Permanent Percutaneous Epidural Stimulation of the Spinal Cord for Post-herpetic Neuralgia

An 82 year old man who had suffered from intractable post-herpetic neuralgic pain received percutaneous permanent spinal cord stimulator implantation. Pain relief was so remarkable that he could sleep without the interference of frequent acute sharp attacks of pain, and at the same time, he could do his work again, which had been impossible before he received this treatment. We recommend this procedure for several kinds of intractable pain, including peripheral nerve and root lesions. spinal cord lesions and peripheral vascular disease, after careful selection of the patient

Genome shotgun sequencing and development of microsatellite markers for gerbera (Gerbera hybrida H.) by 454 GS-FLX

The objective of this research was to develop and characterize microsatellite markers for gerbera. We used shotgun sequencing with Roche 454 GS-FLX Titanium technology to identify microsatellite loci in gerbera genomic DNA (Gerbera hybrida). The total length of non-redundant sequences obtained was 22,527,019 bp, which consisted of 3,085 contigs and 28,249 singletons. We assembled 61,958 reads into 3,085 contigs, of which 114 (3.70%) contained microsatellite repeats. The average G+C content was 39.3%. Functional annotation to known sequences yielded 14.7% unigenes in the ‘Raon’ cultivar. Analysis of the gerbera genome DNA (‘Raon’) general library showed that sequences of (AT), (AG), (AAG) and (AAT) repeats appeared most often, whereas (AC), (AAC) and (ACC) were the least frequent. Primer pairs were designed for 80 loci. Only eight primer pairs produced reproducible polymorphic bands in the 28 gerbera accessions analyzed. A total of 30 alleles were identified from the eight polymorphic SSR loci, with two to eight alleles per locus (average level of 3.75). These markers will be useful for investigating genetic diversity and differentiation in gerbera. Keywords: Genetic diversity, genomics, microsatellite isolation, pyrosequencing, SSRs. African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 11(29), pp. 7388-7396, 10 April, 201

Correlation Between Microstructures and Tensile Properties of Strain-Based API X60 Pipeline Steels

The correlation between the microstructures and tensile properties of strain-based American Petroleum Institute (API) X60 pipeline steels was investigated. Eight types of strain-based API X60 pipeline steels were fabricated by varying the chemical compositions, such as C, Ni, Cr, and Mo, and the finish cooling temperatures, such as single-phase and dual-phase regions. In the 4N and 5C steels, the volume fractions of bainitic ferrite (BF) and the secondary phases increased with the increasing C and adding Cr instead of Ni. In the 5C and 6NC steels, the volume fractions of acicular ferrite (AF) and BF decreased with increasing C and adding Ni, whereas the volume fractions of polygonal ferrite (PF) and the secondary phases increased. In the 6NC and 6NM steels, the volume fraction of BF was increased by adding Mo instead of Cr, whereas the volume fractions of PF and the secondary phases decreased. In the steels rolled in the single-phase region, the volume fraction of polygonal ferrite ranged from 40 to 60 pct and the volume fraction of AF ranged from 20 to 40 pct. In the steels rolled in the dual-phase region, however, the volume fraction of PF was more than 70 pct and the volume fraction of AF was below 20 pct. The strength of the steels with a high volume fraction of AF was higher than those of the steels with a high volume fraction of PF, whereas the yield point elongation and the strain hardening exponent were opposite. The uniform elongation after the thermal aging process decreased with increasing volume fraction of PF, whereas the uniform elongation increased with increasing volume fraction of AF. The strain hardening exponent increased with increasing volume fraction of PF, but decreased with increasing volume fraction of AF and effective grain size. (C) The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society and ASM International 2016open1183sciescopu

Extrahepatic Biliary Schwannomas: A Case Report

Benign schwannomas arise in neural crest-derived Schwann cells. They can occur almost anywhere in the body, but their most common locations are the central nervous system, extremities, neck, mediastinum, and retroperitoneum. Schwannomas occurring in the biliary tract are extremely rare and mostly present with obstructive jaundice. We recently experienced a case of extrahepatic biliary schwannomas in a 64-yr-old female patient who presented with intra- and extrahepatic bile duct and gallbladder stones during a screening program. To the best of our knowledge, extrahepatic biliary schwannomas associated with bile duct stones have not been reported previously in the literature

A Case of Santorinicele without Pancreas Divisum: Diagnosis with Multi-detector Row Computed Tomography

A santorinicele is defined as a focal cystic dilatation of the terminal portion of the dorsal pancreatic duct at the minor papilla. Most cases reported previously were associated with pancreas divisum and a santorinicele without pancreas divisum is known to be rare. We recently experienced a typical case of a santorinicele without pancreas divisum in a 67-yr-old woman with abdominal pain and hematochezia, subsequently proven to be the result of an ischemic colitis. The santorinicele was diagnosed incidentally with multi-detector row computed tomography using a minimum intensity projection technique, which clearly showed a cystic dilatation of the terminal portion of the dorsal pancreatic duct and a communication between the ventral and dorsal pancreatic ducts. This finding was also confirmed by a magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography

Pilot KaVA monitoring on the M87 jet: confirming the inner jet structure and superluminal motions at sub-pc scales

We report the initial results of our high-cadence monitoring program on the radio jet in the active galaxy M87, obtained by the KVN and VERA Array (KaVA) at 22 GHz. This is a pilot study that preceded a larger KaVA-M87 monitoring program, which is currently ongoing. The pilot monitoring was mostly performed every two to three weeks from December 2013 to June 2014, at a recording rate of 1 Gbps, obtaining the data for a total of 10 epochs. We successfully obtained a sequence of good quality radio maps that revealed the rich structure of this jet from <~1 mas to 20 mas, corresponding to physical scales (projected) of ~0.1-2 pc (or ~140-2800 Schwarzschild radii). We detected superluminal motions at these scales, together with a trend of gradual acceleration. The first evidence for such fast motions and acceleration near the jet base were obtained from recent VLBA studies at 43 GHz, and the fact that very similar kinematics are seen at a different frequency and time with a different instrument suggests these properties are fundamental characteristics of this jet. This pilot program demonstrates that KaVA is a powerful VLBI array for studying the detailed structural evolution of the M87 jet and also other relativistic jets.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in PAS