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The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether experimental light-curing soft lining materials (ESLMs) based on commercially available urethane acrylate oligomers (UA-160TM, UV-3200B, UV-3500BA, and UV-3700B) are suitable for clinical use by measuring their viscosity, compressive modulus, Shore A hardness, tensile strength, adhesive strength, and cytotoxicity. The viscosities of the four ESLMs at 25°C were 10.5 Pa•s, UV-3500BA; 144.0 Pa•s, UA-160TM; 328.8 Pa•s, UV-3700B; and 1079.7 Pa•s, UV-3200B. Polymerized UV-3700B was very soft, whereas the softness of the other ESLMs was similar to that of conventional soft lining materials. No significant difference in adhesive strength was observed between UV-3500BA and UV-3700B at 1 day and those at 12 months. Cytotoxicity was measured by a MTT-based assay using HeLa S3 and Ca9-22 cells. UV-3200B and UV-3700B oligomers and all four polymerized ESLMs showed cell viability over 95.2% (p < 0.05).

Background: Serum albumin is a marker of nourishment and inflammation. Although hypoalbuminemia in hemodialysis patients is reported as a risk factor for poor prognosis, few studies describe its effects on infectious diseases specifically. This study aimed to examine the relationship between the serum albumin level on admission and infection-related in-hospital death among hemodialysis patients. Methods: This was a multicenter retrospective observational study that was undertaken in Japan. We reviewed the medical records of 507 hemodialysis patients aged > 18 years, whose blood cultures were obtained based on suspicion of infectious disease, and who were managed at seven Japanese tertiary dialysis units from August 2011 to July 2013. The outcome measure was infection-related in-hospital death. Multivariate logistic regression models adjusted for age, sex, the dialysis vintage, diabetes mellitus, bacteremia, and log C-reactive protein levels were used for the statistical analysis. Results: Four hundred patients were analyzed and allocated to three groups based on their serum albumin levels: marked hypoalbuminemia (< 2.5 mg/dL), mild hypoalbuminemia (≤ 2.5-< 3.5 mg/dL), and normal albumin levels (≤ 3.5 mg/dL). The infection-related in-hospital death rates were 22.9% (n = 11), 12.5% (n = 25), and 4.6% (n = 7), respectively. The multivariate logistic regression models determined that a low serum albumin level was an independent risk factor for infection-related in-hospital death (odds ratio 0.35, 95% confidence interval 0.18-0.66). Conclusions: A low serum albumin level strongly predicts infection-related in-hospital death in hemodialysis patients hospitalized on suspicion of infection. Like those with bacteremia or diabetes mellitus, hemodialysis patients with hypoalbuminemia require careful management of their infections.

809Chaotic attractors at the bifurcation points of band mergings (or splittings), crises and saddle· node bifurcations have singular local structures which produce coherent large fluctuations of the coarse·grained local expansion rates of nearby orbits. Such local structures are studied in terms of a weighted average A(q), (-00< q< (0) of the coarse·grained local expansion rates along the local unstable manifold with a q·dependent weight. By taking invertible two·dimensional and noninverti· ble one·dimensional maps, it is shown that, as q is varied, A(q) exhibits discontinuous phase transi· tions at discrete values of q; qa, qp, .... Three types of such phase transitions are discussed. One is that caused by the homoc1inic tangencies with qa=2.0. The second is that due to the accumulation of homoc1inic tangency points at unstable periodic points with qp"'" -0.8. The third is that due to the intermittent hopping motions between two repellers with qT=LO. Different phases of the phase transitions represent different local structures. Thus the q-weighted average A(q) turns out to provide a useful means for characterizing singular local structures of chaotic attractors. at NERL on June 14, 2015 http://ptp.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from = {l/Zn(q)} , (2'12)O"n(q)=-dAn(q)/dq, (2'13) ={n/Zn(q)}<{An(Xo)-An(q)pexp{n(q-1)A n (X o )}> .Since An'(q)~O, An(q) is a monotone non-increasing function of q. O"n(q) is the at NERL on June 14, 2015