No abstract

It has been shown that some dynamic features hidden in the time series of complex systems can be uncovered if we analyze them in a time domain called natural time χ . The order parameter of seismicity introduced in this time domain is the variance of χ weighted for normalized energy of each earthquake. Here, we analyze the Japan seismic catalog in natural time from January 1, 1984 to March 11, 2011, the day of the M9 Tohoku earthquake, by considering a sliding natural time window of fixed length comprised of the number of events that would occur in a few months. We find that the fluctuations of the order parameter of seismicity exhibit distinct minima a few months before all of the shallow earthquakes of magnitude 7.6 or larger that occurred during this 27-y period in the Japanese area. Among the minima, the minimum before the M9 Tohoku earthquake was the deepest. It appears that there are two kinds of minima, namely precursory and nonprecursory, to large earthquakes.criticality | seismic electric signals F or a time series comprised of N events, we define the natural time for the occurrence of the kth event by χ k = k=N (1), which means that we ignore the time intervals between consecutive events, but preserve their order. We also preserve their energy Q k . We then study the evolution of the pairðχ k ; p k Þ, whereQ n is the normalized energy. We postulated that the approach of a dynamical system to criticality can be identified by the variance κ 1 of natural time χ weighted for p k , namely,Earthquakes (EQs hereafter) exhibit complex correlations in time, space, and magnitude, and the opinion prevails (e.g., ref. 2 and references therein) that the EQs are critical phenomena. In natural time analysis of seismicity, the quantity κ 1 calculated from seismic catalogs serves as an order parameter (3, 4). Experiences have shown that the mainshock occurs in a few days to 1 wk after the κ 1 value in the candidate epicentral area approaches 0.070 (5). This was found useful in narrowing the lead time of EQ prediction. However, to trace the time evolution of κ 1 value, one needs to start the analysis of the seismic catalog at some time before the yet-to-occur mainshock. We chose, for the starting time for analysis, the initiation time of seismic electric signal (SES) activity. SESs are low-frequency (≤1 Hz) electric signals that precede EQs (6). The reason for this choice was based on the consideration that SESs are emitted when the focal zone enters the critical stage (7). In the case of the lack of SES data, as in the Tohoku EQ, we cannot adopt this approach. In this study, therefore, we instead examine the fluctuations of κ 1 near criticality, i.e., near the EQ occurrence. To compute the fluctuations, we apply the following procedure.First, take an excerpt comprised of W (≥100) successive EQs from the seismic catalog. We then form its subexcerpts consisting of the nth to (n + 5)th EQs, (n = 1, 2,. . .,W-5) and compute κ 1 for each of them. In so doing, we assign χ k = k=6 and the normalized energy p k = Q k = X 6 n = 1

Summary:We report the results of a phase III trial comparing tacrolimus (FK506) with cyclosporine for GVHD prophylaxis after allogeneic BMT. From February 1995 to July 1996, 136 patients were enrolled and followed up to September 1997. During the first 100 days posttransplant the incidence of grade II-IV acute GVHD (the primary end-point) was lower in the tacrolimus group (17.5%) compared with the cyclosporine group (48.0%, P Ͻ 0.0001). A significant difference was observed between the tacrolimus and cyclosporine groups when subset analyses were performed based on recipients from HLA-matched siblings (13.3% vs 41.3%, P = 0.015) or donors other than HLA-matched siblings (21.4% vs 53.8%, P = 0.0029). The incidence of chronic GVHD (47.3% and 47.8%) and Kaplan-Meier estimate of overall survival (62.9% and 65.2%) were similar between the tacrolimus and cyclosporine groups, respectively. The overall leukemia relapse rate was not significantly different between the tacrolimus and cyclosporine groups (19.6% and 11.4%, respectively). However, the relapse rate among recipients from HLAmatched siblings was significantly higher in the tacrolimus group (30.9%) compared with the cyclosporine group (3.6%, P = 0.013). These results suggest the merit of tacrolimus for the prophylaxis of acute GVHD, but a lack of merit for a graft-versus-leukemia effect among recipients from HLA-matched sibling donors. Bone Marrow Transplantation (2001) 28, 181-185.

Background and Purpose-Several risk scores have been developed to predict the stroke risk after transient ischemic attack (TIA). However, the validation of these scores in different cohorts is still limited. The objective of this study was to elucidate whether these scores were able to predict short-term and long-term risks of stroke in patients with TIA. Methods-From the Fukuoka Stroke Registry, 693 patients with TIA were followed up for 3 years. Multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazards model was used to assess the hazard ratio of risk factors for stroke. The discriminatory ability of each risk score for incident stroke was estimated by using C-statistics and continuous net reclassification improvement. Results-The multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazards model revealed that dual TIA and carotid stenosis were both significant predictors for stroke after TIA, whereas abnormal diffusion-weighted image was not. ABCD3 (C-statistics 0.61) and ABCD3-I (C-statistics 0.66) scores improved the short-term predictive ability for stroke (at 7 days) compared with the ABCD2 score (C-statistics 0.54). Addition of intracranial arterial stenosis (at 3 years, continuous net reclassification improvement 30.5%; P<0.01) and exclusion of abnormal diffusion-weighted imaging (at 3 years, continuous net reclassification improvement 24.0%; P<0.05) further improved the predictive ability for stroke risk until 3 years after TIA. Conclusions-The present study demonstrates that ABCD3 and ABCD3-I scores are superior to the ABCD2 score for the prediction of subsequent stroke in patients with TIA. Addition of neuroimaging in the ABCD3 score may enable prediction of long-term stroke risk after TIA. (Stroke. 2014;45:418-425.)Key Words: ABCD2 score ◼ prognosis ◼ stroke ◼ transient ischemic attack

Sixty-nine patients with hepatocellular carcinoma underwent curative hepatic resections as primary cases from 1981 to 1986. Seven patients died in the hospital after operation. The other 62 patients left the hospital and were closely followed for 25 to 78 months. Recurrence of carcinoma became obvious in 41 (66%) of 62 patients. The clinical and pathologic features of these 41 patients were not significantly different from those of the other patients. Recurrent tumors were found in the residual liver in 38 patients (93%), in the bone in 2 (5%), and in the lung in 1 (2%). Recurrence was diagnosed within 1 year, between 1 and 2 years, and more than 2 years after the operation in 22 (56%), 10 (26%), and 7 (18%) patients, respectively. It was difficult to determine the exact time of recurrence in two patients. There was a significant negative correlation between the size of primary tumor and time until recurrence; the larger the primary tumor, the shorter the time until recurrence. Among the 29 patients who underwent local excisions for their primary tumors, 19 recurrences were observed. Eighteen were found in the residual liver, in the same segment as the primary tumor, or in one near it. Larger hepatic resection for primary tumors is thus advocated to prevent recurrence.

No abstract

BackgroundRheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by the destruction of bone and cartilage. Although its etiology is unknown, the hydroxyl radical has been suggested to be involved in the pathogenesis of RA. Recently, molecular hydrogen (H2) was demonstrated to be a selective scavenger for the hydroxyl radical. Also, the method to prepare water containing extremely high concentration of H2 has been developed. We hypothesized that H2 in the water could complement conventional therapy by reducing the oxidative stress in RA.MethodsTwenty patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) drank 530 ml of water containing 4 to 5 ppm molecular hydrogen (high H2 water) every day for 4 weeks. After a 4-week wash-out period, the patients drank the high H2 water for another 4 weeks. Urinary 8-hydroxydeoxyguanine (8-OHdG) and disease activity (DAS28, using C-reactive protein [CRP] levels) was estimated at the end of each 4-week period.ResultsDrinking high H2 water seems to raise the concentration of H2 more than the H2 saturated (1.6 ppm) water in vivo. Urinary 8-OHdG was significantly reduced by 14.3% (p < 0.01) on average. DAS28 also decreased from 3.83 to 3.02 (p < 0.01) during the same period. After the wash-out period, both the urinary 8-OHdG and the mean DAS28 decreased, compared to the end of the drinking period. During the second drinking period, the mean DAS28 was reduced from 2.83 to 2.26 (p < 0.01). Urinary 8-OHdG was not further reduced but remained below the baseline value. All the 5 patients with early RA (duration < 12 months) who did not show antibodies against cyclic citrullinated peptides (ACPAs) achieved remission, and 4 of them became symptom-free at the end of the study.ConclusionsThe results suggest that the hydroxyl radical scavenger H2 effectively reduces oxidative stress in patients with this condition. The symptoms of RA were significantly improved with high H2 water.

Using the Japan Meteorological Agency earthquake catalog, we investigate the seismicity variations before major earthquakes in the Japanese region. We apply natural time, the new time frame, for calculating the fluctuations, termed β, of a certain parameter of seismicity, termed κ1. In an earlier study, we found that β calculated for the entire Japanese region showed a minimum a few months before the shallow major earthquakes (magnitude larger than 7.6) that occurred in the region during the period from 1 January 1984 to 11 March 2011. In this study, by dividing the Japanese region into small areas, we carry out the β calculation on them. It was found that some small areas show β minimum almost simultaneously with the large area and such small areas clustered within a few hundred kilometers from the actual epicenter of the related main shocks. These results suggest that the present approach may help estimation of the epicentral location of forthcoming major earthquakes.