Intraoperative obturator nerve injury reconstructed using a PGA-collagen tube: Three case reports

We herein report three cases of obturator nerve injury, which is rare in gynecological surgery. In all cases, it was difficult to suture both nerve ends without tension. Therefore, we used a PGA-collagen tube to interpose the nerve defect. After follow-ups of at least seven months, all three patients were able to adduct the hip joint and medial thigh sensations also mproved. These results suggest the potential of a PGA-collagen tube in the treatment of obturator nerve injury

Cosmic shear statistics in the Suprime-Cam 2.1 sq deg field: Constraints on Omega_m and sigma_8

We present measurements of the cosmic shear correlation in the shapes of galaxies in the Suprime-Cam 2.1 deg^2 R_c-band imaging data. As an estimator of the shear correlation originated from the gravitational lensing, we adopt the aperture mass variance. We detect a non-zero E mode variance on scales between 2 and 40arcmin. We also detect a small but non-zero B mode variance on scales larger than 5arcmin. We compare the measured E mode variance to the model predictions in CDM cosmologies using maximum likelihood analysis. A four-dimensional space is explored, which examines sigma_8, Omega_m, Gamma and zs (a mean redshift of galaxies). We include three possible sources of error: statistical noise, the cosmic variance estimated using numerical experiments, and a residual systematic effect estimated from the B mode variance. We derive joint constraints on two parameters by marginalizing over the two remaining parameters. We obtain an upper limit of Gamma0.9 (68% confidence). For a prior Gamma\in[0.1,0.4] and zs\in[0.6,1.4], we find sigma_8=(0.50_{-0.16}^{+0.35})Omega_m^{-0.37} for flat cosmologies and sigma_8=(0.51_{-0.16}^{+0.29})Omega_m^{-0.34}$ for open cosmologies (95% confidence). If we take the currently popular LCDM model, we obtain a one-dimensional confidence interval on sigma_8 for the 95.4% level, 0.62<\sigma_8<1.32 for zs\in[0.6,1.4]. Information on the redshift distribution of galaxies is key to obtaining a correct cosmological constraint. An independent constraint on Gamma from other observations is useful to tighten the constraint.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Searching for dark matter halos in the Suprime-Cam 2 sq deg field

We report the first result of weak gravitational lensing survey on a 2.1 sq deg Rc-band image taken with a wide field camera (Suprime-Cam) on the prime focus of 8.2 m Subaru Telescope. The weak lensing mass reconstruction is applied to the data to search for dark matter halos of cluster scale; M >= 10^14 solar mass. The reconstructed convergence field is divided by 1-sigma noise to obtain the signal-to-noise ratio map (S/N-map) of the detection. Local maxima and minima are searched on the S/N-map and the probability distribution function (PDF) of the peaks are created to compare with model predictions. We found excess over noise PDF created from the randomized realization on both positive and negative sides. Negative peaks imply the presence of voids in the dark matter distribution and this is the first report of the detection. Positive peaks, on the other hand, represent the dark matter halos and the number count of the halos on the 2.1 sq deg image is 4.9 +- 2.3 for S/N > 5 where the Gaussian smoothing radius of the convergence map is 1'. The result is consistent with the prediction assuming the Press-Schechter mass function and the NFW halo profile under the cluster normalized CDM cosmology. Although the present statistics is not enough due to the limited field of view, this work demonstrates that dark matter halo count via weak lensing is a promising way to test the paradigm of structure formation and cosmological model.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, Accepted for publication in ApJ