Effective Stress Analysis of Pile Foundations Showing Various Damage Patterns in Liquefied Deposits During 1995 Hyogoken-Nambu Earthquake

Effective stress analysis is conducted for six buildings that suffered various patterns of damage during soil liquefaction in the 1995 Hyogoken-Nambu earthquake, in order to examine major causes of the damage as well as the effectiveness of the analytical procedure. A comparison of the computed result with the filed observation indicates that the effective stress analysis is capable of discriminating damaged from undamaged foundations as well as of estimating the damage portion and severity with a reasonable degree of reliability. The analytical result also shows that: (1) the damage to pile heads is mainly due to the inertia force from the superstructure and the damage at depths below the pile head is mainly due to the kinematic force resulting from ground displacements; (2) because of their ductile behavior, steel reinforced concrete piles are immune from extensive damage; and (3) to enclose a pile foundation with diaphragm walls can reduce pile damage but can increase the response of the superstructure as well as the shear force and moment particularly in the lower levels of buildings

Design of novel bioactive materials through organic modification of calcium silicate

Bioactive ceramics have attractive feature for bone repair such as direct bone-bonding in the body. However their clinical application is limited to low loaded portions due to their inappropriate mechanical performances such as higher brittleness and lower flexibility than natural bone. The essential condition for artificial materials to show bioactivity is formation of bone-like apatite on their surfaces in body environment. This apatite formation is triggered by silanol (Si–OH) group on the material surfaces and release of Ca2+. These findings bring us an idea that novel bioactive materials with high flexibility can be designed by organic modification of calcium silicate. We synthesized organic–inorganic hybrids from organic polymers including 2-hydroxyethylmethacrylate (HEMA), starch and alginate by modification with alkoxysilane and calcium chloride. The hybrids formed apatite on their surfaces in simulated body fluid (SBF, Kokubo solution). Such a modification was also effective for providing conventional polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA)-based bone cement with bioactivity.IX Conference and Exhibition of the European Ceramic Society: June 19-23, 2005, Portorož, Sloveni

Earth Pressure Acting on Embedded Footing During Soil Liquefaction by Large-Scaling Shaking Table Test

Shaking table tests are conducted using a large-scale laminar shear box to investigate the effects of non-liquefied crust overlying liquefied soils on an embedded footing. It is shown that (1) The total earth pressure before liquefaction is induced mainly by the inertia force of the building. The shear force at the pile heads corresponds to the difference between the total earth pressure and the inertial force; (2) The total earth pressure after liquefaction is induced mainly by the soil deformation. The shear force at the pile heads car responds to the sum of the total earth pressure and the inertial force of the building; (3) The relation between the relative displacement and the total earth pressure is linear before liquefaction. It becomes nonlinear with the development of pore water pressure and the total earth pressure decreases with cyclic loading after liquefaction; (4) The peak value of the total earth pressure for the super-structure with a low natural frequency is larger than that with a high natural frequency. This is probably because the inertial force of the super - structure with a low natural frequency may interrupt the response of the footing that tends to move with the ground

Large-Area Resonance-Tuned Metasurfaces for On-Demand Enhanced Spectroscopy

We show an effective procedure for lateral structure tuning in nanoimprint lithography (NIL) that has been developed as a vertical top-down method fabricating large-area nanopatterns. The procedure was applied to optical resonance tuning in stacked complementary (SC) metasurfaces based on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrates and was found to realize structure tuning at nm precision using only one mold in the NIL process. The structure tuning enabled us to obtain fine tuning of the optical resonances, offering cost-effective, high-throughput, and high-precision nanofabrication. We also demonstrate that the tuned optical resonances selectively and significantly enhance fluorescence (FL) of dye molecules in a near-infrared range. FL intensity on a SC metasurface was found to be more than 450-fold larger than the FL intensity on flat Au film on base SOI substrate

Chemical Pleurodesis Could Exacerbate Lymphedema of Yellow Nail Syndrome

Chemical pleurodesis is sometimes performed for the management of intractable pleural effusion. We describe a woman with yellow nail syndrome (YNS), which is characterized by yellow discoloration of the nails, lymphedema, and pleural effusion. At the age of 43, she was hospitalized with edema of the lower limbs. Despite a number of medical treatments, massive lymphedema of lower limbs developed over a period of three years, resulting in skin cracks and subsequent infection, septicemia and multiple organ failure. At autopsy, abnormally dilated lymph and blood vessels were evident in soft tissue throughout the whole body. She had undergone chemical pleurodesis at 36 years of age for reduction of pleural effusion associated with YNS. Our case illustrates possible complication of chemical pleurodesis to YNS, which resulted in accumulation of lymph flow into the lower half of the body

Enhanced expression of complement C5a receptor mRNA in human diseased kidney assessed by in situ hybridization

Enhanced expression of complement C5a receptor mRNA in human diseased kidney assessed by in situ hybridization.BackgroundAnaphylatoxin C5a mediates inflammatory responses through interaction with a specific C5a receptor (C5aR), the expression of which is thought to be restricted to peripheral blood leukocytes. Although the presence of C5aR on cultured mesangial cells and tubular epithelial cells has recently been documented, the tissue distribution of C5aR in diseased kidney has not yet been determined.MethodsImmunohistochemistry and nonradioactive in situ hybridization for C5aR were performed in 34 tissue samples of kidneys from patients with various renal diseases, including 4 with minimal change nephrotic syndrome (MCNS), 5 with membranous nephropathy (MN), and 25 with mesangial proliferative glomerulonephritis (mesGN; 15 patients with IgA nephropathy, 5 with non-IgA mesGN, and 5 with lupus nephritis). Normal portions of surgically resected kidney served as the control.ResultsIn normal kidneys, C5aR protein was detected in tubular epithelial cells, while C5aR mRNA was detected in a few glomerular cells, tubular epithelial cells, and vascular endothelial and smooth muscle cells. In MCNS, the distribution of C5aR protein and mRNA was similar to that in normal kidneys. In MN and mesGN, C5aR protein and mRNA were detected in mesangial cells, glomerular epithelial and endothelial cells, Bowman's capsule cells, tubular cells, infiltrating cells, and vascular endothelial and smooth muscle cells. The glomerular expression of C5aR mRNA and protein correlated positively with the degree of mesangial hypercellularity and mesangial matrix expansion in mesGN. In the tubulointerstitium, interstitial expression of C5aR mRNA correlated positively with the degree of tubular atrophy and interstitial broadening in mesGN. Furthermore, the interstitial expression of C5aR mRNA correlated positively with the level of serum creatinine.ConclusionsOur results indicate that renal cells produce C5aR and that activation of C5a/C5aR pathway on renal cells may be involved in tissue injury in mesGN

Disturbance of cerebellar synaptic maturation in mutant mice lacking BSRPs, a novel brain-specific receptor-like protein family

AbstractBy DNA cloning, we have identified the BSRP (brain-specific receptor-like proteins) family of three members in mammalian genomes. BSRPs were predominantly expressed in the soma and dendrites of neurons and localized in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Expression levels of BSRPs seemed to fluctuate greatly during postnatal cerebellar maturation. Triple-knockout mice lacking BSRP members exhibited motor discoordination, and Purkinje cells (PCs) were often innervated by multiple climbing fibers with different neuronal origins in the mutant cerebellum. Moreover, the phosphorylation levels of protein kinase Cα (PKCα) were significantly downregulated in the mutant cerebellum. Because cerebellar maturation and plasticity require metabotropic glutamate receptor signaling and resulting PKC activation, BSRPs are likely involved in ER functions supporting PKCα activation in PCs

Renal Outcome of Immunoglobulin A Nephropathy With Mild Proteinuria

We determined the natural history of immunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN) among patients who presented with mild proteinuria (0.2 to 0.4 g/day), and factors associated with development of adverse clinical events, defined as proteinuria 竕ｧ 1.0g/day, blood pressure > 130/80mmHg, serum creatinine 竕ｧ 1.4mg/dl. We did analyzed data from 27 patients(mean age 30 ﾂｱ 12 years) with IgAN accompanied by mild proteinuria between 1990 and 1998. We also evaluated semiquantitave scores of glomerulosclerosis, tubulointerstitial injury, hyaline arteriosclerosis, and IgAN classification. The median duration of follow-up was 51 months. During followup, at least one adverse clinical event affected 15 patients (56%): among who eight (53%) developed proteinuria. And one of 8 developed impaired renal function and 7 (47%) became hypertensive. Another 12 patients (44%) were not affected by adverse clinical events. The clinical findings were not significantly different between the adverse events and no evens group. The scores of glomerulosclerosis and tubulointerstitial injury reveled significant differences between events. The only renal histological parameters of glomerulosclerosis and adverse clinical events were statistically correlated with renal survival. We concluded that IgAN with mild proteinuria frequently follows a slow by progressive course and that the severity of glomerulosclerosis may be predictable prognostic factor in patients who have IgAN with by mild proteinuria

Involvement of Leptin in the Progression of Experimentally Induced Peritoneal Fibrosis in Mice

013LeptinThe isJapana hormoneSociety mainlyof Histochemistryproduced byandwhite adipose cells, and regulates body fat and food intake by acting on hypothalamus. Leptin receptor is expressed not only in the hypothalamus but in a variety of peripheral tissues, suggesting that leptin has pleiotropic functions. In this study, we investigated the effect of leptin on the progression of peritoneal fibrosis induced by intraperitoneal injection of chlorhexidine gluconate (CG) every other day for 2 or 3 weeks in mice. This study was conducted in male C57BL/6 mice and leptin-deficient ob/ob mice. Peritoneal fluid, blood, and peritoneal tissues were collected 15 or 22 days after CG injection. CG injection increased the level of leptin in serum and peritoneal fluid with thickening of submesothelial compact zone in wild type mice, but CG-injected ob/ob mice attenuate peritoneal fibrosis, and markedly reduced the number of myofibroblasts, infiltrating macrophages, and blood vessels in the thickened submesothelial area. The 2-week leptin administration induced a more thickened peritoneum in the CG-injected C57BL/6 mice than in the PBS group. Our results indicate that an upregulation of leptin appears to play a role in fibrosis and inflammation during peritoneal injury, and reducing leptin may be a therapeutically potential for peritoneal fibrosis