A Possible Scenario for Environmental Remediation in Coastal Waters by Use of Phytoplankton and Waste Materials

environmental remediationphytoplanktonseafood productionsewagesteelmaking sla

Prevalence of gastroesophageal reflux disorder in arrhythmic patients and adjunctive effects of proton pump inhibitors on comorbid atrial fibrillation

Background: Although the coexistence of atrial fibrillation (AF) and gastroesophageal reflux disorder (GERD) has been reported, the prevalence of GERD in arrhythmic patients remains unknown. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between GERD and several kinds of arrhythmia, and the therapeutic effects of proton pump inhibitors (PPI) on AF.Methods: In Study 1, patients with various kinds of arrhythmia (n=147) including AF (n=98) were administered a GERD-specific questionnaire (F-scale). In Study 2, patients with AF and GERD (n=27) responded to an AF-specific questionnaire (AFQLQ) before and after the additive PPI therapy to explore the effects of PPI on comorbid AF. In Study 3, device memory was assessed as it is related to PPI administration in pacemaker patients with GERD and AF (n=5) to study the effects of PPI on device-documented AF.Results: Left atrial (LA) size and F-scale scores in AF patients were the largest among the arrhythmic patients in Study 1. Logistic regression analysis showed no independent determinants of GERD. F-scale scores and AFQLQ scores showed temporal and partial correlations and significant improvement after starting PPI in Study 2. However, device interrogation confirmed limited AF improvement by starting PPI in Study 3.Conclusions: GERD is prevalent in AF patients. LA size is not an independent determinant of GERD. Symptoms of AF were improved, whereas device-documented paroxysms of AF were not ameliorated by PPI administration. A large-scale prospective study is required to conclude the efficacy of PPI on the comorbid AF

Spectral function of the spiral spin state in the trestle and ladder Hubbard model

Eder and Ohta have found a violation of the Luttinger rule in the spectral function for the t-t'-J model, which was interpreted as a possible breakdown of the Tomonaga-Luttinger(TL) description in models where electrons can pass each other. Here we have computed the spin correlation along with the spectral function for the one-dimensional t-t' Hubbard model and two-leg Hubbard ladder. By varying the Hubbard U we have identified that such a phenomenon is in fact a spinless-fermion-like behavior of holes moving in a spiral spin configuration that has a spin correlation length of the system size.Comment: 3 pages, RevTex, 8 figures in Postscript, to be published in Phys. Rev. B (rapid communication

DISPENSABLE ROLE OF AIRE IN cDCs

Aire, the defect of which is responsible for the development of autoimmunity, is predominantly expressed in medullary thymic epithelial cells, and it controls a wide variety of genes, including those of tissue-restricted Ags, for establishing thymic tolerance. Aire is also expressed from APCs in the periphery, called extrathymic Aire-expressing cells (eTACs), and their complementing role to thymic tolerance has been suggested. eTACs are composed of two distinct classes of APCs, conventional dendritic cell (cDC)–type and group 3 innate lymphoid cell (ILC3)-like–type expressing retinoic acid receptor–related orphan receptor γt (RORγt). Although the essential role of Aire in the latter in the Th17-mediated immune response against Candida albicans has been reported, the role of Aire in the cDC-type eTACs for this action has not been examined. Furthermore, the significance of Aire in the production of the transcriptome of the cDC-type eTACs remains unknown. We have approached these issues using a high-fidelity Aire-reporter mouse strain. We found that although the cDC-type eTACs dominated ILC3-like–type eTACs in number and they served as efficient APCs for the immune response against an exogenous Ag as well as for the C. albicans–specific Th17 immune response, loss of Aire in cDC-type eTACs showed no clear effect on these functions. Furthermore, loss of Aire showed no major impact on the transcriptome from cDC-type eTACs. These results suggested that Aire in cDC-type eTACs may not have a cell-intrinsic role in the immune response in contrast to the role of Aire in ILC3-like–type eTACs

Orbital mixture effect on the Fermi-surface-Tc correlation in the cuprate superconductors: Bilayer vs. single layer

By constructing dx2-y2-dz2 two-orbital models from first principles, we have obtained a systematic correlation between the Fermi surface warping and theoretically evaluated Tc for various bilayer as well as single-layer cuprates. This reveals that a smaller mixture of the dz2 orbital component on the Fermi surface leads simultaneously to larger Fermi-surface warping and higher Tc. The theoretical correlation strikingly resembles a systematic plot for the experimentally observed Tc against the Fermi surface warping due to Pavarini et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 047003 (2001)], and the present result unambiguously indicates that the dz2 mixture is one key factor that determines Tc in the cuprates

ガン カガク リョウホウ ニオケル ショウカカン ドクセイ ト ケッセイ Diamine Oxidase DAO カッセイ ニ カンスル ケントウ

There are so many patients with advanced gastric cancer who undergo systemic chemotherapy worldwide. The quality of life（QOL）of patients with gastric cancer who receive chemotherapy is often lowed by various gastrointestinal toxicities during the chemotherapy. Nutrition is also impaired by gastrointestinal toxicities. However, it is difficult to predict their occurrence in advance and further there is no good serum marker for nutrition in the patients treated with chemotherapy. Thus, it is important to objectively evaluate and predict the toxicity of the digestive tract during cancer chemotherapy. Diamine Oxidase（DAO）is an enzyme that is expressed in intestinal epithelial cells. Recently it has been reported that DAO activity may reflect damage or atrophy of the intestinal villi, and therefore it may be a sensitive serum marker for nutritional state. In this study, we measured serum DAO activity of patients with gastric cancer treated with systemic chemotherapy, and investigated the correlation between DAO activity and gastrointestinal toxicities. Six patients with gastric cancer, who were treated by docetaxel+cisplatin+S‐１combination chemotherapy, were enrolled. DAO activity was measured by sensitive colorimetric assay. DAO activities diminished after treatment in４patients with moderate to severe gastrointestinal toxicities. In contrast, they did not change in２patients with no gastrointestinal toxicities. Our results may suggest that DAO activity is a good serum marker for the gastrointestinal toxicities as well as nutrition state in patients who receive systemic chemotherapy. More large scale study is needed to warrant