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Applying anticorrosion grease and aluminum-clad steel (AC) wires to ACSR have been adopted as general methods to protect overhead transmission line conductors and/or wires from corrosion. However, in some cases those means have been found to be ineffective on some transmission lines passing through acid atmosphere in the vicinity of a factory exhausting acid smoke. The corrosion caused by acid atmosphere is characterized by a higher speed in its progress as is well known. As means against such acid corrosion, application of high-purity aluminum, selective removal of intermetallic compound in aluminum, and plastic coating wires have been reported before, and each has both advantages and disadvantages. In a former report, we found that a new type of anticorrosion grease shows an excellent property against acid atmosphere as well as in a salty condition. Here we present a new type of anticorrosion technology of applying high-corrosion-resistance aluminum alloy or zinc coatings on each component wire of a conductor that we succeeded in developing through a serial study of anticorrosion methods on overhead transmission lines. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 163(1): 41–47, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/eej.20365

Implant-related infection after orthopedic surgery is difficult to cure. One of the causes of infection is the bacterial biofilm that forms around biomaterials used during surgery. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate bacterial biofilms extensively to resolve the problems of these postoperative infections. However, no established culture method or quantification system exists for bacterial biofilms grown on the surface of the metallic biomaterials used in orthopedics, which are nonradiolucent. The purpose of this study was to develop a quantitative method to evaluate the difference in resistance of stainless steel versus titanium to staphylococcal biofilms and the efficacy of antibiotics against biofilms.The bacterial strains used in this study were three Staphylococcus aureus stains: strain Seattle 1945 and two clinical strains cultured from postoperative infections. Staphylococcal biofilms were formed on stainless steel washers (SUS304) and titanium washers (pure titanium). They were stained with crystal violet and were examined with a digital microscope to calculate the bacterial coverage rate (BCR) by NIH imaging.The BCR of S. aureus biofilms formed on stainless steel and titanium washers increased over time. At 24, 48, and 72 h after cultivation, the amount of biofilm on the surface of the stainless steel washers was significantly greater or tended to be greater than that on the titanium. Cefazolin was applied to the obtained biofilms of two clinically isolated S. aureus strains. Cefazolin did not eradicate the biofilms but significantly reduced the biofilm of one strain.The newly developed quantitative method (static microtube culture and measurement system) was useful for assessing the amount of bacterial biofilms on the surface of nontranslucent biomaterial. We found that titanium may be more resistant to bacterial infection than stainless steel. To control implant-related severe infections, the biomaterials should be assessed from the viewpoint of their resistibility to bacterial adhesions and infections.

Selegiline is used an adjunct to L-DOPA therapy. We investigated extracellular striatal dopamine (DA) level in awake rats treated with L-DOPA and/or selegiline using a microdialysis method. Rats given 10 mg/kg, i.p. per day selegiline for 7 days were administered with a single dose of 100 mg/kg, i.p. L-DOPA 0 (3 h), 1, 3, 7, 14, 21, or 28 days after the last selegiline treatment. Carbidopa was administered 0.5 h before L-DOPA administration. The significant increase in basal DA level before L-DOPA treatment persisted until 1 day after the last selegiline treatment, and the significant decrease in basal DOPAC level persisted for more than 28 days. Thus, selegiline affected DA catabolism for more than 28 days. Total monoamine oxidase (MAO) and MAO-B activities at day 0 decreased by 22% and 5.7%, respectively. The significant enhancement of L-DOPA-induced increase in DA level was observed until 3 days after the last selegiline treatment. Next, the effects of reducing L-DOPA dose by 25% were examined 3 h after the last selegiline treatment. A dose-dependent decrease in DA level was observed, indicating that DA level in selegiline-treated rats can be controlled by L-DOPA dose. Keywords:: selegiline, L-DOPA, microdialysis, dopamine, Parkinson’s disease

Background. The association between Helicobacter pylori infection and idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) has been reported widely. We investigated the prevalence of H. pylori infection, its virulence profile and the effectiveness of its eradication in patients with ITP. Materials and Methods. Twenty patients with ITP, 20 with peptic ulcer (10 gastric ulcer (GU), 10 duodenal ulcer (DU)) and 20 with NUD were studied. The virulence profile of the strains was assessed by genotyping for cagA, vacA, iceA, and hpyIIIR/hrgA and by assaying for IL-8 and DNA fragmentation after incubation with AGS cells. Infected patients and two uninfected ITP patients received triple therapy and platelets were counted before and 1 month, 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years after eradication therapy. Results. H. pylori infection was found in 17 ITP (85%), 20 ulcer (100%) and 13 NUD (65%) patients. Biopsies and strains were collected from five ITP, 20 ulcer and 13 NUD patients. The ITP patients had a pangastritis or corpus-predominant gastritis pattern. All H. pylori isolates, from ITP, ulcer and NUD patients, were cagA+ and vacA s1/m1, and did not differ in levels of IL-8 induction or DNA fragmentation. Fifteen ITP (88%) and 17 ulcer (85%) patients had successful eradication of H. pylori. Ten of these 15 (67%) H. pylori-eradicated ITP patients had platelet recovery. There was no significant change in platelet count in the two ITP patients in whom eradication failed or in the two originally H. pylori-uninfected ITP patients, or in the treated ulcer patients. Age at onset of ITP was the main determinant of platelet recovery: 100% of patients diagnosed after the age of 60 recovered compared with only 22% of those diagnosed before 50. Conclusions. H. pylori-infected ITP patients have a corpus-predominant pattern of gastritis but the virulence profile of their strains does not differ from that of ulcer or NUD patients. Eradication of H. pylori infection is a good therapeutic option for some patients with chronic ITP, especially for those who develop ITP in older age.

This paper investigates a queueing system consisting of two-parallel queues and two servers. The service policy is a threshold-based control one such that two thresholds v (⩾0) and N (⩾v) called control level are set up in one of the two queues, say, the second queue. At each epoch of service completion, the server decides which queue is to be served next according to the control level the number of customers in the second queue reaches. For both queues, the arrival processes are Poisson, and the service times are exponentially distributed with different means. We derive the generating functions of the stationary joint queue-length distribution, and then obtain the mean queue length and the mean waiting time for each queue.

Waffle procedure, a small grid-like incision of epicardium, is a surgical technique for constrictive pericarditis with epicardial thickening. Yet evidences to endorse this approach for improved outcomes are lacking. The aim of this study is to elucidate better surgical treatment strategy for constrictive pericarditis with epicardial thickening.Twenty-five patients (mean 64.1 years) who underwent pericardiectomy for constrictive pericarditis between January 1992 and July 2012 were included in this study and were classified into two groups according to the procedure they received; single total pericardiectomy (Group A, n = 17) and total pericardiectomy with the Waffle procedure (Group B, n = 8). Early and mid-term outcomes were analyzed for each group.No major postoperative complications or all-cause deaths at 30 days were observed in each group. Upon discharge, postoperative echocardiography showed statistically significant increase of left ventricular end-diastolic volume (from 76.6 ± 30.3 to 91.0 ± 27.3 ml; p0.02) and systolic volume (from 44.4 ± 19.1 to 54.5 ± 17.3 ml; p0.05) in Group B than those in Group A. The 5-year cardiac event-free rate was similar between groups [83.6 ± 10.8 % for group A and 83.3 ± 15.2 % for group B (p = NS)] as well as the mean value of NYHA classification for each at the mid-term periods (1.5 for Group A and 1.3 for Group B).Waffle procedure improved echocardiographic elements of diastolic function of patients with epicardial thickening more than did total pericardiectomy without additional compromises.

A 76-year-old woman underwent ascending aorta replacement due to acute type A aortic dissection. She suffered from a deglutition disorder, had a gastric fistula and received enteral nutrition after the operation. Two months later, a large amount of pus was discharged from the sternotomy wound. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was detected from the pus culture. She was successfully treated by two applications of sufficient debridement and vacuum-assisted closure therapy. Her nutritional status was normal during the period of the tubal feeding. At the 1-year follow-up, there was no sign of recurrence.

We consider an optimal state-age dependent replacement problem for a network system composed of a main system and a sub-system with N components. The component's functioning times are exponentially distributed random variables with the same parameters, and every failed component is repaired by one repairman by taking an exponentially distributed random time. Repaired components are as good as new. The main system is subject to a sequence of randomly occurring shocks and each shock causes a random amount og damage. Shock arrivals and magnitudes depend on the accumulated damage level of the main system itself and the number of the functioning components of the sub-system. Any of the shocks or component's failures might cause the main system to fail. Upon failure of the main system, it is replaced and emergency repairs for all failed components are carried out. Our aim is to determine an optimal state-age dependent replacement policy which minimizes the long-run average cost over the infinite horizon.

The authors developed two prototype hierarchical neural networks to be used for a target ship's course estimation in daytime navigation. This paper is concerned with a picture recognition neural network system for a lookout support for nighttime navigation. The neural network topology is a three-layered network which consists of 182 units for input layer, 273 units for hidden layer and 21 units for output layer. The neural network input data is the navigation lamps location's binary address which is calculated a result of a lapped navigational environment picture over a recognition map. The characteristics of the network output are analyzed and the possibility of building the lookout support picture recognition neural network system in nighttime is investigated.

A case of infantile acute monocytic leukemia (AMoL), which was probably transmitted from a pregnant woman with leukemia to her unborn infant, is presented. A woman had AMoL when her third infant was born. This infant, who was a boy, also suffered from AMoL when he was 20 months of age. The infant's leukemic cells had the same cytochemical and immunophenotypic patterns as the mother's leukemic cells. By cytogenetic analysis, the majority of the infant's leukemic marrow cells had the 46,XX karyotype and showed no Y body by quinacrine staining. Moreover, the phenotype for human major histocompatibility system, HLA-A, HLA-B, and HLA-DR of the infant's leukemic cells was consistent with that of the mother's lymphocytes. Thus, the infant's leukemic clone was found to be identical to the mother's leukemic clone. His lymphocytes could not react with the mother's leukemic cells or his own leukemic cells in mixed lymphocyte culture, suggesting that the HLA homozygosity of the mother may have played a role in inducing immunologic tolerance to the immigrated leukemic cells in the infant. This is the first report of an infantile leukemia transmitted from a mother with leukemia, supposedly through the placenta.

The first Japanese case of alveolar hydatid disease with cutaneous-subcutaneous lesions is reported. The patient, a 58-year-old man who developed an indurated subcutaneous tumor on the right side of the abdomen, had had partial hepatectomy of the right lobe for echinococcosis thirteen years earlier. Clinically, the tumor was adherent with a fistulosis communication to deeper structures. Histopathologically, multiple PAS-positive cuticular layers with foreign body granulomas and fibrosis were observed between the dermis and subcutaneous fatty tissue. Surgical excision of the swelling provided the patient with temporary relief. To our knowledge, only eight cases of subcutaneous alveolar hydatid disease have been reported throughout the world. Ours, the ninth case, highlights the importance and difficulty of treating of alveolar hydatid disease.

This paper deals with a one-unit system that the system's failure can be detected only by inspection. This inspection takes a non-negligible random time. Consequently the system is down during the inspection whether it is operable or not. When the system's failure is detected by i-th inspection (i = 1,2, ... , n+l), the system is repaired. When the system is operable at the time of the (n+ 1)-st inspection, preventive maintenance is performed. It is assumed that a system is as good as new after repair or preventive maintenance is performed and i~ put in operation immediately. Under this inspection policy, the Laplace transform of the point-wise availability and the stationary avail­ ability of the system are derived by using the method of supplementary variables. We discuss the optimum inspection policy maximizing the stationary availability. It is to determine an optimal number of times of inspection and optimal inspection peIiods. It is shown that there exists an optimum inspection policy under some conditions on the failure distribution and the mean maintenance time.

This paper deals with a single-server k -out-of- n : G system with general repair distribution. The life-times of the active units depend on each other in having simultaneous failures. We consider three repair policies and under each repair policy, some relation between the reliability, pointwise availability and mission availability functions of the system. The mission availability, pointwise availability and reliability functions are obtained simultaneously. We use a suitable transformation to deduce the pointwise availability and reliability function from the mission availability function. Explicit expressions for steady-state availability of the system and the mean time to system failures are obtained.

This paper deals with a single-server two-unit parallel redundant system with non-negligible inspection time. We shall assume that a failure of a unit or the system failure is detected by inspection only. We consider two inspection policies and under each inspection policy the stationary availability is derived by applying Piecewise Markov Process. Optimum inspection schedule is discussed to maximize the stationary availability of the system. A numerical example is presented.

This paper deals with a one-unit system with minimal repair. Two policies (new Policy IV and Policy IV′) are considered. Under these policies, the Laplace transform of the point-wise availability and the stationary availability of the system are obtained using not the renewal theory but the supplementary variable method. And under new Policy IV, the optimum policy in the sense of the availability is discussed.

This paper deals with a one-unit system under the new maintenance policy subject to a minimal repair and a preventive maintenance. Under this policy, the Laplace transform of the point-wise availability and the stationary availability of the system are obtained using the supplementary variable method. The special cases of the results obtained here coincide with earlier results given by R.E.Barlow and L.Huter etc.,. Further, the optimum policy in the sense of the availability is discussed.

This paper deals with a single-server one-unit system subject to both revealed and unrevealed failures. We shall assume that a revealed failure is detected as soon as it occures but an unrevealed failure is detected by an inspection only. Under an inspection policy, the Laplace transform of the pointwise availability of the system and the stationary availability of the system are derived by using the supplementary variable method. Further, we discuss the optimum inspection schedule maximizing the stationary availability. Finally, some numerical examples are presented.

This paper deals with two identical units warm standby system when a failure of unit is detected by actual inspection but a system down can be detected at any time without inspection. Where the lifetime distribution of unit is the bivariate exponential distribution and other distributions are arbitrary. The Laplace transform of the point-wise availability of the system and the steady state availability of the system are derived by using the supplementary variable method. Further, we discuss the optimum inspection period maximizing the steady state availability. A numerical example is presented.