Clinically suspected acute myopericarditis with cardiac tamponade associated with peripheral blood eosinophilia presenting in early pregnancy: a case report

INTRODUCTION: The clinical presentation of eosinophilic myocarditis may vary from asymptomatic to the manifestation of severe symptoms, including cardiac tamponade and arrhythmias. In pregnant patients with this condition, drugs must be used cautiously up to approximately the 4th month of pregnancy because drug use should be limited during the period of fetal organogenesis. CASE PRESENTATION: A 30-year-old Asian woman at 14 weeks of pregnancy with progressive malaise was hospitalized. The electrocardiogram revealed ST elevation and low QRS voltage. Echocardiography revealed massive pericardial effusion and myocardial swelling. A laboratory examination revealed an increase in her white blood cell count, with a predominance of neutrophils. Pericardial drainage was performed for relief of the cardiac tamponade. The pericardial effusion revealed an abundance of eosinophils. Subsequently, the peripheral blood eosinophil count began to rise, and the patient was clinically diagnosed with eosinophilic myopericarditis. The patient’s condition improved rapidly following the initiation of prednisolone treatment, and she finally delivered a full-term normal infant. CONCLUSIONS: A patient with clinically suspected myopericarditis in the early stage of pregnancy who improved rapidly with pericardial drainage and prednisolone therapy, and successfully delivered a normal full-term infant; the diagnosis was made in the early stage of the disease, based on the detection of an abundance of eosinophils in the pericardial effusion preceding the subsequent development of peripheral blood eosinophilia

Potential of the Angiotensin Receptor Blockers (ARBs) Telmisartan, Irbesartan, and Candesartan for Inhibiting the HMGB1/RAGE Axis in Prevention and Acute Treatment of Stroke

Abstract: Stroke is a major cause of mortality and disability worldwide. The main cause of stroke is atherosclerosis, and the most common risk factor for atherosclerosis is hypertension. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2013, 14 18900 Therefore, antihypertensive treatments are recommended for the prevention of stroke. Thre

Effectiveness of Domain-Based Intervention for Language Development in Japanese Hearing-Impaired Children: A Multicenter Study

Objective: Decreasing language delay in hearing-impaired children is a key issue in the maintenance of their quality of life. Language training has been presented mainly by experience-based training; effective intervention programs are crucially important for their future. The aim of this study was to confirm the efficacy of 6-month domain-based language training of school-age, severe-to-profound hearing-impaired children. Methods: We conducted a controlled before-after study involving 728 severe-to-profound prelingual hearing-impaired children, including an intervention group (n = 60), control group (n = 30), and baseline study group (n = 638). Language scores of the participants and questionnaires to the caregivers/therapists were compared before and after the intervention. Average monthly increase in each language score of the control group and baseline study group were compared with those of the intervention group. Results: Language scores and the results of the questionnaire of the intervention group showed a significant improvement (P < .05). The average monthly language growth of the intervention group was twice that of the control group and 3 to 4 times that of the baseline study group (P < .05). The effect size was largest in communication (1.914), followed by syntax (0.931). Conclusion: Domain-based language training improved the language development and daily communication of hearing-impaired children without any adverse effects

Novel method to rescue a lethal phenotype through integration of target gene onto the X-chromosome.

The loss-of-function mutations of serine protease inhibitor, Kazal type 1 (SPINK1) gene are associated with human chronic pancreatitis, but the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. We previously reported that mice lacking Spink3, the murine homologue of human SPINK1, die perinatally due to massive pancreatic acinar cell death, precluding investigation of the effects of SPINK1 deficiency. To circumvent perinatal lethality, we have developed a novel method to integrate human SPINK1 gene on the X chromosome using Cre-loxP technology and thus generated transgenic mice termed "X-SPINK1". Consistent with the fact that one of the two X chromosomes is randomly inactivated, X-SPINK1 mice exhibit mosaic pattern of SPINK1 expression. Crossing of X-SPINK1 mice with Spink3+/- mice rescued perinatal lethality, but the resulting Spink3-/-;XXSPINK1 mice developed spontaneous pancreatitis characterized by chronic inflammation and fibrosis. The results show that mice lacking a gene essential for cell survival can be rescued by expressing this gene on the X chromosome. The Spink3-/-;XXSPINK1 mice, in which this method has been applied to partially restore SPINK1 function, present a novel genetic model of chronic pancreatitis

Statistically-Anisotropic Tensor Bispectrum from Inflation

We develop a possibility of generating tensor non-Gaussianity in a kind of anisotropic inflation, where a $U(1)$ gauge field is kinetically coupled to a spectator scalar field. Owing to this coupling, the coherent mode of the electric field appears and softly breaks the isotropy of the Universe. We compute the bispectrum of linearly-polarized tensor perturbations sourced by the gauge field and find that it is strongly red-tilted and has distinctive statistical anisotropies including higher-order multipole moments. Interestingly, the tensor bispectra with the specific combinations of linear polarization modes are dominant, and their amplitudes depend on the different sets of multipole moments. This new type of statistically-anisotropic tensor non-Gaussianity can be potentially testable with the upcoming cosmic microwave background B-mode polarization experiments.Comment: 25 pages, 4 figure

An isomorphous replacement method for efficient de novo phasing for serial femtosecond crystallography.

SACLAのX線自由電子レーザーを用いた新規タンパク質立体構造決定に世界で初めて成功. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2015-09-14.Serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX) with X-ray free electron lasers (XFELs) holds great potential for structure determination of challenging proteins that are not amenable to producing large well diffracting crystals. Efficient de novo phasing methods are highly demanding and as such most SFX structures have been determined by molecular replacement methods. Here we employed single isomorphous replacement with anomalous scattering (SIRAS) for phasing and demonstrate successful application to SFX de novo phasing. Only about 20,000 patterns in total were needed for SIRAS phasing while single wavelength anomalous dispersion (SAD) phasing was unsuccessful with more than 80,000 patterns of derivative crystals. We employed high energy X-rays from SACLA (12.6 keV) to take advantage of the large anomalous enhancement near the LIII absorption edge of Hg, which is one of the most widely used heavy atoms for phasing in conventional protein crystallography. Hard XFEL is of benefit for de novo phasing in the use of routinely used heavy atoms and high resolution data collection

Infinitesimal incommensurate stripe phase in an axial next-nearest-neighbor Ising model in two dimensions

An axial next-nearest-neighbor Ising (ANNNI) model is studied by using the non-equilibrium relaxation method. We find that the incommensurate stripe phase between the ordered phase and the paramagnetic phase is negligibly narrow or may vanish in the thermodynamic limit. The phase transition is the second-order transition if approached from the ordered phase, and it is of the Kosterlitz-Thouless type if approached from the paramagnetic phase. Both transition temperatures coincide with each other within the numerical errors. The incommensurate phase which has been observed previously is a paramagnetic phase with a very long correlation length (typically $\xi\ge 500$). We could resolve this phase by treating very large systems ($\sim 6400\times 6400$), which is first made possible by employing the present method.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures. To appear in Phys.Rev.

Evaluation of natural environment using GIS for important plants (to survive in disasters)

Earthquakes are frequently occurred in Japan. Furthermore Japan has predict a huge earthquake in the next 30 years. For this reason, the important plants will be a big role to survive in disasters. Lupines (Local Useful Plants with Intelligent Networks of Exploring Surface) has been developed by Research Organization for Regional Alliances in Kochi University of Technology in 2011. Lupines is a database for vegetation resource which has collected various data of vegetation. Therefore, growth environment of the important plants will be evaluated by GIS using Lupines. Generally, the important plants inhabit often in forest road and footpath around farmland. This study aimed to use field survey data and reference data which clarified habitat characteristics of important plants. Used reference data are categorized topography, meteorology and land surface. Mountain village map was created by spatial analysis using land cover classification. Field survey data was important data for integrating Lupines was evaluated with the reference data. Habitat suitable land of important plants was selected from characteristics of habitat of each important plant. The proposed approach could be accurate that the field survey data were increased in the future. Incidentally, reference data were insufficient, therefore the global solar radiation data of forest area could be prepared in future.conference pape

Design and Performance of Superconducting Magnets for Hybrid Magnets(Part I. Establishment and Tests of Hybrid Magnet System at HFLSM)

Design, construction and performance of three superconducting magnets for the hybrid magnets installed in the High Field Laboratory for Superconducting Materials are described in detail. The compact solenoid, SM-3, without fully cryostable design forms the outer part of the most compact hybrid magnet in the world, HM-3 (32 mm bore, 20 T). Fully cryostable superconducting magnet designed under the Steckly criterion, SM-2, is the outer part of HM-2 (52 mm bore, 23 T), which has been most attractive to many experimentalists. SM-1, the outer part of HM-1 (32/52 mm bore, 31/28 T), with the Williams cryostability criterion is the world largest one of the superconducting magnets which employ Ti-doped Nb_3Sn multifilamentary conductors and can generate more than 12 T