Hydrogen and Oxygen Isotopic Ratios of Precipitation at Noboribetsu, Hokkaido

At Noboribetsu, Hokkido, hydrogen and oxygen isotopic ratios (δD and δ¹⁸O) of precipitation collected in about one month interval were measured from 1979 to 1983. Although the easurement is rather old, it is useful to explain the isotopic characteristics of precipitation in the southern coast area of Hokkaido. δD, δ¹⁸O and d value (d=δD－8δ¹⁸O) of annual mean precipitation at Noboribetsu are -60‰, -8.9‰ and 11, respectively. The relationships of δD and δ¹⁸O show obvious difference between winter season and spring to fall season, and the d value is 21 in the winter season and higher than the value of 9 in the spring to fall season, as like as the characteristics observed at Akita, Ryori and Rokkasho in the northern Honshu. The relationship in the spring to fall season is similar to those at Akita, Ryori and Rokkasho, and this implies that the Noboribetsu precipitation in the spring to fall season may be brought by the process similar to those in the above three localities. On the contrary, the relationship in the winter season is different from those of above three localities implying some difference in precipitation process. However, the d value of annual mean precipitation at Noboribetsu is the same as Ryori located at the Pacific Ocean coast of northern Honshu, because the precipitation amount in the winter season is fairly smaller than that in the spring to fall season at Noboribetsu as like as Ryori. The isotopic ratios of small revers in the Noboribetsu area are similar to those of several small rivers at the southern coast of Hokkaido, and this implies that the isotopic ratios of precipitation at the southern coast of Hokkaido have characteristics similar to those at Noboribetsu

Comparison of Mortality between Japanese Peritoneal Dialysis and Hemodialysis Patients: A 5-Year Multicenter Follow-Up Study

To examine the relationship between dialysis modality and prognosis in Japanese patients, we conducted a prospective multicenter observational study. We recruited 83 background-matched peritoneal dialysis (PD) and 83 hemodialysis (HD) patients (average age, 64.9 years; men, 53.6%; diabetic patients, 22.9%; median duration of dialysis, 48 months in all patients) and followed them for 5 years. During the follow-up period, 27 PD patients (16 cardiovascular and 11 non-cardiovascular deaths) and 27 HD patients died (14 cardiovascular and 13 non-cardiovascular deaths). There were 8 PD patients switched to HD, and 6 PD patients received renal transplantation. Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that the crude survival rate was not significantly different at the end of 5 years (PD 67.5% versus 67.5%, log-rank P = 0.719). The difference in cardiovascular and non-cardiovascular mortalities between PD and HD was not statistically significant. Multivariate Cox analysis showed that the independent predictors for death were age and serum albumin levels, but not the dialysis modality. This study showed that the overall mortality was not significantly different between PD and HD patients, which suggests that dialysis modality might not be an independent factor for survival in Japanese patients

Synthesis of a new biological response modifier thyrnosin β4 analogue and its restorative effect on depressed

Thymosin β4 is a polypeptide isolated from thymosin fraction 5. This peptide exhibits important activities in the regulation and differentiation of thymus-dependent lymphocytes. An analogue of thymosin β4, [Phe(4F)12] deacetyl- thymosin β4, was synthesized by a solution method, followed by deprotection with 1 M trifluoromethanesulphonic acid (TFMSA)-thioanisole (molar ratio, 1:1) in trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) in the presence of dimethlselenium. Finally, the deprotected peptide was incubated with dithiothreitol to reduce sulphoxide on the methionine side chain. The synthetic [Phe(4F)12]deacetyl-thymosin β4 was found to have a restoring effect on the impaired blastogenic response of T-lymphocytes isolated from uraemic patients with recurrent infectious diseases. This analogue exhibited stronger restorative activity than that of our synthetic deacetyl-thymosin β4

Magneto-Structural Relationship of Tetragonally-Compressed Octahedral Iron(II) Complex Surrounded by a <i>pseudo</i>-<i>S</i>₆ Symmetric Hexakis-Dimethylsulfoxide Environment

Since the octahedral high-spin iron(II) complex has the 5T2g ground term, the spin-orbit coupling should be considered in magnetic analysis; however, such treatment is rarely seen in recent papers, although the symmetry-sensitive property is of interest to investigate in detail. A method to consider the T-term magnetism was well constructed more than half a century ago. On the other hand, the method has been still improved in recent years. In this study, the octahedral high-spin iron(II) complex [Fe(dmso)6][BPh4]2 (dmso: dimethylsulfoxide) was newly prepared, and the single-crystal X-ray diffraction method revealed the tetragonal compression of the D4-symmetric coordination geometry around the iron(II) ion and the pseudo-S6 hexakis-dmso environment. From the magnetic data, the sign of the axial splitting parameter, Δ, was found to be negative, indicating the 5E ground state in the D4 symmetry. The DFT computation showed the electronic configuration of (dxz)2(dx2−y2)1(dyz)1(dxy)1(dz2)1 due to the tetragonal compression and the pseudo-S6 environment of dmso π orbitals. The electronic configuration corresponded to the 5E ground term, which was in agreement with the negative Δ value. Therefore, the structurally predicted ground state was consistent with the estimation from the magnetic measurements

Delay-Tolerance-Based Mobile Data Offloading Using Deep Reinforcement Learning

The demand for mobile data communication has been increasing owing to the diversification of its purposes and the increase in the number of mobile devices accessing mobile networks. Users are experiencing a degradation in communication quality due to mobile network congestion. Therefore, improving the bandwidth utilization efficiency of cellular infrastructure is crucial. We previously proposed a mobile data offloading protocol (MDOP) for improving the bandwidth utilization efficiency. Although this method balances a load of evolved node B by taking into consideration the content delay tolerance, accurately balancing the load is challenging. In this paper, we apply deep reinforcement learning to MDOP to solve the temporal locality of a traffic. Moreover, we examine and evaluate the concrete processing while considering a delay tolerance. A comparison of the proposed method and bandwidth utilization efficiency of MDOP showed that the proposed method reduced the network traffic in excess of the control target value by 35% as compared with the MDOP. Furthermore, the proposed method improved the data transmission ratio by the delay tolerance range. Consequently, the proposed method improved the bandwidth utilization efficiency by learning how to provide the bandwidth to the user equipment when MDOP cannot be used to appropriately balance a load