98 research outputs found

    Efficacy and Cost Effectiveness of the Acupuncture Treatment Using a New Skin Stimulus Tool Called M-Test Which Is a Measure Based on Symptoms Accompanied with Body Movements: A Pragmatic RCT Targeting Hemodialysis Patients

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    M-Test can simultaneously reduce hemodialysis patients' diverse symptoms. Its diagnosis and treatment are based on simple movements that can be performed by anyone and allow determining which meridians have problems by analyzing symptoms accompanied with movement. It also enables to conduct a safe and effective treatment with use of microcorn which is a noninvasive treatment tool. This time we conducted microcorn intervention on hemodialysis patients based on diagnosis of M-Test. As a result, almost all of the dialysis patients' complaints have been relieved while the score of HR-QOL increased. According to our calculation of cost effectiveness, it confirmed that it is very cost-effective

    Lymph node metastasis from colon carcinoma at 11 years after the initial operation managed by lymph node resection and chemoradiation: A case report and a review of the literature

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    AbstractINTRODUCTIONLymph node metastasis from colorectal cancer after a disease-free interval (DFI) of >5years is extremely rare, and occurs in <0.6% cases.PRESENTATION OF CASEA 60-year-old man underwent low anterior resection for sigmoid colon cancer. The lesion was an adenocarcinoma with no lymph node metastasis of Stage II. At 9years after the colectomy, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and was treated with radiation and hormonal therapies; at 11years, he exhibited suddenly elevated carcinoembryonic antigen levels. Computed tomography (CT) and positron emission tomography-CT revealed a 2.0-cm para-aortic lymph nodes swelling invading the small intestine. These lymph nodes and the affected segment of the small intestine were resected, and histopathology of the resected specimen confirmed a metastatic tumor. The patient was administered radiation therapy after 22 cycles of 5-fluorouracil, oxaliplatin and leucovorin. He however presented with a residual lesion in the para-aortic lymph node, but currently, he has been symptom free for 4years.DISCUSSIONA review of the literature indicates that the median survival of all previously reported patients is 12months, and that colon cancer with a long DFI might be a slow growing. One of these patients and our patient both had received radiation and/or hormonal therapy for another cancer, which probably impaired their immune systems, thus resulting in metastatic tumors.CONCLUSIONWe report a case of lymph node metastasis after a DFI of >5years and review relevant literature to assess the significance and possible reasons for delayed colorectal cancer metastases

    A Deployment of Fine-Grained Sensor Network and Empirical Analysis of Urban Temperature

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    Temperature in an urban area exhibits a complicated pattern due to complexity of infrastructure. Despite geographical proximity, structures of a group of buildings and streets affect changes in temperature. To investigate the pattern of fine-grained distribution of temperature, we installed a densely distributed sensor network called UScan. In this paper, we describe the system architecture of UScan as well as experience learned from installing 200 sensors in downtown Tokyo. The field experiment of UScan system operated for two months to collect long-term urban temperature data. To analyze the collected data in an efficient manner, we propose a lightweight clustering methodology to study the correlation between the pattern of temperature and various environmental factors including the amount of sunshine, the width of streets, and the existence of trees. The analysis reveals meaningful results and asserts the necessity of fine-grained deployment of sensors in an urban area

    Multi time-step wavefront reconstruction for tomographic adaptive-optics systems

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    In tomographic adaptive-optics (AO) systems, errors due to tomographic wavefront reconstruction limit the performance and angular size of the scientific field of view (FoV), where AO correction is effective. We propose a multi time-step tomographic wavefront reconstruction method to reduce the tomographic error by using measurements from both the current and previous time steps simultaneously. We further outline the method to feed the reconstructor with both wind speed and direction of each turbulence layer. An end-to-end numerical simulation, assuming a multi-object AO (MOAO) system on a 30 m aperture telescope, shows that the multi time-step reconstruction increases the Strehl ratio (SR) over a scientific FoV of 10 arc min in diameter by a factor of 1.5–1.8 when compared to the classical tomographic reconstructor, depending on the guide star asterism and with perfect knowledge of wind speeds and directions. We also evaluate the multi time-step reconstruction method and the wind estimation method on the RAVEN demonstrator under laboratory setting conditions. The wind speeds and directions at multiple atmospheric layers are measured successfully in the laboratory experiment by our wind estimation method with errors below 2  ms^(−1). With these wind estimates, the multi time-step reconstructor increases the SR value by a factor of 1.2–1.5, which is consistent with a prediction from the end-to-end numerical simulation

    Statistics of turbulence parameters at Maunakea using the multiple wavefront sensor data of RAVEN

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    Prior statistical knowledge of atmospheric turbulence is essential for designing, optimizing and evaluating tomographic adaptive optics systems. We present the statistics of the vertical profiles of C^2_N and the outer scale at Maunakea estimated using a SLOpe Detection And Ranging (SLODAR) method from on-sky telemetry taken by a multi-object adaptive optics (MOAO) demonstrator, called RAVEN, on the Subaru telescope. In our SLODAR method, the profiles are estimated by fitting the theoretical autocorrelations and cross-correlations of measurements from multiple Shack–Haltmann wavefront sensors to the observed correlations via the non-linear Levenberg–Marquardt Algorithm (LMA). The analytical derivatives of the spatial phase structure function with respect to its parameters for the LMA are also developed. From a total of 12 nights in the summer season, a large ground C^2_N fraction of 54.3 per cent is found, with median estimated seeing of 0.460 arcsec. This median seeing value is below the results for Maunakea from the literature (0.6–0.7 arcsec). The average C^2_N profile is in good agreement with results from the literature, except for the ground layer. The median value of the outer scale is 25.5 m and the outer scale is larger at higher altitudes; these trends of the outer scale are consistent with findings in the literature

    Invasive non-typeable Haemophilus influenzae infection due to endometritis associated with adenomyosis

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    Background The widespread administration of the Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccine has led to the predominance of non-typable H. influenzae (NTHi). However, the occurrence of invasive NTHi infection based on gynecologic diseases is still rare. Case presentation A 51-year-old Japanese woman with a history of adenomyoma presented with fever. Blood cultures and a vaginal discharge culture were positive with NTHi. With the high uptake in the uterus with 67Ga scintigraphy, she was diagnosed with invasive NTHi infection. In addition to antibiotic administrations, a total hysterectomy was performed. The pathological analysis found microabscess formations in adenomyosis. Conclusions Although NTHi bacteremia consequent to a microabscess in adenomyosis is rare, this case emphasizes the need to consider the uterus as a potential source of infection in patients with underlying gynecological diseases, including an invasive NTHi infection with no known primary focus.

    High Contrast and High Angular Imaging at Subaru Telescope

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    Adaptive Optics projects at Subaru Telescope span a wide field of capabilities ranging from ground-layer adaptive optics (GLAO) providing partial correction over a 20 arcmin FOV to extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) for exoplanet imaging. We describe in this paper current and upcoming narrow field-of-view capabilities provided by the Subaru Extreme Adaptive Optics Adaptive Optics (SCExAO) system and its instrument modules, as well as the upcoming 3000-actuator upgrade of the Nasmyth AO system.Comment: 11 pages, to appear in SPIE Proceedings of Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 202

    Effect of dapagliflozin on 24-hour glycemic variables in Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus receiving basal insulin supported oral therapy (DBOT) : a multicenter, randomized, open-label, parallel-group study

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    Introduction: This study aimed to evaluate the impacts of dapagliflozin on 24-hour glucose variability and diabetes-related biochemical variables in Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes who had received basal insulin supported oral therapy (BOT). Research design and methods: Changes in mean daily blood glucose level before and after 48–72 hours of add-on or no add-on of dapagliflozin (primary end point) and diabetes-related biochemical variables and major safety variables during the 12 weeks (secondary end point) were evaluated in the multicenter, randomized, two-arm, open-label, parallel-group comparison study. Results: Among 36 participants, 18 were included in the no add-on group and 18 were included in the dapagliflozin add-on group. Age, gender, and body mass index were comparable between the groups. There were no changes in continuous glucose monitoring metrics in the no add-on group. In the dapagliflozin add-on group, mean glucose (183–156mg/dL, p=0.001), maximum glucose (300–253, p<0.01), and SD glucose (57–45, p<0.05) decreased. Time in range increased (p<0.05), while time above the range decreased in the dapagliflozin add-on group but not in the no add-on group. After 12-week treatment with dapagliflozin add-on, 8-hydroxy-2’-deoxyguanosine (8OHdG), as well as hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), decreased. Conclusions: This study showed that the mean daily blood glucose and other daily glucose profiles were amended after 48–72 hours of dapagliflozin add-on in Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes who received BOT. The diabetes-related biochemical variables such as HbA1c and urinary 8OHdG were also obtained during the 12 weeks of dapagliflozin add-on without major adverse events. A preferable 24-hour glucose profile in ‘time in ranges’ and an improvement in reactive oxygen species by dapagliflozin warrant us to evaluate these benefits in larger clinical studies

    A conceptual design study for Subaru ULTIMATE GLAO

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    We report on the conceptual design study done for the Ground Layer Adaptive Optics system of the ULTIMATE-Subaru project. This is an ambitious instrument project, providing GLAO correction in a square field of view of 14 arcmin on a side, aiming to deliver improved seeing at the near infrared wavelength. Its client instruments are an imager and multi-IFU spectrograph at Cassegrain and a Multi-Object spectrograph at Nasmyth. In this paper, we introduce the ULTIMATE-Subaru project overview and its science case and report the results of the GLAO performance prediction based on the numerical simulation and conceptual design of the wavefront sensor systemThe development of ULTIMATE-Subaru is partly supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Grant-in-Aid for Research #17H06129)
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