This study has developed a power assist wear for knee joint. To construct a light weight and soft power assist device, a pneumatic rubber artificial muscle is used as an actuator. This paper shows the structure and operation of the device. Some experimental results illustrate the availability of the developed power assist wear.
As for a wearable device, it is required that it is small, is light, and be flexible from the viewpoint of the human fnendliness. The pneumatic rubber artificial muscle is useiiil as Ihe actuator that satisfied these demands. In this study, the power assist wears driven wWi a thin seat nibber artificial muscle are newly developed to attempt the making to cc^ripad, and the assist of elbow, wrist and forearm.
The purpose of this study is to develop a soft robot hand that can grasp any shape or characteristic object due to the expansion of the actuator applied positive pressure and vacuum adsorption due to negative pressure. The actuator made of soft material has advantage to grasp a complex shape or fragile objects and can pick up a flat plate and objects with large radius by vacuum adsorption. In addition, by generating negative pressure from positive pressure source, it is possible to operate this a system with a single pressure source. In this paper, we describe the outline of the soft fingers and then the performance of this finger is verified experimentally.
Brain abscesses most frequently occur because of bacterial dissemination from a primary lesion at a distant site or direct contiguous invasion from an adjacent site of infection. We examined serum and saliva cytokine levels in a brain abscess patient with severe periodontitis. A 66-year-old man with high-grade fever and right-sided paresis was hospitalized. Brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed several nodules in his right parietal and occipital lobes. We also found increased leukocyte (10,532/ml) and cerebrospinal fluid white blood cell (235–7860 mm3) counts. Bacteriological examination of sputum showed Fusobacterium nucleatum and Prevotella. No ear, nose, throat, and gastrointestinal infections were observed. Severe periodontitis was noted. Bacteriological examination of the right maxilla showed Porphyromonas gingivalis, and we detected a high level of serum antibody to P. gingivalis. Broad-spectrum antimicrobial therapy, dental calculus removal, and intraoral remediation improved the patient’s general condition. Brain MRI at the time of discharge showed a decrease in the size of the nodules, and after three months, the level of serum antibody to P. gingivalis decreased. Elevated pro-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin (IL)-1α and IL-1β and chemokines such as IL-8, macrophage chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1), granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) levels in the saliva significantly decreased after oral treatment. Similarly, elevated serum IL-1α, IL-1β, IL-8, MCP-1, eotaxin, regulated on activation, normal T-cell expressed and secreted (RANTES), VEGF, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF)-α levels decreased after oral treatment. These findings supported our hypothesis that periodontopathic bacteria produce inflammation cytokines, pro-inflammatory cytokines migrate from systemic circulation to the brain, and their expression increases, and transition of that response into an adaptive form might have been the etiology of brain abscess in our patient.
In this study, the variable friction dumper driven with pneumatic actuator is developed to correct body movement. The developed device is constructed with friction members which are made with rubber, and pneumatic artificial rubber muscle, nylon belt. By controlling inner pressure of rubber muscle or changing number of rubber muscles, nylon belt pull-out force generated from friction force between friction members can be changed. It is assumed that this pull-out force is used to correct movement. In this paper, structure and principle of this device are described and then the characteristics are discussed.
[Background] Thymic epidermal tumors (thymoma and thymic cancer) are rare, and its genetic profiles are unclear. Molecular targeted therapy of thymic tumors has not been established. Clarifying a molecular alteration and to identify the novel targets for molecular targeted therapy is important. So, we conducted the next generation sequencing (NGS) analysis with surgically resected thymic tumor tissues.[Methods] From July 2013 to October 2018, thirty patients who were resected thymic epidermal tumors in our hospital were enrolled in this study. We got written informed consent from patients, and NGS analysis of extracted DNA sample was performed in 24 patients to the present time. DNA were extracted from fresh frozen surgically resected tissues (tumors and paired normal tissues) and DNA amplicon sequencing was performed with a custom panel of 53 cancer-related genes based on Ion AmpliSeq™ Cancer Hotspot Panel v2 comprising major oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes (including GTF2I). Sequencing was carried out with an Ion Torrent PGM™. Sequencing data were analyzed using Ion Reporter™. In addition, we collected the patient's information (age, sex, Masaoka-Koga staging, World Health Organization (WHO) histologic classification, tumor size, and complication such as myasthenia gravis and pure red cell aplasia) from medical records. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the Nagasaki University Hospital.[Results] A total of 30 patients were enrolled in this study. The median age was 62 years old (range, 34-84 years old), patients characteristics were 9 male and 21 female, WHO histologic classification (type A, AB, B1, B2, B3, thymic carcinoma) was 1, 11, 4, 10, 2, 2, and Masaoka-Koga staging I, II, III, IV were 12, 6, 9, 3, respectively. Median tumor size was 47mm (range 11-110 mm). Moreover, complications were 7 myasthenia gravis, 4 acetylcholine receptor antibody-positive (do not confirm diagnossis of myasthenia gravis), 1 pure red cell aplasia, and 1 agranulocytosis. In NGS sequencing, the nonsynonymous mutations of HRAS and NRAS (HRAS Q61R, HRAS G13R, and NRAS Q61K) was detected in three patients. These RAS gene mutations were reported to be pathogenic in various malignancies. Low frequently DNMT3A mutation was detected in the other two patients, however this mutation were not validated in other methods. No genetic alterations were detected in the rest 19 patients.[Conclusion] The frequency of genetic alterations in thymic epidermal tumors was very low in this study, however, active mutations of RAS oncogene were detected in three patients. Although the RAS are still not established as treatment targets, it should be one of the interacting molecules. Further investigation is required to establish new therapeutic strategy according to the genetic alteration in thymic tumors.Citation Format: Hiroyuki Yamaguchi, Hiroshi Gyotoku, Hirokazu Taniguchi, Daisuke Sasaki, Midori Shimada, Yosuke Dotsu, Hiroaki Senju, Norihito Kaku, Takaya Ikeda, Minoru Fukuda, Katsunori Yanagihara, Hiroshi Mukae. Genetic analysis of thymoma and thymic carcinoma [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 1705.
Human T‐cell leukemia virus type‐1 (HTLV‐1) proviral load (VL) is an important determinant of viral pathogenesis and malignant evolution. Although VL has been quantified by in‐house real‐time quantifiable polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) technology, little is known about the harmonization among different VL assay systems. We evaluated intra‐ and inter‐laboratory variability of VL measured at six laboratories using the same DNA samples seropositive for HTLV‐1 in a two‐step manner. The first study measured 60 samples by original in‐house assays, finding that the median intra‐ and inter‐laboratory coefficient of variation (CV) was 44.9% (range, 25.4–71.8%) and 59.9% (34.2–93.4%), respectively. The inter‐laboratory correlation coefficients ranged from 0.760 to 0.875, indicating that VL were measured with good precision in each laboratory, but inter‐laboratory regression slopes differed from 0.399 to 2.206, indicating that VL were measured with a wide variation between laboratories. To examine the effect of standardization of reference materials (RM) on the VL variability, we performed a second study using only 20 samples by substituting RM for plasmid including the HTLV‐1 pX region. The median inter‐laboratory CV for raw pX copy number was reduced significantly from 66.9% to 35.7%, whereas the median CV for the internal control remained almost unchanged, resulting in no improvement in inter‐laboratory CV for VL. This indicates that each in‐house assay system worked well with good precision, but standardizing RM alone was insufficient for harmonization. The relevant choice of not only RM, but also internal control genes for data normalization is expected to be realistic to standardize HTLV‐1 VL measurement. ( Cancer Sci 2010; 101: 2361–2367)
