Laser Sintering Fabrication of Highly Porous Models Utilizing Water Leachable Filler-Experimental Investigation into Process Parameters

The authors are developing a laser sintering process to fabricate highly porous models with such high porosities as 90% and more. In the process, water-soluble filler is mixed with designated plastic powder and leached out after laser sintering process is finished to generate pores where the grains used to exist. Previously, the authors reported successful application of this technology on a tissue engineering scaffold. However, relationship between process parameters and obtained results has not been clarified. This paper reports experimental investigation into effects of optimizing process parameters such as mixture, grain size of the filler on resultant porosity, pore size and process resolutionMechanical Engineerin

Process Resolution of Laser Sintering Process Using Plastic Powder Containing Inorganic Filler at a High Rate

Research is being performed on a laser sintering process in which inorganic filler is employed as porogen at a high content to fabricate highly porous three dimensional tissue engineering scaffold. Previously, the scaffold, which included capillary like flow channel network, was used in cell culture test, but obtained cell density was limited due to insufficient fineness of the network structure. In the scaffold fabrication the author experienced degradation of process resolution when inorganic filler was introduced at a high content, but reasons for the low resolution has not been cleared. This paper investigates the dominating cause of the low resolution. Discussion is focused on effect of optical and thermal properties of filler. Experiments using transparent and opaque fillers are performed, and existence of dominating effect of difference in the optical property is denied. Experiments using thermally conductive solid filler and insulating hollow filler is performed, and it is concluded that temperature conductivity is dominating on process resolution.Mechanical Engineerin

Long-term monitoring of the short period SU UMa-type dwarf nova, V844 Herculis

We report on time-resolved CCD photometry of four outbursts of a short-period SU UMa-type dwarf nova, V844 Herculis. We successfully determined the mean superhump periods to be 0.05584(64) days, and 0.055883(3) for the 2002 May superoutburst, and the 2006 April-May superoutburst, respectively. During the 2002 October observations, we confirmed that the outburst is a normal outburst, which is the first recorded normal outburst in V844 Her. We also examined superhump period changes during 2002 May and 2006 April-May superoutbursts, both of which showed increasing superhump period over the course of the plateau stage. In order to examine the long-term behavior of V844 Her, we analyzed archival data over the past ten years since the discovery of this binary. Although photometry is not satisfactory in some superoutbursts, we found that V844 Her showed no precursors and rebrightenings. Based on the long-term light curve, we further confirmed V844 Her has shown almost no normal outbursts despite the fact that the supercycle of the system is estimated to be about 300 days. In order to explain the long-term light curves of V844 Her, evaporation in the accretion disk may play a role in the avoidance of several normal outbursts, which does not contradict with the relatively large X-ray luminosity of V844 Her.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figures, accepted for PAS

Japanese Lung Cancer Society Guidelines for Stage IV NSCLC With EGFR Mutations

Patients with NSCLC in East Asia, including Japan, frequently contain EGFR mutations. In 2018, we published the latest full clinical practice guidelines on the basis of those provided by the Japanese Lung Cancer Society Guidelines Committee. The purpose of this study was to update those recommendations, especially for the treatment of metastatic or recurrent EGFR-mutated NSCLC. We conducted a literature search of systematic reviews of randomized controlled and nonrandomized trials published between 2018 and 2019 that multiple physicians had reviewed independently. On the basis of those studies and the advice from the Japanese Society of Lung Cancer Expert Panel, we developed updated guidelines according to the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation system. We also evaluated the benefits of overall and progression-free survival, end points, toxicities, and patients’ reported outcomes. For patients with NSCLC harboring EGFR-activating mutations, the use of EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR TKIs), especially osimertinib, had the best recommendation as to first-line treatment. We also recommended the combination of EGFR TKI with other agents (platinum-based chemotherapy or antiangiogenic agents); however, it can lead to toxicity. In the presence of EGFR uncommon mutations, except for an exon 20 insertion, we also recommended the EGFR TKI treatment. However, we could not provide recommendations for the treatment of EGFR mutations with immune checkpoint inhibitors, including monotherapy, and its combination with cytotoxic chemotherapy, because of the limited evidence present in the literature. The 2020 Japanese Lung Cancer Society Guidelines can help community-based physicians to determine the most appropriate treatments and adequately provide medical care to their patients

Cartesian Tree Subsequence Matching

Park et al. [TCS 2020] observed that the similarity between two (numerical) strings can be captured by the Cartesian trees: The Cartesian tree of a string is a binary tree recursively constructed by picking up the smallest value of the string as the root of the tree. Two strings of equal length are said to Cartesian-tree match if their Cartesian trees are isomorphic. Park et al. [TCS 2020] introduced the following Cartesian tree substring matching (CTMStr) problem: Given a text string T of length n and a pattern string of length m, find every consecutive substring S = T[i..j] of a text string T such that S and P Cartesian-tree match. They showed how to solve this problem in O?(n+m) time. In this paper, we introduce the Cartesian tree subsequence matching (CTMSeq) problem, that asks to find every minimal substring S = T[i..j] of T such that S contains a subsequence S\u27 which Cartesian-tree matches P. We prove that the CTMSeq problem can be solved efficiently, in O(m n p(n)) time, where p(n) denotes the update/query time for dynamic predecessor queries. By using a suitable dynamic predecessor data structure, we obtain O(mn log log n)-time and O(n log m)-space solution for CTMSeq. This contrasts CTMSeq with closely related order-preserving subsequence matching (OPMSeq) which was shown to be NP-hard by Bose et al. [IPL 1998]

General-purpose Nuclear Data Library JENDL-5 and to the Next

Japanese Evaluated Nuclear Data Library version 5 (JENDL-5) was released in 2021. JENDL-5 is intended to extend its generality from JENDL-4.0 by covering a wide variety of nuclear data for applications not only to nuclear design and decommissioning, but also to other radiation-related fields. Overview of JENDL-5 and a plan for the next of JENDL-5 are presented

Long-Term Efficacy and Safety of Lorlatinib in Japanese Patients With ALK-Positive Advanced NSCLC—A Brief Report From the CROWN Study

Introduction: Lorlatinib was found to have improved efficacy versus crizotinib in the global phase 3 CROWN study (NCT03052608). Similar results were revealed for the Japanese population as for the overall population. We present results from the unplanned 3-year follow-up from the CROWN study in Japanese patients. Methods: Patients were randomized to either lorlatinib 100 mg once daily (n = 25) or crizotinib 250 mg twice daily (n = 23). The primary end point was progression-free survival assessed by blinded independent central review. Secondary end points included objective and intracranial responses assessed by blinded independent central review and safety. Results: At the data cutoff of September 20, 2021, median progression-free survival was not reached with lorlatinib and 11.1 months with crizotinib (hazard ratio = 0.36). Objective response rate was 72.0% with lorlatinib and 52.2% with crizotinib. For patients with baseline brain metastases, intracranial response rate was 100.0% versus 28.6% with lorlatinib versus crizotinib. Nine patients in the lorlatinib group received more than or equal to 1 subsequent anticancer systemic therapy, with ALK tyrosine kinase inhibitor as the most common first subsequent therapy. The safety profile was consistent with that reported previously, with no new safety signals. Conclusions: This updated analysis in the Japanese population revealed prolonged benefits of lorlatinib over crizotinib in patients with treatment-naive advanced ALK-positive NSCLC with and those without brain metastases

First-Line Lorlatinib Versus Crizotinib in ALK-Positive NSCLC: Japanese Subgroup Analysis of CROWN

Introduction: Lorlatinib, a third-generation ALK inhibitor, was found to have improved efficacy versus crizotinib in patients with previously untreated, advanced ALK-positive NSCLC in the ongoing, global, randomized, phase 3 CROWN study. Methods: The study’s primary end point was progression-free survival assessed by blinded independent central review. Secondary end points included objective and intracranial response. Here, we report efficacy and safety data of the Japanese subgroup of the CROWN study (lorlatinib 100 mg once daily, n = 25; crizotinib 250 mg twice daily, n = 23). Results: Progression-free survival was not reached (95% confidence interval [CI]: 11.3 mo–not reached) for lorlatinib and 11.1 months (95% CI: 5.4–14.8) for crizotinib (hazard ratio = 0.44, 95% CI: 0.19–1.01). Objective response (lorlatinib versus crizotinib) was 68.0% (95% CI: 46.5–85.1) versus 52.2% (95% CI: 30.6–73.2) in all patients, and intracranial response was 100.0% (three of three, 95% CI: 29.2–100.0) versus 28.6% (two of seven; 95% CI: 3.7–71.0) in patients with brain metastases at baseline. The most common adverse events with lorlatinib were hypertriglyceridemia, hypercholesterolemia, and weight increase; 28.0% and 8.0% of patients had cognitive and mood effects (all grades 1 or 2), respectively. Lorlatinib was associated with more grade 3 or 4 events than crizotinib (80.0% versus 72.7%). Treatment was discontinued owing to adverse events in 16.0% and 27.3% of patients in the lorlatinib and crizotinib groups, respectively. Conclusions: The efficacy and safety of lorlatinib in the Japanese subgroup were similar to those in the CROWN global population, revealing improved outcomes versus crizotinib in Japanese patients with previously untreated, advanced ALK-positive NSCLC