A case of Budd-Chiari syndrome: Gd-EOB-DTPA-enhanced MR findings

Budd-Chiari syndrome (BCS) is a rare disorder caused by the obstruction of hepatic venous outflow, leading to sinusoidal congestion, ischemic injury to liver cells and portal hypertension. Long-term survival largely depends on whether hepatocellular carcinoma occurs. A recently available liver-specific contrast medium, gadolinium-ethoxybenzyl-diethylenetriamine penta-acetic acid (Gd-EOB-DTPA), reportedly has high diagnostic capability for detection of malignant liver tumors. However, there has been no report of the sue of Gd-EOB-DTPA-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for BCS. We present a case of chronic BCS who underwent both gadopentetate dimeglumine (Gd-DTPA) and Gd-EOB-DTPA-enhanced MRI. Hepatic congestion and edema were seen as slightly hypointense areas on Gd-EOB-DTPA-enhanced hepatobiliary-phase images, although these areas were observed as slightly hyperintense on previously obtained Gd-DTPA-enhanced delayed-phase image. Reduced uptake of Gd-EOB-DTPA by hepatocytes in the region of congestion or edema may account for this difference, which should be recognized in image interpretations.     

Hölder continuity of discrete Morse flows to the Alt–Caffarelli variational problem generating free boundaries

The present paper shows Hölder continuity of discrete Morse flows to a regularized Alt–Caffarelli variational functional generating free boundaries; the continuity is uniform with respect to the discrete Morse flows and the regularizations. The uniformity enables to construct Morse flows to the Alt–Caffarelli functional, which shall be dealt with in another paper.     

Precise synthesis of a series of poly(4‐n‐alkylstyrene)s and their glass transition temperatures

Poly(4‐n‐alkylstyrene)s with six kinds of n‐alkyl groups such as methyl, ethyl, propyl, butyl, hexyl, and octyl groups covering wide molecular weight range from around 5 k to over 100 k were precisely synthesized by living anionic polymerizations. It was confirmed that all the polymers obtained have narrow molecular weight distribution, that is, M_w/M_n is all less than 1.1, by SEC. T_gs of all the polymers were estimated by DSC measurements and it turned out to be clear that their molecular weight dependence was well described by the Fox–Flory equations. Furthermore, it is evident that T_g monotonically decreases as a number of carbon atoms of n‐alkyl group is increased, though T_g values are all 20 K or more higher than those reported previously for the same polymer series. This is because backbone mobility increases by introducing longer n‐alkyl side groups with high mobility, while T_g difference in between this work and the previous one may due to the experimental conditions and also to the molecular weight range adopted. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2017 , 55, 757–763     

Alkyl side chain length dependent compatibility of poly(4‐n‐alkylstyrene)s and 1,4‐rich polyisoprene blends

We investigated the compatibility of blends of 1,4‐rich polyisoprene (1,4‐PI) and poly(4‐n‐alkylstyrene)s with six kinds of n‐alkyl side groups, that is, methyl, ethyl, propyl, butyl, hexyl, and octyl focusing on carbon number of alkyl groups. Poly(4‐methylstyrene)/1,4‐PI blend was turned out to be immiscible at all temperature range adopted in this work and poly(4‐ethylstyrene)/1,4‐PI blend revealed UCST type phase behavior, while the others were found to be compatible. The phase diagrams of poly(4‐ethylstyrene)/1,4‐PI blends were obtained by optical microscopy, and the temperature dependence of the Flory‐Huggins interaction parameter χ has been estimated to be χ = ?0.036 + 24/T by applying lattice theory, where T is the absolute temperature. From this relationship χ value at room temperature (298 K) was calculated to be 0.045, the value is reasonably low for miscible polymers system. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2017 , 55 , 1791–1797     

Application of copper sulfate pentahydrate as an ammonia removal reagent for the determination of trace impurities in ammonia by gas chromatography

Rapid analysis of trace permanent gas impurities in high purity ammonia gas for the microelectronics industry is described, using a gas chromatograph equipped with a phtoionization detector. Our system incorporates a reactive precolumn in combination with the analytical column to remove the ammonia matrix peak that otherwise would complicate the measurements due to baseline fluctuations and loss of analytes. The performance of 21 precolumn candidate materials was evaluated. Copper sulfate pentahydrate (CuSO₄·5H₂O) was shown to selectively react with ammonia at room temperature and atmospheric column pressures, without affecting the hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, methane or carbon monoxide peak areas. To prevent loss of trace carbon dioxide, an additional boron trioxide reactant layer was inserted above the copper sulfate pentahydrate bed in the reactive precolumn. Using the combined materials, calibration curves for carbon dioxide proved to be equivalent in both ammonia and helium matrix gases. These curves were equivalent in both matrix gases. The quantitative performance of the system was also evaluated. Peak repeatabilities, based on eight injections, were in the range of 4.1–8.2% relative standard deviation; and detection limits were 6.9 ppb for H₂, 1.8 ppb for O₂, 1.6 ppb for N₂, 6.4 ppb for CH₄, 13 ppb for CO, and 5.4 ppb for CO₂.     

Estimation of normal covariance matrices parametrized by irreducible symmetric cones under Stein's loss

In this paper the problem of estimating a covariance matrix parametrized by an irreducible symmetric cone in a decision-theoretic set-up is considered. By making use of some results developed in a theory of finite-dimensional Euclidean simple Jordan algebras, Bartlett's decomposition and an unbiased risk estimate formula for a general family of Wishart distributions on the irreducible symmetric cone are derived; these results lead to an extension of Stein's general technique for derivation of minimax estimators for a real normal covariance matrix. Specification of the results to the multivariate normal models with covariances which are parametrized by complex, quaternion, and Lorentz types gives minimax estimators for each model.     

Sasakian manifolds with vanishing C-Bochner curvature tensor

Supported by TGRC-KOSEF.     

Global Convergence Properties of Nonlinear Conjugate Gradient Methods with Modified Secant Condition

Conjugate gradient methods are appealing for large scale nonlinear optimization problems. Recently, expecting the fast convergence of the methods, Dai and Liao (2001) used secant condition of quasi-Newton methods. In this paper, we make use of modified secant condition given by Zhang et al. (1999) and Zhang and Xu (2001) and propose a new conjugate gradient method following to Dai and Liao (2001). It is new features that this method takes both available gradient and function value information and achieves a high-order accuracy in approximating the second-order curvature of the objective function. The method is shown to be globally convergent under some assumptions. Numerical results are reported.     

Ruthenium-catalyzed cycloaddition of 1,6-diynes with isothiocyanates and carbon disulfide: first transition-metal catalyzed [2 + 2 + 2] cocyclotrimerization involving C=S double bond.

In the presence of 10 mol % Cp*Ru(cod)Cl, 1,6-diynes with a tertiary center at 4-position reacted with various isothiocyanates at their C=S double bond to afford bicyclic (2H)-thiopyranimines in 35-88% yields. The (2H)-thiopyran structure was unequivocally determined by X-ray analysis. The cycloaddition of carbon disulfide with a diyne similarly gave the expected bicyclic dithiopyrone in 50% yield.     

Mössbauer study of the transition metal phosphorus trichalcogenide FePS3 and spin glass Mn0.5Fe0.5PS3

The transition metal phosphorus trichalcogenides MnPS₃ and the FePS₃ are CdCl₂ type layered compounds, where the transition metal ions form a hexagonal lattice. While these compounds order anti-ferromagnetically at low temperature, the magnetic structures are different. We have reported that these mixtures Mn_0.5Fe_0.5PS₃ is a spin glass with a glass transition temperature T _g=33.7 K. Then, in this work, we report that the results of the temperature variation of the ⁵⁷Fe Mössbauer spectra of FePS₃ and Mn_0.5Fe_0.5PS₃, in detail. In the anti-ferromagnetic state of FePS₃, the hyperfine magnetic field H _int increases with decreasing temperature and the Isomer shift I. S. increases slightly with decreasing temperature. However in Mn_0.5Fe_0.5PS₃, the two broadened peaks are observed and the two peaks became a single peak with decreasing temperature at about 50.0 K, which is higher than T _g=33.7 K. In the spin glass Mn_0.5Fe_0.5PS₃, the Mössbauer spectra suggest that the magnetic interactions exist far above T _g.