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Pelvic organ prolapse (POP) is a condition wherein one or more of the organs in the pelvis slip down from their original position and protrude into the vagina. Pelvic organ prolapse surgery has increased in the urogynecological field due to higher aging society. POP patients often suffer from bowel dysfunction, such as difficulty of bowel movements and the need to strain or push on the vagina to have a bowel movement. Rectocele is often treated with the same method used for POP, but sometimes it is treated transanally. In the transabdominal approach, the vagina is divided from the rectum, and the mesh is fixed between the vagina and rectum. On the other hand, rectal prolapse is a condition wherein the rectum slips down from its original position and protrudes from the anus. Like POP surgery, rectal prolapse has been treated laparoscopically. Even though the protruding position is different, both are pelvic conditions, and the concept of treatment is similar. Recently, POP and rectal prolapse have been diagnosed at the same time, and sometimes these diseases have been treated together. In the higher aging society, incidences of POP and rectal prolapse will increase, and both will have greater chance to be treated. Although POP is a urogynecological disease, coloproctologists need to know the bowel dysfunction in order to treat POP.

The patient was a 43-year-old single woman. Her family history included schizophrenia in her mother and manic-depression in her father. Remicade® (infliximab) had been administered for 3 years to treat rheumatoid arthritis. The patient initially presented to our hospital with dyspnea. Computed tomography revealed left-sided breast cancer associated with multiple bone tumors and multiple pulmonary nodules. A poorly mobile mass with an ulcer was found in left breast. Core-needle biopsy and fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH)revealed an invasive ductal carcinoma that was positive for estrogen and progesterone receptors and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2, 2 +). The clinical diagnosis was Stage IV T4bN3M1 cancer (metastases to the lungs, liver, and bone). Because of the presence of bone metastasis, the patient was admitted and she received complete bed rest as supportive therapy. However, the patient decided to receive treatment on an outpatient basis after carefully discussing the following points: 1) treatment of pulmonary metastasis with dyspnea should receive priority; 2) anticancer agents not causing nausea were required; 3) the risk of bone fractures as a complication (spinal cord injury); 4) how she wanted to spend the limited time available with her family; and 5) how the patient wanted to.

The patient was a 53-year-old woman in whom ultrasonography of the breast revealed a lobular mass, 14 mm in diameter, in the right AB region. Spindle cells were obtained on fine-needle aspiration biopsy, but it was not possible to diagnose whether the tumor was benign or malignant. Contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging showed a mass with a cystic component that was darkly stained in the early phase. Needle biopsy showed a dense proliferation of atypical spindle cells with no distinct epithelial-like arrangement. The differential diagnosis included mesenchymal malignant tumors such as fibrosarcoma, some phyllodes tumors, and epithelial tumors with sarcomatoid differentiation. Immunostaining revealed that the tumor was cytokeratin (AE1/AE3)-negative, partially CAM 5.2-positive, p63-positive, S100-negative, SMA-positive, partially vimentin-positive, with a Ki-67 index of 80% and negativity for ER, PgR, and HER2. Spindle-cell carcinoma was thus diagnosed. A partial right mastectomy with sentinel lymph-node biopsy was performed. Immunostaining of the resected specimen confirmed spindle cell carcinoma. The General Rules for Clinical and Pathological Recording of Breast Cancer classify spindle cell carcinoma as a special type of invasive cancer with a sarcomatoid structure, consisting of spindle-shaped cancer cells. This type of carcinoma is extremely rare, accounting for less than 1% of all breast cancers.

Time interval analysis (TIA), which is one type of delayed coincidence method, was applied to 214Bi-214Po correlated events with a microsecond scale (214Po half-life: 164μs) . A measurement system with a silicon semiconductor detector was constructed in combination with a special time recording device and a personal computer. This system was designed to shorten dead time. The basic performance of this system was examined using an electrodeposited 230Th source and actual dust samples. The measurement data for the time intervals of neighboring pulses were analyzed by a single time interval analysis (STA) .The following results were obtained. (1) The 214Bi-214Po correlated events, which are included in Rn-progeny, were used for sensitive measurement by the TIA method. (2) Theories for 214Po mmeasurement using the TIA method were established. (3) The measurement system for 214Po was developed. (4) Efficiency and detection limit of measurement system were discussed through the experiment with an electrodeposited 230Th source and dust samples.The present method is applicable to on-line monitoring of a-ray measurements, because the TIA method is able to detect any artificial a-decay radionuclides by compensating for disturbance due to Rn progenies.

We have developed a monolithic two-wavelength laser diode, which emits 650 and 780 nm wavelengths. This device, which has a separated-confinement-heterostructure multi-quantum-well active region and a gain-guiding tapered-stripe structure, is fabricated using only two steps of metal organic chemical vapor deposition. The operating currents at 5 mW are 57.0 and 61.5 mA for the 650 and 780 nm elements, respectively. The relative intensity noise of the 650 and 780 nm elements was below −130 dB/Hz up to 70 °C without high-frequency superposition circuits.

For an optical head in compact disc (CD) system, an optical device called "laser coupler" (LC) has been developed and used in commercially sold players. This device integrates a laser diode, photo detectors and a micro-prism into one small chip.[1] Using integrated devices of this kind, we can make small, light and stable optical heads with less material and production costs. MiniDisc (MD) systems have become popular as a novel audio system. In this system, a 64mm-diameter disc in a cartridge can record and play back 74 min. of compressed audio data or store 140 MB of user data, using magneto-optical (MO) technology. To improve the portability of this MD systems, smaller, lighter and more stable optical heads are necessary. For this reason, several kinds of integrated optical devices, such as laminated prism [2], holographic optical element (HOE) [3,4], have been reported. In this paper we present a new integrated optical device which we call MiniDisc laser coupler (MD-LC). The simple construction of this device allows an easy mass-production.

Using buried-heterostructure laser diodes grown by one-step metal organic chemical vapor deposition and a structure designed to dissipate heat, we have realized a hybrid-integrated two-dimensional high-power laser diode array. The array consists of 3×24 elements, which are individually addressed in a simple matrix. The laser emits at 850 nm and each element operates at 30 mW. The laser characteristics have good uniformity and an energy-conversion efficiency of 45% was achieved. Finite element analysis was used to calculate the thermal characteristics and it was shown that the laser array can be a practical device. The array was operated for more than 1100 h under constant current at room temperature without an external cooler, when the initial power of each laser element was 30 mW, the pulse width was 0.1 ms and the duty cycle was 25%.

Maleic acid(MA) was found to polymerize easily by potassium persulfate (KPS) in water in the presence of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), and to form a polymer complex in which the molar ratio of MA to VP monomer unit was approximately unity. The formation of the polymer complex was accelerated by increases in the reaction temperature, in the concentrations of KPS and MA, and in the molecular weight of PVP used. Thermal degradation behavior of the polymer complex was studied thermo-gravimetrically. The thermagram of the polymer complex was substantially different from those of PVP and the 1:1 mixture of MA and PVP. It was found that the poly-MA portion of the polymer complex decomposed at 100-300°C, while the PVP portion underwent degradation at 350-500°C. In order to separate poly-MA from the polymer complex, the polymer complex was methylated by diazomethane, and 50 ∼ 60% of the poly-MA part in the polymer complex was separated as its methyl ester, which was found to be oligomer (M = 400 ∼ 500) by G...