Reproducibility and Validity of Muscle Strength in Hip Abduction with Flexion While Seated in Older Adults Who Need Nursing Care

Objective: This study aimed to determine the usefulness of the strength of the muscles in hip abduction with flexion while seated (SMHAF-S) in older adults who need nursing care. To achieve this, we examined the reproducibility and validity of a method to measure the SMHAF-S in older adults who need nursing care using a hand-held dynamometer. Methods: This cross-sectional study enrolled 40 older women who needed nursing care in September 2021 and completed the SMHAF-S and underwent quadriceps muscle strength, grip strength, 10-s chair stand test for frail older adults (FCS-10), one-legged stance test (OLST), and timed-up-and-go (TUG) test. The reproducibility of the SMHAF-S was examined by determining the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). The validity of the relationship between the SMHAF-S and quadriceps muscle strength and other measurement items was examined by calculating Pearson’s correlation coefficients. Results: In this cohort (age 83.6±5.2 years), the reproducibility of the SMHAF-S was excellent (ICC 0.91). Significant correlations were found between the SMHAF-S and quadriceps muscle strength, grip strength, FCS-10, OLST, and TUG test results (pConclusion: The SMHAF-S is a highly reproducible measurement method that reflects lower limb muscle strength and whole-body muscle strength, balance, and walking ability in older adults who need nursing care

Characterization of sensitivity and responses of a 2-element prototype wavefront sensor for millimeter-wave adaptive optics attached to the Nobeyama 45 m telescope

We report the results of the performance characterization of a prototype wavefront sensor for millimetric adaptive optics (MAO) installed on the Nobeyama 45 m radio telescope. MAO is a key component to realize a future large-aperture submillimeter telescope, such as Large Submillimeter Telescope (LST) or Atacama Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (AtLAST). The difficulty of MAO is, however, real-time sensing of wavefront deformation with ~10 um accuracy across the aperture. Our wavefront sensor operating at 20 GHz measures the radio path length between a certain position of the primary mirror surface to the focal point where a 20 GHz coherent receiver is placed. With the 2-element prototype, we sampled two positions on the primary mirror surface (at radii of 5 m and 16 m) at a sampling rate of 10 Hz. Then an excess path length (EPL) between the two positions was obtained by differentiating the two optical paths. A power spectral density of the EPL shows three components: a low-frequency drift (1/f^n), oscillations, and a white noise. A comparison of EPL measurements under a variety of wind conditions suggests that the former two are likely induced by the wind load on the telescope structure. The power of the white noise corresponds to a 1sigma statistical error of 8 um in EPL measurements. The 8 um r.m.s. is significant with respect to the mirror surface accuracy required by the LST and AtLAST (~20-40 um r.m.s.), which demonstrates that our technique is also useful for the future large-aperture submillimeter telescopes.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures. Published in SPIE Pro

Bilateral Orbital Inflammation as a Manifestation of Paraneoplastic Syndrome

Paraneoplastic neurologic syndromes (PNS) constitute a rare group of disorders whose optimal treatment is yet to be established. We report a patient with bilateral orbital inflammation associated with PNS, who responded well to surgical resection of the primary tumor. An 83-year-old woman was referred to our department for treatment of a progressive reduction in visual acuity and palpebral swelling in both eyes for the past 2 months. She was scheduled to undergo thoracic surgery for lung cancer. The best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) in the right and left eye had worsened from 0.3 to 0.5 one month before she was referred to our department to 0.03 and 0.07, respectively. A slit-lamp examination revealed edema in both eyelids. Goldmann perimetry revealed several paracentral scotomas with constriction of the peripheral visual fields of both eyes, along with central absolute scotomas in V-4e isopter in the right eye. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed swelling of the bilateral extraocular muscles, which compressed the bilateral optic nerves at the orbital apex. Seven days after the resection of the lung cancer, the BCVA improved to 0.07 and 0.15 in the right and left eyes, respectively, without concomitant immunotherapy. Intravenous methylprednisolone (500 mg/day) was administered for 3 days to treat the residual orbital inflammation. Fourteen days after surgery, the BCVA further improved to 0.4 and 0.5 in the right and left eyes, respectively. Swelling of the bilateral extraocular muscles and the visual field abnormalities improved dramatically. Early diagnosis is crucial for the management of PNS

Quantitative ultrasound (QUS) axial transmission method reflects anisotropy in micro-arrangement of apatite crystallites in human long bones: A study with 3-MHz-frequency ultrasound

Anisotropic arrangement of apatite crystallites, i.e., preferential orientation of the apatite c-axis, is known to be an important bone quality parameter that governs the mechanical properties. However, noninvasive evaluation of apatite orientation has not been achieved to date. The present paper reports the potential of quantitative ultrasound (QUS) for noninvasive evaluation of the degree of apatite orientation in human bone for the first time. A novel QUS instrument for implementation of the axial transmission (AT) method is developed, so as to achieve precise measurement of the speed of sound (SOS) in the cortex (cSOS) of human long bone. The advantages of our QUS instrument are the following: (i) it is equipped with a cortical bone surface-morphology detection system to correct the ultrasound transmission distance, which should be necessary for AT measurement of long bone covered by soft tissue of non-uniform thickness; and (ii) ultrasound with a relatively high frequency of 3 MHz is employed, enabling thickness-independent cSOS measurement even for the thin cortex by preventing guide wave generation. The reliability of the proposed AT measurement system is confirmed through comparison with the well-established direct transmission (DT) method. The cSOS in human long bone is found to exhibit considerable direction-dependent anisotropy; the axial cSOS (3870 ± 66 m/s) is the highest, followed by the tangential (3411 ± 94 m/s) and radial (3320 ± 85 m/s) cSOSs. The degree of apatite orientation exhibits the same order, despite the unchanged bone mineral density. Multiple regression analysis reveals that the cSOS of human long bone strongly reflects the apatite orientation. The cSOS determined by the AT method is positively correlated with that determined by the DT method and sensitively reflects the apatite orientation variation, indicating the validity of the AT instrument developed in this study. Our instrument will be beneficial for noninvasive evaluation of the material integrity of the human long-bone cortex, as determined by apatite c-axis orientation along the axial direction.Ishimoto T., Suetoshi R., Cretin D., et al. Quantitative ultrasound (QUS) axial transmission method reflects anisotropy in micro-arrangement of apatite crystallites in human long bones: A study with 3-MHz-frequency ultrasound. Bone, 127, 82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bone.2019.05.034

Bis[μ-3,5-bis­(2-pyrid­yl)pyrazolato]bis­(hydrogensulfato)­dicopper(II) methanol disolvate

The title compound, [Cu2(C13H9N4)2(HSO4)2]·2CH3OH, consists of discrete centrosymmetric dinuclear complex mol­ecules and methanol solvent mol­ecules. The CuII atom shows a square-pyramidal coordination geometry and is bonded to four N atoms of the two bis-chelating 3,5-bis­(2-pyrid­yl)pyrazol­ate ions (bpypz−) and one O atom of the hydrogensulfate ion. The bpypz− ligands in the complex mol­ecule are virtually coplanar [dihedral angle between the mean ligand planes = 0.000(1)°] with the CuII atom deviating in opposite directions from their best plane by 0.2080 (12) Å. π–π stacking inter­actions between the pyridyl and pyrazole rings [centroid–centroid distance = 3.391 (3) Å] and strong O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds between the hydrogensulfate ligands and the methanol mol­ecules assemble the mol­ecules into a one-dimensional polymeric structure extending along the a axis. The methanol mol­ecule acts both as an accepter and a donor in the hydrogen bonding

ツギ ノ ナンカイ ジシン ツナミ ライシュウジ ニオケル シコク エンガンイキ ノ ジンテキ ヒガイ ケイゲンカ ニ カンスル ケンキュウ

In the following Nankai Earthquake Tsunami, the characteristics of the tsunami height and its arrival time in the coastal area of the Seto Inland Sea was discussed. It found that their values could be estimated by the simple operation of Aida’s Ansei Nankai Earthquake Model(1981). Next, it proposed the evacuation model as the death toll increases as to be behind in the taking evacuation beginning time for the example of Usa , Kochi Prefecture . Moreover, based on this method, it measured the opening and shutting effect of the gates which was put to the embankment to exert on the death toll, and then it evaluated the effectivity of the protection against disasters