Preparation of Mullite Dispersed Silica Ceramics through Sol-Gel Processing

Mullite-dispersed silica ceramics were prepared through sol-gel processing by the use of tetraethoxy silane, aluminium nitrate and aluminium isopropoxide as the Si and Al sources where HCl and HN0(3) were the catalyst. Effect of the starting materials, solvents and catalysts was examined on the gelation time or temperature of mullite precipitation. Apparent activation energy of gelation ranged from 80 to 95kJ/mol. The presence of AI in the sols elongated the gelling time suggesting the formation of chelate bonds between AI and Si-OR or Si-OH bonds

Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam Survey for An Optical Counterpart of GW170817

We perform a $z$-band survey for an optical counterpart of a binary neutron star coalescence GW170817 with Subaru/Hyper Suprime-Cam. Our untargeted transient search covers $23.6$ deg$^2$ corresponding to the $56.6\%$ credible region of GW170817 and reaches the $50\%$ completeness magnitude of $20.6$ mag on average. As a result, we find 60 candidates of extragalactic transients, including J-GEM17btc (a.k.a. SSS17a/DLT17ck). While J-GEM17btc is associated with NGC 4993 that is firmly located inside the 3D skymap of GW170817, the other 59 candidates do not have distance information in the GLADE v2 catalog or NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED). Among 59 candidates, 58 are located at the center of extended objects in the Pan-STARRS1 catalog, while one candidate has an offset. We present location, $z$-band apparent magnitude, and time variability of the candidates and evaluate the probabilities that they are located inside of the 3D skymap of GW170817. The probability for J-GEM17btc is $64\%$ being much higher than those for the other 59 candidates ($9.3\times10^{-3}-2.1\times10^{-1}\%$). Furthermore, the possibility, that at least one of the other 59 candidates is located within the 3D skymap, is only $3.2\%$. Therefore, we conclude that J-GEM17btc is the most-likely and distinguished candidate as the optical counterpart of GW170817.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in PASJ (Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan

ニンシン オ ケイキ ニ ジョウミャク ケッセンショウ オ ハッショウシ センテンセイ アンチトロンビンIII ケッソンショウ ト シンダン サレタ イチレイ

Congenital antithrombin III (AT III) deficiency is an inherited autosomal dominant disorder. Patients often suffer from recurrent venous thromboses that are triggered by several occasions (operation, gestation, trauma, oral contraceptive drug etc.). Moreover, 60% of them are said to be associated with pulmonary embolism. The patient of this report is 27-year-old pregnant woman in the first trimester. She felt pain in the back of her head and left auricle and presented with dyslexia and aphasia in late of March, 20XX. Getting CT brain scan, MRI brain scan, and blood sampling at the nearby hospital, she was suspected of having thrombosis of left sigmoid and transverse sinus due to AT III deficiency. Because she wanted to give birth to her first child without termination, she was referred to our hospital. We used heparin as the anticoagulant therapy because warfarin had the risk of teratogenesis. But in condition of low serum level of AT III activity, it didn’t work effectively. So we also did frequent complement of AT III. Strict anticoagulant therapy resulted in better outcome for both the patient and her baby without fatal venous thromboses or fetal complications

Role of oral amiodarone in patients with atrial fibrillation and congestive heart failure

SummaryBackgroundAmiodarone is recognized as the most effective therapy for maintaining sinus rhythm (SR) post cardioversion in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). It is also recommended for controlling AF in patients with congestive heart failure (CHF). We retrospectively examined the efficacy and safety of oral amiodarone in patients with AF and CHF.MethodsForty-eight consecutive AF patients whose left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) was less than 50% and B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) was higher than 100pg/ml were investigated retrospectively, and divided into 3 groups: paroxysmal AF, 16 patients; persistent AF, 9 patients; and permanent AF, 23 patients.ResultsThe permanent AF group had a longer history of AF, larger left ventricular end-diastolic diameter (LVDd) and left atrial diameter (LAD) than paroxysmal and persistent AF groups (p<0.05). After median follow-up of 265 days, amiodarone suppressed paroxysms in 88% of paroxysmal AF patients, while SR was maintained in all persistent AF patients, and 35% of permanent AF patients. Of the 32 persistent and permanent AF patients, 12 (71%) out of 17 maintained SR after successful electrical cardioversion, and conversion to SR occurred spontaneously in 5 (33%) out of 15. The effective group had significantly smaller LVDd and LAD than the ineffective group. In the effective group, BNP decreased significantly from 723±566pg/ml to 248±252pg/ml, (p<0.0005) and LVEF increased significantly from 33±7% to 50±13% (p<0.0005) during follow up, while no changes were observed in the ineffective group. The patients with low LVEF (≤30%) benefited comparably from amiodarone to the patients with LVEF >30%. Complications occurred in 24 (50%) patients leading to discontinuation of amiodarone in 11 (23%).ConclusionsOral amiodarone helped restore SR in paroxysmal and persistent AF patients with CHF. The successful rhythm control by amiodarone resulted in the improvement of LV function and the decrease of BNP levels