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As differences in seed dormancy between Actinidia species have not been reported previously, in this study we characterized the variation in the dormancy of seeds in 13 kiwifruit species that originated from different regions of China and Taiwan, and for which mature plants are now growing in New Zealand orchards. Dormancy-breaking treatments, including cold-moist stratification, seed coat scarification and soaking in water and gibberellic acid (GA3), were tested for their efficacy in alleviating dormancy and improving final germination and germination rates. In addition, we assessed seed viability using RNA integrity analysis to distinguish dead seeds from dormant seeds. This study identified that dormancy type in Actinidia seeds is species-specific and can be morphological, morphophysiological or a combination of physiological and physical, and that seed RNA integrity is a useful metric to incorporate into seed dormancy studies. Our results also suggest that species originating from colder climates that experience large differences between winter minimum and summer maximum temperatures exhibit physiological dormancy and require cold-moist stratification, contrasting with species originating in milder climates. Interestingly, although not all seeds from all the species were dormant, the proportion of dormant seeds in each species did not correlate to the climatic data of the region from which they originated. These findings provide new insights into mechanisms of seed dormancy in kiwifruit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fast Independent Component Analysis (FastICA) is a component separation algorithm based on the levels of non-Gaussianity. Here we apply FastICA to the component separation problem of the microwave background, including carbon monoxide (CO) line emissions that are found to contaminate the PLANCK High Frequency Instrument (HFI) data. Specifically, we prepare 100 GHz, 143 GHz, and 217 GHz mock microwave sky maps, which include galactic thermal dust, NANTEN CO line, and the cosmic microwave background (CMB) emissions, and then estimate the independent components based on the kurtosis. We find that FastICA can successfully estimate the CO component as the first independent component in our deflection algorithm because its distribution has the largest degree of non-Gaussianity among the components. Thus, FastICA can be a promising technique to extract CO-like components without prior assumptions about their distributions and frequency dependences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an analysis of the and CO gas in conjunction with the Planck/IRAS submillimeter/far-infrared dust properties toward the most outstanding high latitude clouds MBM 53, 54, 55 and HLCG 92 – 35 at b = –30° to – 45°. The CO emission, dust opacity at 353 GHz (τ353), and dust temperature (Td) show generally good spatial correspondence. On the other hand, the correspondence between the emission and the dust properties is less clear than in CO. The integrated intensity and τ353 show a large scatter with a correlation coefficient of ∼0.6 for a Td range from 16 K to 22 K. We find, however, that and τ353 show better correlation for smaller ranges of Td every 0.5 K, generally with a correlation coefficient of 0.7-0.9. We set up a hypothesis that the gas associated with the highest Td ⩾ 21.5 K is optically thin, whereas the emission is generally optically thick for Td lower than 21.5 K. We have determined a relationship for the optically thin gas between atomic hydrogen column density and τ353, , under the assumption that the dust properties are uniform and we have applied this to estimate from τ353 for the whole cloud. was then used to solve for Ts and over the region. The result shows that the is dominated by optically thick gas having a low spin temperature of 20-40 K and a density of 40-160 cm–3. The envelope has a total mass of ∼1.2 × 104M☼, an order of magnitude larger than that of the CO clouds. The envelope properties derived by this method do not rule out a mixture of and H2 in the dark gas, but we present indirect evidence that most of the gas mass is in the atomic state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primary hepatic squamous cell carcinoma is rare. In this case, a malignant lesion was detected in bilateral hepatic lobes by ultrasound sonography and computed tomography. The maximum tumor diameter was approximately 10 cm. Tumor tissue obtained by aspiration liver biopsy was diagnosed as poorly differentiated squamous cell carcinoma. In gallium radioisotope scanning, no focus was detected in any organs other than the liver. As therapy, anti-cancer drugs were administered via hepatic arterial infusion. The patient received 10 mg of cis-diaminedichloroplatinum (CDDP) and 250 mg of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) for 5 days every week. The therapy was continued for 3 weeks, and the same doses of CDDP and 5-FU were given to the patient once per 2 weeks in the clinic. The intrahepatic tumor lesion began to decrease from the start of treatment, and had almost disappeared 8 months after. Recurrence of the liver tumor occurred at 12 months from the start of treatment. The patient was re-admitted and treated with the same anti-cancer drugs via hepatic arterial injection. However, the drugs showed remarkable effect no longer and she died in month 23. The treatment with chemotherapy via hepatic arterial injection for a patient with squamous cell carcinoma offered a favorable therapeutic effect.

Lamivudine has previously been found to be effective not only in patients with compensated liver disease due to hepatitis B virus (HBV) but also in those with hepatic decompensation. However, long-term follow-up of patients with hepatic encephalopathy (HE) has not been previously reported. We describe a patient with recurrent HE associated with decompensated liver cirrhosis due to hepatitis B. After the initiation of treatment with lamivudine, manifestation of HE has not been observed for about 2 years and liver function has improved as well. This experience suggests that improved liver function using lamivudine may contribute to prevention from recurrence of HE.