Fatigue-induced changes in longitudinal relaxation time determined by magnetic resonance imaging

Longitudinal relaxation time (T₁) determined by 3.0-T magnetic resonance imaging of the tibialis anterior and extensor digitorum longus muscles increased gradually with muscle fatigue caused by three 120-s periods of repeated ankle dorsiflexion separated by 5-min rest periods. T₁ values decreased in the recovery period, although they remained higher than the preexercise values. T₁ values for the soleus muscle were unchanged throughout the experiment. Results suggest that muscle T₁ values increase with increasing muscle fatigue.     

Monoclonal Antibody Usage Strategies for Natural Products in Traditional Chinese Medicine

Monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) against natural products with low?molecular weights have become an important tool when combined with other analytical systems. Eastern blotting involves a typical staining system wherein, for example, glycosides can be blotted to a membrane and cross?linked and stained using MAbs. An immunoaffinity column combined with a monoclonal antibody allows a one?step purification of hapten compounds or preparation of a knockout extract that removes only the target hapten molecules from a crude extract. Here, we discuss the application of these extracts. Single?chain variable fragment (scFv) proteins have led to novel assay systems such as fluobodies or antibodies coupled with green fluorescent protein for natural products. A typical novel application of a scFv gene would be in the context of plant breeding; this is designated “missile?type” molecular breeding, intended to increase hapten molecule concentrations in transgenic plants     

Effects of indigo carmine intravenous injection on oxygen reserve index (ORi™) measurement

To retrospectively investigate the effects of indigo carmine intravenous injection on oxygen reserve index (ORi?) in 20 patients who underwent elective gynecologic surgery under general anesthesia. The study subjects were patients who underwent elective gynecologic surgery under general anesthesia between April 2016 and January 2017, and were administered a 5-ml intravenous injection of 0.4% indigo carmine for clinical purposes during surgery with ORi monitoring. Changes in ORi within 20 min after indigo carmine injection were observed. A relevant decrease in ORi was defined as ≥?10% reduction in ORi from pre-injection level. ORi rapidly decreased after indigo carmine intravenous injection in all patients. In 10 of 19 patients, ORi decreased to 0 after indigo carmine injection. The median lowest value of ORi was 0 (range 0–0.16) and the median time to reach the lowest value of ORi was 2 min (range 1–4 min) after injection. ORi values returned to pre-injection levels within 20 min in 13 of 19 patients, and the median time to return to pre-injection levels was 10 min (range 6–16 min) after injection. During ORi monitoring it is necessary to consider the rapid reduction in ORi after intravenous injection of indigo carmine.     

Reliability of the skin blotting method when used on the elderly

The aim of this study was to compare protein secretion on intact skin of extremities and verify the relationship between the marker proteins on abdominal skin and systemic factors using skin blotting. A cross‐sectional study was conducted among elderly patients aged 65 years and older (N = 73) at a long‐term medical facility in Japan. Skin blotting was performed on the right and left forearms, right and left lower legs, and abdomen. Pearson's correlations and Bland–Altman plots were utilised for comparing the protein secretion from the skin between the right or left forearms or lower legs. Multiple regression analysis was applied to determine the relationship between intensity levels of 3 proteins on the abdominal skin and the systemic factors. Bland–Altman plots demonstrated that there was no significant difference between right and left secretion levels on the forearms and lower legs among 3 proteins. Multiple regression analysis showed that age and antiplatelet use was positively associated with decreased collagen type IV and increased matrix metalloproteinase 2 levels, respectively. Our findings suggested that collecting samples from either the right or the left skin would be sufficient if skin properties between arms and legs are evaluated using skin blotting.     

Discrimination of areas infected with coffee leaf rust using a vegetation index

Coffee leaf rust is for the coffee industry potentially one of the causes of a sustainability crisis. Currently, on-site disease detection is the only effective method to fell coffee trees for prevention of the infection. However, accurate infection detection over wide areas is difficult when conducted by ground surveys. Here, we examine the application of a remote sensing method. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) values of coffee farms were computed using satellite images and compared with the results of the ground truth. We found that the standard deviation of the NDVI value (σ_NDVI) in damaged farms increases as the average NDVI value decreases. This fact implies that the disease progresses in-homogeneously inside a damaged area. In the present analysis, up to 94.1% of the damaged farms were discriminated by combining the NDVI and σ_NDVI thresholds when 75.0% of the damaged farms had NDVI values under 0.732 and σ_NDVI over 0.044. Our monitoring method enabled us to take early-stage countermeasures against the infection, and it could be applied to other vegetation diseases.