Evaluation of Creatine Kinase, Lactate Dehydrogenase, and Amylase Concentrations in Umbilical Blood of Preterm Infants after Long-Term Tocolysis

Creatine kinase (CK), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), and amylase levels of preterm infants following long-term tocolysis in pregnant women are limited. The objective of this study was to determine if the tocolytic therapy affects CK, LDH, and amylase levels in the umbilical blood. This study included 215 preterm infants born to women treated with and without ritodrine hydrochloride. CK, LDH, and amylase levels in the umbilical blood at delivery were determined. Infants were divided according to the ritodrine tocolysis, as follows: Group A (n=91), not exposed to ritodrine; Group B (n=44), IV ritodrine for <1 week; Group C (n=80), IV ritodrine for ≥1 week. The CK concentration in cord blood of Group C (198.8±14.2 IU/L) was significantly higher in comparison with Group A (155.0±7.3 IU/L, P<0.05). There was no significant difference in LDH and amylase levels in the three groups. The CK significantly correlated with gestational age (r=0.42, P<0.01) and birth weight (r=0.38, P<0.01). LDH and amylase levels did not change with gestational age nor birth weight. In conclusion, long-term ritodrine tocolysis leads to increased umbilical blood CK level

Generating Avoidance Motion Using Motion Graph

Abstract. We propose a method of generating avoidance motions. We use a motion graph to generate continuous motions, including both avoidance and other kinds of motions. In the combat of real humans, trained fighters avoid an attack with minimal movement. To realize such avoidance motion, we developed criteria to find an appropriate path (series of edges) in the motion graph. The characters are expected to move their body by only a minimal distance to avoid an attack. We introduced attack, body and avoidance spacetime volumes to evaluate this criterion. Each candidate path is evaluated according to the distance between attack and body volumes and the overlap between attack and avoidance volumes. We also introduced a method to control the execution speeds of edges, and thus adjust the timing of avoidance motions. Moreover, to find a path in real time, we developed methods to facilitate the searching process such as the use of grid-based indices to look up candidate paths and GPU-based quick collision detection to cull candidate paths. We tested our approach on an application in which a character avoids incoming balls controlled by a user and demonstrated the effectiveness of our approach

High-temperature operation of gallium oxide memristors up to 600 K

Abstract Memristors have attracted much attention for application in neuromorphic devices and brain-inspired computing hardware. Their performance at high temperatures is required to be sufficiently reliable in neuromorphic computing, potential application to power electronics, and the aerospace industry. This work focuses on reduced gallium oxide (GaO x ) as a wide bandgap memristive material that is reported to exhibit highly reliable resistive switching operation. We prepared amorphous GaO x films to fabricate Pt/GaO x /indium tin oxide memristors using pulsed laser deposition. Stable resistive switching phenomena were observed in current–voltage properties measured between 300 and 600 K. The conduction mechanism analysis revealed that the resistive switching is caused by the transition between ohmic and space charge limiting current conductions. We elucidated the importance of appropriate control of the density of oxygen vacancies to obtain a high on/off resistance ratio and distinct resistive switching at high temperatures. These results indicate that GaO x is a promising memristor material that can be stably operated even at the record-high temperature of 600 K

Uterine rupture in the third trimester of a pregnancy subsequent to a cesarean section by transverse uterine fundal incision: A case report and literature review

Abstract Cesarean section via a transverse uterine fundal incision is performed in patients with placenta previa to reduce blood loss. We describe a case of uterine rupture in a pregnant woman who previously underwent a cesarean section and recovered from cardiac arrest by multidisciplinary management

Malignant transformation of an intracranial germinoma into a choriocarcinoma

The recurrence or metastasis of intracranial pure germinomas as germ cell tumours of different histological types has rarely been reported. The present report concerns the first case in the literature of intracranial recurrence of a germinoma transformed into a choriocarcinoma. A 17-year-old man presented with a 1 month history of headache. MRI revealed a homogeneously enhanced mass within the pineal and suprasellar regions. The tumour was resected, and histological examination identified it as a pure germinoma. After resection, the patient underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy and the mass disappeared. At 5 years and 5 months later, the patient presented with nausea and headache, and recurrence of the tumour was revealed in the left lateral ventricle. The tumour was resected and histological diagnosis identified it as a choriocarcinoma. The patient was treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy, but died due to dissemination 1 month later. An autopsy was not performed