THE KINETIC LINKAGE IN PITCHING MOTION

The objective of this study was to analyze three-dimensional motion chains of pitching movement, and determine how the chains of movement of the limbs were working together from the lower extremities to the upper extremities. There were devided three experimentals group for compareing the motion skills: professional (n=9), amateur (n=9), and high school (n=9) baseball players. The pitching motion recorded for all subjects performed the maximum their effort from the mound for throwing the ball. It was recorded in videotapes by two high-speed cameras to arrange places. Then four points of every picture were digitized per 1/500 second. Three-dimensional coordinates for the segment endpoints were computed by a direct linear transformation (DLT) method. The resultof this study, linking the lower and upper body, professional picher could move the body efficiant and give the speed for ball. on the other hand, it was found that amatur and high school picher could not move the body efficient becouse to move the shoulder of piching side to piching direction

β-d-Altrose

The mol­ecule of the title compound, C6H12O6, [systematic name: (2R,3S,4R,5R,6R)-6-(hydroxy­meth­yl)oxane-2,3,4,5-tetrol] adopts a 4 C 1 chair conformation with the anomeric hydroxyl group in the equatorial position. All hydroxyl groups act as donors and acceptors in hydrogen bonding and the mol­ecule is involved in ten inter­molecular O—H⋯O inter­actions [O⋯O = 2.672 (5)–2.776 (4) Å] with eight neighbouring mol­ecules. Two independent O—H⋯O—H⋯ helices extending along the z axis are found in this structure

Surgical Outcome of Patients Undergoing Pancreaticoduodenectomy: Analysis of a 17-Year Experience at a Single Center

The operative mortality and morbidity of pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD) remain high. We analyzed PD patientsʼ clinical characteristics and surgical outcomes and discuss how PD clinical outcomes could be improved. We retrospectively reviewed the cases of 400 patients who underwent a PD between January 1998 and April 2014 at Okayama University Hospital, a very-high-volume center. We identified and compared the clinical outcomes between two time periods (period 1: 1998-2006 vs. period 2: 2007-2014). The total postoperative mortality and major complication rates were 0.75 and 15.8 , respectively, and the median postoperative length of stay (LOS) was 32 days. Subsequently, patients who underwent a PD during period 2 had a significantly shorter LOS than those who underwent a PD during period 1 (29 days vs. 38.5 days, p＜0.001). The incidence of mortality and major complications did not differ between the two periods. In our multivariate analysis, period 1 was an independent factor associated with a long LOS (p＜0.001). The improvement of the surgical procedure and perioperative care might be related to the shorter LOS in period 2 and ot the consistently maintained low mortality rate after PD. The development of multimodal strategies to accelerate postoperative recovery may further improve PDʼs clinical outcomes

Sarcopenia and American Society of Anesthesiologists Physical Status in the Assessment of Outcomes of Hepatocellular Carcinoma Patients Undergoing Hepatectomy

Sarcopenia following liver surgery has been reported as a predictor of poor prognosis. Here we investigated predictors of outcomes in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and attempted to establish a new comprehensive preoperative assessment protocol. We retrospectively analyzed the cases of 254 patients who underwent curative hepatectomy for HCC with Child-Pugh classification A at our hospital between January 2007 and December 2013. Sarcopenia was evaluated by computed tomography measurement. The influence of sarcopenia on outcomes was evaluated. We used multivariate analyses to assess the impact of prognostic factors associated with outcomes, including sarcopenia. Of the 254 patients, 118 (46.5%) met the criteria for sarcopenia, and 32 had an American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) physical status ≥3. The sarcopenic group had a significantly lower 5-year overall survival rate than the non-sarcopenic group (58.2% vs. 82.4% , p＝0.0002). In multivariate analyses of prognostic factors, sarcopenia was an independent predictor of poor survival (hazard ratio [HR]＝2.28, p＝0.002) and poor ASA status (HR＝3.17, p＝0.001). Sarcopenia and poor ASA status are independent preoperative predictors for poor outcomes after hepatectomy. The preoperative identification of sarcopenia and ASA status might enable the development of comprehensive approaches to assess surgical eligibility

Syndrome of Inappropriate Antidiuretic Hormone Secretion Following Liver Transplantation

Syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone secretion (SIADH) is an extremely rare cause of hyponatremia post-liver transplantation. A 15-year-old Japanese girl with recurrent cholangitis after Kasai surgery for biliary atresia underwent successful living donor liver transplantation. Peritonitis due to gastrointestinal perforation occurred. Hyponatremia gradually developed but improved after hypertonic sodium treatment. One month later, severe hyponatremia rapidly recurred. We considered the hyponatremia’s cause as SIADH. We suspected that tacrolimus was the disease’s cause, so we used cyclosporine instead, plus hypertonic sodium plus water intake restriction, which improved the hyponatremia. Symptomatic hyponatremia manifested by SIADH is a rare, serious complication post-liver transplantation

Effects of ML-236B (compactin) on sterol synthesis and low density lipoprotein receptor activities in fibroblasts of patients with homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia

金沢大学大学院医学系研究科　We studied biochemical genetics of low density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor mutations in fibroblasts from six homozygous and five heterozygous patients with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH). Three of six homozygotes are receptor-negative type and the other three homozygotes are receptor-defective type. In the cells from three receptor-negative homozygotes, the receptor binding, internalization, and degradation of 125I-LDL were 0.5 ± 0.3 ng/mg protein (mean ± SEM), 14 ± 8 and 8 ± 6 ng/mg protein per 6 h (four normal cells; 44 ± 3, 386 ± 32, and 1,335 ± 214 ng/mg protein per 6 h), respectively. In the cells from three receptor-defective homozygotes, the receptor binding, internalization, and degradation of 12:5I-LDL were 6 ± 2, 29 ± 8, and 90 ± 32 ng/mg protein per 6 h, respectively. In these six homozygotes, two pairs of siblings are included. Two siblings in the same family were classified as receptor-negative and two siblings in another family were classified as receptor-defective. The receptor-negative phenotypes and the receptor-defective phenotypes bred true in individual families. The cells from five heterozygotes showed ~46% of the normal activities of receptor. ML-236B, competitive inhibitor of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase (HMG-CoA reductase), completely inhibited the incorporation of [14C]acetate into digitonin-precipitable sterols in fibroblasts from normal subjects and heterozygous and homozygous patients with FH with the concentration of 0.5 μg/ml. However, at 0.05 μg/ml of ML-236 B sterol synthesis in fibroblasts from homozygotes was not completely suppressed in contrast to normal and heterozygous cells. Moreover, after preincubation with 0.05 μg/ml of ML-236B for 24 h in medium containing lipoproteins, sterol synthesis in the cells from receptor-negative homozygote showed 75% of the initial activity compared with that of 25% without preincubation. In the cells from a normal subject and heterozygote, sterol synthesis was inhibited even after preincubation. These results suggest that (a) the inhibitory effect of ML-236B is overcome in homozygote cells by their high intracellular levels of HMG-CoA reductase and (b) that a higher dose of ML-236B may be required to lower serum cholesterol levels in FH homozygotes than in heterozygotes

Chondroitin sulfate N-acetylgalactosaminyltransferase-1 is required for normal cartilage development

CS (chondroitin sulfate) is a glycosaminoglycan species that is widely distributed in the extracellular matrix. To understand the physiological roles of enzymes involved in CS synthesis, we produced CSGalNAcT1 (CS N-acetylgalactosaminyltransferase 1)-null mice. CS production was reduced by approximately half in CSGalNAcT1-null mice, and the amount of short-chain CS was also reduced. Moreover, the cartilage of the null mice was significantly smaller than that of wild-type mice. Additionally, type-II collagen fibres in developing cartilage were abnormally aggregated and disarranged in the homozygous mutant mice. These results suggest that CSGalNAcT1 is required for normal CS production in developing cartilage

The ASTRO-H X-ray Observatory

The joint JAXA/NASA ASTRO-H mission is the sixth in a series of highly successful X-ray missions initiated by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS). ASTRO-H will investigate the physics of the high-energy universe via a suite of four instruments, covering a very wide energy range, from 0.3 keV to 600 keV. These instruments include a high-resolution, high-throughput spectrometer sensitive over 0.3-2 keV with high spectral resolution of Delta E < 7 eV, enabled by a micro-calorimeter array located in the focal plane of thin-foil X-ray optics; hard X-ray imaging spectrometers covering 5-80 keV, located in the focal plane of multilayer-coated, focusing hard X-ray mirrors; a wide-field imaging spectrometer sensitive over 0.4-12 keV, with an X-ray CCD camera in the focal plane of a soft X-ray telescope; and a non-focusing Compton-camera type soft gamma-ray detector, sensitive in the 40-600 keV band. The simultaneous broad bandpass, coupled with high spectral resolution, will enable the pursuit of a wide variety of important science themes.Comment: 22 pages, 17 figures, Proceedings of the SPIE Astronomical Instrumentation "Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2012: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray