The question of whether or not to perform therapeutic hypothermia: A case of neonatal spinal cord injury

Neonatal spinal cord injury is an extremely rare perinatal complication that often occurs concurrently with hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE), further complicating diagnosis of spinal cord injury. Although therapeutic hypothermia for moderate to severe HIE is widely recommended in Japan, it is difficult to determine whether it satisfies the neurological findings-related entry criteria in some patients.We describe a female infant with neonatal spinal cord injury after forceps delivery, who underwent therapeutic hypothermia upon diagnosis of HIE. The Apgar scores were 5 at 1 min, 6 at 5 min, and not recorded at 10 min. Blood gas analysis of her umbilical artery was not performed. Since respiratory failure, hypotonia and the absence of primitive reflexes were found at 2 hours after birth, she was initially diagnosed with moderate HIE and underwent a therapeutic hypothermia. Magnetic resonance imaging after therapeutic hypothermia revealed the spinal cord was narrowed from the lower medulla oblongata to the upper cervical cord. Thus she was diagnosed with an upper spinal cord injury at that time.Some patients with neonatal spinal cord injuries satisfy the criteria for therapeutic hypothermia. When neonates with asphyxia present with prolonged respiratory failure and hypotonia, spinal cord injury should be considered in the differential diagnosis. Thus, an early MRI is vital for the diagnosis of spinal cord injury.

Faraday-cup-type lost fast ion detector on Heliotron J

A Faraday-cup type lost-fast ion probe (FLIP) has been designed and installed in Heliotron J for the purpose of the studies of interaction between fast ions and MHD instabilities. The FLIP can measure the co-going fast ions whose energy is in the range of 1.7-42.5 keV (proton) and pitch angle of 90^∘-140^∘, especially for fast ions having the injection energy of neutral beam injection (NBI). The FLIP successfully measured the re-entering passing ions and trapped lost-fast ions caused by fast-ion-driven energetic particle modes in NBI heated plasmas.

Development of beam emission spectroscopy for turbulence transport study in Heliotron J

This paper describes the development study of the beam emission spectroscopy (BES) for the turbulent transport study in Heliotron J. Modification of the sightlines (10 × 4 for edge and 10 × 2 for edge) enables us to obtain 2-dimensional BES imaging. The cooling effect on the reduction in the electrical noise of avalanche photodiode (APD) assembly has been investigated using a refrigerant cooling system. When the temperature of the APD element has set to be -20 °C, the electrical noise can be reduced more than 50%. The measurement error of the phase difference in the case of low signal level has been tested by two light-emitting diode lamps. The APD cooling has an effect to improve the measurement error at the low signal level of APD.