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Twenty hydrocephalic patients diagnosed in the third trimester of fetal life were evaluated and followed during a 7-year period. The factors affecting the prognosis, including the type of hydrocephalus, underlying conditions, associated anomalies, time of diagnosis and delivery, fetal period after diagnosis, head circumference and degree of ventriculomegaly at birth, and age at treatment, were comprehensively analyzed. The difference between final outcomes as assessed by developmental quotient (DQ) or intelligence quotient (IQ) were statistically tested with computation by means of STAX packages in an NEC 9801 VX. Hydrocephalus as an isolated defect occurred in six cases (30%), was associated with other central nervous system anomalies in nine (45%), and was secondary to intrauterine intraventricular hemorrhage or brain tumor in five (25%). The average age at the time of diagnosis was 33.9 weeks of gestation (range, 27-40 weeks). One fetus was treated by transabdominal cephalocentesis, but the majority of patients underwent ventriculoperitoneal shunt postnatally. The final IQ or DQ scores ranged from 20 to 120 (mean score, 50.6). The data analyses revealed that the only significant factor affecting outcome was the fetal period after diagnosis of hydrocephalus (r = -0.5076, p less than 0.01). Our data supports the fact that the results of an on-going hydrocephalic state may become irreversible during fetal life. It is emphasized that establishment of a more precise pathophysiological evaluation, and a less invasive but more reliable decompressive technique for fetal hydrocephalus, is urgent.

SrTiO3 films sputter deposited directly on a Si substrate at 200 °C were annealed at a scanning cw Ar laser beam at a substrate temperature of 200 °C. The laser annealing improved the crystallinity of the SrTiO3 films and minimized the formation of a SiO2 layer between SrTiO3 and Si. These results are confirmed by x-ray diffraction analysis and secondary ion mass spectrometry. The dielectric constant of the SrTiO3 films increased monotonically with laser power up to 1.2 W. The dielectric constant was improved from the as-grown value of 26–118 for a 160-nm-thick SrTiO3 film annealed at a 1.2 W laser power. At 1.0 W laser power, the annealed dielectric constant varied from 55 to 101 with increasing film thickness from 110 to 380 nm. From the film thickness dependence constant, it is shown that the intrinsic dielectric constant for the SrTiO3 films is about 150.

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Summary Pathogens including autoantigens all failed to induce systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). We, instead, studied the integrity of host's immune response that recognized pathogen. By stimulating TCR with an antigen repeatedly to levels that surpass host's steady-state response, self-organized criticality, SLE was induced in mice normally not prone to autoimmunity, wherein T follicular helper (Tfh) cells expressing the guanine nucleotide exchange factor DOCK8 on the cell surface were newly generated. DOCK8 + Tfh cells passed through TCR re-revision and induced varieties of autoantibody and lupus lesions. They existed in splenic red pulp and peripheral blood of active lupus patients, which subsequently declined after therapy. Autoantibodies and disease were healed by anti-DOCK8 antibody in the mice including SLE-model (NZBxNZW) F1 mice. Thus, DOCK8 + Tfh cells generated after repeated TCR stimulation by immunogenic form of pathogen, either exogenous or endogenous, in combination with HLA to levels that surpass system's self-organized criticality, cause SLE.