RVS for small lesion in hepatectomy

Background : Systemic chemotherapy can drastically downsize metastatic liver tumors and these small liver lesions could sometimes be difficult for surgeons to detect during hepatectomy. We assessed the usefulness of intraoperative real-time virtual sonography (RVS) with contrast-enhanced ultrasonography (CEUS) using ‘Sonazoid’ contrast agent (RVS-CEUS). Methods : We performed the intraoperative RVS-CEUS technique on 10 tumor lesions in six cases, which were scheduled for hepatic resection of < 10 mm in diameter in our liver metastases series. These lesions were preoperatively diagnosed by contrast enhanced-computed tomography (CE-CT) or Gadolinium-ethoxybenzyl-diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid (Gd-EOB-DTPA)-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (EOB-MRI). We assessed the detectability of a tumor with RVS-CEUS during surgery and compared it with that of preoperative CE-CT or EOB-MRI. Results : Detectability of RVS-CEUS for 10 small lesions was 90% (n = 9/10) and that of other preoperative modalities were 50% (n = 5/10, CE-CT) and 100% (n = 10/10, EOB-MRI). Minimum tumor size detected was 3.0 mm in diameter, and maximum depth of detection with RVS-CEUS was 43.5 mm ; these results could be an advantage when compared with other intraoperative diagnostic modalities. Conclusion : Intraoperative RVS-CEUS was useful for detecting small metastatic liver lesions after chemotherapy and could be an effective intraoperative diagnostic technique for hepatic resection of a size < 10 mm

A Case study of Method to Activate and Continue Online Community for Promoting Pro-Environmental Behaviors

STSS(International Symposium on Socially and Technically Symbiotic Systems)/ISSNP(International Symposium on Symbiotic Nuclear Power Systems) 2015: August 25-28, Main Campus of Kyoto University.The energy consumption in our daily lives has increased rapidly and it has been causing exhaustion of fossil fuel resource and environmental problems. In order to solve these problems, pro-environmental behavior (PEB) in our daily lives is one of the effective solutions. This study has proposed a method to activate and continue the online community for promoting their PEBs based on six principles of social psychology (scarcity, liking, reciprocation, social proof, commitmentconsistency and response expectation). A case study based on the proposed method was conducted with 14 participants to validate whether it activates and continues online community and promotes their PEBs

Effects of Interface Electronic Structures on Transition Voltage Spectroscopy of Alkanethiol Molecular Junctions

We investigated the charge transport characteristics of alkanemonothiol (C_<i>n</i>H_2<i>n</i>+1SH, <i>n</i> = number of carbons) molecular junctions by means of transition voltage spectroscopy (TVS) based on the observations of the interface electronic structures. The minimum in the Fowler–Nordheim plot was observed at the average positive and negative sample biases of +1.23 and −1.44 V. These voltages (<i>V</i>_min) were insensitive to the molecular length. The low-energy ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (LE-UPS) measurements revealed the presence of an Au–S bond at a binding energy of 1.4 eV with reference to the Fermi level of the Au substrates. The binding energy of the interface electronic state was independent of the molecular length. The TVS results were analyzed based on the LE-UPS results, including the differences in the measurement conditions. The results were consistently explained by the Au–S bond being responsible for <i>V</i>_min at the negative bias. In addition, another interface state was suggested to be responsible for <i>V</i>_min at the positive bias. The effects of the interface electronic structures besides the apparent barrier height should be considered to understand TVS of molecular junctions with wide energy gap molecules