Clinical outcome of tapered wedge stem

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the results and intraoperative or postoperative complications of primary total hip arthroplasty (THA) using a contemporary tapered wedge titanium femoral component. A total of 213 THAs in 187 patients were followed up more than 5 years (mean, 102 months ; range, 60-150). The mean age at surgery was 64.2 years (range, 20–89 years). These patients were clinically evaluated using the JOA scoring system and radiographically host bone reactions around the implants, as well as femoral loosening. The mean JOA score improved from 49 (range, 21–75) to 92 (range, 59–100). All 12 patients with poor results (JOA < 75) coexisted with cerebral, spinal, joint, and musculoskeletal disorders. At the final follow-up, implant survival was 100%. Complications occurred in 23 hips. They consisted of 12 hips with intra-operative fractures, 2 hips with sciatic nerve palsy, one hip with infections, 3 hips with recurrent dislocations, and 8 hips with aseptic cup loosening. In conclusion, we have shown excellent survival rate of the contemporary tapered wedge stem in primary THA ; however, patients with coexisting diseases could not acquire sufficient improvement in hip function and ambulatory ability

Ground state of the spin-1/2 chain of green dioptase at high fields

The gem-stone dioptase Cu6Si6O18.6H2O has a chiral crystal structure of equilateral triangular helices consisting of Cu-3d spins. It shows an antiferromagnetic order with an easy axis along c at TN = 15.5 K under zero field, and a magnetization jump at HC = 13.5 T when the field is applied along c-axis. By 29Si-NMR measurements, we have revealed that the high-field state is essentially the two sub-lattice structure, and that the component within ab-plane is collinear. The result indicates no apparent match with the geometrical pattern of helical spin chain.Comment: SCES2013, Hongo, Toky

Magnetic-Field-Independent Ultrasonic Dispersions in the Magnetically Robust Heavy Fermion System SmOs4Sb12

Elastic properties of the filled skutterudite compound SmOs$_4$Sb$_{12}$ have been investigated by ultrasonic measurements. The elastic constant $C_{11}(\omega)$ shows two ultrasonic dispersions at $\sim$15 K and $\sim$53 K for frequencies $\omega$ between 33 and 316 MHz, which follow a Debye-type formula with Arrhenius-type temperature-dependent relaxation times, and remain unchanged even with applied magnetic fields up to 10 T. The corresponding activation energies were estimated to be $E_2$ = 105 K and $E_1$ = 409 K, respectively. The latter, $E_1$, is the highest value reported so far in the Sb-based filled skutterudites. The presence of magnetically robust ultrasonic dispersions in SmOs$_4$Sb$_{12}$ implies a possibility that an emergence of a magnetically insensitive heavy fermion state in this system is associated with a novel local charge degree of freedom which causes the ultrasonic dispersion.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Chemical Visualization of an Attractant Peptide, LURE

The pollen tube attractant peptide LUREs of Torenia fournieri are diffusible peptides that attract pollen tubes in vitro. Here, we report a method enabling the direct visualization of a LURE peptide without inhibiting its attraction activity by conjugating it with the Alexa Fluor 488 fluorescent dye. After purifying and refolding the recombinant LURE2 with a polyhistidine tag, its amino groups were targeted for conjugation with the Alexa Fluor dye. Labeling of LURE2 was confirmed by its fluorescence and mass spectrometry. In our in vitro assay using gelatin beads, Alexa Fluor 488-labeled LURE2 appeared to have the same activity as unlabeled LURE2. Using the labeled LURE2, the relationship between the spatiotemporal change of distribution and activity of LURE2 was examined. LURE2 attracted pollen tubes when embedded in gelatin beads, but hardly at all when in agarose beads. Direct visualization suggested that the significant difference between these conditions was the retention of LURE2 in the gelatin bead, which might delay diffusion of LURE2 from the bead. Direct visualization of LURE peptide may open the way to studying the spatiotemporal dynamics of LURE in pollen tube attraction

ジンコウ セイタイマク ノ ソフト ナノ テクノロジー

Soft nanotechnology is technology that treats soft and wet materials such as self-assembly systems in a living body under a relatively moderate condition. We focus our attention on the size control of liposomes, namely lipid bilayer membranes and performed the soft nanotechnology in sizing of liposomes under high pressure. Two high-pressure sizing techniques, a method of continuous pressure relaxation using a phase transition between gel and liquid crystalline phases of the bilayer membrane and that of a pressure-induced gel phase using a phase transition between bilayer and nonbilayer membranes, were applied to liposomes of distearoylphosphatidylcholine, and the effects of the both methods were considered. Further, the application of giant liposomes controlled by high-pressure sizing to microsensor was briefly described

Numerical calculation on a two-step subdiffusion behavior of lateral protein movement in plasma membranes

A two-step subdiffusion behavior of lateral movement of transmembrane proteins in plasma membranes has been observed by using single-molecule experiments. A nested double-compartment model where large compartments are divided into several smaller ones has been proposed in order to explain this observation. These compartments are considered to be delimited by membrane-skeleton "fences" and membrane-protein "pickets" bound to the fences. We perform numerical simulations of a master equation using a simple two-dimensional lattice model to investigate the heterogeneous diffusion dynamics behavior of transmembrane proteins within plasma membranes. We show that the experimentally observed two-step subdiffusion process can be described using fence and picket models combined with decreased local diffusivity of transmembrane proteins in the vicinity of the pickets. This allows us to explain the two-step subdiffusion behavior without explicitly introducing nested double compartments