Post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease (PTLD) is a serious, often fatal complication after solid organ transplantation. The incidence of PTLD is greater among heart (2–13%), lung (12%) and heart/lung (5–9%) transplant recipients than among liver (2%), renal (1–3%) and bone marrow (1–2%) transplants recipients. The difference in the incidence of PTLD may be partly attributed to the higher dose of immunosuppressant therapy used for heart and lung transplantation. The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection status of the donor and recipient before a transplant, and high dose of immunosuppressive drugs are considered major risk factors. Recently, 2 cases of PTLD in a single lung and a heart-lung transplantation recipient were encountered. Both patients presented with multiple pulmonary nodules in the transplanted lung, which developed 6 months and 2 years after the transplantation, respectively. Following a transthoracic lung biopsy for diagnostic confirmation, one patient underwent chemotherapy for PTLD and the other conservative care for an accompanying viral infection. Both patients showed rapid clinical deterioration, without response to treatment, and then rapidly succumbed. Herein, our experiences are reported, with a review of the literature.

This paper presents the measurement of electromagnetic wave propagation in subway tunnels at f ϭ 2.6425 GHz. The main goal of this work is to obtain more accurate knowledge of the propagation characteristics in straight and curved tunnels. Measurements have been conducted in four different types of tunnel courses: a straight tunnel, two curved tunnels (with 245-m and 500-m radius of curvature, respectively), and a tunnel that has both straight and curved sections. From the measured results, we analyze and compare the differences between the straight and curved tunnels, particularly with regard to path loss and the effect of path loss arising from different curvatures, and the characteristics of the combined tunnel (the straight and curved tunnel). The findings presented here should prove helpful in the estimation of link budget for satellite DMB service in tunnels and the determination of accurate propagation characteristics in tunnels. ABSTRACT: A new dispersion-compensated double-pass erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) with high gain and improved noise-figure characteristics is demonstrated using chirped fiber Bragg grating. The performance is compared with that of the conventional double-pass EDFA.The signal gain is improved by as much as 18.6 dB at Ϫ40-dBm signal power with negligible noise penalty. The proposed amplifier architecture can improve the signal gain and at the same time compensate the signal dispersion.

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