841 research outputs found

    Laser Radar Study Using Resonance Absorption for Remote Detection Of Air Pollutants

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    A laser radar using resonance absorption has an advantage of increased detection range and sensitivity compared with that achieved by Raman or resonance back scattering. In this paper, new laser radar system using resonance absorption is proposed and results obtained from this laser radar system are discussed. NO2, SO2 gas has an absorption spectrum at 4500 A and 3000 A respectively as shown in Fig. 1. A laser light including at least a set of an absorption peak (lambda)1 and a valley (lambda)2 is emitted into a pollutant atmosphere. The light reflected with a topographical reflector or an atmospheric Mie scattering as distributed reflectors is received and divided into two wavelength components (lambda)1 and (lambda)2. The laser radar system used in the investigation is shown in Fig', 2 and consists of a dye laser transmitter, an optical receiver with a special monochrometer and a digital processer. Table 1 shows the molecular constants of NO2, and SO2 and the dye laser used in this experiment. In this system, the absolute concentration of the pollutant gas can be measured in comparison with a standard gas cell. The concentration of NO2, SO2 as low as 0.1 ppm have been measured at 100 m depth resolution. For a 1 mJ laser output, the observable range of this system achieved up to 300 m using the distributed Mie reflector. The capability and technical limitation of the system will be discussed in detail

    High-efficacy targeting of colon-cancer liver metastasis with Salmonella typhimurium A1-R via intra-portal-vein injection in orthotopic nude-mouse models.

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    Liver metastasis is the main cause of colon cancer-related death and is a recalcitrant disease. We report here the efficacy and safety of intra-portal-vein (iPV) targeting of Salmonella typhimurium A1-R on colon cancer liver metastasis in a nude-mouse orthotopic model. Nude mice with HT29 human colon cancer cells, expressing red fluorescent protein (RFP) (HT29-RFP), growing in the liver were administered S. typhimurium A1-R by either iPV (1×104 colony forming units (CFU)/100 μl) or, for comparison, intra-venous injection (iv; 5×107 CFU/100 μl). Similar amounts of bacteria were delivered to the liver with the two doses, indicating that iPV delivery is 5×103 times more efficient than iv delivery. Treatment efficacy was evaluated by tumor fluorescent area (mm2) and total fluorescence intensity. Tumor fluorescent area and fluorescence intensity highly correlated (p<0.0001). iPV treatment was more effective compared to both untreated control and iv treatment (p<0.01 and p<0.05, respectively with iPV treatment with S. typhimurium arresting metastatic growth). There were no significant differences in body weight between all groups. The results of this study suggest that S. typhimurium A1-R administered iPV has potential for peri-operative adjuvant treatment of colon cancer liver metastasis

    Comparison of Value Set Based on DCE and/or TTO Data: Scoring for EQ-5D-5L Health States in Japan

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    AbstractBackgroundThe valuation study of the five-level version of the EuroQol five-dimensional questionnaire (EQ-5D-5L) involved composite time trade-off (cTTO) and a discrete choice experiment (DCE). The DCE scores must be anchored to the quality-of-life scale from 0 (death) to 1 (full health). Nevertheless, the characteristics of the statistical methods used for converting the EQ-5D-5L DCE results by using TTO information are not yet clearly known.ObjectivesTo present the Japanese DCE value set of the EQ-5D-5L and compare three methods for converting latent DCE values.MethodsThe survey sampled the general population at five locations in Japan. 1098 respondents were stratified by age and sex. To obtain and compare the value sets of the EQ-5D-5L, the cTTO and DCE data were analyzed by a linear mixed model and conditional logit, respectively. The DCE scores were converted to the quality-of-life scale by anchoring to the worst state using cTTO, mapping DCE onto cTTO, and a hybrid model.ResultsThe data from 1026 respondents were analyzed. All the coefficients in the cTTO and DCE value sets were consistent throughout all the analyses. Compared with the cTTO algorithm, the mapping and hybrid methods yielded very similar scoring coefficients. The hybrid model results, however, produced a lower root mean square error and fewer health states with errors exceeding 0.05 than did the other models. The DCE anchored to the worst state overestimated the cTTO scores of almost all the health states.ConclusionsJapanese value sets based on DCE were demonstrated. On comparing the observed cTTO scores, we found that the hybrid model was slightly superior to the simpler methods, including the TTO model

    Vemurafenib-resistant BRAF-V600E-mutated melanoma is regressed by MEK-targeting drug trametinib, but not cobimetinib in a patient-derived orthotopic xenograft (PDOX) mouse model.

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    Melanoma is a recalcitrant disease. The present study used a patient-derived orthotopic xenograft (PDOX) model of melanoma to test sensitivity to three molecularly-targeted drugs and one standard chemotherapeutic. A BRAF-V600E-mutant melanoma obtained from the right chest wall of a patient was grown orthotopically in the right chest wall of nude mice to establish a PDOX model. Two weeks after implantation, 50 PDOX nude mice were divided into 5 groups: G1, control without treatment; G2, vemurafenib (VEM) (30 mg/kg); G3; temozolomide (TEM) (25 mg/kg); G4, trametinib (TRA) (0.3 mg/kg); and G5, cobimetinib (COB) (5 mg/kg). Each drug was administered orally, daily for 14 consecutive days. Tumor sizes were measured with calipers twice a week. On day 14 from initiation of treatment, TRA, an MEK inhibitor, was the only agent of the 4 tested that caused tumor regression (P < 0.001 at day 14). In contrast, another MEK inhibitor, COB, could slow but not arrest growth or cause regression of the melanoma. First-line therapy TEM could slow but not arrest tumor growth or cause regression. The patient in this study had a BRAF-V600E-mutant melanoma and would be considered to be a strong candidate for VEM as first-line therapy, since VEM targets this mutation. However, VEM was not effective. The PDOX model thus helped identify the very-high efficacy of TRA against the melanoma PDOX and is a promising drug for this patient. These results demonstrate the powerful precision of the PDOX model for cancer therapy, not achievable by genomic analysis alone

    LL55: Selective Early Lymphoid Expression of a Murine cDNA Clone Which Encodes a Putative RNA-Binding Protein

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    Specific expression of various RNA-binding protein (RNP) molecules is one of the critical factors that determine the development in Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans. In the present study, we found a complementary DNA clone, LL55 encoding a putative RNP. Structural comparison of nucleotide and amino acid sequences demonstrate that LL55 encoding a nuclear protein with two RNA-binding consensus motifs and the common arginine-serine repeats, is similar to the sex-determining transformer-2 (tra-2) gene of Drosophila melanogaster. The expression of 2.3 kilobase (kb) and 1.5 kb LL55 messenger RNA (mRNA) is ubiquitous in murine organs and tissues, but it is selective in the early development of fetal life. It appears as early as day 10.5 and increases until day 15 of gestation in accordance with the expression of λ5 mRNA which is involved in murine pre-B cell generation. Taking account of the selective expression and the specific regulation of RNP molecules, the finding of LL55 RNP provides a new outlook for the generation and function of the immune system
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