The Ngandu as Hunters in the Zaire River Basin

This paper provides a detailed description of the hunting activities of the Ngandu, a primarily agricultural people living in the tropical rain forest of the Zaïre River Basin. Four key aspects are presented: types of hunting, hunting rituals, the complex cultural systems surrounding hunting, and the distribution of the meat. The extent to which the Ngandu forest people have been and still are concerned with hunting animals that inhabit the forest is also considered. The environmental limitations of tropical rain forests as the context for hunting activities are discussed. It is suggested that such factors have spurred the development of collective hunting, in which unknown numbers of animals are driven to their capture, and have stimulated the development of a variety of effective trapping techniques. Unlike mobile hunter-gatherers, the primarily agricultural Ngandu have to stay in one more or less restricted area to simultaneously maintain their agricultural subsistence activities. It is suggested that the combination of the fact that the Ngandu practice both agricultural and hunting activities within a rain forest environment has largely provided the impetus for the development of a sophisticated hunting technology embedded within a complex cultural system

Laparoscopic removal of uterine vertical compression sutures

AbstractUterine compression suturing is a relatively easy and effective way of hemostasis during cesarean section and is becoming widely accepted. However, complications such as necrosis or synechiae have been reported. We firstly report a case of laparoscopic removal of vertical compression sutures and discuss its benefits and improvements to be made. This case report is of a 32-year-old woman with placenta previa who received uterine vertical compression sutures for controlling massive bleeding during cesarean section. Because she complained of unbearable pelvic pain, laparoscopic compression suture removal was performed. Her pain was relieved after the threads were removed, suggesting that the compression sutures were the cause of her pelvic pain due to uterine ischemia. Although the risks of reoperation during the early postpartum period still exist, compression suture thread removal should be considered in cases of suspected uterine ischemia

Hemostasis for Massive Hemorrhage during Cesarean Section

Arterial ligation for massive hemorrhage during cesarean section may often fail to achieve hemostasis because of abundant collateral circulation. In recent years, various methods of hemostasis have been used, of which the most common are compression sutures, uterine balloon tamponade. In cases of massive hemorrhage, patients must be kept in good systemic condition, and local hemostasis must be achieved while paying attention to the possible occurrence of coagulopathy under monitoring of fibrinogen levels. When concomitant coagulopathy is present, local hemostasis is difficult to achieve because of hemorrhagic tendency. In such a case, obstetrical damage control procedures should be performed. First, the hemorrhagic area should be compressed with a towel or balloon, and at the same time, the artery should be blocked or compressed to reduce the blood flow into the uterus. The following resuscitation must also be implemented for warming intervention; blood transfusion to maintain the circulating blood volume; and the treatment of coagulopathy by “triple C supplement,” such as combined administration of fresh-frozen plasma and concentrated coagulation factors promptly to obtain a blood fibrinogen level of at least 150–200 mg/dL. If coagulopathy is eliminated, the conventional hemostatic procedures become effective. Hysterectomy is the last measure for hemostasis

Mineralogy of five new Antarctic ureilites, LEW86216, LEW85328, Y-791839, Y-75154, Y-8448, and the origin of their chemical variations of pyroxene

Mineralogical studies of mafic silicates in heavily shocked ureilites, LEW86216,Y-75154,Y-791839,and moderately shocked ureilite LEW85328 were performed to reveal the chemical variations and textures produced by shock events on the ureilite parent body. Y-8448 is one of common ureilites, but such ureilites are found in relatively small numbers in Antarctica. Olivines in Y-75154 and LEW86216 show granoblastic textures and the carbonaceous veins are disrupted. Their pyroxenes show chemical variations toward enstatite. They are among the most heavily shocked ureilites. Grain rims of Y-791839 and LEW85328 show chemical variations due to shock. The chemical trends of all these heavily shocked ureilites cover the entire range of known individual ureilites. Shock effects of these ureilites are interpreted to have been produced during the break-up of their parent body. Their chemical variations may be applied to study of the chemical differentiation by the planetesimal-scale collision in the earliest stage of ureilite formation

A Minimally Invasive Hemostatic Strategy for Cesarean Scar Pregnancy and Cervical Pregnancy

Cesarean scar pregnancy (CSP) and cervical pregnancy are categorized as non-tubal ectopic pregnancy, because these are associated with a high burden of maternal and fetal morbidity including early uterine rupture, prevalence of placenta previa accrete spectrum, massive hemorrhage, and hysterectomy. Although management methods vary according to the week of gestation, recent reviews and reports support an interventional or a combination of surgical and medical approaches for treatment of unruptured CSP and cervical pregnancy rather than medical approach alone. In cases of massive hemorrhage, pressure hemostasis using balloon tamponade should first be performed. If such hemostasis proves to be ineffective, surgical excision or transcatheter arterial embolization (TAE) should be selected next. TAE reportedly achieves a high hemostasis rate. However, complications such as subsequent endometrial hypoplasia, menstruation disorder, infertility, placenta accreta, and uterine rupture have been reported, even in cases that have undergone successful hemostasis with TAE using an absorbable embolus. Recently, a minimally invasive hemostatic strategy in obstetrics, which aims to preserve uterine function and enhance the safety of subsequent pregnancies, has been developed. Therefore, we should reconsider uterus-preserving hemostatic strategies for critical hemorrhage and management of non-tubal ectopic pregnancy under these circumstances by using safe and minimally invasive treatment modalities

Conditional Minimum Volume Ellipsoid with Application to Multiclass Discrimination

In this paper, we present a new formulation for constructing an n-dimensional ellipsoid by generalizing the computation of the minimum volume covering ellipsoid. The proposed ellipsoid construction is associated with a user-defined parameter β ∈ [0, 1), and formulated as a convex optimization based on the CVaR minimization technique proposed by Rockafellarand Uryasev [15]. An interior point algorithm for the solution is developed by modifying the DRN algorithm of Sun and Freund [19] for the minimum volume covering ellipsoid. By exploiting the solution structure, the associated parametric computation can be performed in an efficient manner. Also, the maximization of the normal likelihood function can be characterized in the context of the proposed ellipsoid construction, and the likelihood maximization can be generalized with parameter β. Motivated by this fact, the new ellipsoid construction is examined through a multiclass discrimination problem. Numerical results are given, showing the nice computational efficiency of the interior point algorithm and the capability of the proposed generalization

Complete temporal mode characterization of non-Gaussian states by dual homodyne measurement

Optical quantum states defined in temporal modes, especially non-Gaussian states like photon-number states, play an important role in quantum computing schemes. In general, the temporal-mode structures of these states are characterized by one or more complex functions called temporal-mode functions (TMFs). Although we can calculate TMF theoretically in some cases, experimental estimation of TMF is more advantageous to utilize the states with high purity. In this paper, we propose a method to estimate complex TMFs. This method can be applied not only to arbitrary single-temporal-mode non-Gaussian states but also to two-temporal-mode states containing two photons. This method is implemented by continuous-wave (CW) dual homodyne measurement and doesn't need prior information of the target states nor state reconstruction procedure. We demonstrate this method by analyzing several experimentally created non-Gaussian states

The variation of Zn content in spinel group minerals and daubreelites of primitive achondrites

We have studied the Zn content of spinel group mineral and daubreelite in primitive achondrites in order to clarify how the content of Zn, a moderately volatile element, reflects their formation process. Primitive achondrites have achondritic texture and chondrite-related chemistry and mineralogy. Because of these characteristics, primitive achondrites are thought to represent the transition from chondrites to achondrites. We have compared the Zn content in spinel group minerals of primitive achondrites with those of chondrites and ureilites. Although Zn is a moderately volatile element, the Zn content in spinel group mineral of primitive achondrites, ureilites and metamorphosed chondrites is higher than unmetamorphosed chondrites. This fact suggests that high Zn content in spinel group mineral of primitive achondrites may result from secondary crystallization or reequilibration of spinel mineral from a sulfide melt containing Cr, Mn and Zn which was partially melted during thermal metamorphism. We also found that the Zn content in spinel group minerals decreases from primitive achondrites and ureilites to HED and Martian meteorites. We suggest that Zn was significantly volatilized from completely molten magma in these meteorites. We found that spinel group minerals and daubreelites appear to be the major reservoir of Zn in most meteorites. Zn may be preferentially retained in the tight spinel structure