Fe-oxide concretions formed by interacting carbonate and acidic waters on Earth and Mars

Spherical Fe-oxide concretions on Earth, especially in Utah, USA, have been investigated as an analog of hematite spherules found in Meridiani Planum on Mars to support interpretations of water-rock interactions in early Mars. Although several formation mechanisms have been proposed for the Fe-oxide concretions on Earth, it is still unclear whether these mechanisms are viable because a precise formation process and precursor of the concretions are missing. This paper presents evidence that Fe-oxide concretions in Utah and newly found Fe-oxide concretions in Mongolia had spherical calcite concretions as precursors. Different formation stages of calcite and Fe-oxide concretions observed, both in Utah and Mongolia, indicate that calcite concretions initially formed within eolian sandstone strata and were dissolved by infiltrating Fe-rich acidic waters to form spherical FeO(OH) crusts due to pH buffering. The similarity between these Fe-oxide concretions on Earth and the hematite spherule occurrences in Meridiani Planum, combined with evidence of acid sulfate water influences on Mars, suggest that the hematite spherules also formed from dissolution of preexisting carbonate spherules possibly formed under a dense carbon dioxide early martian atmosphere.

Direct measurements of two-way wave-particle energy transfer in a collisionless space plasma

Particle acceleration by plasma waves and spontaneous wave generation are fundamental energy and momentum exchange processes in collisionless plasmas. Such wave-particle interactions occur ubiquitously in space. We present ultrafast measurements in Earth's magnetosphere by the Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft that enabled quantitative evaluation of energy transfer in interactions associated with electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves. The observed ion distributions are not symmetric around the magnetic field direction but are in phase with the plasma wave fields. The wave-ion phase relations demonstrate that a cyclotron resonance transferred energy from hot protons to waves, which in turn nonresonantly accelerated cold He⁺ to energies up to ~2 kilo-electron volts. These observations provide direct quantitative evidence for collisionless energy transfer in plasmas between distinct particle populations via wave-particle interactions.

Integrating 3D Rotational Angiography into Gamma Knife Planning

3D rotational angiography provides remarkable spatial resolution for cerebrovascular disorders; however, it cannot be integrated directly into gamma knife planning due to the discrepancy of DICOM "tag" information, and most physicians still cannot benefit from 3D rotational angiography. Here, we describe a simple and easy technique to enable the integration of 3D rotational angiography.

Site-specific Chemotherapy Based on Predicted Primary Site by Pathological Profile for Carcinoma of Unknown Primary Site

AIMS

Although platinum-based combination chemotherapies are commonly used for unfavourable subsets of cancer of unknown primary (CUP), the prognosis remains poor. Several studies have suggested that gene expression profiling or immunohistochemistry was useful for the prediction of primary sites in CUP, and site-specific therapy based on predicted primary sites might improve overall outcomes. In Japan, to identify primary sites, immunohistochemical tests were commonly used for CUP in clinical practice. However, it is unclear whether site-specific therapy based on predicted primary sites by pathological examination contributes survival benefit for unfavourable CUP subsets.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

In this study, 122 patients with unfavourable subsets of CUP were retrospectively reviewed. Ninety patients assigned to cohort A after July 2012 had received chemotherapy according to predicted primary sites; 32 patients assigned to cohort B before June 2012 had received platinum-based empiric chemotherapy.

RESULTS

In cohort A, 56 patients (62.2%) with predicted primary sites by pathological examination received site-specific therapy; 34 patients (37.8%) with unpredictable primary sites received platinum-based empiric chemotherapy, the same as cohort B. The median overall survival was 20.3 months in patients with predictable primary sites in cohort A and 10.7 months in those of cohort B, with a significant difference between these cohorts (P = 0.03, adjusted hazard ratio = 0.57, 95% confidence interval 0.34-0.94).

CONCLUSION

Site-specific therapy based on predicted primary sites by pathological examination could improve prognosis in patients with an unfavourable subset of CUP.

Analysis of the Disappearance Curve of Labelled Fibrinogen at the Time of Hyperfibrinogenemia in Rabbits with Acute or Chronic Intravascular Coagulation

In order to study fibrinogen metabolism, the disappearance curve of 125I-labelled homologous fibrinogen was investigated in the rabbits with experimentally induced acute or chronic intravascular coagulation by injection of Lycopodium spores or thromboplastin. The results obtained were as follows.

1. Using haemolysate, an intermediate phase with upward convexity was clearly recognized between the early rapid-decay phase and the late slow phase in each radioactivity decay curve obtained in groups of rabbits. This convexity was most marked with acute intravascular coagulation induced by injection of Lycopodium spores, and was less marked, although higher, with chronic intravascular coagulation induced by injection of thromboplastin than that in the normal control.

2. The disappearance curve with the intermediate phase could be expressed, in approximation, as a sum of 2 equations - the initial exponential decay equation and the late parabolic one.

3. From the results obtained by separate examinations of the disappearance curve of plasma, fibrin clots and serum in rabbits with acute intravascular coagulation induced by injection of Lycopodium spores, the intermediate phase appears to be influenced more by the secondary increase of labelled non-clottable part than recirculation of the labelled fibrinogen.

4. The half time (27.4 hours) of the radioactivity in fibrin clots at the late phase observed in the group of rabbits with acute intravascular coagulation induced by injection of Lycopodium spores was shorter than that in the normal rabbits (50.2 hours). This fact may indicate that the increase of fibrinogen in the group of rabbits with acute intravascular coagulation induced by the injection of Lycopodium spores is due to overproduction of fibrinogen.

5. The half time of labelled fibrinogen should be calculated from disappearance curve of fibrin clots, instead from that of haemolysate or plasma.

Alert System for Inappropriate Prescriptions Relating to Patients’ Clinical Condition

Objectives: Because information of contraindication and careful indication of medication is vast, there have been numerous cases of prescribing medication inappropriately. Our goal is to have a clinical decision support system (CDSS) combined with a computerized physician order entry (CPOE) to aid physicians in prescribing medication appropriately. In this study we developed an alert system for evaluating renal function and checking doses of medication according to the patient’s renal function. In addition, we developed functions of extracting target problems from the raw data and verifying if contraindicated medication has being prescribed.

Methods: This system scrutinizes data handled in the CPOE system. It picks up the data needed to ascertain problems and the data of medication entered from the order entry system. First we made an alert system for renal dysfunction. Creatinine clearance (Ccr) of a patient was calculated by the estimate equation of Cockcroft and Gault. If a patient data fulfills the condition of impaired renal function, the alert message is sent to the database. The alert system also checks the dosage of each medication according to a patient’s renal function. When the dosage is over-prescribed, an alert is sent. Next, we made an alert system targeting contraindication for liver diseases, renal diseases and diabetes mellitus. The criteria of these problems were set in the knowledge base. If a patient’s data meets the criteria, that fact is stored in the problem database. The system also keeps a prescription check master and checks whether the patient has a problem which is a contraindication of the prescribed medication. If a problem exists, an alert is sent to the alert message database. The alert-presenting module is a web system. After accepting patients’ ID indicated by a user, the system searches the alerts concerning the patients from the database and constructs pages presenting the alert message.

Results: We compared the period during which the contraindicated medication was prescribed before and after the alert system was put into operation. Of the patients with renal dysfunction who were prescribed the contraindicated medication, 24% had their medication discontinued before the alert system was put into operation. In contrast, the rate significantly increased to 54% after the alert system began to function.

Conclusion: We developed an alert system for inappropriate prescriptions for each patient’s clinical condition. The alerts generated by this system were effective for discontinuing contraindicated medication.

Turbulent mass transfer caused by vortex induced reconnection in collisionless magnetospheric plasmas

Magnetic reconnection is believed to be the main driver to transport solar wind into the Earth's magnetosphere when the magnetopause features a large magnetic shear. However, even when the magnetic shear is too small for spontaneous reconnection, the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability driven by a super-Alfvénic velocity shear is expected to facilitate the transport. Although previous kinetic simulations have demonstrated that the non-linear vortex flows from the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability gives rise to vortex-induced reconnection and resulting plasma transport, the system sizes of these simulations were too small to allow the reconnection to evolve much beyond the electron scale as recently observed by the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft. Here, based on a large-scale kinetic simulation and its comparison with MMS observations, we show for the first time that ion-scale jets from vortex-induced reconnection rapidly decay through self-generated turbulence, leading to a mass transfer rate nearly one order higher than previous expectations for the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability.

Cytomegalic Inclusion Disease caused by Cytomegalovirus Infection in the Salivary Glands of an African Hedgehog (Atelerix arbiventris)

Cytomegalic inclusion disease (CID) in the salivary gland of African hedgehogs (Atelerix arbiventris) has been reported before, and is suspected to reflect a cytomegalovirus infection. However, a recent ultrastructural study reported that African hedgehog CID reflected oncocytic metaplasia, mimicking a cytomegalovirus infection. We examined the submandibular and sublingual salivary glands of a 1-year-old male African hedgehog. Histologically, there were multiple foci composed of cytomegalic cells with intranuclear inclusion bodies. Ultrastructurally, viral particles (109-118 nm in diameter) were observed in the nuclei of the cytomegalic cells. There were numerous vesicles containing various numbers of enveloped viruses in the cytoplasm. We also attempted to detect viral DNA fragments by degenerate polymerase chain reaction and obtained amplicons of a predicted size. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that the virus is a betaherpesvirus, comparatively related to human and rodent cytomegaloviruses. The present study suggested that African hedgehog CIDs also include those caused by the cytomegalovirus.

Smoking is a risk factor for pulmonary metastasis in colorectal cancer

AIM

The hepatic microenvironment, which may include chronic inflammation and fibrosis, is considered to contribute to the pathogenesis of liver metastases of colorectal cancer. A similar mechanism is anticipated for pulmonary metastases, although no reports are available. Smoking causes pulmonary inflammation and fibrosis. Thus, we hypothesized that smokers would be especially affected by pulmonary metastases of colorectal cancer. In this study, we attempted to clarify the impact of smoking on pulmonary metastasis of colorectal cancer.

METHOD

Between September 2005 and December 2010 we reviewed 567 patients with pathological Stage I, II or III colorectal cancer, whose clinicopathological background included a preoperative smoking history, pack-year history from medical records. Univariate and multivariate analyses using the Cox proportional hazard model were performed to determine the independent prognostic factors for pulmonary metastasis-free survival.

RESULTS

Pulmonary metastases occurred in 39 (6.9%) patients. The smoking histories revealed 355 never smokers, 119 former smokers and 93 current smokers among the subjects. Multivariate analysis revealed that being a current smoker (hazard ratio = 2.72, 95% CI 1.18-6.25; P = 0.02) was an independent risk factor for pulmonary metastases.

CONCLUSION

Smoking may be a risk factor for pulmonary metastasis of colorectal cancer. Cessation of smoking should be recommended to prevent pulmonary metastasis, although further basic and clinical studies are required.

Haemophilus influenzae peritonitis in a girl on automated peritoneal dialysis: Case report and review of the literature

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H. influenzae peritonitis in a girl on automated peritoneal dialysis is reported.

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The isolate was multilocus sequence type 3, which is a “common” type.

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Female-associated factors are important in such patients.

Haemophilus influenzae is a rare cause of peritonitis in patients on peritoneal dialysis (PD). We report a case of peritonitis due to non-typeable H. influenzae in a 5-year-old girl on automated PD. The patient was successfully treated with intraperitoneal cefepime and cefazolin. The isolate was multilocus sequence type 3 and contained the hmw and hia genes but was IS1016-negative. Seven of the eight reported cases were female, indicating that sex-associated factors may be important in H. influenzae peritonitis in patients on PD. Determination of the pathogenesis of PD-associated H. influenzae peritonitis requires gene analysis and a swab sample from the vaginal introitus.