Ultra-high temperature Soret effect in a silicate melt: SiO2 migration to cold side

The Soret effect, temperature gradient driven diffusion, in silicate melts has been investigated intensively in the earth sciences from the 1980s. The SiO2 component is generally concentrated in the hotter region of silicate melts under a temperature gradient. Here, we report that at ultra-high temperatures above approximately 3000 K, SiO2 becomes concentrated in the colder region of the silicate melts under a temperature gradient. The interior of an aluminosilicate glass (63.3SiO2-16.3Al2O3-20.4CaO(mol%)) was irradiated with a 250 kHz femtosecond laser pulse for local heating. SiO2 migrated to the colder region during irradiation with an 800 pulse (3.2 ms irradiation). The temperature analysis indicated that migration to the colder region occurred above 3060 K. In the non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD) simulation, SiO2 migrated to the colder region under a temperature gradient, which had an average temperature of 4000 K; this result supports the experimental result. SiO2 exhibited a tendency to migrate to the colder region at 2400 K in both the NEMD and experimental study. The second-order like phase transition was observed at ~ 2000-3400 K when calculated using MD without a temperature gradient. Therefore, the second-order phase transition could be related to the migration of SiO2 to colder region. However, the detailed mechanism has not been elucidated

Guidance for peptide vaccines for the treatment of cancer

Recent progress in fundamental understanding of tumor immunology has opened a new avenue of cancer vaccines. Currently, the development of new cancer vaccines is a global topic and has attracted attention as one of the most important issues in Japan. There is an urgent need for the development of guidance for cancer vaccine clinical studies in order to lead to drug development. Peptide vaccines characteristically have the effect of indirectly acting against cancer through the immune system - a mechanism of action that clearly differs from anticancer drugs that exert a direct effect. Thus, the clinical development of cancer peptide vaccines should be planned and implemented based on the mechanism of action, which differs significantly from conventional anticancer drug research. The Japanese Society for Biological Therapy has created and published Guidance for peptide vaccines for the treatment of cancer as part of its mission and responsibilities towards cancer peptide vaccine development, which is now pursued globally. We welcome comments from regulators and business people as well as researchers in this area. Guidance for Peptide Cancer Vaccines

Towards the introduction of the ‘Immunoscore’ in the classification of malignant tumours

The American Joint Committee on Cancer/Union Internationale Contre le Cancer (AJCC/UICC) TNM staging system provides the most reliable guidelines for the routine prognostication and treatment of colorectal carcinoma. This traditional tumour staging summarizes data on tumour burden (T), the presence of cancer cells in draining and regional lymph nodes (N) and evidence for distant metastases (M). However, it is now recognized that the clinical outcome can vary significantly among patients within the same stage. The current classification provides limited prognostic information and does not predict response to therapy. Multiple ways to classify cancer and to distinguish different subtypes of colorectal cancer have been proposed, including morphology, cell origin, molecular pathways, mutation status and gene expression-based stratification. These parameters rely on tumour-cell characteristics. Extensive literature has investigated the host immune response against cancer and demonstrated the prognostic impact of the in situ immune cell infiltrate in tumours. A methodology named ‘Immunoscore’ has been defined to quantify the in situ immune infiltrate. In colorectal cancer, the Immunoscore may add to the significance of the current AJCC/UICC TNM classification, since it has been demonstrated to be a prognostic factor superior to the AJCC/UICC TNM classification. An international consortium has been initiated to validate and promote the Immunoscore in routine clinical settings. The results of this international consortium may result in the implementation of the Immunoscore as a new component for the classification of cancer, designated TNM-I (TNM-Immune). © 2013 The Authors. Journal of Pathology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland

The Creation of School Education Bringing up a Student Carrying Tomorrow (3) : The Valuation of "Compulsory Subjects", "Optional Subjects", and "Integrated Subjects"

The purpose of this study is to show the valuation of "Compulsory Subjects", "Optional Subjects", and "Integrated Subjects", to show the relationship between each subjects and "three abilities", "the ability of recognizing othere senses of value", "the ability of self-expression and communication" and "the ability of decision-making" which defined by the project members. The main result of this study is that we should make up the standards which teachers, students and parents recognize as important abilities

Femtosecond Laser-Induced Self-Assembly of Ce3+-Doped YAG Nanocrystals

Direct three-dimensional laser writing of crystallization inside glass has been intensely studied as an attractive technique for fabricating photonic devices. In particular, polarization-dependent periodic nanostructures composed of the partial crystallization in glass can be self-assembled through focused irradiation of femtosecond pulses. Here, we report on the Y3Al5O12 (YAG) crystal precipitation in nanoscale by femtosecond laser irradiation inside Al2O3-Y2O3 glass. Furthermore, we focus on the white emission by Ce: YAG in which a part of Y3+ site was replaced by Ce3+, the effect on photoluminescence (PL) characteristics by changing of ligand field induced by nanostructure formation was observed

Ability of bivariate cytokeratin and deoxyribonucleic acid flow cytometry to determine the biologic aggressiveness of resectable non–small cell lung cancer

AbstractObjective: The purpose of this study was to clarify the significance of bivariate cytokeratin and DNA flow cytometry for analysis of the biologic aggressiveness of resectable non-small cell lung cancer. Methods: In 92 patients who underwent curative operations, the DNA ploidy status and S-phase fractions of the cancer cell populations inside the tumors were analyzed by a cytokeratin gating technique with paraffin-embedded specimens and were correlated with the surgical results. Results: Ninety tumors yielded assessable DNA histograms. DNA diploidy was detected in 25 tumors with a mean S-phase fraction of 14.3% ± 4.7%, and DNA aneuploidy was detected in 65 tumors with a mean S-phase fraction of 15.1% ± 7.1%. The 5-year overall and recurrence-free survivals were 73.3% and 70.3%, respectively. Multivariate analysis showed that only TNM staging was a prognostic factor after surgery. There was a negative correlation between the logarithms of S-phase fraction and the disease-free interval for 22 patients with proven recurrence (P =.006). The tumors with high S-phase fractions recurred more rapidly than did those with low S-phase fractions. Conclusion: In a bivariate analysis of cytokeratin and DNA flow cytometry in resectable non-small cell lung cancer, the S-phase fraction appeared to be correlated with the disease-free interval. However, DNA ploidy and S-phase fraction were not predictive of either recurrence or survival after operation. Thus DNA flow cytometry may be of limited use for the analysis of the biologic aggressiveness of lung cancer.J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2002;124:293-

〈Originals〉 COX-2 expression and the prevalence of regulatory T cells in tumor and non-tumor sites of hepatocellular carcinoma

[Abstract] Aim : The expression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) plays a role in the differentiation and guidance of regulatory T cells (FOXP3^+ Tregs), and this mechanism has also been studied extensively in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In this study, we investigated the expression of COX-2 and prevalence of FOXP3^+ Tregs in tumor and non-tumor sites to elucidate their association with the clinicopathological features of HCC and disease outcome. Method : This study involved 44 patients with HCC who had undergone hepatectomy without any preoperative treatment. Paraffin-embeddednodules (n=44) were sectioned for immunostaining with COX-2 and FOXP3 monoclonal antibodies, and the degree of COX-2 expression and prevalence of FOXP3^+ Tregs were measured. Results : COX-2 expression in the non-tumor sites showed a positive correlation with the number of FOXP3^+ Tregs (p < 0.001). In addition, in the non-tumor sites, the high FOXP3^+ Tregs prevalence group was significantly associated with TNM stages (p=0.003) and AFP (p=0.027). The expression of COX-2 in the nontumor sites was also significantly associated with disease-free survival (p=0.005). Conclusion : The present findings suggest the association of COX-2 expression in the nontumor sites with disease-free survival and thus the recurrence of HCC. In addition, COX-2 expression and the prevalence of FOXP3^+ Tregs have been positively correlated in the non-tumor sites, indicating that their interaction influences the outcome of HCC. To prevent the recurrence of HCC, it may be necessary to inhibit the expression of COX-2