21 research outputs found
(Table 3) Geochemistry of zeolite at DSDP Hole 84-567A
Dismembered ophiolitic rocks including abundant sheared, serpentinized peridotite (mostly harzburgite) and minor basalts, dolerites, gabbros, and altered metabasites (mainly altered amphibolite) were drilled at most of the sites on the upper to lower Middle America Trench landward slope off Guatemala during Leg 84 of the Deep Sea Drilling Project. These rocks show characteristic Cataclastic deformation with zeolite facies metamorphism and alteration after amphibolite and greenschist facies metamorphism. These features indicate that the rocks originated in mid-oceanic ridge, offridge, and possibly other areas including island arc areas and were metamorphosed under a high geothermal gradient at low pressure. They were then structurally deformed and mixed within a serpentinite melange. Such ophiolite melanges may have been emplaced onto the Trench landward slope area during the initiation of subduction of the Cocos Plate. The emplacement seems to be connected to that of the Nicoya Complex in Costa Rica. The slope cover from early Eocene to Recent shows no history of these metamorphic and deformational events, therefore the emplacement of the dismembered ophiolitic rocks occurred at least before the early Eocene. The dismembered ophiolite-based Trench landward slope off Guatemala is a newly documented style of subduction, which has also recently been found at the easternmost edge of the Philippine Sea Plate along the Izu-Mariana-Yap Trench landward slope
A Comparison of the Predictive Role of the Geriatric Nutritional Risk Index and Immunonutritional Parameters for Postoperative Complications in Elderly Patients with Renal Cell Carcinoma
Background The geriatric nutritional risk index (GNRI) is reportedly a useful factor for predicting postoperative complications in elderly patients with several cancers. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between postoperative complications and the GNRI in elderly patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Materials and Methods The clinical data of 62 patients who were ≥65 years old and underwent open surgery for RCC were analyzed retrospectively. The American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status, Charlson comorbidity index, surgical procedure, body mass index, GNRI, platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), psoas muscle index (PMI), visceral fat area, and subcutaneous fat area were examined. The association of the GNRI and immunonutritional parameters with postoperative complications was analyzed by the univariate and multivariate analyses. Results Grade ≥ II postoperative complications evaluated by the Clavien-Dindo classification were seen in 11 out of 62 cases. In the Spearman’s correlation test, the GNRI showed a significant negative correlation with the PLR and NLR and a significant positive correlation with the PMI. The group with postoperative complications showed a significantly lower GNRI, higher PLR, and higher NLR than those without complications. In the multivariate analysis, a GNRI ≤92 was independently associated with postoperative complications. Conclusion The GNRI might play an important role in evaluation of the risk of postoperative complications in open surgery for elderly RCC patients
Kinesin-Driven Active Substrate Giving Stochastic Mechanical Stimuli to Cells for Characterization
We
present a new platform to give stochastic mechanical stimuli
to cells for their characterization. There nano- and micrometer scaled
fluctuations are generated by an engineered motor protein system of
kinesin-microtubules (MTs) on a solid surface. Cells have abilities
to deform in many ways during homeostatic metabolism, tissue forming
processes, cancer developments, and so on. Namely, cells in biological
tissues are exposed to noise-like stochastic movements at nano- and
micrometer-scales, which mainly come from the mechanical environment
surrounding the cells. Although cells seem to have the potential to
respond to such types of mechanical stimuli, the influences on cellular
behaviors are poorly understood. As a first attempt to verify an effect
of noise-like mechanical stimuli <i>in vitro</i>, we prepared
a system to give stochastic mechanical stimuli to cells using a technique
of <i>in vitro</i> motility assay for a kinesin-MT system.
An active substrate was obtained by integrating movements of MTs on
a kinesin-coated glass surface via cross-linkage, and stochastic mechanical
stimuli at the cell-scale were successfully applied to the seeded
cells. There, traveling distances of the cells over one cell length
were observed until they started to adhere. When metastatic melanoma
cells were exposed to the stochastic mechanical stimuli, unusually
long protrusions or extensions of cell bodies were observed. Cellular
aggregations were also promoted through the movements on this active
substrate which could disturb the landing and enhance the collisions
of the cells. This approach giving mechanical stimuli to cells in
a stochastic manner at nano- and micrometer-scales might allow us
to uncover unknown behaviors of cells, which might contribute to research
fields requiring our understanding on the mechanical nature of cells,
such as cancer diagnosis and regenerative medicine