Study on contraction and relaxation of experimentally denervated and immobilized muscles: Comparison with dystrophic muscles

The contraction-relaxation mechanism of experimentally denervated and immobilized muscles of the rabbit is examined. Results are compared with those of human dystrophic muscles, in order to elucidate the role and extent of the neurotrophic factor, and the role played by the intrinsic activity of muscle in connection with pathogenesis and pathophysiology of this disease

The development of air shower in the iron absorber

The iron open-sandwich experiments to observe one dimensional development of individual air showers were carried out at Akeno Observatory. One dimensional energy flow, incident energy and production height of shower is estimated using the data of size and age obtained from the above experiment and simple calculation

The performance of thin NaI(Tl) scintillator plate for dark matter search

A thin (0.05cm) and wide area (5cmX5cm) NaI(Tl) scintillator was developed. The performance of the thin NaI(Tl) plate, energy resolution, single photoelectron energy and position sensitivity were tested. An excellent energy resolution of 20% (FWHM) at 60keV was obtained. The single photoelectron energy was calculated to be approximately 0.42 0.02keV. Position information in the 5cmx5cm area of the detector was also obtained by analyzing the ratio of the number of photons collected at opposite ends of the detector. The position resolution was obtained to be 1cm (FWHM) in the 5cmx5cm area.Comment: 10 pages. Accepted to Journal of Physical Society of Japa

Asymmetric line shapes for medium energy H and He ions undergoing a large angle collision

Asymmetric line shapes for medium energy H and He ions backscattered from topmost adatoms such as Si 111 3x 3 Sb and Ni 111 2x2 O are measured by a toroidal electrostatic analyzer with an excellent energy resolution. The spectra exhibit a pronounced asymmetric nature and are well fitted by an exponentially modified Gaussian profile. It is found that the nonperturbative coupled channel calculations reproduce well the observed asymmetric line shapes for He impact on different materials, although slightly overestimate the asymmetry for H impact on Au. On the other hand, the CASP 3.2 program involving additional approximations gives large underestimates for He ions and overestimates for H ions. This problem has been partially solved by modifying the order of the implementation of the shell corrections and higher order effects in the CASP mode

Detection of telomerase activity in peritoneal lavage fluid from patients with gastric cancer using immunomagnetic beads

Cytologic examination of peritoneal lavage fluid is a useful predictor of peritoneal recurrence in gastric cancer. However, this technique is not overly sensitive and requires special abilities in the cytologist. In this study, telomerase activity was used to detect free cancer cells in peritoneal lavage fluid from patients with gastric cancer. In the first part, 12 lavage-fluid samples obtained from 12 patients with gastric cancer were analysed using the conventional telomeric repeat amplification protocol (TRAP) assay. Three of five patients with early gastric cancer had positive telomerase activity. These false-positive results may have been due to lymphocyte contamination. Furthermore, polymerase chain reaction inhibitors were also detected in the lavage-fluid samples. Therefore, we developed a novel method for elimination of haematopoietic cell and Taq polymerase inhibitors to increase the accuracy of the TRAP assay using immunomagnetic beads, which bind to most normal and neoplastic human epithelial cells. Telomerase activity was found in 10 of 20 (50%) lavage-fluid samples from patients with serosal or subserosal invasion. Cytologic examination was positive in nine of 20 (45%) samples. Both the telomerase activity and cytology were negative in all 14 patients without serosal or subserosal invasion. These results suggest that the TRAP assay combined with immunomagnetic beads might be useful for detection of free cancer cells in the peritoneal space in gastric cancer without the aid of an experienced cytologist. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaig