Effects of cosmic strings with delayed scaling on CMB anisotropy

The network of cosmic strings generated in a phase transition during inflation enters the scaling regime later than that of usual strings. If it occurs after the recombination, temperature anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at high multipole moments are significantly reduced. In this paper, we study such effects qualitatively and show that the constraint on the cosmic string tension from the CMB temperature anisotropies and B-mode polarizations can be relaxed. It is shown to be difficult to explain the recent BICEP2 and POLARBEAR results in terms of signals induced by cosmic strings alone even if we take into account the delayed scaling. However, the inflationary tensor-to-scalar ratio required to explain the observed B-mode signals can be slightly reduced to be consistent with the Planck constraint.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures; v2: comments and references added, matches version published in PR

INHIBITION OF IFN-γ PRODUCTION BY SOLUBLE FACTORS DERIVED FROM ORAL CANCER CELLS

The streptococcal antitumor agent OK-432 is commonly used as an immunopotentiator for immunotherapy in various types of malignant tumors including oral cancer. It has been demonstrated that OK-432 elicits an antitumor effect by stimulating immunocompetent cells, thereby inducing multiple cytokines including interferon (IFN)-γ, interleukin (IL)-2 and IL-12. Serum concentrations of IFN-γ in patients with oral cancer were examined 24 h after administration of OK-432. Serum concentrations of IFN-γ in patients with advanced cancer were significantly lower than those in patients with early cancer. These results suggested that some soluble factors produced by cancer cells may inhibit IFN-γ production with OK-432. Thus, in the present study, an in vitro simulation model was established for the immune status of patients with oral cancer by adding conditioned medium (CM) derived from oral cancer cell lines into a culture of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) derived from a healthy volunteer. We investigated whether soluble factors derived from oral cancer cells affected IFN-γ production from PBMCs following stimulation with OK-432. PBMCs stimulated with OK-432 produced a large amount of IFN-γ; however, both IFN-γ production and cytotoxic activity from PBMCs induced by OK-432 were inhibited by the addition of CM in a dose-dependent manner. In order to examine these inhibitory effects against IFN-γ production, the contribution of inhibitory cytokines such as IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, transforming growth factor-β and vascular endothelial growth factor was investigated. However, neutralization of these inhibitory cytokines did not recover IFN-γ production inhibited by CM. These results indicated that unknown molecules may inhibit IFN-γ production from PBMCs following stimulation with OK-432

長母趾屈筋と長趾屈筋の分枝形態は超音波画像診断装置にて評価できる

Purpose: Flexor hallucis longus (FHL) and flexor digitorum longus (FDL) tendons are frequently used in surgery. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the chiasma plantare formation preoperatively. The development of ultrasonography (US) may help the chiasma plantare formation evaluation. The purpose of this study is to prove the usefulness of the US method using cadavers. Methods: Eleven cases (twenty-two ankles) were obtained from Asian adult cadavers. At first, we evaluated and compared the chiasma plantare formation using US. Later, we evaluated that using the findings after dissection as type A (connection from FHL to FDL of the second toe), type B (connection from FHL to the second and third toes), type C (connection from FHL to the second through fourth toes), or type D (connection from FHL to all lesser toes). Results: Chiasma plantare formation was classified as types A and B in fifteen and seven ankles, respectively. After dissection, chiasma plantare formation was classified as types A, B, and C in fourteen, six, and two ankles, respectively. Therefore, there was an 86% similarity between the two methods. Conclusions: Chiasma plantare formation can be reliably and noninvasively evaluated using US. This may be useful for preoperative rehabilitation or surgical procedure planning.博士（医学）・甲第782号・令和3年3月15日© 2021. Springer-Verlag France SAS, part of Springer Nature.This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Surgical and radiologic anatomy. The final authenticated version is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00276-020-02630-4