Effects of valproic acid on syncytialization in human placental trophoblast cell lines.

The placenta is a critical organ for fetal development and a healthy pregnancy, and has multifaceted functions (e.g., substance exchange and hormone secretion).

Rare complication: refractory hypertension and intermittent claudication caused by elephant trunk entrapped in a new entry after total arch replacement for type A aortic dissection.

Background: Total arch replacement using elephant trunk (ET) has been accepted as a standard technique for thoracic aortic dissection. However, there are few complications related to the ET, such as kinking of the ET, paraplegia, splitting of the anastomosis, and thromboembolic complications. We report a successful thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR) in a patient with ET entrapment in a new isolated dissecting aortic aneurysm.

Leydig cell tumor of the testis with characteristic contrast patterns of tumor and non-tumorous testicular parenchyma on MRI: a case report.

Purpose: Testicular Leydig cell tumor (LCT) is a rare subtype of testicular neoplasms that occurs in the interstitial tissue of testes, accounting for 1-3% of total testicular masses removed annually. We report a case of 70-year-old man diagnosed as testicular LCT. This report demonstrates a testicular LCT with intratumoral and non-tumorous testicular parenchymal enhancement in the affected testis, which should be considered characteristic findings of LCT.

Uptake of antiepileptic drugs in forskolin-induced differentiated BeWo cells: alteration of gabapentin transport.

Previous studies have indicated that the expression levels of several transporters are altered during placental trophoblast differentiation. However, changes in the transport activities of therapeutic agents during differentiation must be comprehensively characterised. Antiepileptic drugs, including gabapentin (GBP), lamotrigine (LTG), topiramate, and levetiracetam, are increasingly prescribed during pregnancy.

[Primary Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma of the Spermatic Cord : A Case Report].

A 66-year-old man came to our department with the chief complaint of a right inguinal painless mass. He was diagnosed with a right spermatic cord tumor and underwent a right high orchiectomy with wide excision. The results of hematoxylin eosin staining and immunostaining procedures showed mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma originating from the lymphoid tissue of spermatic cord.

A Classification System Specific for Recurrent Inguinal Hernia Following Open Hernia Surgery.

Background/aim: Currently, there is no classification system specializing in recurrent inguinal hernia (RIH) after open-surgery. For this reason, in this study we proposed one so as to understand the causes of RIH.

Patients And Methods: Recurrence of IH after suture-repair was classified either as the tissue-loosening (TL) or the tissue-disruption (TD) type.

Two cases of pelvic lymphocele after prostatectomy and dissection of obturator lymph nodes successfully treated by interventional radiology.

Introduction: Postoperative refractory lymphocele is often difficult to treat. Recently, interventional radiology with -butyl-cyanoacrylate has been used by urologists and radiologists to treat lymphocele. This modality is an effective treatment with fewer complications.

Effects of valproate, an HDAC inhibitor, on the expression of folate carriers and folate metabolism-related genes in the placenta of rats.

Valproate (VPA), an antiepileptic drug, is known to inhibit histone deacetylases (HDACs). Exposure to VPA during pregnancy increases several fetal risks. The maintenance of folate level during pregnancy is essential for adequate fetal development, and the placenta plays a critical role in supplying nutrients to the fetus.

Patient Consent Management by a Purpose-Based Consent Model for Electronic Health Record Based on Blockchain Technology.

Objectives: Currently, patients' consent is essential to use their medical records for various purposes; however, most people give their consent using paper forms and have no control over it. Healthcare organizations also have difficulties in dealing with patient consent. The objective of this research is to develop a system for patients to manage their consent flexibly and for healthcare organizations to obtain patient consent efficiently for a variety of purposes.

Symplocosins C-P: Fourteen Triterpene Saponins from the Leaves of Symplocos cochinchinensis var. philippinensis.

Extensive phytochemical work on the 1-BuOH-soluble fraction of a MeOH extract of the leaves of Symplocos cochinchinensis var. philippinensis resulted in the isolation of 14 new triterpenene saponins, along with four known ones. Their structures were elucidated by comparison of NMR spectroscopic data with related compounds reported in the literature.

Subcutaneous switching suture technique for hernia defect closure during laparoscopic ventral and incisional hernia repair.

Introduction: A vertical penetration of the thread through the abdominal wall for the hernia defect closure in laparoscopic ventral/incisional hernia repair (LVIHR) is difficult especially in the large defect cases when applying the existing techniques.

Materials: Sixteen LVIHRs were performed using the suture technique for defect closure we newly developed.

Surgical Technique: With the subcutaneous switching, our technique only requires the suture-passer and easily enables the vertical penetration of the thread through the abdominal muscular wall even in the large defect cases.

Completely laparoscopic repair for recurrent inguinal hernia that developed after open posterior mesh repair.

Surgeons tend to avoid performing completely laparoscopic repair (CLR) for recurrent inguinal hernia (RIH) that developed after the open posterior mesh repair (OPMR). For many, totally extraperitoneal repair or transabdominal preperitoneal repair after OPMR seems difficult because the previously placed mesh may pose an obstacle during the exfoliation of the parietal peritoneum. Moreover, these procedures could cause chronic pain if the "trapezoid of disaster" is injured.

Defining the Term "Elderly" in the Field of Surgery: A Retrospective Study Regarding the Changes in the Immunoinflammatory Indices During the Immediate Perioperative Period of the Elective Uncomplicated Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy.

Backgrounds: The term "elderly" seems to have been used as "vulnerable to various stresses" but not well defined. To define the "elderly", we investigated whether the increased age causes unfavorable changes in several immunoinflammatory indices that indicate the increased vulnerability in the surgical field.

Patients And Methods: One-hundred forty-two patients undergoing an elective-uncomplicated laparoscopic cholecystectomy (within 60 min and without intraoperative-cholangiography, bile spillage, or open conversion) were retrospectively investigated.

Application of Blockchain to Maintaining Patient Records in Electronic Health Record for Enhanced Privacy, Scalability, and Availability.

Objectives: Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems are increasingly used as an effective method to share patients' records among different hospitals. However, it is still a challenge to access scattered patient data through multiple EHRs. Our goal is to build a system to access patient records easily among EHRs without relying on a centralized supervisory system.

Classification of Elastic and Collagen Fibers in H&E Stained Hyperspectral Images.

This study investigates the classification performance of elastic and collagen fibers using H&E stained hyperspectral images. As many as 1200 sample pixels were trained by using Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and support vector machine (SVM) methods for reduction and classification. The classification result both using LDA and SVM show that H&E stained hyperspectral images performed better classification than H&E stained RGB image by comparing the classification of EVG stained images visually and quantitatively.

Multiple Re-entry Closures After TEVAR for Ruptured Chronic Post-dissection Thoraco-abdominal Aortic Aneurysm.

Introduction: Although thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR) has become a promising treatment for complicated acute type B dissection, its role in treating chronic post-dissection thoraco-abdominal aortic aneurysm (TAA) is still limited owing to persistent retrograde flow into the false lumen (FL) through abdominal or iliac re-entry tears.

Report: A case of chronic post-dissection TAA treatment, in which a dilated descending FL ruptured into the left thorax, is described. The primary entry tear was closed by emergency TEVAR and multiple abdominal re-entries were closed by EVAR.

Secure biometric image sensor and authentication scheme based on compressed sensing.

It is important to ensure the security of biometric authentication information, because its leakage causes serious risks, such as replay attacks using the stolen biometric data, and also because it is almost impossible to replace raw biometric information. In this paper, we propose a secure biometric authentication scheme that protects such information by employing an optical data ciphering technique based on compressed sensing. The proposed scheme is based on two-factor authentication, the biometric information being supplemented by secret information that is used as a random seed for a cipher key.

Referenceless image quality evaluation for whole slide imaging.

Objective: The image quality in whole slide imaging (WSI) is one of the most important issues for the practical use of WSI scanners. In this paper, we proposed an image quality evaluation method for scanned slide images in which no reference image is required.

Methods: While most of the conventional methods for no-reference evaluation only deal with one image degradation at a time, the proposed method is capable of assessing both blur and noise by using an evaluation index which is calculated using the sharpness and noise information of the images in a given training data set by linear regression analysis.

Hybrid-resolution multispectral imaging using color filter array.

Hybrid-resolution multispectral imaging is a framework to acquire multispectral images through a reconstruction procedure using two types of measurement data with different spatial and spectral resolutions. In this paper, we propose a new method for such a framework on the basis of a full-resolution RGB image and the data obtained from an image sensor with a multispectral filter array (MSFA). In the proposed method, a small region of each image band is reconstructed as a linear combination of RGB images, where the weighting coefficients are determined using MSFA data.

Multispectral image enhancement for effective visualization.

Color enhancement of multispectral images is useful to visualize the image's spectral features. Previously, a color enhancement method, which enhances the feature of a specified spectral band without changing the average color distribution, was proposed. However, sometimes the enhanced features are indiscernible or invisible, especially when the enhanced spectrum lies outside the visible range.

Known plaintext attack on double random phase encoding using fingerprint as key and a method for avoiding the attack.

We have shown that the application of double random phase encoding (DRPE) to biometrics enables the use of biometrics as cipher keys for binary data encryption. However, DRPE is reported to be vulnerable to known-plaintext attacks (KPAs) using a phase recovery algorithm. In this study, we investigated the vulnerability of DRPE using fingerprints as cipher keys to the KPAs.