We discuss some aspects of the study of the Zodiacal cloud based on brightness observations. The discussion of optical properties as well as the spatial distribution of the dust cloud show that the description of the dust cloud as a homogeneous cloud is reasonable for the regions near the Earth orbit, but fails in the description of the dust in the inner solar system. The reasons for this are that different components of the dust cloud may have different types of orbital evolution depending on the parameters of their initial orbits. Also the collisional evolution of dust in the inner solar system may have some influence. As far as perspectives for future observations are concerned, the study of Doppler shifts of the Fraunhofer lines in the Zodiacal light will provide further knowledge about the orbital distribution of dust particles, as well as advanced infrared observations will help towards a better understanding of the outer solar system dust cloud beyond the asteroid belt.

抄録全体を表示

Specialized methods for targeted delivery of therapeutics to organs and tissues are becoming more critical as new drug modalities are being developed. Surgical techniques form the basis for such delivery methods. This presentation will focus on the surgical methods used to target delivery of different therapeutic types to the central and peripheral nervous systems with an emphasis on spinal cord and ocular delivery techniques. Descriptions and case studies will be used to provide an overview of these methods, which can be technically demanding, but critical to the nonclinical safety assessment of many exciting new pharmaceutical products.

抄録全体を表示

目的: Mannheim Peritonitis Index(以下, )を用いた消化管穿孔性腹膜炎症例の予後予測およびの予後反映度とその問題点について検討した. 方法: 当科で手術を行った, 虫垂炎由来を除く108例の腹膜炎症例を対象としを求め, と予後との相関を検討した. 結果: 死亡率は, 男性5.3%, 女性15.2%. 年齢別では, 死亡例はすべて50歳以上であった. と死亡率を比較すると, ≤26で死亡率は3.8%, >26で死亡率は41%であった. 26以下を生存, 27以上を死亡とした予後予測は, sensitivity77.7%, specificity97.9%, accuracy88.8%であった. さらに, に, 腎不全の合併を独立した危険因子として加え, 補正を求め検討した. 補正29以下を生存, 30以上を死亡とした予後予測は, sensitivity88.8%, specificity 93.9%, accuracy92.6%となり, よりも予後予測に優れていた. 結論: 簡便な因子を用いて腹膜炎症例の予後を予測できるは, 臨床的に有用であることが証明された. 複数の臓器不全や重篤な慢性疾患の合併を加味すれば, 予後判定の正診率がさらに向上すると考えられた.

抄録全体を表示

Myocardial performance index () is a simple and reproducible method for the assessment of overall cardiac function. In this study, we evaluated the applicability and usefulness of pulsed-wave tissue Doppler echocardiography (TDE) as a tool to calculate in comparision with a conventional Doppler method.
Twenty-five patients with previous myocardial infarction (MI) and 15 healthy subjects were included. In order to calculate by TDE, isovolumetric contraction time (IVCT), isovolumetric relaxation time (IVRT), and ejection time (ET) were measured at four different sites in the mitral annulus: septum, lateral, anterior, and inferior. was calculated by dividing the sum of IVCT and IVRT by ET at each site of measurement. The mean value was found by dividing the sum of these values into four. The same parameters were measured using the mitral inflow and left ventricular outflow velocity time intervals by a conventional method.
by TDE correlated well with conventional in healthy subjects (r = 0.81, P < 0.0001). Although it continued to be statistically significant, the correlation between the two methods of measuring , TDE and conventional, in patients with previous MI was not as high as it was in healthy individuals (P < 0.001, r = 0.62). This is due to the lesser degree of correlation between IVRT and IVCT values obtained by TDE and the conventional method (r = 0.49, P < 0.05; r = 0.56, P < 0.05; respectively).
In conclusion, this study has demonstrated that could be measured by tissue Doppler and that it correlated well with conventional . Moreover, by TDE has the advantage of assessing both regional and global myocardial performance.

抄録全体を表示

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of prosthetic interventions in patients with Kennedy Class Ⅱ (unilateral missing posterior teeth) on mastication predominance.

Methods The subjects comprised patients with Kennedy Class II and healthy dentate volunteers (HD group). The subjects were asked to freely chew the test foods (chewing gum, beef jerky, and peanuts). Electromyographic activity of the bilateral masseter muscles was recorded twice (before and after prosthetic intervention). The chewing side (right or left) was judged by the level of the root mean square electromyographic amplitude. Mastication predominance was assessed using the mastication predominance index (

; range 0–100%). Each patient was restored with a removable partial denture (RPD) or an implant-supported fixed prosthesis (IFP). The effects of prosthetic interventions were statistically evaluated by the differences between before and after prosthetic interventions (pre- and post- , respectively).

Results There was a significant difference between pre-

of patients with Kennedy Class II and of the HD group (HD-) for all test foods (P < 0.0001). Statistical analysis also demonstrated a significant difference between pre- and post- measured with each of the three food items in both the RPD and IFP groups (P < 0.0001). Multiple comparisons revealed that post- in the IFP group, but not in the RPD group, was statistically comparable with HD-, although there were no significant differences among the three groups when MPIs were calculated using peanuts.

Conclusions Prosthetic interventions improved mastication predominance in patients with Kennedy Class Ⅱ patients. Depending on the food type, IFP might contribute to better improvement of mastication predominance than RPD depending on food.

抄録全体を表示

In this paper, we propose a novel low-cost Message Passing Interface () unit between processor nodes, which supports message passing in multiprocessor systems using distributed memory architecture. Our unit operates in the standard mode - using the buffered mode for small amounts of data transaction and the synchronous mode for large amounts of data transaction. This results in increased performance by reducing the control message transmission time for the small amount of data. We verified the performance with a simulator designed based on SystemC. Additionally, we designed the unit using VerilogHDL, and we synthesized it with a synopsys design compiler. The proposed standard mode unit shows a high performance even though the size of the unit occupies less than 1% of the whole chip. Thus, with respect to low-cost design and scalability, this hardware unit is useful to increase overall performance of the embedded Multiprocessor System on a Chip (MPSoC).

抄録全体を表示

This article provides basic information for making parallel programs with . The author have chosen as a basic programming interface on PC clusters, because the parallel execution model it assumes is very close to clusters. The functions introduced in this article are for sending or receiving messages, broadcasting or reducing data, and starting and ending environments. This article also introduces how to compile and execute programs.

抄録全体を表示

As supercomputers increase in size, the mean time between failures (MTBF) of a system becomes shorter, and the reliability problem of supercomputers becomes more and more serious. is currently the de facto standard used to build high-performance applications, and researches on the fault tolerance methods of are always hot topics. However, due to the characteristics of programs, most current checkpointing methods for programs need to modify the library (even operating system), or implement a complicated protocol by logging lots of messages. In this paper, we carry forward the idea of Application-Level Checkpointing (ALC). Based on the general fact that programmers are familiar with the communication characteristics of applications, we have developed BC-ALC, a new portable blocking coordinated ALC for programs. BC-ALC neither modifies the library (even operating system) nor logs any message. It implements coordination only by the Barrier operations instead of any complicated protocol. Furthermore, in order to reduce the cost of fault-tolerance, we reduce the synchronization range of the barrier, and design WBC-ALC, a weak blocking coordinated ALC utilizing group synchronization instead of global synchronization based on the communication relationship between processes. We also propose a fault-tolerance framework developed on top of WBC-ALC and discuss an implementation of it. Experimental results on NPB3.3- benchmarks validate BC-ALC and WBC-ALC, and show that compared with BC-ALC, the average coordination time and the average backup time of a single checkpoint in WBC-ALC are reduced by 44.5% and 5.7% respectively.

抄録全体を表示

Background:The myocardial performance index () has emerged as a Doppler-derived index for global ventricular function capable of estimating combined systolic and diastolic performance. While several studies have reported its load-dependency, responses of the to various hemodynamic changes have not been fully characterized.Methods and Results:The response characteristics of the were examined and compared with ejection fractions (EF) by changing hemodynamic parameters within the physiological range in a lumped parameter model of the cardiovascular system. At baseline, the was 0.42 and the EF was 0.68. Heart rate increase resulted in a decrease in EF and an increase in the . Reduction in end-systolic elastance decreased EF and increased the . Volume overload and ventricular stiffening did not affect EF but paradoxically reduced the . Increased afterload due to higher systemic resistance resulted in a decrease in EF and increase in the , but afterload increase caused by reduced arterial compliance led to a decrease in both EF and . These characteristics caused paradoxical improvement of the during disease progression of chronic heart failure in a simulation of mitral regurgitation.Conclusions:The is affected by a wider variety of hemodynamic parameters than EF. In addition, it is predicted to decrease paradoxically with volume overload, reduction in arterial compliance, or ventricular diastolic stiffening. These characteristics should be considered when assessing cardiovascular dynamics using this index. (Circ J 2016; 80: 148–156)

抄録全体を表示

For ATP stress ^99mTc-Tetrofosmin myocardial perfusion images (), SPECT imaging is normally started 60 minutes after tracer injection. When the same procedure is applied to Adenosine (Ado) stress , the frequency of the mask-out procedure after reconstruction (MOP) is increased. In this study, we examined the optimal imaging time from accumulation and distribution of isotope to neighboring organs. Time-count curves from dynamic and planer images of the heart, liver, and left upper abdomen were generated in 7 patients for optimal imaging time. MOP was evaluated in ATP stress , in which imaging started 60 minutes after tracer injection (ATP 60), Ado stress with imaging 60 minutes after injection (Ado 60), and Ado stress with imaging 30 minutes after injection (Ado 30), in 575 patients. Up to 30 minutes after injection, washout from the liver was rapid, but after 30 minutes, it was slow. Washout from the left upper abdomen was not constant. MOP was 12.1% ATP 60, 23.1% Ado 60, and 13.2% Ado 30. Changing from Ado 60 to Ado 30 significantly decreased MOP (p<0.05). On adenosine stress , it shortened examination time and enabled SPECT imaging to start 30 minutes after tracer injection.

抄録全体を表示

Background:Sequential assessment using CT coronary angiography (coronary CT) and nuclear myocardial perfusion imaging (

) is considered an anatomical and functional evaluation of coronary artery disease (CAD). However, there can be unexpected radiation exposure. Hybrid with stress-only nuclear and rest CT- using coronary CT may contribute to reducing the radiation dose in sequential assessment with nuclear after coronary CT. We analyzed the diagnostic performance and total radiation dose of hybrid for detection of significant CAD compared with sequential assessment using nuclear after coronary CT.

Methods and Results:The results for 101 patients who underwent coronary CT, nuclear

and invasive coronary angiography within 3 months of all imaging were analyzed. We calculated the summed difference score (SDS) from standard nuclear and hybrid SDS from hybrid , which revealed myocardial ischemia. The diagnostic performance of SDS and hybrid SDS for detecting significant CAD was analyzed using receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. We also compared the total radiation dose of both methods. The area under the ROC curve was not different between SDS and hybrid SDS (0.901 and 0.815, P=0.079). Total radiation dose of hybrid was significantly lower than standard nuclear with CT angiography (4.62 mSv vs. 9.72 mSv, P<0.0001).

Conclusions:Hybrid

showed a precise diagnostic accuracy for significant CAD detection.

抄録全体を表示

Nowadays, the individual nodes of a distributed parallel computer consist of multi- or many-core processors allowing to execute more than one process per node. The large difference in communication speed within a node through shared memory, versus across nodes through the network interconnect, requires to use locality-aware communication schemes for any efficient distributed application. However, writing an efficient locality-aware code is complex and error-prone, because the developer has to use very different APIs for communication operations within and across nodes, respectively, and manage inter-process synchronization. In this paper, we analyze and enhance a recent one-sided communication model, namely DART-, which is implemented on top of -3. In this runtime system, the complexities of handling locality-awareness of memory access operations, either remote or local, and the related synchronization calls are hidden inside the related DART- interfaces resulting in concise code and improved application and developer productivity. We have carried out in-depth evaluation of our DART- system. Foremost, a micro benchmark is conducted to help understanding the prime performance overhead of implementing APIs in DART- system, which is small and becomes negligible with the growing message sizes. We then compare the performance of DART- and flat without locality awareness, in particular blocking and non-blocking memory operations, using a realistic scientific application on a large-scale supercomputer. The comparison demonstrates that in most cases the DART- version of this application shows better performance than the flat version. Further, we compare the DART- version to a functionally equivalent version, which thus includes code to deal with data-locality, and show that DART- realizes almost the full potential of highly optimized while maintaining high productivity for non-expert programmers.

抄録全体を表示

目的：Mannheim Peritonitis Index（）は，穿孔性腹膜炎における簡便な予後予測指標として知られている。今回消化管穿孔性腹膜炎におけるの臨床指標・予後における有用性について検討した。対象・方法：2000年1月～2006年3月までの佐世保中央病院で虫垂炎を除く消化管穿孔性腹膜炎48例を対象とした。は8項目から成る加点法で算出した。結果：穿孔臓器は胃17例（35.4％），十二指腸9例（18.8％），小腸7例（14.6％），大腸12例（25.0％），直腸3例（6.2％）であった。死亡例は7例（胃1例，大腸3例，直腸3例）であり，下部消化管（特に直腸）で死亡率が有意に高かった（p＜0.001）。死亡例のは25～41（30.1±5.84：mean±SD，以下同じ）で，生存例の0～42（12.5±11.1）と比べ有意に高かった（p＜0.001）。生存例において≧26の術後在院日数39.3±20.4日は，＜26の20.5±14.4日と比べ，有意に長期であった（p＜0.05）。結語：死亡例のは生存例に比べ有意に高く，≧26の術後在院日数も＜26に比べ長期であった。消化管穿孔性腹膜炎症例において，は簡便であり予後の指標になると考えられた。

抄録全体を表示

The message passing interface () broadcast communication commonly causes a severe performance bottleneck in multicore system that uses distributed memory. Thus, in this paper, we propose a novel algorithm and hardware structure for the broadcast communication to reduce the bottleneck situation. The transmission order is set based on the state of each processing node that comprises the multicore system, so the novel algorithm minimizes the performance degradation caused by conflict. The proposed scoreboard unit is evaluated by modeling it with SystemC and implemented using VerilogHDL. The size of the proposed scoreboard unit occupies less than 1.03% of the whole chip, and it yields a highly improved performance up to 75.48% as its maximum with 16 processing nodes. Hence, with respect to low-cost design and scalability, this scoreboard unit is particularly useful towards increasing overall performance of the embedded MPSoC.

抄録全体を表示

Nanomedicine is the medical application of nanotechnology. Nanomedicine ranges from the medical applications of nanomaterials and biological devices, to nanoelectronic biosensors, and even possible future applications of molecular nanotechnology such as biological machines. In 2005, a new imaging method called magnetic particle imaging （

）was introduced. can visualize the spatial distribution of magnetic nanoparticles（MNPs）with high sensitivity, spatial resolution, and imaging speed. uses the nonlinear response of MNPs to detect their presence in an alternating magnetic field（AMF）. MNPs can induce heat under an AMF, which allows applications to hyperthermia（magnetic hyperthermia）. This paper describes the principle of and applications to nanomedicine including the quantification of pulmonary mucociliary clearance, the prediction of therapeutic effects of magnetic hyperthermia, the monitoring of magnetic targeting, and cellular imaging and tracking for regenerative medicine. The future perspective of is also described.

抄録全体を表示

Background:Myocardial perfusion imaging (

) and fractional flow reserve (FFR) are established approaches to the assessment of myocardial ischemia. Recently, various FFR cutoff values were proposed, but the diagnostic accuracy of in identifying positive FFR using various cutoff values is not well established.

Methods and Results:We retrospectively studied 273 patients who underwent stress

and FFR within a 3-month period. Results for FFR were obtained from 218 left anterior descending artery (LAD) lesions and 207 non-LAD lesions. Stress and FFR demonstrated a good correlation in the detection of myocardial ischemia. However, the positive predictive value (PPV) of FFR for detecting -positive lesions at the optimal FFR thresholds was insufficient (44% for LAD and 65% for non-LAD lesions). This was caused by a sharp drop in PPV at an FFR threshold of 0.7 or more. Notably, 41% of the lesions with normal demonstrated FFRs <0.80. However, -negative lesions had an extremely low lesion rate with FFR <0.65 (6%). Conversely, 78% and 41% of -positive lesions had FFR <0.80 and <0.65, respectively.

Conclusions:The data confirmed that decisions based on

are reasonable because -negative patients have an extremely low rate of lesions with a FFR below the cutoff point for a hard event, and -positive lesions include many lesions with FFR <0.65.

抄録全体を表示