The effect of epidural administration of dexamethasone on postoperative pain: a randomized controlled study in radical subtotal gastrectomy

BACKGROUND: Epidurally administered dexamethasone may reduce the incidence and severity of postoperative pain. We investigated whether postoperative pain could be alleviated by preoperative or postoperative epidural dexamethasone administration in patients undergoing major abdominal surgery. METHODS: Ninety patients (age 30-77 with American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status I and II) undergoing radical subtotal gastrectomy were randomly allocated to three groups using computer generated randomization. In all groups, 10 ml of 0.25% ropivacaine was injected epidurally before the start and at the end of the operation. In Group I, a bolus ropivacaine epidural without dexamethasone was administered. In Group II, dexamethasone (5 mg) was added to the ropivacaine bolus epidural before the start of operation. In Group III, the same amount of dexamethasone was given with the ropivacaine epidural at the end of operation. Effort and resting VAS, the use of rescue analgesics and any complications noted during the procedure were evaluated. RESULTS: VAS and requirements of rescue analgesics were significantly lower in Groups II and III when compared to Group I. There were no difference in the incidence of nausea and vomiting between groups, but an itching sensation was frequent in Group III. CONCLUSIONS: The administration of 5 mg of dexamethasone epidurallly, before or after operation, could reduce the pain and analgesic requirement after radical subtotal gastrectomy.ope

CSGM Designer: a platform for designing cross-species intron-spanning genic markers linked with genome information of legumes.

BackgroundGenetic markers are tools that can facilitate molecular breeding, even in species lacking genomic resources. An important class of genetic markers is those based on orthologous genes, because they can guide hypotheses about conserved gene function, a situation that is well documented for a number of agronomic traits. For under-studied species a key bottleneck in gene-based marker development is the need to develop molecular tools (e.g., oligonucleotide primers) that reliably access genes with orthology to the genomes of well-characterized reference species.ResultsHere we report an efficient platform for the design of cross-species gene-derived markers in legumes. The automated platform, named CSGM Designer (URL: http://tgil.donga.ac.kr/CSGMdesigner), facilitates rapid and systematic design of cross-species genic markers. The underlying database is composed of genome data from five legume species whose genomes are substantially characterized. Use of CSGM is enhanced by graphical displays of query results, which we describe as "circular viewer" and "search-within-results" functions. CSGM provides a virtual PCR representation (eHT-PCR) that predicts the specificity of each primer pair simultaneously in multiple genomes. CSGM Designer output was experimentally validated for the amplification of orthologous genes using 16 genotypes representing 12 crop and model legume species, distributed among the galegoid and phaseoloid clades. Successful cross-species amplification was obtained for 85.3% of PCR primer combinations.ConclusionCSGM Designer spans the divide between well-characterized crop and model legume species and their less well-characterized relatives. The outcome is PCR primers that target highly conserved genes for polymorphism discovery, enabling functional inferences and ultimately facilitating trait-associated molecular breeding

Tetramethyl-O-scutellarin isolated from peels of immature Shiranuhi fruit exhibits anti-inflammatory effects on LPSinduced RAW264.7 cells

Purpose: To investigate the anti-inflammatory activity of the ethanol extract of the immature fruit of a citrus, Shiranuhi, and to identify the active ingredient.Methods: The immature Shiranuhi peel was extracted with 80 % ethanol, and the extract was fractionated with solvents (n-hexane, ethyl acetate and n-butanol) to afford the corresponding fractions and water residue. Among them, the EtOAc-soluble portion was subjected to medium pressure liquid chromatography (MPLC) over a reversed-phase SiO2 column to give compound 1. The isolated compound was identified based on the proton and carbon nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra. The release of nitric oxide, prostaglandin (PG)E2, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, interleukin (IL)-1β, and IL-6 secreted by mouse macrophages was measured using RAW264.7 cell culture supernatant.Results: Shiranuhi (Korean name, Hallabong) is an important citrus species cultivated in Jeju Island, Korea. A polymethoxyflavonoid (PMF), tetramethyl-O-scutellarin (1), was isolated from the peels of immature Shiranuhi fruit. Upon the evaluation of anti-inflammatory effects, the flavonoid 1 decreased the nitric oxide production in macrophage cells with high efficiency, viz, 50 % inhibition concentration, IC50 of 57.4 μM. Subsequent studies demonstrated that PMF 1 effectively inhibited the generation of PGE2, TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6 cytokine in a dose-dependent manner.Conclusion: Tetramethyl-O-scutellarin (1) has been successfully isolated from Shiranuhi species for the first time. Thus, Shiranuhi fruit peel extract containing PMF 1 can potentially be applied as an antiinflammatory ingredient in food or cosmetic industries.Keywords: Shiranuhi fruit, Nitric oxide, Tetramethyl-O-scutellarin, Anti-inflammator

AoA-based Position and Orientation Estimation Using Lens MIMO in Cooperative Vehicle-to-Vehicle Systems

Positioning accuracy is a critical requirement for vehicle-to-everything (V2X) use cases. Therefore, this paper derives the theoretical limits of estimation for the position and orientation of vehicles in a cooperative vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) scenario, using a lens-based multiple-input multiple-output (lens-MIMO) system. Following this, we analyze the Cram$\acute{\text{e}}$r-Rao lower bounds (CRLBs) of the position and orientation estimation and explore a received signal model of a lens-MIMO for the particular angle of arrival (AoA) estimation with a V2V geometric model. Further, we propose a lower complexity AoA estimation technique exploiting the unique characteristics of the lens-MIMO for a single target vehicle; as a result, its estimation scheme is effectively extended by the successive interference cancellation (SIC) method for multiple target vehicles. Given these AoAs, we investigate the lens-MIMO estimation capability for the positions and orientations of vehicles. Subsequently, we prove that the lens-MIMO outperforms a conventional uniform linear array (ULA) in a certain configuration of a lens's structure. Finally, we confirm that the proposed localization algorithm is superior to ULA's CRLB as the resolution of the lens increases in spite of the lower complexity.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figure

Sparse RF Lens Antenna Array Design for AoA Estimation in Wideband Systems: Placement Optimization and Performance Analysis

In this paper, we propose a novel architecture for a lens antenna array (LAA) designed to work with a small number of antennas and enable angle-of-arrival (AoA) estimation for advanced 5G vehicle-to-everything (V2X) use cases that demand wider bandwidths and higher data rates. We derive a received signal in terms of optical analysis to consider the variability of the focal region for different carrier frequencies in a wideband multi-carrier system. By taking full advantage of the beam squint effect for multiple pilot signals with different frequencies, we propose a novel reconfiguration of antenna array (RAA) for the sparse LAA and a max-energy antenna selection (MS) algorithm for the AoA estimation. In addition, this paper presents an analysis of the received power at the single antenna with the maximum energy and compares it to simulation results. In contrast to previous studies on LAA that assumed a large number of antennas, which can require high complexity and hardware costs, the proposed RAA with MS estimation algorithm is shown meets the requirements of 5G V2X in a vehicular environment while utilizing limited RF hardware and has low complexity.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figure

Prevention of mitochondrial impairment by inhibition of protein phosphatase 1 activity in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease caused by progressive loss of motor neurons (MNs) and subsequent muscle weakness. These pathological features are associated with numerous cellular changes, including alteration in mitochondrial morphology and function. However, the molecular mechanisms associating mitochondrial structure with ALS pathology are poorly understood. In this study, we found that Dynamin-related protein 1 (Drp1) was dephosphorylated in several ALS models, including those with SOD1 and TDP-43 mutations, and the dephosphorylation was mediated by the pathological induction of protein phosphatase 1 (PP1) activity in these models. Suppression of the PP1-Drp1 cascade effectively prevented ALS-related symptoms, including mitochondrial fragmentation, mitochondrial complex I impairment, axonal degeneration, and cell death, in primary neuronal culture models, iPSC-derived human MNs, and zebrafish models in vivo. These results suggest that modulation of PP1-Drp1 activity may be a therapeutic target for multiple pathological features of ALS

Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior Disappearing after Left Capsular Genu Infarction

This case report describes a 74-year-old woman with obsessive-compulsive behaviors that disappeared following a left capsular genu infarction. The patient's capsular genu infarction likely resulted in thalamocortical disconnection in the cortico-basal ganglia-thalamocortical loop, which may have caused the disappearance of her obsessive-compulsive symptoms. The fact that anterior capsulotomy has been demonstrated to be effective for treating refractory obsessive-compulsive disorder further supports this hypothesis