We investigated the effect of neck flexion on discriminative and cognitive processing in postural control during bilateral arm movement while standing, using event-related potential (ERP) and electromyogram. Fourteen healthy subjects flexed their arms to the target stimuli with a 20% probability in neck resting and flexion positions. Amplitude and latency of N2 and P3, anterior deltoid (AD) reaction time, onset time of postural muscles with respect to AD activation, and peak amplitude and latency of all muscles were measured. With neck flexion, N2 and P3 amplitudes increased, N2 and P3 latencies and AD reaction time shortened, and onset times of all postural muscles became earlier. No significant differences in peak amplitude and latency of each muscle were found between neck positions. Significant positive correlations were found in changes with neck flexion between P3 latency and AD reaction time, and between N2 latency and onset time of erector spinae. These suggest that with neck flexion, attention allocation to discriminative and cognitive processing increased, and the processing speed increased with shortening of reaction time in focal muscles. In addition, the onset time of postural muscles became earlier without changing the activation pattern, which was associated with the hastened discriminative processing.

Aim:  The aim of this study was to determine the incidence of perioperative complications and evaluate risk factors for the major complications of total laparoscopic hysterectomy (TLH) using an early ureteral identification technique. We describe the technique we standardized and used for TLH, without exclusion criteria. Material and Methods:  A retrospective study was carried out at Kurashiki Medical Center, Japan, based on 1253 TLH procedures performed from January 2005 to March 2009. We reviewed records to identify the major perioperative complications, including bladder, ureteral, and intestinal injuries, and incidences of reoperation. Risk factors for major complications were analyzed using multivariate logistic regression models. Results:  A total of 24 patients encountered major complications (1.91%). Complications included 10 intraoperative urologic injuries, five cases of postoperative hydronephrosis, five cases of vaginal dehiscence, one bowel injury, one postoperative hemorrhage, one bowel obstruction, and one ureterovaginal fistula. All 11 cases of intraoperative visceral injury were recognized during the surgery and repaired during the same laparoscopic surgical procedure. Of the risk factors analyzed, a history of abdominal surgery was the only one associated with the occurrence of major complications, with an odds ratio of 2.48 (95% confidence interval 1.23-6.49). Conclusion:  While complications are inevitable, even in the hands of the most skilled surgeon, they can be minimized without conversion to laparotomy by a sufficiently developed suturing technique and a precise knowledge of pelvic anatomy. The presented data indicate that our method allows for safe TLH and minimization of ureteral injury, without the use of stringent exclusion criteria.

The event-related potential (ERP) mainly reflecting activation of the frontal lobe was measured during periodic floor oscillation, and changes in postural preparation and attention to the postural disturbance according to this adaptation were investigated. The experiment consisted of two tasks with eyes closed: adaptation to floor oscillation and finger flexion coinciding with the anterior and posterior reversals of oscillation. Subjects were 20 healthy young adults. They maintained a standing posture for 1 min (1 trial) on the force platform which oscillated in the anteroposterior direction at 0.5 Hz and an amplitude of 2.5 cm. ERP from a Cz electrode, activity of postural muscles and the center of foot pressure in the anteroposterior direction (CoPy) were analyzed. In the adaptation task, the speeds of CoPy fluctuation gradually decreased and reached a plateau between 4th and 14th trials, with inter-subject differences. Posterior postural muscles were activated in response to the anterior reversal of oscillation according to adaptation and also in the finger flexion task, with the largest activation of the gastrocnemius (GcM). A negative ERP peak was observed to occur locally around the anterior reversal of oscillation after adaptation. The peak ERP time had the strongest positive correlation with the peak activation time of the GcM, and the amplitude of the negative peak decreased with adaptation. In the finger flexion task, a negative ERP peak was observed around each target point. This negative peak was related to the anticipatory attention directed to the reversal point and to motor preparation for finger flexion. It is conceivable that the increasing negative ERP in the adaptation task reflects the dynamics of motor preparation and attention mainly for the anterior reversal, where the negative ERP peak is closely related to anticipatory information processing of somatosensory stimuli arising around the time of the reversal.

In rats, successful IVF with cryopreserved rat sperm has never been reported. The objective of the present study was to establish and improve the IVF protocol using epididymal and ejaculated rat spermatozoa after cryopreservation. At first, we examined whether cryopreserved ejaculated spermatozoa would be useful for IVF in Wistar rats. Capacitation-associated tyrosine phosphorylation was accelerated in frozen-thawed ejaculated sperm in a time-dependent manner. These frozen-thawed spermatozoa were co-cultured with cumulus-oocyte complexes in modified R1ECM for 10h. The putative zygotes were transferred to R1ECM and then cultured up to 144h. Although the rates of insemination and 2 pronucleus (2PN) formation were low (26.5 and 23.0%, respectively), most of 2PN oocytes were developed to the 2-cell stage (91.0%). A total of 44 embryos at the 2-cell stage derived from frozen-thawed ejaculated sperm were transferred to 5 recipient females and 21 pups (47.7%) were delivered. Next, we used frozen-thawed epididymal spermatozoa for IVF in Wistar rats. After thawing, intracellular cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP), free cholesterol levels and capacitation-associated protein tyrosine phosphorylation levels of the sperm were assayed. Intracellular cAMP and free cholesterol levels in frozen-thawed epididymal sperm were maintained at a low level, suppressing capacitation-associated tyrosine phosphorylation. Treatment with a phosphodiesterase inhibitor, 3-isobutyl-1-methyl-xanthin (IBMX) dramatically increased cAMP and capacitation-associated tyrosine phosphorylation levels in frozen-thawed epididymal sperm. When the IBMX-treated frozen-thawed sperm was used for IVF, the proportions of 2PN and the development to blastocysts were significantly higher (approximately 40 and 20%, respectively) than those of frozen-thawed epididymal sperm treated without IBMX (approximately 10 and 3%, respectively). These embryos were developed to term at a high success rate (49%) equivalent to the rate obtained with IVF using fresh sperm (58%). Moreover, we tried to apply our IVF system to inbred rat strains [Fischer 344 (F344) and Brown-Norway (BN)]. We examined whether the IVF protocol was available for F344 and BN rats. Fresh and frozen-thawed sperm collected from cauda epididymides in F344 and BN were used for detection of capacitation-associated tyrosine phosphorylation. In fresh F344 sperm, capacitation-associated tyrosine phosphorylation was induced in a time-dependent manner. Although tyrosine phosphorylation was inhibited in frozen-thawed F344 sperm, it was dramatically accelerated by IBMX treatment as well as frozen-thawed Wistar sperm. However, tyrosine phosphorylation in fresh and frozen-thawed BN sperm was suppressed and the phosphorylation in frozen-thawed sperm was not improved by IBMX. Taken together, we developed an IVF protocol using cryopreserved rat sperm and our data suggest that the IVF system can be applied not only to Wistar rats but also to the F344 strain.

Flow coefficients v_{n} for n=2, 3, 4, characterizing the anisotropic collective flow in Au+Au collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=200  GeV, are measured relative to event planes Ψ_{n}, determined at large rapidity. We report v_{n} as a function of transverse momentum and collision centrality, and study the correlations among the event planes of different order n. The v_{n} are well described by hydrodynamic models which employ a Glauber Monte Carlo initial state geometry with fluctuations, providing additional constraining power on the interplay between initial conditions and the effects of viscosity as the system evolves. This new constraint can serve to improve the precision of the extracted shear viscosity to entropy density ratio η/s.

Summary.  There is no study that follows up longitudinal changes in laboratory data of patients with C-viral chronic liver disease (C-CLD) who achieved sustained virological esponse (SVR) with interferon treatment in a long-term study. We investigated the laboratory data in a long-term retrospective cohort study of 581 patients with C-CLD who underwent liver biopsy between January 1986 and December 2005. 467 were treated with interferon and 207 of these patients achieved SVR with follow-up periods of 8.36 ± 5.13 years. Alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels, albumin levels, platelet counts, and the aspartate aminotransferase (AST)-to-platelet ratio index (APRI) values were serially examined during the follow-up period. None of the 207 patients with SVR exhibited hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA positivity more than 6 months after the end of IFN treatment. Platelet counts and albumin levels increased only in those with eradication of HCV. APRI values decreased more in patients with SVR than in those with nonsustained virological responses (non-SVR). Patients who achieved SVR and had fibrosis stage 0-1 and 2-4 at enrolment had platelet counts that longitudinally increased by 2.81 ± 3.95 and 5.49 ± 4.53 × 10(3)/μL during the 10-year follow-up period, respectively. Albumin levels continuously increased during the first 2 years by 0.15 ± 0.31 and 0.33 ± 0.37 in fibrosis stage 0-1 and 2-4, respectively and then plateaued. ALT levels decreased rapidly one year after the start of treatment by 110.3 ± 140.0 and 100.5 ± 123.4 in fibrosis 0-1 and 2-4, respectively. HCV RNA negativity persisted in all patients with SVR, and laboratory data including APRI longitudinally improved during the long-term follow-up period.

β-Lactoglobulin (LG) contains nine β-strands (strands A-I) and one α-helix. Strands A-H form a β-barrel. At neutral pH, bovine LG (BLG) forms a dimer and the dimer interface consists of AB-loops and the I-strands of two subunits. On the other hand, equine LG (ELG) is monomeric. The residues 145-153 of BLG, which compose a dimer interface, are entirely different from those of ELG. The difference in the association states between BLG and ELG can be attributed to the residues 145-153. To confirm this, we constructed a chimeric LG, ImBLG (I-strand mutated BLG), in which the residues 145-153 were replaced with those of ELG. Gel filtration chromatography and analytical ultracentrifugation revealed that ImBLG existed as a monomer. To identify the residues important for dimerization, we constructed several revertants and investigated their association. This experiment revealed that, in addition to the interface residues (Ile147, Leu149 and Phe151), Met145 is critical for dimerization. Although Met145 does not contact with the other protomer, it seems to be important in determining the backbone conformation of the I-strand. This was supported by the fact that all Met145-containing mutants showed circular dichroism spectra similar to BLG but different from ImBLG.

A common-path swept-source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT) is a promising scheme for implementing a high-speed and stable OCT system. We investigate the capability of a common-path SS-OCT system to perform the cross-sectional imaging of valuable documents translated at high speed for the check of its security feature. The influence of transport speeds, up to 2000 mm/s, on the depth resolution and the signal intensity is experimentally evaluated using a SS-OCT system equipped with a swept source at a center wavelength of 1335 nm and with a sweep repetition rate of 50 kHz. The degradation of the measured signal is in good agreement with theory.

Neural tube defects (NTDs), including spina bifida and anencephaly, are common birth defects of the central nervous system. The complex multigenic causation of human NTDs, together with the large number of possible candidate genes, has hampered efforts to delineate their molecular basis. Function of folate one-carbon metabolism (FOCM) has been implicated as a key determinant of susceptibility to NTDs. The glycine cleavage system (GCS) is a multi-enzyme component of mitochondrial folate metabolism and GCS-encoding genes therefore represent candidates for involvement in NTDs. To investigate this possibility, we sequenced the coding regions of the GCS genes: AMT, GCSH and GLDC, in NTD patients and controls. Two unique non-synonymous changes were identified in the AMT gene that were absent from controls. We also identified a splice acceptor site mutation and five different non-synonymous variants in GLDC, which were found to significantly impair enzymatic activity and represent putative causative mutations. In order to functionally test the requirement for GCS activity in neural tube closure we generated mice that lack GCS activity, through mutation of AMT. Homozygous Amt-/- mice developed NTDs at high frequency. While these NTDs were not preventable by supplemental folic acid, there was a partial rescue by methionine. Overall, our findings suggest that loss of function mutations in GCS genes predispose to NTDs in mice and humans. These data highlight the importance of adequate function of mitochondrial folate metabolism in neural tube closure.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to investigate the role of the combined use of customized molds and a high dose rate (HDR) remote afterloading brachytherapy apparatus with a (192)Ir microsource in the treatment of superficial oral carcinomas after chemoradiotherapy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Nine patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma who were treated using this combined technique were analyzed retrospectively. The primary sites of the tumors were the mouth floor, gingiva, and soft palate. For each patient, a customized mold was fabricated in which 2-3 afterloading catheters were placed for the (192)Ir source. Three to eight fractions of 3 Gy, 5 mm below the mold surface, were given following external radiotherapy of 24-50 Gy/2 Gy combined with chemotherapy (peplomycin or taxotere). The total dose of HDR brachytherapy ranged from 9 to 24 Gy. RESULTS: The 2-year local control probability was 100% and the 2-year cause-specific survival rate was 100%. No serious complications (i.e., ulcer or bone exposure) have been observed thus far during the follow-up period of 29-120 months. CONCLUSION: HDR brachytherapy using the mold technique after chemoradiotherapy is a safe and excellent method for selected early and superficial oral cavity cancers.