Use of Water Balance and Tracer-Based Approaches to Monitor Groundwater Recharge in the Hyper-Arid Gobi Desert of Northwestern China

The groundwater recharge mechanism in the hyper-arid Gobi Desert of Northwestern China was analyzed using water balance and tracer-based approaches. Investigations of evaporation, soil water content, and their relationships with individual rainfall events were conducted from April to August of 2004. Water sampling of rainwater, groundwater, and surface water was also conducted. During this period, 10 precipitation events with a total amount of 41.5 mm, including a maximum of 28.9 mm, were observed. Evaporation during the period was estimated to be 33.1 mm. Only the soil water, which was derived from the heaviest precipitation, remained in the vadose zone. This is because a dry surface layer, which was formed several days after the heaviest precipitation event, prevented evaporation. Prior to that, the heaviest precipitation rapidly infiltrated without being affected by evaporation. This is corroborated by the isotopic evidence that both the heaviest precipitation and the groundwater retained no trace of significant kinetic evaporation. Estimated δ-values of the remaining soil water based on isotopic fractionation and its mass balance theories also demonstrated no trace of kinetic fractionation in the infiltration process. Moreover, stable isotopic compositions of the heaviest precipitation and the groundwater were very similar. Therefore, we concluded that the high-intensity precipitation, which rapidly infiltrated without any trace of evaporation, was the main source of the groundwater

Ectopic thyroid in an adrenal mass: a case report

BACKGROUND: It is difficult to explain ectopic thyroid beneath the diaphragm because during the development the thyroid descends from the tongue to the anterior of the trachea. A few cases of ectopic lesions have been reported in the literature for abdominal organs including the adrenal glands, but the mechanism by which the thyroid components migrate into the abdomen has been poorly understood. CASE PRESENTATION: A 54-year-old woman was diagnosed as having an adrenal mass. Laparoscopic adrenalectomy was carried out. Microscopically, the mass was composed of normal adrenal and ectopic thyroid tissues. CONCLUSION: We herein describe the fourth case reported of ectopic thyroid in the adrenal gland

Safety of Postoperative Administration of Human Urinary Trypsin Inhibitor in Lung Cancer Patients with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis

Patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) undergoing pulmonary resection for lung cancer carry risks of acute exacerbations of IPF (AE) postoperatively. Currently, agents which may attenuate AE are actively sought. Urinary trypsin inhibitor, ulinastatin, is a synthetic glycoprotein which may potentially inhibit various inflammatory factors associated with the development and progression of IPF. The present study was done to evaluate the effects of administration of high dose ulinastatin in lung cancer patients with IPF immediately following lung resection.Patients with IPFs radiologically diagnosed on high resolution CT, and histologically diagnosed resectable lung cancers, were eligible for the study. The effects of escalating doses of ulinastatin 3×10(5), 6×10(5), and 9×10(5) units/body/day, administered postoperatively for 3 days were evaluated. The endpoints were safety and feasibility.Nine patients were evaluated, in cohorts of 3 patients per dosage. Postoperative follow up ranged from 3 to 12 months (median 9 months). The postoperative courses were uneventful in all patients. No subjective adverse events such as abdominal symptoms or skin rashes, or objective adverse events as per serum laboratory tests, such as liver or kidney dysfunctions potentially attributable to ulinastatin administration were observed. AE was seen in one patient at 3 months after surgery, but since this occurred shortly after administration of chemotherapy, it was considered to be attributable to the chemotherapy rather than surgery.Ulinastatin administration after lung resection in lung cancer patients with IPF was considered to be safe and feasible. Further study is planned at the highest dose of this study to evaluate efficacy.UMIN.ac.jp/ctr/UMIN000002410

Novel analysis technique for measuring edge density fluctuation profiles with reflectometry in the Large Helical Device

A new method for measuring density fluctuation profiles near the edge of plasmas in the Large Helical Device (LHD) has been developed utilizing reflectometry combined with pellet-induced fast density scans. Reflectometer cutoff location was calculated by proportionally scaling the cutoff location calculated with fast far infrared laser interferometer (FIR) density profiles to match the slower time resolution results of the ray-tracing code LHD-GAUSS. Plasma velocity profile peaks generated with this reflectometer mapping were checked against velocity measurements made with charge exchange spectroscopy (CXS) and were found to agree within experimental uncertainty once diagnostic differences were accounted for. Measured density fluctuation profiles were found to peak strongly near the edge of the plasma, as is the case in most tokamaks. These measurements can be used in the future to inform inversion methods of phase contrast imaging (PCI) measurements. This result was confirmed with both a fixed frequency reflectometer and calibrated data from a multi-frequency comb reflectometer, and this method was applied successfully to a series of discharges. The full width at half maximum of the turbulence layer near the edge of the plasma was found to be only 1.5-3 cm on a series of LHD discharges, less than 5% of the normalized minor radius.This work is supported by the US DOE under Grant No. DE-SC0006419 and by the MIT International Science and Technology Internship (MISTI) Program. This work is partly supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) (No. 15H02336). This work is also partly supported by the National Institute for Fusion Science grant administrative budget (No. NIFS10ULHH021)

Shared and Distinct Functions of the Transcription Factors IRF4 and IRF8 in Myeloid Cell Development

Interferon regulatory factor (IRF) 8 and IRF4 are structurally-related, hematopoietic cell-specific transcription factors that cooperatively regulate the differentiation of dendritic cells and B cells. Whilst in myeloid cells IRF8 is known to modulate growth and differentiation, the role of IRF4 is poorly understood. In this study, we show that IRF4 has activities similar to IRF8 in regulating myeloid cell development. The ectopic expression of IRF4 in myeloid progenitor cells in vitro inhibits cell growth, promotes macrophages, but hinders granulocytic cell differentiation. We also show that IRF4 binds to and activates transcription through the IRF-Ets composite sequence (IECS). Furthermore, we demonstrate that Irf8-/-Irf4-/- mice exhibit a more severe chronic myeloid leukemia (CML)-like disease than Irf8-/- mice, involving a disproportionate expansion of granulocytes at the expense of monocytes/macrophages. Irf4-/- mice, however, display no obvious abnormality in myeloid cell development, presumably because IRF4 is expressed at a much lower level than IRF8 in granulocyte-macrophage progenitors. Our results also suggest that IRF8 and IRF4 have not only common but also specific activities in myeloid cells. Since the expression of both the IRF8 and IRF4 genes is downregulated in CML patients, these results may add to our understanding of CML pathogenesis

Modelling the sulfate capacity of simulated radioactive waste borosilicate glasses

The capacity of simulated high-level radioactive waste borosilicate glasses to incorporate sulfate has been studied as a function of glass composition. Combined Raman, 57Fe Mössbauer and literature evidence supports the attribution of coordination numbers and oxidation states of constituent cations for the purposes of modelling, and results confirm the validity of correlating sulfate incorporation in multicomponent borosilicate radioactive waste glasses with different models. A strong compositional dependency is observed and this can be described by an inverse linear relationship between incorporated sulfate (mol% SO42−) and total cation field strength index of the glass, Σ(z/a2), with a high goodness-of-fit (R2 ≈ 0.950). Similar relationships are also obtained if theoretical optical basicity, Λth (R2 ≈ 0.930) or non-bridging oxygen per tetrahedron ratio, NBO/T (R2 ≈ 0.919), are used. Results support the application of these models, and in particular Σ(z/a2), as predictive tools to aid the development of new glass compositions with enhanced sulfate capacities