12 research outputs found
GALAXY CRUISE: Deep Insights into Interacting Galaxies in the Local Universe
We present the first results from GALAXY CRUISE, a community (or citizen)
science project based on data from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic
Program (HSC-SSP). The current paradigm of galaxy evolution suggests that
galaxies grow hierarchically via mergers, but our observational understanding
of the role of mergers is still limited. The data from HSC-SSP are ideally
suited to improve our understanding with improved identifications of
interacting galaxies thanks to the superb depth and image quality of HSC-SSP.
We have launched a community science project, GALAXY CRUISE, in 2019 and
collected over 2 million independent classifications of 20,686 galaxies at z <
0.2. We first characterize the accuracy of the participants' classifications
and demonstrate that it surpasses previous studies based on shallower imaging
data. We then investigate various aspects of interacting galaxies in detail. We
show that there is a clear sign of enhanced activities of super massive black
holes and star formation in interacting galaxies compared to those in isolated
galaxies. The enhancement seems particularly strong for galaxies undergoing
violent merger. We also show that the mass growth rate inferred from our
results is roughly consistent with the observed evolution of the stellar mass
function. The 2nd season of GALAXY CRUISE is currently under way and we
conclude with future prospects. We make the morphological classification
catalog used in this paper publicly available at the GALAXY CRUISE website,
which will be particularly useful for machine-learning applications.Comment: 23 pages, 22 figures, PASJ in press. Data available at
https://galaxycruise.mtk.nao.ac.jp/en/for_researchers.htm
Endoscopic Ultrasound-Guided Gallbladder Drainage for Aberrant Right Posterior Duct Obstruction Developing after Placement of a Covered Self-Expandable Metallic Stent in a Patient with Distal Biliary Obstruction
Endoscopic ultrasound-guided gallbladder drainage (EUS-GBD) has been utilized as an alternative endoscopic technique for patients with acute cholecystitis. In addition to EUS-guided hepaticogastrostomy and EUS-guided cystogastrostomy, EUS-GBD has been reported as being useful for biliary drainage in cases with distal malignant biliary obstruction instead of conventional endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography. We present a case of successful EUS-GBD for malignant obstruction of an aberrant hepatic duct draining directly into the cystic duct
Systemic Chemotherapy for Advanced Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Past, Present, and Future
Systemic chemotherapy is one of the most important treatment modalities for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Before the introduction of sorafenib, cytotoxic agents, hormonal therapies, or many combinations of these were the mainly used modalities for systemic chemotherapy of advanced HCC. However, such regimens were of only limited value in clinical practice, because some randomized controlled studies comparing promising regimens with no treatment or doxorubicin alone failed to show any overall survival advantage. In two pivotal phase III placebo-controlled studies, the SHARP trial and the Asia-Pacific trial, sorafenib was demonstrated to significantly delay the time to progression and the overall survival time in patients with advanced HCC. Therefore, sorafenib therapy has come to be acknowledged as a standard therapy for advanced HCC worldwide. After the introduction of sorafenib, a number of phase III trials of various molecular-targeted agents vs. sorafenib as first-line chemotherapy and of various molecular-targeted agents vs. placebo as second-line chemotherapy have been conducted to determine if any of these agents could offer a survival benefit, however, none of the agents examined so far has been demonstrated to provide any survival benefit over sorafenib or placebo. Recently, favorable treatment efficacies have been reported in some clinical trials of molecular-targeted agents in the biomarker-enriched population. Development of individualized cancer treatments using molecular-targeted agents based on the results of genome-sequencing is aggressively ongoing. Furthermore, immune-oncologic agents, such as anti-CTLA-4 antibody and anti-PD-1/PD-L1 antibody, have been reported to provide promising outcomes. Thus, various novel systemic chemotherapeutic agents are currently under development, and further improvements in the treatment outcomes are expected