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Generally, reactivation of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is induced by the administration of immunosuppressants or anticancer agents, but reactivation without such drugs has rarely been reported. Here we report an elder case with spontaneous reactivation of HBV replication accompanied by hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) mutations. A 69-year-old man with a history of diabetes mellitus and chronic kidney disease (CKD) was found to be positive for HBsAg (0.072 IU/ml) in June 2018. In May 2019, marked hepatic dysfunction and increased HBsAg (2533.2 IU/ml) were observed when he visited the hospital due to diarrhea and worsening of CKD. At that time, hepatitis B surface antibody (HBsAb) was positive (268.9 mIU/ml) and HBV DNA was 6.0 log IU/ml. After treatment with entecavir, HBV DNA and HBsAg rapidly decreased. Full-genome HBV sequence analysis revealed that the patient was infected with HBV of subgenotype B1 and it had an "a" determinant mutation M133L in the S gene coding HBsAg. Notably, both HBsAg and HBsAb were positive at the time of HBV reactivation, suggesting that the HBV with these mutations escaped from neutralization by HBsAb. This case suggests that immune escape mutations could play an important role in spontaneous HBV reactivation.

Adenosquamous carcinoma (ASC) is a rare histological type of esophageal carcinoma. Esophagogastroduodenoscopy for the health checkup of a 71-year-old male revealed the presence of a slightly elevated lesion like a submucosal tumor at the lower part of the esophagus. The center of it was slightly depressed, and the depressed area was not stained by iodine. Magnifying endoscopy with narrow-band imaging revealed reticular pattern vessels in the depressed area, whereas no irregularity of the microvascular pattern of the surrounding area was evident. One of the biopsied specimens taken from the depressed area was diagnosed as squamous intraepithelial neoplasia, but a malignant tumor with submucosal invasion was suspected based on the findings of endoscopic ultrasonography. Endoscopic mucosal resection using a cap-fitted endoscope was performed, and the lesion was diagnosed as esophageal ASC histologically. Carcinomas that formed nested and ductal structures existed in the lamina propria and invaded to the submucosa. Almost all of them were covered by non-invasive intraepithelial neoplasia, whereas small erosion was seen in the central depressed area. The growing pattern of ASC was quite different from that of typical differentiated squamous cell carcinomas. When we do endoscopic examination for an esophageal lesion like submucosal tumor, we have to consider the possibility of an esophageal carcinoma that has a similar growing pattern. If reticular pattern vessels are seen with magnifying endoscopy, the existence of an invasive carcinoma is suspected, and additional endoscopic ultrasonography is recommended. Possible efforts to gain histological findings have to be made using bowling biopsy, endoscopic resection, and so on.

Introduction Under the current pandemic situation of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), we have newly developed a commercially available device named Endomask to prevent the diffusion of droplets from subjects undergoing esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD). Herein, we evaluate the efficacy and safety of the device, and also evaluate the stress of the device on the operators and the subjects of EGD. Methods The efficacy of the device was evaluated using an experimental model that simulated the environment of EGD. The safety of the device was evaluated clinically by means of measuring the oxygen saturation and the expiratory carbonic dioxide partial pressure of subjects with our device during EGD. The stress of the device on the operability of the endoscopists and the respiration of the subjects were evaluated using questionnaires. Results In the experiments with Endomask, the percentage of the area with simulated droplets was significantly reduced compared to that without our device (median, 0.24% vs. 6.96%, p = 0.009). The saturation of oxygen and the expiratory carbonic dioxide partial pressure of subjects with the device did not show significant change at any recording times. Neither the operators nor the subjects felt serious stress from examination with the device. Conclusions Endomask could remarkably and safely prevent the diffusion of droplets without serious stress. Endomask is expected to contribute to a reduction of the infectious risk of SARS-CoV-2 in endoscopy units during COVID-19 pandemic.

Free-space optical (FSO) communications offer high-capacity wireless transmission due to their plentiful properties originated from higher carrier frequency. These properties also yield a greater security advantage: the high directionality of the laser beam and the line-of-sight configuration can reasonably restrict an attack model launched by an eavesdropper (Eve). Secret key agreement over FSO links (FSO-SKA) employs this security advantage for key establishment between two distant parties, which is secure against Eve even with unbounded computer resources. In this chapter, we numerically evaluate the performance of FSO-SKA for satellite laser communications under the given power constraint. We also compare the performance of FSOSKA and quantum key distribution (QKD). Our result shows that FSO-SKA can generate a key even for the distance between geostationary orbit satellite and ground station. We anticipate that FSO-SKA has a potential to extend the secure satellite networks to global scale, which is hard only with QKD.

Appropriate management of constipation in hemodialysis patients has not been established, although constipation is the most frequent gastrointestinal complication in dialysis patients. We herein report the efficacy and safety of polyethylene glycol in constipated hemodialysis patients assessed prospectively. Seven patients using stimulant laxatives participated in this study. Polyethylene glycol was administered to reduce stimulant laxatives during the six-week intervention period. The amount of stimulant laxatives decreased and spontaneous bowel movements with ideal stool consistency increased significantly after the intervention. No serious adverse effects were observed throughout this study. In conclusion, polyethylene glycol can be a useful tool for managing constipated hemodialysis patients.

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The lead author has in this decade been studying the processes of creating and transferring multinational IT service knowledge among the headquarters of a global IT Service firm in Japan and the firm’s local subsidiaries in China and APAC regions. Key findings of the preceding studies are, (1) the average of Project Managers’ skill level in China and APAC regions has already reached to the global average determined in the standardized PM skill assessment within the global firm. (2) IT service project managers’ value systems are highly influenced by those of organization the PMs belong to, and the value systems vary not only by nations but also by industries. (3) To transfer knowledge from HQ to overseas subsidiaries in China and APAC regions, especially in the case that the knowledge to be transferred is extremely new and unfamiliar to the knowledge transferees (i.e., local PMs), it is better for the knowledge transferrers from HQs to consider the differences between the value systems of the transferrer and the transferee.

Free-space optical (FSO) communications are becoming promising schemes for high-capacity wireless links due to their plentiful characteristics originated from higher carrier frequency. These characteristics also yield a greater security advantage over radio frequency counterparts: the physical ability of a wiretapper is reasonably restricted due to the high directionality of communication beam and the line-of-sight configuration of the link. Secret key agreement over FSO links (FSO-SKA) employs this security advantage as well as the post-processing over an authenticated public channel to establish an information-theoretic secure key which cannot be broken even with unbounded computer resources. In the previous works, the authors demonstrated the full-field implementations of FSO-SKA with a 7.8-km FSO link testbed including a probing station to estimate the possible wiretapping risks from the sidelobe of the communication beam. In the demonstration, however, there is still room to improve the secret key rate by exploiting the optical fading which contains additional information about random states of the FSO links. We here propose a novel protocol for FSO-SKA employing such channel state information. In the protocol, the legitimate receiver decides whether to discard the received symbols or not according to the received optical power at the time. Based on the experimental data from the FSO link testbed, we demonstrate that the proposed protocol improves the secret key rate compared with our previous result. To our best knowledge, this is the first demonstration that exploits the effect of atmospheric turbulences to improve the security performance of communication systems. We anticipate that this idea will be applicable on the broader areas of FSO communications and opens a way toward practical wireless network spanned by FSO links.

Research and development of a novel method for a secure free-space optical communication system has been done in NICT since 2018, and demonstration experiments between an aircraft and a transportable optical ground station are planned in near future. In order to establish a stable and highly accurate optical communication link, the system must have a fine pointing mechanism in both the aircraft and the ground station. A compact and light-weight tracking system is required to be mounted on the aircraft, and there will be needed to have an adjustment function of the beam divergence control to allow stable communication under various altitude and atmospheric conditions. The transportable optical ground station should maintain vibration resistance when moving, and it must be easily deployed on each site where is the appropriate optical ground station site with respect to atmospheric turbulence condition.

Free-space optical (FSO) communications can offer secure connectivity thanks to the high directionality of the laser beam and the line-of-sight configuration. These security advantages are employed to realize high-speed key establishment between two distant parties, which is provably secure against an eavesdropper with unlimited computational resources. Besides, a well-maintained laser beam divergence allows group key agreement (GKA) among multiple parties. Here, we propose a novel method of GKA over FSO link—FSO-GKA. After numerically characterizing fundamental behaviors, we present a proof-of-concept demonstration of FSO-GKA using a 7.8-km terrestrial link. We achieve a group key rate of roughly 8 Mbps over a 58dB-loss channel based on 10-MHz on-off keying. We also investigate information leakage risks under several atmospheric conditions, which provides the basis for security certification of FSO-GKA. Our proposed scheme shows a new way to construct high-speed key exchange platforms.

We present practical GHz-clocked QKD systems, next generation entanglement QKD technologies, and QKD platform to manage the secure keys and to support a variety of applications. We then show the intrinsic limit of QKD, i.e., a key rate bound, and discuss how to realize the provable (information theoretic) security with a larger secrecy capacity over longer distances. In particular, we present a basic theory of physical layer cryptography, which characterizes the secrecy capacity, and engineers the tradeoff between the efficiency of reliable transmission and secrecy of communication. We introduce a concept to unify these schemes in photonic network, referred to as quantum photonic network. Future issues for realizing this new network paradigm are discussed.

Gastric acid measurement is useful in assessing the effectiveness of antisecretory drugs, however, the conventional tests involve invasive nasogastric intubation. Orally administered ¹³C-labeled calcium carbonate (Ca¹³CO₃) reacts with gastric acid to produce ¹³C-labeled carbon dioxide (¹³CO₂), which is then excreted in the breath. The objective of this study was to evaluate the suitability of Ca¹³CO3 breath test for estimating gastric acid secretion in human noninvasively. First, the Ca¹³CO₃ breath test and the measurement of pooled gastric acid under a fasting condition were performed in 6 healthy volunteers to evaluate the correlation between the two parameters. Next, endoscopic gastric acid collection and the Ca¹³CO₃ breath test were performed on different days after pentagastrin injection in 20 subjects to evaluate the correlation between the tests and the reproducibility. Finally, the same studies were repeated in 4 subjects before and after 1-week rabeprazole, a proton pump inhibitor, administration. The maximum CO₂ concentration (Cmax) correlated very well with the amount of pooled gastric acid (r = 0.95), suggesting that Ca¹³CO₃ breath test values well reflected the fasting intragastric acidity. The ¹³CO₂ concentration after pentagastrin injection correlated well with pentagastrin-stimulated maximal acid output (r = 0.79 at 20 min). The reproducibility of the Ca¹³CO₃ breath test under pentagastrin-stimulation was good (coefficient of variation = 0.11). Rabeprazole administration markedly reduced the values of the Ca¹³CO₃ breath test, suggesting that it can sensitively assess the efficacy of rabeprazole. The Ca¹³CO₃ breath test can potentially be a useful method for non-invasive estimation for gastric acid secretion in human.

Sarcoidosis is a multi-systemic disease of unknown etiology that results in the development of non-caseating epithelioid granulomas. The liver is the third most frequently involved organ after the lymph nodes and the lungs. Most cases of liver sarcoidosis do not present with symptoms and involve minimal liver dysfunction, but some cases display progression to portal hypertension and liver cirrhosis, and finally to liver failure. The mechanism and the risk of progression in liver sarcoidosis are still unknown because of the diagnostic difficulty associated with this condition, and because follow-up examinations can only be done in an invasive manner. Here, we present an informative case of liver sarcoidosis with rapid progression of esophagogastric varices. Four months prior to the definitive diagnosis, no signs of varices were observed on endoscopy, and developmentof esophagogastric varices, rapid progression, and eventual rupture occurred in a short period of time. A liver biopsy, carried out after endoscopic sclerotherapy, revealed that granulomas primarily affected the portal area without fibrotic and cirrhotic changes, which is considered a primary cause of portal hypertension and esophagogastric varices. Following the liver biopsy, the patient was given systemic steroids and is currently receiving outpatient care. Thus, we should consider the possibility that liver sarcoidosis, even in the absence of cirrhotic changes, can cause serious events such as esophagogastric variceal rupture following rapid progression as a result of portal hypertension.

Background: Metabolic acidosis is known to accelerate the progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD). However, whether undetermined anions as indicated by the adjusted anion gap (aAG) are associated with estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) decline in patients with CKD is unclear. Methods: Data from 42 patients with CKD (baseline eGFR, 7.1-52.0 ml/min/ 1.73 m2) without massive proteinuria (urinary protein-creatinine ratio, UPCR Results: The mean baseline eGFR was 27.5 ± 11.1 ml/min/1.73 m2 and the mean %ΔeGFR/6m was 13.8 ± 10.3. UPCR and aAG were 1.13 ± 0.93 and 9.48 ± 1.88, respectively. %ΔeGFR/6m was associated with aAG (r = 0.438, p < 0.005), but not with UPCR (r = 0.194, p = 0.218). In multivariate linear regression analyses, aAG remained significantly associated with %ΔeGFR/6m (β = 0.45, p < 0.01) after controlling for age, baseline eGFR, UPCR and HCO3- concentration. Conclusion: These data suggest that aAG appears to be associated with the progression of CKD. aAG might be an independent predictor of CKD progression.

Background/Aims: The treatment strategy for non-ampullary duodenal neuroendocrine tumors (NAD-NETs) ≤20 mm in diameter has not been established. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the detailed characteristics of NAD-NETs ≤20 mm in diameter to clarify the risk factors of subsequent metastasis. Methods: The patients with NAD-NETs ≤20 mm in diameter who had been treated at 12 institutions between 1992 and 2013 were enrolled. Clinical records were retrieved, and histopathological findings of all cases were centrally reviewed by 2 pathologists. Results: We studied 49 patients with a mean follow-up period of 66.5 months. Thirty-five patients were initially treated with endoscopic resection (ER), and 14 with surgery. A univariate analysis revealed the ORs and 95% CIs of the risk factors for metastasis were lymphovascular invasion (12.5 [2.01-77.9]), multiple tumors (9.75 [1.46-65.4]), a tumor size of 11-20 mm (6.67 [1.21-36.6]), and World Health Organization grade G2 (7.13 [1.16-43.9]). Five-year overall and disease-specific survival rates were 86.1 and 97.2%, respectively. Conclusion: This is the first study to demonstrate the risk factors of metastasis in NAD-NETs ≤20 mm in diameter. These findings may be helpful for determining the appropriate therapeutic approach and the clinical strategy of treatment following ER.

We present experimental data on message transmission in a free-space optical (FSO) link at an eye-safe wavelength, using a testbed consisting of one sender and two receiver terminals, where the latter two are a legitimate receiver and an eavesdropper. The testbed allows us to emulate a typical scenario of physical-layer (PHY) security such as satellite-to-ground laser communications. We estimate information-theoretic metrics including secrecy rate, secrecy outage probability, and expected code lengths for given secrecy criteria based on observed channel statistics. We then discuss operation principles of secure message transmission under realistic fading conditions, and provide a guideline on a multi-layer security architecture by combining PHY security and upper-layer (algorithmic) security., Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures

The association of Helicobacter pylori infection with aspirin-induced gastropathy is controversial. H. pylori infection exerts diverse effects on gastric acid secretion. In this study, the interaction between H. pylori infection and aspirin was investigated with reference to the individual gastric acid secretion level in H. pylori-positive subjects.Ninety-three (81 men, mean age: 70 years) long-term low-dose aspirin takers were prospectively enrolled. H. pylori infection was evaluated by serum IgG antibody determination, and gastrin-stimulated acid output was assessed with the endoscopic gastrin test. H. pylori-positive aspirin-takers were classified into 2 subgroups (hyposecretors and non-hyposecretors). The grade of gastric mucosal injury was assessed endoscopically according to the modified Lanza score; intensive aspirin-induced gastropathy was defined as a modified Lanza score of ≥4. Multiple logistic regression analyses were used to adjust for potential confounders.With H. pylori-negative patients taken as the reference, H. pylori infection was found to be positively associated with intensive gastropathy among non-hyposecretors, with an odds ratio (OR) (95 % confidence interval [CI]) of 4.2 (1.1-17.1), while the infection was negatively associated with gastropathy among hyposecretors, with an OR (95 % CI) of 0.3 (0.08-0.9). Aspirin-induced gastropathy occurred preferentially in the antrum among H. pylori-positive non-hyposecretors, while it affected the fundus among H. pylori-positive hyposecretors.The effect of H. pylori infection on the aspirin-induced gastropathy was biphasic depending on the individual gastric acid secretion level. In the presence of sufficient amounts of gastric acid, H. pylori infection and aspirin could synergistically damage gastric mucosal integrity, while in the absence of sufficient amounts of gastric acid, the synergistic effect could be completely counteracted and the infection could even suppress the aspirin-induced gastropathy.

Objective There is a strong male predominance of oesophageal adenocarcinoma, which might be related to the higher prevalence of precursor lesions such as erosive reflux oesophagitis in men compared with women. This experiment investigated the gender difference in a reflux oesophagitis model of rats and explored the potential role of oestrogen in controlling oesophageal tissue damage. Design An acid-reflux oesophagitis model was surgically produced in male and female rats, and ascorbic acid in the diet and sodium nitrite in the drinking water were administered to half of either group to provoke luminal exogenous nitric oxide (NO) as an exacerbating agent. Seven days after the surgery, the oesophagus was excised, and the injury area, myeloperoxidase activity and pro-inflammatory cytokine levels were measured. Furthermore, 17β-oestradiol was administered to ovariectomised female rats or male rats, which then underwent reflux oesophagitis surgery. Results While there was no gender difference in oesophageal damage in the baseline model, oesophageal damage was more intensively observed in males than in females in the presence of exogenous NO administration. While oesophageal damage was increased in ovariectomised rats compared with sham ovariectomised, exacerbated oesophageal damage was attenuated by the replacement of 17β-oestradiol. In addition, exacerbated oesophageal damage in male rats was suppressed by 17β-oestradiol. Conclusion This is the first study showing the prominent gender difference in the severity of oesophageal tissue damage in a gastro-oesophageal reflux disease-related animal model, highlighting the critical involvement of oestrogen in controlling gastro-oesophageal reflux disease-related oesophageal epithelial injury.

Helicobacter pylori infection is the major cause for mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma and gastric cancers. On the other hand, gastric cancers are known to arise from gastric mucosal atrophy. We here report a case of signet ring cell gastric cancer that developed after radiation therapy for MALT lymphoma in H. pylori-uninfected patient whose stomach did not show gastric mucosal atrophy. A 58-year-old female was referred to our hospital for treatment of gastric MALT lymphoma. This patient was not infected with H. pylori, and upper gastrointestinal endoscopy revealed that she did not have gastric mucosal atrophy but had submucosal tumor-like MALT lymphoma lesion in the anterior wall of the upper gastric body. Since conventional eradication therapy was ineffective, her whole stomach was irradiated as a second-line therapy. The MALT lymphoma lesion turned into complete remission state after the therapy. The patient was followed every 6 months by upper gastrointestinal endoscopy for 4 years as complete remission until a newly developed decolorized depressed lesion was detected in the greater curvature of the proximal antrum, a completely different location from the MALT lymphoma lesion. A biopsy specimen from the lesion contained signet ring cell carcinoma, and she was successfully treated by endoscopic submucosal dissection. No signs of recurrence have been detected so far. The radiation therapy for MALT lymphoma might be associated with the occurrence of this signet ring cell gastric cancer, and since MALT lymphoma is indolent in nature, this case suggests that careful consideration is required when choosing the second-line therapy for MALT lymphoma patients.

Free space optical (FSO) communications are enabling high-speed global wireless networks. Thanks to the highly directional nature of laser beam, they also yield a greater security advantage over radio frequency counterparts. When combined with a scheme of secret key agreement (SKA), FSO-SKA can establish at high speed a symmetric secret key which cannot be decrypted even by unbounded computer resources. Although there have been many theoretical studies on SKA, experimental investigations have been quite lacking, especially on quantifying eavesdropping risks and secret key rates in realistic environment. Here, we report the first full-field implementations of FSO-SKA in a 7.8-km terrestrial link with a probing station, enabling the estimation of eavesdropping risks. We attain the final key rates from 100 kbps to 7.77 Mbps under various atmospheric and beaming conditions even with total losses of 55dB or higher, in which known quantum key distribution schemes attain impractically low key rates.

We investigate the secret key rates for the recently proposed intensity-modulated dual-threshold key distribution [T. Ikuta and K. Inoue, New J. Phys. 18 (2016)] under beam splitting attacks. We show that previous assumptions on an eavesdropper that performs hard decision measurements on the channel, overestimates the secret key rate. We discuss the impact of an eavesdropper that can measure full soft information and give the secret key rates under forward and reverse reconciliation. Further, we perform simulations for different system assumptions and show the optimal modulation depths for these systems. We also outline an attack on this protocol based on photon counting that prohibits secret key generation.

Secret key agreement using physical properties of a wireless channel is becoming a promising scheme to establish a secret key between two users, especially in short-distance radio frequency (RF) communications. In this scheme, the existence of codes or key distillation that can make the leaked information to an eavesdropper arbitrarily small can be derived in an information theoretical way, given a priori knowledge on the channel linking a sender (Alice), a legitimate receiver (Bob), and an eavesdropper (Eve), which is called the wiretap channel. In practice, however, it is often difficult for Alice and Bob to get sufficient knowledge on Eve. In this study, we implement a free-space optical wiretap channel in a 7.8 km-terrestrial link and study how to estimate Eve's tapping ability, demonstrating high speed secret key agreement in the optical domain under a certain restricted condition of line-of-sight.

Two different types of mesh used for diesel combustion with the KIVA-4 code are compared. One is a well established conventional KIVA-3 type polar mesh. The other is a non-polar mesh with uniform size throughout the piston bowl so as to reduce the number of cells and to improve the quality of the cell shapes around the cylinder axis which can contain many fuel droplets that affect prediction accuracy and the computational time. This mesh is specialized for the KIVA-4 code which employs an unstructured mesh. To prevent dramatic changes in spray penetration caused by the difference in cell size between the two types of mesh, a recently developed spray model which reduces mesh dependency of the droplet behavior has been implemented. For the ignition and combustion models, the Shell model and characteristic time combustion (CTC) model are employed. The calculated spatial distribution of droplets, fuel vapor and soot are compared against high-speed in-cylinder imaging obtained from an optical access diesel engine. Heat release rate and computational time are also compared between the two types of mesh. The results show that the uniform-sized mesh reduces computational times significantly while maintaining almost the same prediction accuracy as the KIVA-3 type polar mesh.

A 36-year-old man complained of heartburn. Gastrointestinal endoscopies showed a reddish and slightly depressed lesion in the right-anterior wall of the esophagogastric junction. With white light imaging, the area of the adenocarcinoma under the squamous epithelium was difficult to detect, but a slightly flat, elevated lesion appeared in the area of adenocarcinoma under the squamous epithelium. With narrow-band imaging (NBI) in the area of the Barrett's esophageal cancer under the squamous epithelium, a slight, brownish change could be observed. In addition, with the magnifying technique, irregular mesh-like vessels were observed, suggesting the presence of differentiated adenocarcinoma under the squamous epithelium. The lesion was resected en bloc by endoscopic submucosal dissection, and Barrett's esophageal cancer under the squamous epithelium was histologically confirmed. In this case, NBI with magnifying endoscopy was very useful to diagnose the extension of Barrett's esophageal cancer under the squamous epithelium.

Woodceramic thin films were prepared onto alumina sheet and glass slide substrates by conventional radio frequency sputtering in an argon plasma. A woodceramic disk, 100 mm in diameter, sintered at 850°C was used as a target. The deposition rate was about 90 nm/h for 200 W input power. Remarkable differences were observed in the characteristics of films depending on the substrate temperature. Films prepared below 100°C had insulating properties, ρ > 106 Ω cm, and had transmission in the visible region (λ > 600 nm), and had smooth surfaces. Increasing the substrate temperature causes sharp a decrease in the film resistivity and the growth of grain was 3–5 μm. The film prepared at 300°C had semiconductor characteristics with an energy gap of about 0.05 eV.

Te static structures and switching dynamics of side chain ferroelectric liquid crystalline polymer (PSiOFLC) [Si(Me)(R)O] n (R= (CH 2 ) 10 OPhCO 2 PhCO 2 CH 2 CH(Me)(Et)) were investigated by using time-resolved optical waveguide spectroscopy (TROWS). A good alignment of the mesogenic side chains was obtained by a shearing procedure. The liquid crystalline phases of PSiOFLC were characterized by determining the dielectric tensor diagonals of PSiOFLC, in which the contribution of the main chain to the optical anisotropy could be neglected. The PSiOFLC layer in the S A phase could be treated as a uniaxial refractive index ellipsoid which aligned parallel to the substrate plane with bookshelf structure. The PSiOFLC layer in the S C* phase under the large electric field was also considered as a uniaxial ellipsoid model. The transient waveguide mode patterns of PSiOFLC were successfully obtained with a millisecond time resolution. During the reorientation, the smectic layer structure changed from bookshelf to chevron and then back to the bookshelf structure. The slowness of the switching time was attributed to a polymer effect in which the polymer backbones lying in the smectic layer plane act as a hook to restrict the motion of side chains due to the binding of the mesogenic moieties to the polymer backbone, resulting in the increase of viscosity.

There are two major trends of PM material development. The first is PM products application to the structural parts of automobiles which were originally made of conventional cast iron, carbon steel or alloyed steel.The PM materials were improved based on the alloyed material design, optimum manufacturing process and conditions to obtain comparable mechanical properties with them. The second is unique PM materials having heat and wear resistant properties utilizing PM advantage of flexibility in alloy elements and microstructures. It is understood that there is getting no economical advantage of the PM materials for the former application unless any further new development concept implemented.In this paper, existing concerns for PM materials to be more widely applied to the automobiles and future trend of their development are mentioned focusing on iron base materials.

Few studies have simultaneously evaluated the long-term outcomes of endoscopic resection (ER) for squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and adenocarcinoma (AC) of the esophagus in Japan. The objective of this study was to evaluate the long-term outcomes of ER for superficial esophageal cancer in consecutive patients.This was a retrospective study from a single institution. From April 2001 to June 2012, 204 patients with SCC and 26 patients with AC were included from a total of 355 consecutive patients who were treated by esophageal ER at the Tohoku University Hospital. Patients with submucosal invasion deeper than 200 μm and lymphovascular involvement were excluded. The intervention followed was endoscopic therapy.Overall survival, disease-free survival, and recurrence rates were evaluated as long-term outcomes. In the SCC group, during the median observation time of 36.5 months (range, 6-120 months), 22 (10.8%) patients experienced metachronous recurrence, 4 (2.0%) patients experienced local recurrence, and 27 (13.2%) patients died from causes unrelated to SCC. In the AC group, during the median observation time of 45.5 months (range, 6-131 months), one patient (3.8%) experienced metachronous recurrence and two (7.7%) died from causes unrelated to AC. The cumulative 5-year overall survival rates were not significantly different between SCC (75.9%) and AC (88.9%) (P=0.120). The cumulative 5-year disease-free survival rates of SCC (57.1%) were significantly lower than those of AC (85.2%; P=0.017). The cumulative 5-year recurrence rates of SCC (32.0%) were significantly higher than those of AC (4.2%; P=0.023).The rate of recurrence after ER was higher in patients with SCC than that in patients with AC. These findings suggest that, by detecting AC of the esophagus earlier, a satisfactory prognosis without recurrence can be expected after ER in Japan, and more rigorous endoscopic follow-up is necessary after ER in patients with SCC than in those with AC.

In rapidly changing service provision system, users' requirements and resource movement are constantly changing. To effectively utilize resource and provide the non-stop service to users, autonomous decentralized community system has been proposed. Community is autonomously formed with local majority sharing among same-preference members, and each member cooperate to one another autonomously. Moreover, the resource transportations in community can be simultaneously moved to adjacent members in one step. However, if the resources are insufficient when users' requests are detected, the continuity of service flow may be interrupted. Therefore, this paper proposes autonomous heterogeneous community technology (AHCoT) to improve the service response time and the efficiency in resource utilization. In AHCoT, a subsystem that lacks in resources autonomously forms a community to ask for extra resources, and a subsystem that is surplus in resources autonomously forms a community to distribute the over-stock resources. With two ways of community constructions, the coordination in order to allocate resources to continuously serve users can be cooperated faster. Hence, the timeliness to serve users and resource utilization efficiency can be achieved.

In a short-span seeking mode of hard disk drives, the two-degree-of-freedom control is generally used. Authors' group proposed the perfect tracking control (PTC) method in order to achieve high accuracy and high speed control. However, tracking error is caused in acceleration and deceleration period by the modeling error. As a result, it causes the overshoot, and seeking-time becomes longer. In this paper, we propose the novel method named "Learning based PTC" which can decrease the overshoot by learning of the tracking error.

Learning ability of networks in the recognition of vocabulary, etc. using neural networks is notably influenced by the unit number of intermediate layers. In our current study, we have investigated the effects when the unit number of intermediate layers is changed during the course of learning when back-propagation is applied, thereby discussing eventual influence on the learning ability of networks.

We achieved 100 nm hole resist patterns of aspect ratio over 10 in tri-layer resist process, where there was seen no bowing or undercut in the resist profile. To enhance a controllability of resist profile, we used organic conductive materials of lower durability against oxygen plasma than novolac photoresist as bottom layer in order both to achieve higher selectivity versus material of intermediate layer and to eliminate electron shading effect. In addition, deposition property induced by this material could be utilized to improve the resist profile under optimized dry development conditions. This efficiency to control resist profile was dependent on content of sulfur in this material. In this experiment, we could not find any apparent difference of resist profile improvement dependent on conductivity from 100 Mohm/square to more than 100 Gohm/square. This needs further investigation.

The e-beam proximity effect is well known as one of the limiting factors in e-beam lithography. As features get smaller the need for e-beam proximity effect correction increases. There exist different approaches to cover these effects by varying dose or shape of the pattern layout during the exposure step. Whichever algorithm is used, the question of proximity effect correction gets more and more a performance problem for forefront applications like the 256 megabit and 1 gigabit chips. The correction approach has to handle large data volume in reasonable time. Key to overcome this hurdle is to include hierarchial data handling into the proximity correction algorithm, which involves hierarchical data structures as well as hierarchy reorganization methods. The goal of the present work is to perform all necessary steps in order to guarantee the accuracy of the exposure result for the 1 gigabit memory chip. One step of the preparation is the e-beam proximity correction for raster scan machines. With respect to proximity effect correction, raster scan machines have a severe drawback. The scanning speed is constant while writing the layout, i.e., dose variation is not applicable to compensate for the proximity effect. There is, however, the geometry which can be exploited as degree of freedom. Geometrical variations of the layout underlie many constraints such as neighboring features, the exposure grid of the e-beam tool and, but not least, writing time. The paper presents how to solve some of the major problems occurring when proximity effect correction becomes an unavoidable step in the mask making process. Power and application limits of proximity effect correction for raster scan machines are investigated. The exposure has been carried out on a MEBES 4500 system. Process latitude and line width linearity are presented. In addition, practical questions like file size increase due to proximity correction are investigated. Exposure results of uncorrected and corrected pattern are compared to demonstrate the necessity of the correction as well as the improvement in pattern fidelity.

Background The association of Helicobacter pylori infection with aspirin-induced gastropathy is controversial. H. pylori infection exerts diverse effects on gastric acid secretion. In this study, the interaction between H. pylori infection and aspirin was investigated with reference to the individual gastric acid secretion level in H. pylori-positive subjects.

Background: Barrett's esophagus (BE) is the process by which normal squamous epithelium of the esophagus transforms into columnar, intestine-like epithelium. The exact mechanisms responsible for the development of BE associated carcinoma are not yet known; however, abnormal stabilization of β-catenin has been linked to several other gastrointestinal malignancies. Recent investigation by our group has identified a novel pathway whereby Phosphoinositide 3-kinases (PI3K) signaling leads to stabilization of β-catenin via phosphorylation by AKT. Enhanced PI3K signaling in a mouse model leads to enhanced stabilization of AKT phosphorylated β-catenin and formation of dysplastic lesions within small intestine epithelium (He et al, Nature Genetics 2007) We have shown that this phosphorylated form of β-catenin (pβ-catenin) is present within activated stem cells in polyps. Aim: To determine the pattern of expression of pβ-catenin in the metaplasia-dysplasia-carcinoma sequence in patients with BE. Methods: Patients undergoing surveillance endoscopy for BE were biopsied. Each tissue was fixed in formalin and sectioned. Sectioned tissue was stained for pβ-Catenin. Each sample was reported as number pos/hpf. Results: We find that pβ-catenin is present within the basal regenerative layer of normal squamous epithelium. We find no significant increase in pβ-catenin levels in patients with esophagitis. We report similar levels of pβcatenin expression between duodenal epithelium and non dysplastic BE suggesting no increase in baseline stem cell activation in non dysplastic BE. Dysplasia and frank esophageal adenocarcinoma reveal a 5 fold increase in pβ-catenin staining when compared to non dysplastic BE (P

めん羊の膵外分泌に及ぼす静脈内ペンタガストリン投与の影響を, CCK-8に対する反応と比較しながら検索した. 無麻酔めん羊において, CCK-8は膵液流量, 蛋白質濃度およびアミラーゼ活性何れも増加させたが, ペンタガストリンは膵液流量を増加させずに蛋白質濃度およびアミラーゼ活性を有意に増加させた. ペンタガストリンは, 麻酔下で幽門部を結紮されためん羊においても膵外分泌増加効果を示した. ペンタガストリンによる蛋白質とアミラーゼの最大放出量は, 無麻酔下においても麻酔下においてもCCK-8の場合より少なかった. これらの結果は, ペンタガストリンは腸相を介することなく膵腺房細胞刺激効果を有するが, この効果はCCK-8よりも小さいことを示している.

The megahertz ultrasonic attenuation in aluminum single crystals ([110] and [111] orientations) of high purity (99.9999%) has been measured at 300 K and 1.2 K for the annealed and the successively deformed (0.14–1.4%) and aged states. The pulse reflection method was used for the attenuation measurement. The dislocation density in the deformed crystal was determined by the room-temperature attenuation on the basis of the Granato-Lucke theory of dislocation damping. The stress-strain data for the deformation were also adopted for the determination. The low-temperature attenuation was used to determine the scattering cross-width d of the dislocation for the conduction electrons on the basis of the Pippard theory of electronic sound attenuation. The obtained result was d =1.8 b , where b was the Burgers vector of the dislocalion. The dislocation specific resistivity (DSR) was also calculated, and the value was DSR=2.0×10 -19 Ω cm 3 . The DSR value was compared with existing experimental and theoretical result...

This report describes the compaction by internal vibrator for fresh concrete made with artificial lightweight aggregate.The pressure caused to the vibrator was measured at random in concrete by means of the pressure gage embeded in concrete. The acceleration was calculated upon the measured value of the pressure.Float of lightweight coarse aggregate occurred during the vibration within the range of about 20cm from the vibrator. This phenomena can be prevented by limiting the vibration at each point within ten seconds.The effective zone for compaction corresponding to four times as much acceleration of gravity is about 30cm from the vibrator.