Electron-temperature control is performed on plasmas passing through a coarse mesh grid from a discharge region. By increasing a negative potential applied to the grid, the electron temperature is continuously decreased in a very wide range covering almost two orders of magnitude down to the value nearly equal to the background gas temperature in case of direct current argon or helium gas discharge. The temperature decrease is accompanied by an increase in the electron density. This method of electron-temperature control can also be applied to plasmas produced by radio-frequency and electron cyclotron resonance discharges.

The threshold for shock wave-induced brain injury is speculated to be under 1 MPa, a level that is lower than the threshold for other organs. High-overpressure shock wave exposure results in brain injury, including neuronal apoptosis mediated by a caspase-dependent pathway. This is the first report in which the pressure-dependent effect of shock wave on the histological characteristics of brain tissue is demonstrated.

Although infants with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and a germline MLL gene have a better prognosis than comparable infants with a rearranged MLL gene, their optimal therapy is controversial. In 2 consecutive studies, conducted between 1996 and 2002, we treated 22 cases of infant ALL with germline MLL using chemotherapy alone. The 5-year event-free survival rate was 95.5% with a 95% confidence interval of 86.9 to 100%. All 21 infants with precursor B-cell ALL have been in first complete remission for 3.5 to 8.8 years. Most treatment-related toxicities were predictable and well tolerated, and neither secondary malignancies nor physical growth impairments have been observed. These results indicate that chemotherapy of the type described here is both safe and highly effective against infant precursor Bcell ALL with MLL in the germline configuration. (Blood. 2006;107:4663-4665)

Electron temperature is controlled by varying the length of slits made in a grid immersed in a weakly ionized discharge plasma. The grid, which is kept at floating potential, has six slits in this experiment. With a decrease in the slit length from 6 to 0 cm, the electron temperature decreases from 2.1 to 0.09 eV, being accompanied by an electron-density increase from 0.32×109 to 1.53×109 cm−3 at argon gas pressure of 1.5 mTorr. This method of electron–temperature control is applicable to reactive plasmas in which grids are often covered by insulators.

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