Pollution of Polyaromatic Hydrocarbons in the Airborne Particles in the Developing Countries in Asia Region

Joint Research on Environmental Science and Technology for the Eart

A Japanese Patient with Gastric Cancer and Dihydropyrimidine Dehydrogenase Deficiency Presenting with DPYD Variants

A 63-year-old Japanese male with stomach adenocarcinoma received oral 5-fluorouracil derivative, cisplatin and trastuzumab chemotherapy. On day 8, severe diarrhea and mucositis developed; chemotherapy was stopped. On day 14, the patient developed renal dysfunction and febrile neutropenia. He also suffered from pneumonia due to Candida albicans. Systemic symptoms improved after intensive conservative treatment. Best supportive care was continued until the patient died from gastric cancer. The dihydropyrimidine dehydroge-nase protein level was low at 3.18 U/mg protein. The result of DPYD genotyping revealed three variants at posi-tions 1615 (G > A), 1627 (A > G), and 1896 (T > C) in exons 13, 13, and 14, respectively

Selective DNAM-1 expression on small peritoneal macrophages contributes to CD4+ T cell costimulation

Mouse peritoneal macrophages consist of two subsets: large peritoneal macrophages (LPMs) and small peritoneal macrophages (SPMs), defined as CD11bhiF4/80hi and CD11b+F4/80lo cells, respectively. We reveal that SPMs, but not LPMs, have the ability to present antigens to naïve CD4+ T cells. Coculture of SPMs with naïve ovalbumin (OVA) specific CD4+ T cells (OT-II) in the presence of OVA peptide effectively induced CD4+ T cells priming. SPMs, but not LPMs, strongly express DNAM-1, an activating immunoreceptor. Although antigen uptake and processing were comparable between WT and DNAM-1-deficient SPMs, deficiency of DNAM-1 on SPMs or blockade of DNAM-1 and its ligand interaction impaired CD4+ T cells priming by SPMs. Furthermore, T and B cell responses in mediastinal lymph nodes of mice intraperitoneally immunized with trinitrophenyl (TNP)–OVA protein in Alum adjuvant were enhanced by intraperitoneally transferred wild-type, but not DNAM-1-deficient, SPMs. We propose that SPMs are functionally distinct from LPMs, and DNAM-1 plays a costimulatory role in antigen presentation by SPMs

Spatio-temporal structures in sheared polymer systems

We investigate spatio-temporal structures in sheared polymer systems by solving a time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau model in two dimensions. (i) In polymer solutions above the coexistence curve, crossover from linear to nonlinear regimes occurs with increasing the shear rate. In the nonlinear regime the solution behaves chaotically with large-amplitude composition fluctuations. A characteristic heterogeneity length is calculated in the nonlinear regime. (ii) We also study dynamics of shear-band structures in wormlike micellar solutions under the condition of fixed stress. The average shear rate exhibits large temporal fluctuations with occurrence of large disturbances in the spatial structures.Comment: 16pages, 10figures, to be published in Physica

DC superconducting quantum interference devices fabricated using bicrystal grain boundary junctions in Co-doped BaFe2As2 epitaxial films

DC superconducting quantum interference devices (dc-SQUIDs) were fabricated in Co-doped BaFe2As2 epitaxial films on (La, Sr)(Al, Ta)O3 bicrystal substrates with 30deg misorientation angles. The 18 x 8 micro-meter^2 SQUID loop with an estimated inductance of 13 pH contained two 3 micro-meter wide grain boundary junctions. The voltage-flux characteristics clearly exhibited periodic modulations with deltaV = 1.4 micro-volt at 14 K, while the intrinsic flux noise of dc-SQUIDs was 7.8 x 10^-5 fai0/Hz^1/2 above 20 Hz. The rather high flux noise is mainly attributed to the small voltage modulation depth which results from the superconductor-normal metal-superconductor junction nature of the bicrystal grain boundary