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Intraoperative aortic valve evaluation should be accurate in valve-sparing root replacement to minimize postoperative aortic valve regurgitation. Ascending aorta de-clamping and weaning of cardiopulmonary bypass are required in intraoperative transoesophageal echocardiography. Aortic valve endoscopy aids in the magnification of structures and enables image sharing within the operative team. While a rigid endoscope and saline infusion line are directly inserted from the Valsalva graft end, a Kelly clamp is needed for graft gap closure, affecting the valve morphology due to graft deformation. The accurate inner pressure of the neo-Valsalva sinus cannot be measured in this method. We propose a technique to accurately evaluate aortic valve conformation using a balloon blunt-tip system that enables aortic valve evaluation under the measured pressure and without Valsalva graft deformation.

A (100 − x)Li2S·xAlI3 (0 ≤ x ≤ 30) positive electrode was prepared by the planetary ball-milling method for application in all-solid-state Li–S batteries.

Giant cell myocarditis (GCM) is one of the rare diseases that cause fatal heart failure and suspected to be associated with autoimmune disorder. There are few reports that the patients of GCM live long because of their progressive heart failure. We report a rare case of patient who was suspected two long hospitalizations due to heart failure in her childhood and peripartum period, and incidentally diagnosed with GCM by myocardial biopsy performed at the aortic valve replacement and mitral annuloplasty for severe aortic valve regurgitation and moderate mitral regurgitation.

All-solid-state batteries using flame-retardant inorganic solid electrolytes boast of advantages such as safety and wide usable temperature ranges. Although Li2S with an antifluorite-type structure...

A series of [2]rotaxanes with various functional groups in the axle component was synthesized by the oxidative dimerization of alkynes, which is mediated by a macrocyclic phenanthroline-Cu complex. The rotaxanes were fully characterized by spectroscopic methods, and the structure of a rotaxane was determined by X-ray crystallographic analysis. The interaction between the ring component and the axle component was studied in detail to understand the conformation of the rotaxanes. The presence of the hydrogen bond between the phenanthroline moiety in the macrocyclic component and the acidic proton in the axle component influenced the conformation of rotaxane.

The purpose of this study is to develop a system that continuously estimates the mental state during study time using a smartwatch equipped with a heart rate sensor and supports improvement in performance through short-term actions and long-term feedback. We verified whether different mental states (e.g., degree of focus, drowsiness, and fatigue) could be sufficiently detected during the study time using heart rate-related features from the heart rate sensor of the smartwatch. Firstly, we compared the performance of evaluation having only heart rate data for a different time window. Afterwards robustness evaluation has done for the unknown users’ data. Extra Trees Classifier fed with features extracted from 10 minutes window got the highest estimation accuracy of focus, drowsiness, and fatigue. Each mental state degree could be estimated with an average F1-Score value of more than 78.8%, which states that heart rate features may be sufficient to assess a certain degree of mental state.

A 71-year-old man who hospitalized frequently for heart failure was referred to our hospital for severe coronary disease with mitral regurgitation. Transthoracic echocardiography revealed marked left ventricular dilatation, low ejection fraction (20%) and moderate mitral regurgitation with leaflet tethering. It also revealed myocardium with prominent trabeculations and deep intertrabecular recesses. Coronary angiography showed triple vessel disease. Coronary artery bypass grafting and mitral annuroplasty was performed. Coronary microcirculatory dysfunction by left ventricular noncompaction( LVNC) and myocardial ischemia made us pay more attention to myocardial protection. Aortic cross clamp time was 67 minnutes, total cardiopulmonary bypass time was 116 minnutes and operation time was 214 minnutes. The postoperative course was uneventful and the patient was discharged 15 days after the operation. Postoperative echocardiography revealed no mitral regurgitation and improving left ventricular function. Postoperative coronary computed tomography showed all grafts patent. Careful observation of cardiac function is vital because of the possibility of progression to heart failure in a patient with LVNC.

Cardiac surgery for elder patients should be minimally invasive because of their frailty and concomitant multiple chronic diseases. We performed aortic valve replacement (AVR) via upper hemisternotomy (UHS) on an 85-year-old patient who suffered from severe aortic regurgitation with dobutamine support. The postoperative course was uneventful. AVR via UHS is safer than that via right axiallary thoracotomy AVR with shorter aortic cross-clamp time, shorter cardiopulmonary bypass time and fewer complications. AVR via UHS makes ambulation and rehabilitation easier than AVR via full sternotomy, because of thoracic stability. It is more effective and should be more prevalent as minimally invasive cardiac surgery for eldery patients with frailty.

The effects of nitro-carburizing or nitriding treatments on rotating–bending fatigue properties were investigated on four kinds of pearlitic ductile cast iron samples. In this study, we produced alloyed ductile cast iron samples containing V (0.1 %), Al (0.1 %) + Cr (0.1 %) and Al (0.1 %) + V (0.1 %). Tensile and hardness characteristics of the nitro-carburized samples were compared to those of the nitrided ones and as-cast ductile cast irons without alloying element. The iron nitride (γ′-Fe4N) formed on the surfaces of the nitride samples, and the iron complex nitrides (e-Fe2–3N) formed on the surfaces of the nitro-carburized ones. As a result, comparing with the same alloying content, the tensile strength and elongation of the nitro-carburized samples show the higher value than that of nitride ones. The micro-Vickers hardness tends to decrease with increase in distance from the sample surfaces. From the viewpoint of the nitride method, the hardness of nitride samples shows the higher value than that of the nitro-carburizing samples. Also, the maximum micro-Vickers hardness of nitrided layer at distance of 0.03 mm from sample surfaces increased with the increasing practical depth of nitrided layer. Therefore, the fatigue lives existing in the higher stress ranging from 500 to 650 MPa were found to be longer in the order of as-cast, nitro-carburized and nitrided samples. However, the fatigue limit of the lower stress zone existing at 410–450 MPa became no longer significant on endure limit by differences of nitiriding method. This means that the larger nitride layer depth and/or the higher hardness in the vicinity of surface acts to delay the fatigue crack generation on the fatigue characteristics of ductile cast iron samples.

A 57-year-old woman was admitted owing to epigastric pain.Abdominal computed tomography demonstrated a tumor in the origin of the jejunum.After an endoscopic biopsy, we diagnosed diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.We treated her with CHOP chemotherapy because pancreaticoduodenectomy is highly invasive.After 1 course of chemotherapy, the tumor was reduced.However, she developed a jejunal stenosis; therefore, we performed laparoscopic gastrojejunostomy.Furthermore, she developed perforated peritonitis on the sixth day after the surgery, and therefore, an emergency partial jejunum resection was performed.Histopathologically, viable lymphoma cells were not found in the resected intestine.She had a complete response 10 months after the surgery.Chemotherapy may cause intestinal stenosis and perforation requiring surgery; therefore, decisions about surgical procedures must be made carefully.

Accurate plant diagnosis requires experts' knowledge but is usually expensive and time consuming. Therefore, it has become necessary to design an accurate, easy, and low-cost automated diagnostic system for plant diseases. In this paper, we propose a new practical plant-disease detection system. We use 7,520 cucumber leaf images comprising images of healthy leaves and those infected by almost all types of viral diseases. The leaves were photographed on site under only one requirement, that is, each image must contain a leaf roughly at its center, thus providing them with a large variety of appearances (i.e., parameters including distance, angle, background, and lighting condition were not uniform). Although half of the images used in this experiment were taken in bad conditions, our classification system based on convolutional neural networks attained an average of 82.3% accuracy under the 4-fold cross validation strategy.

Detecting plant diseases is usually difficult without an experts’ knowledge. Therefore, fast and accurate automated diagnostic methods are highly desired in agricultural fields. Several studies on automated plant disease diagnosis have been conducted using machine learning methods. However, with these methods, it can be difficult to detect regions of interest, (ROIs) and to design and implement efficient parameters. In this study, we present a novel plant disease detection system based on convolutional neural networks (CNN). Using only training images, CNN can automatically acquire the requisite features for classification, and achieve high classification performance. We used a total of 800 cucumber leaf images to train CNN using our innovative techniques. Under the 4-fold cross-validation strategy, the proposed CNN-based system (which also extends the training dataset by generating additional images) achieves an average accuracy of 94.9 % in classifying cucumbers into two typical disease classes and a non-diseased class.

International audience; The structure of quatrandorite is reported for the first time from an untwinned sample from Oura mine, San Jose, Bolivia. The mineral crystallizes in P2 1 /c, a = 19.1686 (19) Å, b = 17.160 (3) Å, c = 13.042 (2) Å, β = 90.008 (12)°, V = 4289.9 (11) Å 3 , Z = 4. Refinement to R obs = 5.66% was obtained with Jana2006. Quatran-dorite belongs to the andorite series, whose members share two cell parameters while the third can be expressed as n × 4.3 Å, with n = 2, 4 and 6 for ramdohrite (uchucchacuaite, fizelyite), quatrandorite and senandorite, respectively. Both quatrandorite and senandorite are strongly pseudosymmetric up to Cmcm with one parameter corresponding to n = 1 (~ 4.3 Å). The hypothetical structure corresponding to Cmcm is also the aristotype common to both minerals. The strong structural similarity of quatrandorite and senandorite may explain their co-existence in some samples, which has in the past led to hypothesize the existence of a further member of the series , nakaséite, which was however later shown to consist of a random stacking of the two minerals. The Cmcm aristotype is not common to the n = 2 minerals (uchucchacuaite, ramdohrite, fizelyite), which are thus structurally less closely related to the two other members. A common aristotype to all three minerals can nevertheless be obtained via a different path, which leads to Cmme with the same cell parameters as Cmcm; the degree of pseudo-symmetry in this supergroup is however lower and there remain a difference in one sulfur position in this aristotype. It nevertheless confirms previous reports in the literature stating that the bulk of the structure of the minerals of this series can be reduced to a common principle, essentially a distorted galena; the departures from it are however crucial for the realization of the individual structures.

Ultraviolet (UV) light-induced pyrimidine photodimers are repaired by the nucleotide excision repair pathway. Photolesions have biophysical parameters closely resembling undamaged DNA, impeding discovery through damage surveillance proteins. The DDB1-DDB2 complex serves in the initial detection of UV lesions in vivo. Here we present the structures of the DDB1-DDB2 complex alone and bound to DNA containing either a 6-4 pyrimidine-pyrimidone photodimer (6-4PP) lesion or an abasic site. The structure shows that the lesion is held exclusively by the WD40 domain of DDB2. A DDB2 hairpin inserts into the minor groove, extrudes the photodimer into a binding pocket, and kinks the duplex by approximately 40 degrees. The tightly localized probing of the photolesions, combined with proofreading in the photodimer pocket, enables DDB2 to detect lesions refractory to detection by other damage surveillance proteins. The structure provides insights into damage recognition in chromatin and suggests a mechanism by which the DDB1-associated CUL4 ubiquitin ligase targets proteins surrounding the site of damage.

We previously reported that distamycin A, a natural antibiotic known as a minor groove binder, could bind to DNA duplexes containing the (6-4) photoproduct formed at its target site, whereas the binding was not observed for duplexes containing the cis-syn cyclobutane pyrimidine dimer in the same sequence context. In this study, we have further analyzed the binding of this drug to lesion-containing duplexes to elucidate its damaged-DNA recognition mechanism. Surface plasmon resonance measurements using various types of DNA showed that distamycin A could bind to several types of lesion-containing DNA. Curve fitting of the CD titration data revealed that the complex formation occurred with K(d) values around 10(-6) and a stoichiometry of 1:1. The results obtained in this study suggested that distamycin A binds to damaged DNA in the same way as to the normal target site, by recognizing the chemical structure of the minor groove.

We previously reported the chemical synthesis of oligonucleotides containing thymine glycol, a major form of oxidative DNA damage. In the preparation of the phosphoramidite building block, the predominant product of the osmium tetroxide oxidation of protected thymidine was (5R,6S)-thymidine glycol. To obtain the building block of the other isomer, (5S,6R)-thymidine glycol, in an amount sufficient for oligonucleotide synthesis, the Sharpless asymmetric dihydroxylation (AD) reaction was examined. Although the reaction was very slow, (5S,6R)-thymidine glycol was obtained in preference to the (5R,6S) isomer. The ratio of (5S,6R)- and (5R,6S)-thymidine glycols was 2:1, and a trans isomer was also formed. When an ionic liquid, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate, was used as a co-solvent, the reaction became faster, and the yield was improved without changing the preference. The phosphoramidite building block of (5S,6R)-thymidine glycol was prepared, and oligonucleotides containing 5S-thymine glycol were synthesized. One of the oligonucleotides was used to analyze the binding of distamycin A to thymine glycol-containing DNA by Circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy and surface plasmon resonance (SPR) measurements. Distamycin A bound to a duplex containing either isomer of thymine glycol within the AATT target site, and its binding was observed even when the thymine glycol was placed opposite cytosine.

Distamycin A binds to DNA containing the (6-4) photoproduct, a major UV lesion that is recognized by the damaged DNA-binding (DDB) protein in human cells. We analyzed the binding properties of distamycin A and compared the results with those of the DDB protein. Structural change of the DNA duplex was not observed for distamycin A in two types of experiments, whereas the protein induced a large bending of the helix. Although the substrate specificity was different between the drug and the protein, thymine glycol was recognized by both of them, and inhibition of the DDB protein binding to the (6-4) photoproduct-containing DNA by distamycin A was tested.

We present a case of syncope caused by coronary artery spasm without chest pain leading to ventricular fibrillation despite of vasodilator therapy with a calcium channel blocker (CCB). A 68-year-old man presented with two episodes of syncope without chest pain. Ergonovine provocation test induced a diffuse spasm in the right coronary artery (RCA) and subsequently, ventricular fibrillation. Under the therapy with multiple vasodilators including two CCBs, a second ergonovine provocation induced a spasm of the proximal RCA resulting in complete obstruction. Owing to drug-resistant coronary spasm complicated by ventricular fibrillation, an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) was implanted. This case report highlights the occurrence of syncope caused by coronary artery spasm without chest pain that was refractory to single CCB therapy and needed ICD implantation. Therapy with multiple vasodilators, including two or more CCBs, along with ICD implantation may be required to treat such refractory coronary artery spasms leading to lethal arrhythmia.