Upregulation of Heme Oxygenase-1 Combined with Increased Adiponectin Lowers Blood Pressure in Diabetic Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats through a Reduction in Endothelial Cell Dysfunction, Apoptosis and Oxidative Stress

This study was designed to investigate the effect of increased levels of HO-1 on hypertension exacerbated by diabetes. Diabetic spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR) and WKY (control) animals were treated with streptozotocin (STZ) to induce diabetes and stannous chloride (SnCl2) to upregulate HO-1. Treatment with SnCl2 not only attenuated the increase of blood pressure (p<0.01), but also increased HO-1 protein content, HO activity and plasma adiponectin levels, decreased the levels of superoxide and 3-nitrotyrosine (NT), respectively. Reduction in oxidative stress resulted in the increased expression of Bcl-2 and AKT with a concomitant reduction in circulating endothelial cells (CEC) in the peripheral blood (p<0.005) and an improvement of femoral reactivity (response to acetylcholine). Thus induction of HO-1 accompanied with increased plasma adiponectin levels in diabetic hypertensive rats alters the phenotype through a reduction in oxidative stress, thereby permitting endothelial cells to maintain an anti-apoptotic environment and the restoration of endothelial responses thus preventing hypertension

Development of bifacial inverted polymer solar cells using a conductivity-controlled transparent PEDOT: PSS and a striped Au electrode on the hole collection side

An inverted bifacial polymer solar cell was developed using a conductivity-controlled transparent poly(3,4-ethylenedioxylenethiophene):poly(4- styrene sulfonic acid) (PEDOT:PSS) as a hole collection layer and a striped Au electrode with a large open aperture ratio (Rap) as a hole collection electrode. We investigated the performance of the device by varying the interelectrode distance of the striped Au electrode and the sheet resistance of the PEDOT:PSS film. The device using untreated Clevios P (PEDOT:PSS) showed a maximum electric output (Pw) in the Rap range of 50 to 65%. When alcohol-treated Clevios P (Clevios P+) with a lower electrical resistance was used, the maximum Pw increased by 40% compared with that of the device using Clevios P. The maximum Pw was obtained in the R ap range of 84% as the hole collection efficiency of the striped Au electrode improved with the decreased sheet resistance of the PEDOT:PSS. © 2014 The Japan Society of Applied Physics

フクブ ドンテキ ガイショウゴ チハツセイ ニ ショウジタ オウコウ ケッチョウ カンマク レッコウ ヘルニア ノ 1レイ

A ７７-year-old woman presented to the emergency department with complains of abdominal pain and frequent vomiting. In the past, she has never been on surgery but she suffered blunt liver injury after motor vehicle accident nine months ago. She was performed trans-catheter arterial embolization to the left hepatic lobe at that time and had been seeing a doctor regularly for post traumatic biloma. The contrast-enhanced abdominal CT scan revealed a closed loop and a dilatation of a small intestine. She was diagnosed a small bowel obstruction due to a internal hernia. She was operated urgently. The surgical exploration showed that the congested jejunum incarcerated into an omental bursa, and an adhesion of the jejunum mesentery and a greater omentum. We found a mesentery hiatus of the transverse colon, through which a higher jejunum had incarcerated into the omental bursa. The jejunum was reduced manually and the hiatus was closed by suture. The patient followed a favorable postoperative course and was discharged on postoperative day６. We report a extremely rare transverse colon hiatal hernia that occurred in the late onset after blunt abdominal injury with the review of the literature

A System for Worldwide COVID-19 Information Aggregation

The global pandemic of COVID-19 has made the public pay close attention to related news, covering various domains, such as sanitation, treatment, and effects on education. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 condition is very different among the countries (e.g., policies and development of the epidemic), and thus citizens would be interested in news in foreign countries. We build a system for worldwide COVID-19 information aggregation (http://lotus.kuee.kyoto-u.ac.jp/NLPforCOVID-19 ) containing reliable articles from 10 regions in 7 languages sorted by topics for Japanese citizens. Our reliable COVID-19 related website dataset collected through crowdsourcing ensures the quality of the articles. A neural machine translation module translates articles in other languages into Japanese. A BERT-based topic-classifier trained on an article-topic pair dataset helps users find their interested information efficiently by putting articles into different categories.Comment: Poster on NLP COVID-19 Workshop at ACL 2020, 4 pages, 3 figures, 7 table

Successful cricothyrotomy for emergency airway management : a case report

A ６０ year-old male was brought to our emergency department by ambulance due to sudden onset of dyspnea. On examination, he was in coma since his level of consciousness decreased during transport, blood pressure was １９９／１１１mmHg, heart rate was１００ beats per minute, respirations were １０ per minute, blood oxygen saturation level（SpO２）was１００％ via assisted ventilation with Bag-Valve-Mask, and stridor was heard on auscultation. Those findings indicated airway emergency and endotracheal intubation was required. However, attempts at intubation were unsuccessful due to restriction of mouth opening. Muscle relaxant was then given to perform rapid sequence intubation, which caused vomiting. Failure to ventilation and intubation resulted in cardiopulmonary arrest. Chest compression was started immediately and decision for cricothyrotomy was made. １０ minute after cricothyrotomy, he revived. Subsequently, systemic management including therapeutic normothermia was performed at intensive care unit, then he regained consciousness. He was discharged １ month after admission

Ebolavirus Is Internalized into Host Cells via Macropinocytosis in a Viral Glycoprotein-Dependent Manner

Ebolavirus (EBOV) is an enveloped, single-stranded, negative-sense RNA virus that causes severe hemorrhagic fever with mortality rates of up to 90% in humans and nonhuman primates. Previous studies suggest roles for clathrin- or caveolae-mediated endocytosis in EBOV entry; however, ebolavirus virions are long, filamentous particles that are larger than the plasma membrane invaginations that characterize clathrin- or caveolae-mediated endocytosis. The mechanism of EBOV entry remains, therefore, poorly understood. To better understand Ebolavirus entry, we carried out internalization studies with fluorescently labeled, biologically contained Ebolavirus and Ebolavirus-like particles (Ebola VLPs), both of which resemble authentic Ebolavirus in their morphology. We examined the mechanism of Ebolavirus internalization by real-time analysis of these fluorescently labeled Ebolavirus particles and found that their internalization was independent of clathrin- or caveolae-mediated endocytosis, but that they co-localized with sorting nexin (SNX) 5, a marker of macropinocytosis-specific endosomes (macropinosomes). Moreover, the internalization of Ebolavirus virions accelerated the uptake of a macropinocytosis-specific cargo, was associated with plasma membrane ruffling, and was dependent on cellular GTPases and kinases involved in macropinocytosis. A pseudotyped vesicular stomatitis virus possessing the Ebolavirus glycoprotein (GP) also co-localized with SNX5 and its internalization and infectivity were affected by macropinocytosis inhibitors. Taken together, our data suggest that Ebolavirus is internalized into cells by stimulating macropinocytosis in a GP-dependent manner. These findings provide new insights into the lifecycle of Ebolavirus and may aid in the development of therapeutics for Ebolavirus infection

Environmental Factors Affecting Hydrogen Entry into High Strength Steel due to Atmospheric Corrosion

Hydrogen entry into high strength steel has been investigated by hydrogen permeation measurements under wet-dry cyclic environments. Dominant environmental factors that control hydrogen entry were temperature, relative humidity, and the amount of sea salt on the steel surface. Corrosion rate increased with an increase in temperature, resulting in enhanced hydrogen permeation. Hydrogen entry was promoted at lower relative humidity (40–60%), by the hydrolysis of Fe3þ accelerated by condensed Cl ions in the water layer. A maximum hydrogen permeation coefficient was observed at the Cl amount of 0.03 kg/m2 on the steel surface, corresponding to a maximum corrosion rate determined by an appropriate water layer thickness. Crack susceptibility of the steel has also been investigated by stress fracture tests under wet-dry cyclic environments. Steels with tensile strengths beyond 1400MPa suffered from cracking at higher temperatures and the Cl of 0.03 kg/m2. The fracture test results mean that crack susceptibility strongly depended upon the environmental severities which promoted hydrogen entry. [doi:10.2320/matertrans.47.2956