The Climatological Consideration to the Arid and Humid Climate in Japan using the Papadakis\u27s Method

Taking into consideration of climatological water balance, the Thornthwaite\u27s method using potential evapo-transpiration (=PET) has been well-known as one of its ways. However there are some problems in his method, for example, the calculating PET value dosen\u27t fit to several areas, especially high or low latitudes in the world. In this study, the authors have tried to investigate the crop-climatological arid (= dry) or humid (= wet) area in Japan by using the Papadakis\u27s method which is one of the ways to calculate PET value. And then the authors analyzed the detail distribution of its condition. To calculate the PET value of Papadakis\u27s method requires the climatic data about some vapor pressure values as following expression

Myocardial catecholamines in hypertrophic and dilated (congestive) cardiomyopathy: A biopsy study

A high performance liquid chromatographic method was used to determine myocardial norepinephrine and epinephrine concentrations in 66 biopsy specimens obtained from the right or left ventricle during routine diagnostic cardiac catheterization of 45 patients with dilated (congestive) or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or with heart disease other than cardiomyopathy, such as acute perimyocarditis, postmyocarditis and constrictive pericarditis. The validity of catecholamine determination in a 2 to 6 mg biopsy specimen to assess overall ventricular myocardial catecholamines was demonstrated.Norepinephrine concentrations in the myocardium were inversely correlated with the grade of hypertrophy in patients with congestive cardiomyopathy or heart disease other than cardiomyopathy, but not in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The fact that the myo- cardial norepinephrine concentration was always lower in the left than in the right ventricle of the same patient may be explained by the simple dilution of sympathetic nerve endings in the left ventricle.There were some cases of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in which the concentration of myocardial norepinephrine was exceptionally high, although its mean value was not significantly higher than that in patients with other types of heart disease who served as a control group without cardiomyopathy. Some patients with dilated cardiomyopathy had lower levels of myocardial norepinephrine than would be expected for the degree of interstitial fibrosis and the severity of heart failure. The mean plasma norepinephrine and epinephrine levels were significantly elevated in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy

Metabolic Tumour Volume as a Predictor of Survival for Sinonasal Tract Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Background: High uptake of F18-fluorodeoxyglucose parameters for glucose metabolism is related to shorter survival in sinonasal tract cancer with various histological classifications. We investigated whether F18-fluorodeoxyglucose uptake parameters are associated with survival outcomes for patients with only squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) in the sinonasal tract that are treated either with surgery or nonsurgery. Methods: We retrospectively observed F18-fluorodeoxyglucose uptake parameters on positron emission tomography with computed tomography for the primary tumour of SCC in 39 patients. Log-rank test or a Cox regression model with 95% confidence interval (95%CI) and hazard ratio (HR) were used for monovariable or multivariable analysis, respectively. We determined cut-off values of the F18-fluorodeoxyglucose uptake parameters using the lowest p value for monovariable sinonasal tract cancer-specific survival analysis. Results: Monovariable analysis showed that patients with metabolic tumour volume (MTV) ≥ 21.8 had a shorter cancer-specific, disease-free and local recurrence-free survival than those with MTV < 21.8. After adjusting for age, gender, clinical stage and treatment group in the multivariable analysis, MTV (≥21.8/<21.8) was related to shorter cancer-specific (HR: 3.69, 95%CI: 1.17–12.0), disease-free (HR: 3.38, 95%CI: 1.19–9.71) and local recurrence-free (HR: 5.42, 95%CI: 1.59–20.3) survivals. Conclusions: MTV as advances in diagnostics of sinonasal tract SCC is a predictor