HAICとソラフェニブで治療した進行肝細胞癌の予後不良症例の予測に治療4週後の血清HMGB1濃度が有用である

広島大学(Hiroshima University)博士(医学)Doctor of Philosophy in Medical Sciencedoctora

Automatic Generation of Test Cases Using Document Analysis Techniques

In software maintenance, software testing consumes 55% of the total software maintenance work. The problem is how to reduce the software testing work while still insuring high quality software.nbsp Some solutions involve software execution automation tools, outsourcing the testing tasks at lower labor rates. Such solutions still depend upon individual skills in generation of the test cases. In contrast, we focused on generation of test cases rather than the skills and developed a method for the automatic generation of test cases by using our natural language document analysis techniques which use text parsers for extracting and complementing parameter values from documents. We applied the method to Internet banking system maintenance projects and insurance system maintenance projects.nbsp In this paper, we discuss our method and techniques for automatic generation of test cases and their use in these industry case studies.nbsp Our document analysis tool helped automatically generate 95% of the required test cases from the design documents. The work of creating test cases was reduced by 48% in our case studies

Relapse of Neuromyelitis Optica Spectrum Disorder Associated with Intravenous Lidocaine

Lidocaine unmasks silent symptoms and eases neuropathic pain in multiple sclerosis patients; however, the effects of lidocaine in neuromyelitis optica have never been reported. We describe the case of a 59-year-old Japanese woman with neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder who developed optic neuritis 1 day after intravenous lidocaine injection for treating allodynia. Her symptom seemed to result from a relapse of neuromyelitis optica induced by lidocaine administration, and not because of the transient effects of intravenous lidocaine administration. The possibility that lidocaine administration results in relapse of neuromyelitis optica due to its immunomodulating effects cannot be ruled out

Comparison of the physical optics code with the GOIE method and the direct solution of Maxwell equations obtained by FDTD

A comparison of the physical optics code and GOIE method to solve the problem of light scattering by hexagonal ice crystals has been presented. It was found that in the case of diffraction on a hole in the perpendicular screen, both methods give the same diffraction scattering cross section for the diffraction angles up to 60 degrees. The polarization elements of the Mueller matrix in this case differ significantly even for the angles of 15-30 degrees. It is also shown that in the case of diffraction on the tilted screen, the difference between these methods may be significant. The comparison of the results with the exact solution obtained by FDTD has confirmed that the difference between these methods is not significant for the case of diffraction on the perpendicular screen, but it is slightly preferable to use the GOIE for the calculations. The good agreement with the exact solution confirms the possibility of using the method of physical optics to solve the problem of light scattering by particles with characteristic size greater than 10 microns

Estimation of the refractive index of volcanic ash from satellite infrared sounder data

AbstractWe investigated the spectral refractive indices (RIs) of volcanic ash materials in the wavenumber range of 700–1100cm−1 using satellite infrared sounder measurements and radiative transfer calculations. The ash RIs of 10 ash clouds from eight volcanoes were evaluated (Bezymianny on 2 September 2012, Chaitén on 3 May 2008, Kelut on 14 February 2014, Kirishimayama on 27 January 2011, Kliuchevskoi on 30 June 2007 and 18 October 2013, Puyehue–Cordon Caulle on 5 June 2011, Sangeang-Api on 31 May 2014, and Sheveluch on 28 October 2010 and 18 September 2012). We elaborated on a dataset of volcanic ash measurements made by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) onboard the Aqua satellite. The measured brightness temperatures in the ash cloud data revealed silicate absorption features at around 10μm. By applying atmospheric profiles from results of a global data assimilation system and using ash cloud properties (ash optical depth, effective radius, and ash cloud height) as parameters for radiative transfer calculations, least squares analyses for the observed and calculated brightness temperatures were conducted using AIRS channels in the wavenumber range of 700–1100cm−1, except for the O3 absorption channels in the range of 980–1070cm−1. Using the RIs for typical volcanic rocks in the ascending order of SiO2 content, basalt, andesite, and rhyolite, a mixture of basalt and rhyolite and a mixture of andesite and rhyolite for the ash material were considered. The volume fraction of the mixture was used as a retrieval parameter and as the ash cloud parameter. Using the estimated ash cloud parameters as fixed values, and under the assumption that the RI from the estimated volume fraction had some accuracy in the wavenumber ranges of 850–980cm−1 and 1070–1100cm−1, the RI imaginary part of each eruptive ash cloud captured by AIRS was then determined from iterative calculations at wavenumbers between 750cm−1 and 980cm−1. In the wavenumber range of 850–980cm−1, the observed brightness temperatures could be approximately simulated using the reported RIs from Pollack, Toon, and Khare (1973) for andesite, basalt, and rhyolite, and their combinations. Furthermore, some estimated RIs were consistent with the reported rock types of the volcanoes, which had been previously classified by compositional analyses in the literature. Our analysis also identified weak absorptions around 750–850cm−1, which could not be reproduced by the reported RIs. These weak absorptions were likely due to Si–O and/or Al–O vibrations, which have been proposed in reports from previous laboratory experiments for some silicate glass samples. Our results suggest that the detailed RI of volcanic ash can be determined from an analysis of satellite infrared sounder data. The RI of the ash material estimated from satellite infrared sounder data can be used to improve the ash retrieval algorithms of other satellite measurements. Furthermore, an RI retrieved by sounder measurements may provide diagnostic information regarding volcanic activity from comparisons with the ash RIs from past eruptions

A pediatric case of productive cough caused by novel variants in DNAH9

We report the first Japanese case of primary ciliary dyskinesia caused by DNAH9 variations. The patient, a 5-year-old girl, had repeated episodes of productive cough after contracting the common cold at the age of 1 year and 6 months. She did not have a situs abnormality or congenital heart defect. We identified two novel DNAH9 variants, NM_001372.3: c. [1298C>G];[5547_5550delTGAC], (p.[Ser433Cys];[Asp1850fs])

Predisposition for borderline personality disorder with comorbid major depression is associated with that for polycystic ovary syndrome in female Japanese population

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a common lifestyle-related endocrinopathy in women of reproductive age and is associated with several mental health problems. We examined the genotypic distributions of IRS-1 Gly972Arg and CYP11B2 -344T/C, which were previously described as influencing PCOS, and assayed the serum levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), in a set of female patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) with comorbid major depressive disorder (MDD) (n = 50) and age-matched control subjects (n = 100), to investigate the predisposition for BPD with MDD. The results showed that the patients were more frequently IRS-1 972Arg variant allele carriers (P = 0.013; OR 6.68; 95% CI = 1.30–34.43) and homozygous for the CYP11B2 −344C variant allele (P = 0.022; OR = 3.32; 95% CI = 1.18–9.35) than the control subjects. The IL-6 level was significantly higher in the patients than in the controls (P < 0.0001). There was no significant difference in the serum TNF-α level between patients with BPD with MDD and the healthy comparison group (P = 0.5273). In conclusion, the predisposition for BPD with MDD is associated with that for PCOS, in the female Japanese population. An elevated serum IL-6 level is considered to be a possible biomarker of BPD with MDD