meromyosin, or the S1 fragment. Plasma immunoblots of healthy subjects displayed three major phenotypes: Type I with two primary bands for full-length SkM and heavy meromyosin, and two lesser bands including S1 fragment (54%); Type II with bands primarily for full-length SkM HC (34%); and Type III with only a band for the S1 fragment (12%). Plasma SkM HC antigen Type II phenotype was associated with an increased occurrence of isolated pulmonary embolism in younger patients, respectively (≤50 years old). Conclusions Three SkM HC antigen phenotypes were identified in human plasma by immunoblotting, and Type II phenotype was correlated with the occurrence of isolated pulmonary embolisms in younger patients.

Thermal desorption spectrometry (TDS) is an effective method to detect gases that are trapped in films, and it has been used in the semiconductor field. In this paper, there are two main purposes. One is the detection of toxic elements such as lead, which are contained in extremely small quantities in plated films, especially for electroless Ni–P alloy films as bath stabiliser. The other is the detection of gases such as hydrogen, which is a key factor to control film properties, especially for Cu electroplating. Lead has been used for electroless Ni–P films as stabiliser; recently, bismuth has also been used as stabiliser instead of lead from the viewpoint of environment safety and restriction of hazardous substances. The TDS has detected both lead and bismuth contained in electroless Ni–P films, which have been plated from baths containing only 0·1 ppm of Pb and Bi. Copper electroplating has been used to produce printed circuit boards and recently to produce semiconductor wiring. To fill via hol...

Background: We aimed to develop a new biomarker to predict cyclin D1 (CCND1) status using plasma DNA in oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) patients. Methods: We evaluated the ratio of the CCND1 (11q13) dosage to the dopamine receptor D2 (DRD2; 11q22-23) dosage (C/D ratio) as CCND1 copy number. This study was divided into three steps: (1) Determination of a cutoff value for the C/D ratio in test scale; (2) Comparison of the C/D ratio in between plasma samples and cancer tissues in ESCC patients showing high plasma C/D ratio; (3) Validation study of the clinical application of the plasma C/D ratio as a diagnostic and prognostic marker, by comparing with clinicopathologic factors in 96 ESCC patients. Results: The plasma C/D ratio was significantly higher in the ESCC group than the controls (P=0.0134). A high plasma C/D ratio reflected the tumour C/D ratio, and significantly correlated with a poorer prognosis (P=0.0186). Moreover, the high C/D ratio was found to be an independent prognostic factor on multivariate analysis (P=0.0266; hazard ratio 5.988). Conclusion: Prediction of CCND1 amplification using plasma DNA is thought to be a promising prognostic biomarker in ESCC patients.

Background: We examined plasma microRNA (miRNA) concentrations from patients with gastric cancers (GCs) to assess their clinical application for diagnosing and monitoring diseases. Methods: We initially investigated the appropriateness of plasma miRNA assay, and then compared plasma miRNA results with the expressions in cancer tissues from eight GC patients, and also compared plasma miRNAs between pre- and post-operative paired samples from 10 GC patients. Then, plasma miRNAs (miR-17-5p, miR-21, miR-106a, miR-106b and let-7a) were analysed in 69 GC patients and 30 healthy volunteers in total. Results: The initial analysis showed that miRNAs were stable and detectable in all plasma samples, and the plasma miRNA levels reflected the tumour miRNAs in most cases. The levels of these miRNAs were significantly reduced in post-operative samples. In large-scale analysis, the plasma concentrations of miRNAs (miR-17-5p, miR-21, miR-106a, miR-106b) were significantly higher in GC patients than controls (P=0.05, 0.006, 0.008 and

The ac magnetic susceptibility, the thermal expansion and the magnetostriction were measured using a single crystalline sample of UGe2 under pressure. We find that as the field exceeds a transition field, where the system transforms from a high pressure phase ( P > P X ) into a low pressure phase ( P P X ), the superconductivity steeply collapses within a transient region arising from the pressure inhomogeneity. We also estimate an accurate value of P X in zero temperature limit and a pressure distribution around it. Using thus estimated quantity, we argue that the superconductivity (in zero magnetic field) below the critical pressure is not intrinsic but extrinsic due to the pressure inhomogeneity.

We measured transport and thermodynamic properties of the valence-fluctuating phase of SmS up to 8.5 kbar, and found a bump structure in the temperature dependence of the electrical resistivity and a Schottky-type anomaly in the temperature dependence of the thermal expansion coefficient at a characteristic temperature T 0 . We also observed that the absolute value of the Hall constant rapidly increases below T 0 . From these results, we argue that the steep rise of the electrical resistivity below T 0 is inherent to golden SmS and can be ascribed to the decrease in the carrier concentration possibly due to the pseudo gap formation.

The trade-off between forage yield and quality would be minimized by selecting a genotype that produces high-quality forage regardless of yield. This paper attempts to detect forage quality differences among timothy (Phleum pratense L.) genotypes that are independent of yield. Two separate field experiments were conducted from 1993 to 1995 on an Ando loamy sand in Hokkaido, Japan. For exp. 1, timothy plants (cv. Nosap) were harvested at various maturity stages for the first, second, and third cuts in 1994 and 1995 to evaluate the relationships of crude protein (CP) and neutral detergent fibre (NDF) yields with dry matter (DM) yield. The relationship between NDF and DM yields was positive and linear across different cuts (r2 = 0.98–0.99), and was slightly affected by year. In contrast, the relationship between CP and DM yields depended on the cuts (r2 = 0.01–0.98). In exp. 2, four genotypes were evaluated in 1994 to compare the coefficients of the NDF vs. DM yield regressions using ANCOVA. The comparison showed that the NDF yields of Kitami 20, Kitami 21, and Hokuo were less than that of Nosap (P < 0.01) for a wide range of DM yields (150–700 g m-2). Thus, NDF concentrations were lower in the former genotypes across varying forage yields. Using the regression lines as indices could facilitate selection of timothy genotypes that reduce the trade-off between yield and quality, although further experiments are needed to confirm the usefulness of this method. Key words: Acid detergent fibre, crude protein, forage yield, neutral detergent fibre, timothy

The ferroelectric transition temperature T c of (NH 2 CH 2 COOH) 3 .H 2 SO 4 (TGS), which is a typical order-disorder-type ferroelectric, was determined by dielectric constant and Raman scattering measurements under high pressure. T c increased, passed through a maximum and then decreased slightly with increasing pressure, and then abruptly dropped at about 2.5 GPa, where a transition to a new high-pressure phase was confirmed to exist. A tentative p-T phase diagram was proposed for TGS.

The temperature dependences of the dielectric constants of the hydrogen-bond ferroelectrics KH2PO4 (KDP) and KD2PO4 (DKDP) were measured under high hydrostatic pressure. Their ferroelectric transition temperatures Tc monotonically decreased with increasing pressure and the ferroelectric state vanished at pc: 1.7 GPa for KDP and 6.1 GPa for DKDP. On the other hand, the Curie constant remained finite at pc, which indicates that the ferroelectric phase transition at high pressure is of displacive type. At pressures around pc, quantum paraelectricity was observed in KDP and DKDP.

Imprint lithography is expected to become a cost-effective technology for manufacturing future devices with nanometer structure (Chou et al, 1995). Not only high resolution but reliable patterning over a large area is crucial to make this technology practical in industrial use. However, there is little information on patterning quality in terms of critical dimension (CD) and pattern placement (PP) over all of the imprint area (Scheer et al, 1998), because CD and PP measurements of imprinted patterns in a large area are very difficult when those patterns consist of very fine structures with relatively small height. A new method using a pressure sensitive film that changes color corresponding to the strength of pressure is proposed to simply evaluate the uniformity of imprint pressure across an imprint area instead of measuring CD and/or height of imprinted patterns. In this presentation, deterioration factors of press-uniformity are investigated by measuring color density at multiple points of the pressed film and their mitigation factors are discussed. Simulation using a finite element method also clarifies that wafer distortions caused by an imprint pressure applied to the limited area of a wafer should not be considered negligible for accurate CD and PP control.

Cooperativity between mutations in tyrosine kinases and in hematopoietic transcription factors in AML

The purpose of this study is intra-operatively to localize the sensorimotor area by intrinsic optical method detecting the changes in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) and cortical temperature following neuronal activity during median nerve stimulation. In 18 patients with brain tumors located around the sensorimotor cortex, cortical recording of somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) was performed and localized changes in rCBF during median nerve stimulation were measured by a laser-Doppler flowmeter on the locations of SEPs and around the activation area obtained by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In two patients, cortical thermomapping was also performed during median nerve stimulation. In fMRI study, the significant activation area of sensorimotor could be obtained in 17 of 18 patients. In cortical recording of SEPs, the polarity reversal of N20 and P20 was observed in 14 of the 18 patients. In 9 of the 14 patients in whom SEPs could be recorded, the localized changes in rCBF, corresponding to the stimulation, were detected in the N20 area. In 2 of the 4 patients in whom N20 could not be recorded successfully, the localized changes in rCBF could be detected. The increase in rCBF during the stimulation was 18.3% +/- 5.3% (mean +/- SD, n = 11). Thermomapping could demonstrate the localized area, where the increase in rCBF was also detected, by observation of the changes in cortical temperature during the stimulation. The intra-operative intrinsic optical method detecting rCBF and cortical temperature in combination with recording of SEPs may be considered useful for brain functional localization related to neurosurgical disorders.

We report a superconducting phase diagram of the ferromagnetic superconductor UGe 2 investigated by AC magnetic susceptibility measurements. In contrast to previous phase diagrams, we found that the superconducting transition temperature and volume fraction show a “M-shaped” structure as a function of pressure. From this observation, we suggest that both of two critical points will play a crucial role in the occurrence of superconductivity in UGe 2 .

The serum thrombopoietin (TPO) levels in 61 idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) patients were found to be slightly increased compared with those of 29 normal subjects. The TPO levels of the 15 ITP patients who had a poor response to steroid therapy (i.e. an unchanged platelet count) were higher than those of the 22 ITP patients who had a good response to steroid therapy (i.e. an increased platelet count) and the normal subjects. The TPO levels in the 15 ITP patients whose platelet count was higher than 10 x 10(4)/microl after the discontinuation of steroid therapy significantly higher than those of the normal subjects. The platelet-associated immunoglobulin G (PAIgG) levels in the ITP patients who had a poor response to steroid therapy were slightly increased compared with the normal subjects and the ITP patients who had a good response to the steroid therapy and the nine ITP patients who did not undergo the steroid therapy. The serum TPO level was negatively correlated only with the megakaryocyte count in the ITP patients, and the megakaryocyte count in the ITP patients who had good responses to the steroid therapy was higher than that in those who had poor responses. These data suggest that serum TPO levels might be important for the prediction of the outcome of ITP patients who receive steroid therapy.

Possible strategies for treating ischaemic stroke include: (i) neuroprotection (preventing damaged neurons from undergoing apoptosis in the acute phase of cerebral ischaemia), and (ii) neurosupplementation (the repair of broken neuronal networks with newly born neurons in the chronic phase of cerebral ischaemia). In this paper, we review our recent progress in development of these distinct new strategies for treatment of damaged brain following a stroke. Firstly, we investigated the role of endogenous IL-6 (interleukin-6), which is one of the cytokines drastically induced by ischaemic stimuli, by administering IL-6RA (anti-IL-6 receptor monoclonal antibody) to mice. We found that endogenous IL-6 plays a critical role in neuroprotection and that its role may be mediated by STAT3 (signal transducer and activator of transcription-3) activation. Secondly, we studied the endogenous sources of the newly born neurons in the ischaemic striatum by region- and cell-type-specific cell labelling techniques. The results revealed that the SVZ (subventricular zone) is the principal source of the neuronal progenitors that migrate laterally towards the infarcted regions, and differentiate into newly born neurons. Finally, we developed a restorative stroke therapy with a bio-affinitive scaffold, which is an appropriate poly-porous structure releasing bioactive substances such as neurotrophic factor. This bio-affinitive scaffold is able to give an appropriate environment for newly born neurons. In future, we will combine these strategies to develop more effective therapies for treatment of strokes.

We designed and fabricated an extremely low-power CMOS/SIMOX programmable counter large scale integrated circuits (LSI) for high-speed phase-locked loop (PLL) frequency synthesizer applications. This was to verify the potential usefulness of ultrathin-film 0.24-/spl mu/m-gate CMOS/SIMOX process technology for creating an extremely low-power LSI containing high-speed circuits operating at frequencies of at least 1 GHz and at low supply voltages. While operating at up to 2.2 GHz and consuming only 4.5 mW at 1.5 V, it is capable of 4-GHz performance with power consumption of 19 mW at 2.5 V. Even at a low supply voltage of 1.5 V, high input-sensitivity was also achieved in the 1- to 2-GHz frequency range. These low-power and high input-sensitivity characteristics outperform those of state-of-the-art BiCMOS PLL LSIs.

This paper describes a simple and compact manual synchrotron radiation x‐ray exposure system for fundamental research on ultrafine pattern fabrication with x‐ray lithography. Special requirements for printing ultrafine patterns are investigated, and a step‐and‐repeat exposure system that includes a new gap‐setting, a soft‐contact mechanism in a vacuum, and a rough alignment mechanism is developed. All the mechanisms are neatly packed into a small vacuum chamber and are manually remote controlled. The system can be used for various fundamental studies. It is especially useful for experiments to print ultrafine patterns using x‐ray cross‐sectioned and phase‐shifting masks. The success of a variety of experiments verifies the good performance and usefulness of this system.

Effects of a single impurity in the degenerate lattice Anderson model describing heavy elecron systems are investigated rigorously within the framework of the axiliary boson method and the perturbation expansion from the large limit of the spin-orbital degeneracy N (1/ N -expansion). It is found that a non-magnetic impurity leads to the unitarity limit value of the scattering rate of the conduction electrons at low temperature while it has no appreciable effect on the thermodynamic properties. These results are consistent with the experimental observations on the heavy electron systems such as Ce 1- x La x Cu 6 .

We propose a model convenient for studying properties of the degenerate Anderson models including finite intra-atomic Coulomb repulsion U by using the perturbation expansion from the large limit of the spin-orbital degeneracy N (1/ N -expansion). This is to extend a series of 1/ N -expansion studies on the U -infinite degenerate impurity and lattice Anderson models carried out by Nagoya group for including effects of finite U . As a first step, we study a case with a single Anderson impurity to investigate crossover behavior between magnetic state and non-magnetic state as a function of U by calculating average number of the localized electron, specific heat, charge susceptibility and spin susceptibility in the leading order of (1/ N ) and also the Kondo temperature and scattering rate of the conduction electrons up to the next leading order of (1/ N ).

Equilibrium analyses have shown that the aspect ratio A is one of the important parameters for optimization of the RFP configuration because it affects the q profile or fraction of the pressure-driven bootstrap current. RELAX (A=R/a=0.5m/0.25m) is a low-A RFP machine to explore the potential advantages of low-A configurations. The discharge and plasma parameters in RELAX to date are as follows: plasma current up to 100kA, discharge duration of up to 2.5ms, electron density in the range from 0.2 to 2.0× 1019 m-3, and electron temperature

UCoGe is known to show microscopic coexistence of superconductivity and ferromagnetism. Here we present physical properties of a single crystalline sample of UCoGe, and show that the magnetism is understood within an itinerant electron picture. Further we estimate characteristic parameters (T0∼4×102 K and TA∼6×103 K) of the self‐consistent renormalization (SCR) theory of spin fluctuations to argue the correlation of ferromagnetism with superconductivity.

We have carried out direction-dependent 59Co NMR experiments on a single crystal sample of the ferromagnetic superconductor UCoGe in order to study the magnetic properties in the normal state. The Knight-shift and nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate measurements provide microscopic evidence that both static and dynamic susceptibilities are ferromagnetic with strong Ising anisotropy. We discuss that superconductivity induced by these magnetic fluctuations prefers spin-triplet pairing state.

Subterahertz radiation emitted from a variety of short rectangular-, square-, and disk-shaped mesas of intrinsic Josephson junctions fabricated from a ${\mathrm{Bi}}_{2}{\mathrm{Sr}}_{2}{\mathrm{CaCu}}_{2}{\mathrm{O}}_{8+\ensuremath{\delta}}$ single crystal was studied from the observed $I\mathrm{\text{\ensuremath{-}}}V$ characteristics, far-infrared spectra, and spatial radiation patterns. In all cases, the radiation frequency satisfies the conditions both for the ac Josephson effect and for a mesa cavity resonance mode. The integer higher harmonics observed in all spectra imply that the ac Josephson effect plays the dominant role in the novel dual-source radiation mechanism.

This paper presents a 0.13um BiCD process (BiCD-0.13) based on a 0.13um standard CMOS technology with a superior Deep Trench Isolation(DTI). Merits of using DTI are to improve breakdown voltage, reduce parasitic transistor actions and increase area density, compared with Junction-Isolation. We simulated the stress and the device characteristics, and optimized the parameters of DTI design and process steps. It has been successfully developed the process integration of DTI into 0.13um process technology with various kinds of HV devices including ultra-low on resistance LDMOS.

Single-crystalline (Lu, Ca)Ba2Cu3O7-d (Lu(Ca)123) whiskers have been successfully grown using the Te-doping method. X-ray diffraction patterns of Lu(Ca)123 whiskers showed sharp (0 0 l) peaks corresponding to REBa2Cu3O7-d phase (RE = rare earth elements). Transport measurements showed that the superconducting transition occurred at 83 K in the obtained whiskers., Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, ISS2008

Although heart rate (HR) responses to hyperventilation (HV) have been used as a cardiovascular autonomic function test, autonomic involvement during HV remains uncertain. To clarify the relationship between autonomic activity and cardiovascular changes during HV, we compared cardiovascular responses during HV among subjects with different autonomic function, namely 16 patients with probable multiple system atrophy (MSA), 16 with possible MSA, 28 with Parkinson's disease (PD) and 28 healthy controls. Abnormalities of cardiovascular responses to head-up postural change and the Valsalva maneuver were definitely present in the order of probable MSA, possible MSA and PD, and abnormal HR and blood pressure (BP) responses during HV were observed in probable MSA and possible MSA, but not in PD. Unlike the significant difference in standard cardiovascular autonomic function tests, the HR and BP responses during HV were equivalent between probable and possible MSA. These findings suggest that cardiovascular control during HV may be affected not only by autonomic activity but also by other factors.