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Purpose: Retainers are crucial appliances for the long-term stabilityof occlusion after orthodontic treatment. However, patient discomfort or poor aesthetics often lead to a decline in compliance. ...

This case report highlights the clinical efficacy of endoscopic transpapillary drainage for gallbladder perforation in a high-risk surgical patient with a history of steroid treatment for interstitial pneumonia. The usefulness of endoscopic transpapillary gallbladder drainage in high-risk surgical patients with acute cholecystitis has not been established. In difficult cases of emergent surgery, such as described here, endoscopic transpapillary drainage is a promising method to manage gallbladder perforation and acute cholecystitis recurrence.

Three-dimensional (3D) X-ray topography was used to characterize diamond anvil crystals before and after application of ultra-high pressure at 50, 70 and 99.4 GPa. The diffraction planes examined and the wavelength of the monochromatic X-rays were (004), (333), {224}, {440} and 0.0521 nm, respectively. Images of lattice defects in the diamond crystals were reconstructed by stacking approximately 500 X-ray limited projection topographs using the image processing software Image J. The 3D structures and nature of the lattice defects were identified from the reconstructed topographs. A pyramidal shape of four parts of stacking faults was identified using the visibility or invisibility of defect images with each diffraction plane. No significant changes of the lattice defects in the diamond crystals were observed under pressurization at 70 GPa. However, one of the anvil crystals shaped from the same rough crystal was broken into pieces at 99.4 GPa. The fracture stress is very low value rather than the calculated one based on (111) [110] slip system mechanism. In the broken crystal, the center line of plurality of the pyramidal shape of stacking faults differed in the location from the culet area. The breaking of diamond crystal was dependent on the distribution of plane defects in the crystal.

In this study, for filtration of gasoline particulates, we tested SiC fibers potentially applied for a gasoline particulate filter (GPF). Carbon particles were used as model soot. Focusing on the porosity and the fiber diameter, the filtration efficiency and the pressure drop were examined. To promote the carbon oxidation, the fiber was coated with the Pt-catalyst. Results show that, by reducing the porosity, the filtration efficiency increases, but the pressure drop across the filter (filter backpressure) becomes larger. When the porosity is lower than 0.94, the improvement of filtration efficiency is not enough. Secondary, when the fiber with smaller diameter is adopted by keeping the porosity constant, the filtration efficiency is found to increase. Especially, the combination of 18, 14, 10 µm fiber sheets exhibits more efficient filtration performance without increasing the pressure drop. As for the continuous regenerating trap (CRT), the oxidation of carbon particles starts around 420 °C, and more carbon particles are oxidized at higher temperature. At 600 °C, the pressure drop can be kept smaller, because a part of deposited particles is continuously oxidized. At 800 °C, the filtration efficiency is worsened with the larger pressure drop. From the above experimental data, the CRT at 600 °C is suitable. When the fiber surface is coated with Pt catalyst, the oxidation of carbon particles starts at 250 °C. When the temperature is higher than 330 °C, the pressure drop of the catalyzed filter is even smaller than that of the non-catalyzed filter. It is concluded that the coating of catalysts is effective for reducing the pressure drop as well as the oxidation temperature.

Different cerebral blood flow (CBF) responses to exercise between the posterior cerebral artery (PCA) and vertebral artery (VA) have been previously observed, though the physiological mechanisms remain unknown. There is regional heterogeneity in sympathetic innervation between the PCA and VA, which may affect CBF regulation, especially during sympathoexcitation. Thus, in the present study, we hypothesized that different CBF regulatory mechanisms between PCA and VA contribute to heterogeneous CBF responses to isometric exercise. To test this hypothesis, in thirteen healthy young men, dynamic cerebral autoregulation (CA) and cerebrovascular CO

Interval exercise has been determined to be more effective than continuous exercise for achieving improvement in the cardiovascular function of individuals suffering from cardiovascular disease. However, whether interval exercise improves the cerebrovascular function remains unclear. As per our hypothesis, interval exercise induces a higher cerebrovascular shear rate (SR) than continuous exercise. In this study, 11 adult men randomly performed continuous exercise for 12 min or work‐equivalent (57.6 kJ/exercise session) interval exercise of semi‐recumbent cycling. The SR in the internal carotid artery (ICA) represents an index of the cerebrovascular SR, which was measured during both the exercises using Doppler ultrasonography. Both the aerobic exercise modes increased the ICA SR. Moreover, the average ICA SR of the interval exercise for the final 4 min of exercise or 2 min of recovery was significantly higher than that for continuous exercise (exercise, 351 ± 75 vs. 330 ± 61/s, p = .038; recovery, 327 ± 86 vs. 290 ± 56/s, p = .014). To our knowledge, this is the first study to show that aerobic interval exercise increased the ICA SR more than equivalent work volume of aerobic continuous exercise. Thus, aerobic interval exercise may be more effective at stimulating the cerebrovasculature, resulting in greater improvements in cerebrovascular function as compared to continuous aerobic exercise in healthy adult men. These findings provide some important information that would help enhance exercise therapy programs for patients with arteriosclerosis, especially in the cerebral circulation., Internal carotid artery image and cerebrovascular parameters during continuous and interval exercise by Doppler ultrasonography.

We show theoretically and experimentally that accurate transport measurements are possible even within the short time provided by pulsed magnetic fields. For this purpose, a new method has been devised, which removes the noise component of a specific frequency from the signal by taking a linear combination of the results of numerical phase detection using multiple integer periods. We also established a method to unambiguously determine the phase rotation angle in AC transport measurements using a frequency range of tens of kilohertz. We revealed that the dominant noise in low-frequency transport measurements in pulsed magnetic fields is the electromagnetic induction caused by mechanical vibrations of wire loops in inhomogeneous magnetic fields. These results strongly suggest that accurate transport measurements in short-pulsed magnets are possible when mechanical vibrations are well suppressed.

Previous studies have reported that even a single bout of dynamic exercise improves cognitive performance. However, the acute effect of the interval handgrip (HG) exercise protocol, which is effective in reducing resting blood pressure, on cognitive performance is poorly understood. Cognitive performance was assessed in 17 young healthy subjects before and after a resting control (e.g., time control) and the interval HG exercise (Exercise), which consisted of four trials of 2-min HG exercise at 25% of maximum voluntary contraction with 3-min recovery in between each trial. Mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) and middle cerebral artery blood velocity (MCA V) were measured continuously throughout the experiment. Memory recognition and executive function were assessed using memory recognition and Go/No-Go tasks, respectively. During interval HG exercise, MAP and mean MCA V increased from the resting baseline condition (both P < 0.049) and returned to the resting baseline levels during recovery after the interval HG exercise (both P = 1.000). The reaction time and performance accuracy of the memory recognition task did not change in either the time control condition or Exercise condition (P = 0.514 and P = 0.414 respectively). However, the changes in reaction time of Go/No-Go task from the baseline in Exercise condition was significantly shorter than that in time-control condition (P = 0.004) without affecting performance accuracy (P = 0.482). The results of the present study show that an acute interval HG exercise could improve the processing speed in executive function despite no post-exercise improvement in hemodynamic parameters in young healthy subjects. These findings suggest that the interval HG exercise is a useful exercise mode that can be expected to have a positive effect on the processing speed in executive function regardless of cardiovascular adaptation to exercise.

Key Clinical Message Pheochromocytomas are catecholamine‐producing neuroendocrine tumors that arise from the adrenal medulla. The clinical presentation includes headache, palpitation, and hypertension, but pheochromocytomas are sometimes clinically silent. The present case highlights the importance of biochemical testing for pheochromocytoma in patients with adrenal incidentaloma, even if they are completely normotensive and asymptomatic.

We investigated the element-specific magnetic properties at interfaces of Fe (1 nm)/Mn1.5Ga and Co (1 nm)/Mn1.5Ga using X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD). We found that the spins in the Fe and Co layers were coupled with and parallel to those in the Mn1.5Ga under the as-grown conditions, while the post-annealing at 350 °C changed the interface magnetic coupling to antiferromagnetic in Co. The element-specific hysteresis curves at each XMCD absorption edge revealed large coercive fields in Fe and Co through the exchange coupling with Mn1.5Ga. After the annealing process, XMCD spectral line shapes indicate that the interfacial reactions promote the formation of Mn2CoGa-like secondary alloys, which influences the performance of tunnel magnetoresistance using the interfaces between transition metals and MnGa.

The development of hybrid films containing binary nanoparticles is one of the current key objectives in nanotechnology. Different nanoparticles dispersed in a polymer matrix exhibit diverse functions, and their properties are influenced by the interplay between the nanoparticles. The poly(vinyl catechol)-block-polystyrene (PVCa-b-PSt) block copolymer containing a catechol group, which is inspired by the adhesive protein found in the mussel foot, is an attractive platform for the coassembly of binary nanoparticles because the catechol group has various desirable properties, including the ability to coordinate metal oxides and reduce metal ions. In the fabrication of hybrid materials based on PVCa-b-PSt thin films, it is challenging to control the microdomain morphologies and the nanoparticle assembly process. In this work, we investigate the impact of solvent vapor annealing on microphase-separated nanostructures in lamellae-forming PVCa-b-PSt. We show that a fast solvent vapor annealing in a tetrahydrofur...

We report a case of resection of a reconstructed diaphragm with fascia lata after 13 years. A 66-year-old man was diagnosed with a solitary fibrous tumor of the pleura. Thirteen years prior, resection for left postoperative pleural dissemination of solitary fibrous tumor with diaphragmatic resection was performed, and left fascia lata was used for diaphragmatic reconstruction. He relapsed, and the diaphragm was re-resected and re-reconstructed with right fascia lata. The resected, reconstructed fascia lata had microvessels in the fibrous stroma, and it was observed that the autologous tissue had become more resistant to infection by obtaining a blood supply.

The present molecular dynamics study investigated lithium-ion diffusion in La2/3–xLi3xTiO3 (x = 0.115) with various structural configurations. The diffusion path and conductivity vary significantly depending on the configuration despite the constant lithium content. A highly-ordered configuration in the in-plane or out-of-plane directions tends to require higher activation energy for diffusion. In each configuration, the largest bottleneck area is found in the principal migration path with the short of Ti–Ti distance along the path. A comparison between various models revealed that the activation energy depends not on the size of the bottleneck area but on the dimensionality of lithium motion: a higher dimensionality such as three-dimensional diffusion lowers the activation energy.