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There is a close relationship between sleep disordered breathing (SDB) and heart failure. We performed home oxygen therapy (HOT) in patients with SAS undergoing dialysis, and investigated its effects on the heart function. The subjects were 10 SDB patients on dialysis. On retiring at night, oxygen was transnasally administered at 1.0 L/min. The human atrial natriuretic peptide (hANP), brain natriuretic peptide (BNP), total protein, Alb, cholesterol and phosphorus levels were measured before the start of oxygen therapy and after 6 weeks. The mean SpO2increased from 93.5% [91.5, 97.0] to 96.3% [94.8, 97.4] (median [interquartile range]) (p = 0.015). The hANP (p = 0.0039), BNP (p = 0.0098) and serum Alb (p = 0.015) levels significantly improved. There were no significant changes in the cholesterol, phosphorus or total protein levels. These results suggest that nocturnal oxygen therapy improves indices of heart failure, contributing to the prevention and treatment of heart failure in dialysis patients with SDB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The time decay of the zero field cooled diamagnetic magnetization of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 single crystals can be explained in terms of a characteristic relaxation time τ0 and a mean activation energy E which is proportional to the reciprocal magnetic field. We find that τ0 becomes extremely long to be around 10 s at low temperatures below 14 K. This low temperature phase in the vortex solid region is also directly confirmed by the ac susceptibility measurements in the ultra low frequency range. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We studied magnetizations of over-doped Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+y single crystals. The thermoremanent magnetization shows an anomalous random oscillation in low frequency modulation field below 20 K. The result indicates a random motion of the vortices, which suggest there exists a new magnetic phase in the vortex solid phase. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]