Obesity during development has been reported to be a determinant factor in the future development of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Parental obesity is suggested to be a predictor of children’s obesity, and it is important to consider parental factors to prevent NCDs in the progeny. Previously, we showed that paternal height had a stronger association with infant birth weight than paternal body mass index (BMI) in the Japanese population. However, only a few studies have examined the association between paternal physique and postnatal obesity. This study aimed to investigate the association between parental physique and obesity in children at the age of 3. This study used fixed data on 33,291 parent–child pairs from the Japan Environment and Children’s Study, an ongoing national birth cohort study. The association between paternal physique (BMI and height) and children’s obesity at the age of 3 was examined using multivariate logistic regression analysis. The higher the paternal BMI quartiles, the higher the odds ratio for obesity in male and female children at 3 years of age (P < 0.0001). However, paternal height quartiles were not associated with male or female obesity. These results differ from the association between paternal physique and infant birth weight, and it is possible that prenatal epigenetic and environmental factors of paternal origin were responsible for the differences between these two studies. The association between paternal BMI and obesity in children at the age of 3 suggests that paternal factors may be involved in the development of NCDs in future progeny.

Objectives: We evaluated the disinfecting efficacy of atomized ionless hypochlorous acid water (CLFine) against pathogenic microorganisms in an isolation room. Methods: The study was conducted in an isolation room of Kurume University Hospital. CLFine with available chlorine concentrations of 40 ppm and 300 ppm as test substances and purified water as control were atomized with an ultrasonic atomizer (CLmistL). The 40 ppm and 300 ppm of CLFine were atomized at the atmospheric available chlorine concentrations of ~0.03 ppm and 0.1~0.2 ppm, respectively, and purified water was atomized in the same manner as CLFine. Petri dishes with Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus spores, Bacillus subtilis spores and Aspergillus ruber were allocated in the room, then CLFine or purified water was atomized. Sampling was performed at 3 and 5 hours after the start of atomization, and the bacterial counts were measured. The study was carried out either with air conditioning turned “on” or “off” because atmospherically available chlorine concentration is affected by ventilation. Results: When the air conditioning was turned on, purified water showed a slight reduction of bacterial counts by 0.9 log or less at 5 hours after the atomization. When CLFine was used, 40 ppm greatly reduced the counts of Staphylococcus aureus by 5.1~5.4 logs reduction at 5 hours after the atomization, but no distinctive efficacy was observed against other microorganisms. On the other hand, 300 ppm caused a significant reduction of the bacterial counts for all the microorganisms at 5 hours after the atomization (P < .001 vs purified water). The same results were observed in the environment with the air conditioning turned off. Conclusions: Our data suggest that CLFine effectively disinfects pathogenic microorganisms and can contribute to maintaining the hygienic environment of hospital rooms. This study was funded as contracted research by NIPRO Corporation with the approval of the ethics committee (study no. 21229).

This research investigates service creation in/after effect of coronavirus pandemic targeting the essential business environment. It follows prevention through design approach to facilitate business owners to maintain their business environments at low COVID contraction risks, for both customers and staff. The effectiveness of recommended prevention practices (like social distancing and hand-sanitising) is uncertain at public workplaces, simply due to inevitable workers and customers interactions. Such uncertainty, especially in cases of retail stores and hospitals, raises a need for the design of services and support systems for common/necessary public business activities to reduce the burden on people involved. This research investigates the risk-related metrics to realise such digital services, focussing on three types: congestion at the work environment, disinfection of store area/objects, and sanitisation of people and staffs involved. Based on this, a digital technology-based service COVSAFE was created and tested through a proof-of-concept implementation for a supermarket business environment. This implementation and its evaluations highlight the bottlenecks/challenges for realising this system in everyday scenarios.

This essay is an attempt to think through the three revolutions, using Tocqueville's theory of “democracy” as a key. For Tocqueville, democracy is a society with “the equality of conditions” – in other words, a society that has no hereditary status system. In this sense, Chinese society since the Song Dynasty has been “democracy” as Tocqueville himself pointed out repeatedly. In his understanding, contemporary China was a “democratic society” and its form of government was highly centralized “despotism”; in sum, it was “democratic despotism.” Tocqueville was warning against the possible Sinification of America and Europe. Moreover, he thinks what the French Revolution brought about were mainly “the equality of conditions” and the establishment of centralized state power. The Meiji Revolution also realized these two things because it had not been “democratic” and the polity had been federal. On the other hand, in China, both had been actualized since the tenth century. Therefore, the Chinese Revolution which ended up with the establishment of the communist rule is very different from the other two revolutions.

We have previously shown that the C-terminal region of the intermediate subunit of Entamoeba histolytica galactose- and N-acetyl-D-galactosamine-inhibitable lectin (C-Igl) is a useful antigen for serodiagnosis of amebiasis. An immunochromatographic kit was developed using fluorescent silica nanoparticles coated with C-Igl prepared in Escherichia coli. Samples for examination were added to the freeze-dried particles and then applied to the immunochromatographic device, in which a test line on the membrane was also coated with C-Igl. Fluorescent intensity was measured using a hand-held reader. In an evaluation of the kit using a human monoclonal antibody, the minimum amount of C-Igl specific antibody showing positive results was 100 pg. In the evaluation of serum samples with different antibody titers in indirect immunofluorescent antibody tests in the kit, 20 µL of serum was sufficient to obtain positive results at 30 min. Serum samples from symptomatic patients with amebic colitis and amebic liver abscess and those from asymptomatic E. histolytica-cyst carriers showed positive results in the kit. Based on evaluation using sera from healthy controls and patients with other infectious diseases, the sensitivity and specificity of the kit were 100 and 97.6%, respectively. Therefore, we conclude that the newly developed kit is useful for rapid serodiagnosis of amebiasis.

1,8-Diazabicyclo[5,4,0]undec-7-ene (DBU) was neutralized by a range of Brønsted acids with a wide variation in the ΔpKa values of their constituent acids and base. The salts exhibited properties characteristic of an ionic liquid, such as high thermal stability and liquidity near ambient temperature. Analyses of thermal behaviors and temperature dependencies of density, viscosity (η), and ionic conductivity were made to correlate the physicochemical properties with the ΔpKa value of the obtained protic ionic liquids (PILs). Differential thermal analyses (DTA) revealed that PILs with high ΔpKa values underwent thermal decomposition resembling their aprotic counterparts; however, PILs with a low ΔpKa exhibited the evaporation of neutral species progressively generated from the shifting of the equilibrium toward neutral components during the weight loss process. The ionicity of the PILs, determined from Walden plots utilizing density, conductivity, and viscosity data, was found to decrease as temperature increased, and this effect was more pronounced for low ΔpKa values, possibly because of the shifting of the equilibrium and the imbalance between strong hydrogen bonds and Coulombic interactions. Fragility, estimated from plots of log(η) versus the scaled temperature Tg/T was found to be lower for PILs than for DBU owing to neutralization. [DBU]-based PILs exhibit intermediate fragility in nature, but this fragility becomes more prominent for PILs with low ΔpKa values

We present the water column profiles (surface to 2000 m depth) for dissolved inorganic radiocarbon (14CDIC) from 2 stations in the Kuroshio region including the Kuroshio large meander (LM) of 2004–2005. Surprisingly, the Δ14CDIC value varied up to 125‰ in the intermediate layer, especially near 600 m depth. In addition, the Δ14CDIC value was approximately − 150‰ at 200 m depth at the northern station of Kuroshio in August 2005. This value is ∼100‰ less than other Δ14CDIC values for the same depth. In comparison, the Δ14CDIC water column profiles for the southern station of Kuroshio and GEOSECS station 224 decrease down to 600 m depth and were similar below 600 m depth. Our results suggest that strong upwelling associated with the Kuroshio LM has a powerful influence on the Δ14CDIC water column profiles in the study region.

The aim of the present study was to examine the effects of cobalamin (Cbl) on the activity and expression of l-methylmalonyl-CoA mutase (MCM) in rat liver and cultured COS-7 cells. The MCM holoenzyme activity was less than 5 % of the total (holoenzyme+apoenzyme) activity in the liver although rats were fed a diet containing sufficient Cbl. When weanling rats were maintained on a Cbl-deficient diet, the holo-MCM activity became almost undetectable at the age of 10 weeks. In contrast, a marked increase in the total-MCM activity occurred under the Cbl-deficient conditions, and at the age of 20 weeks it was about 3-fold higher in the deficient rats than in the controls (108 (sd 14·5) v. 35 (sd 8·5) nmol/mg protein per min (n 5); P < 0·05). Western blot analysis confirmed that the MCM protein level increased significantly in the Cbl-deficient rats. However, the MCM mRNA level, determined by real-time PCR, was rather decreased. When COS-7 cells were cultured in a medium in which 10 % fetal bovine serum was the sole source of Cbl, holo-MCM activity was barely detected. The supplementation of Cbl resulted in a large increase in the holo-MCM activity in the cells, but the activity did not exceed 30 % of the total-MCM activity even in the presence of Cbl at 10 μmol/l. In contrast, the total-MCM activity was significantly decreased by the Cbl supplementation, indicating that Cbl deficiency results in an increase in the MCM protein level in COS-7 cells as well as in rat liver.

The aim of the present study was to elucidate the mechanism of the vitamin B12 deficiency-induced changes of the serine dehydratase (SDH) and tyrosine aminotransferase (TAT) activities in the rat liver. When rats were maintained on a vitamin B12-deficient diet, the activities of these two enzymes in the liver were significantly reduced compared with those in the B12-sufficient control rats (SDH 2·8 (sd 0·56) v. 17·5 (sd 6·22) nmol/mg protein per min (n 5); P < 0·05) (TAT 25·2 (sd 5·22) v. 41·3 (sd 8·11) nmol/mg protein per min (n 5); P < 0·05). In the B12-deficient rats, the level of SDH induction in response to the administration of glucagon and dexamethasone was significantly lower than in the B12-sufficient controls. Dexamethasone induced a significant increase in TAT activity in the primary culture of the hepatocytes prepared from the deficient rats, as well as in the cells from the control rats. However, a further increase in TAT activity was not observed in the hepatocytes from the deficient rats, in contrast to the cells from the controls, when glucagon was added simultaneously with dexamethasone. The glucagon-stimulated production of cAMP was significantly reduced in the hepatocytes from the deficient rats relative to the cells from the control rats. Furthermore, the glucagon-stimulated adenylyl cyclase activity in the liver was significantly lower in the deficient rats than in the controls. These results suggest that vitamin B12 deficiency results in decreases in SDH and TAT activities correlated with the impairment of the glucagon signal transduction through the activation of the adenylyl cyclase system in the liver.

Miniaturized DNA sensitive field-effect transistors (DNA-FET) have been realized using single crystalline diamond grown by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (CVD). To bond DNA to diamond, amine linker-molecules are covalently attached by photochemical means to H-terminated diamond surfaces. Using hetero-bifunctional cross-linker and thiol-modified single-strand (ss) cancer marker DNA (CK20), the gate of diamond FETs is modified to sense hybridization of DNA, forming double-strand (ds) DNA molecules on the gate. The density of DNA bonded to diamond has been adjusted to about 1012 cm−2 and the experiments have been performed in phosphate buffer with different ionicity to control the Debye length of the Helmholtz layer. By hybridization, a gate-potential shift of 64 mV is detected in case of the 100 Å Debye lengths, while 46 mV is detected for 10 Å. This is discussed with respect to DNA related variations of charge and pH by hybridization. Time resolved experiments reveal exponential hybridization dynamics with a time constant of 600 s. The sensitivity limit of our experiment is about 1 nM.

Objectives: We have compared mortality and risk factors for late deaths in patients with tetralogy of Fallot undergoing surgical repair in 1972 and 1982 in a Japanese multicentric study, examining in particular the impact of time of repair. Background: There is limited information on the effect that time of repair, and our constantly changing approach to it, has on late outcome in repaired tetralogy of Fallot. Methods: We analysed the Japanese registry of deaths occurring after surgical repair of tetralogy of Fallot. We studied two postoperative 1-year cohorts of survivors of surgery performed in 12 centers. Of the patients, 122, aged 29 ± 12 years, had undergone repair in 1972, their age at repair being 9.6 years. An additional 186 patients, aged 23 ± 8.7 years, had been repaired in 1982 at the age of 7.7 years. Results: Annual mortality, as judged per 100,000 population of patients with tetralogy of Fallot, declined from 0.387 in 1972 to 0.196 in 1982. Significant differences were deaths following surgery (27% vs. 13%, p < 0.001), patching of the subpulmonary outflow tract (48% vs. 89%, p < 0.001), and transjunctional patching (13% vs. 63%, p < 0.001). Late death was observed in 6 vs. 3 patients (9/308, 2.9%). The actuarial rate of survival calculated over 14 years was 97% vs. 98%. Reoperation was performed in 5 vs. 9 patients (14/308, 4.5%). Risk factors for late death were age at repair (p = 0.01), and history of reoperation (p < 0.001). Transjunctional patching (p = 0.01) proved to be associated with late mortality only in patients repaired in 1972. Conclusions: Late survival was excellent, with a low incidence of reoperations in both groups of patients. The era of repair has a big influence on total and operative mortality, but has only a small impact on late mortality. Ongoing analysis of follow-up will possibly reveal subsequent changes with time.

The large-scale vortex structures under spilling and plunging breakers are investigated, using a fully three-dimensional large-eddy simulation (LES). When an overturning jet projecting from the crest in a breaking wave rebounds from the water surface ahead, the vorticity becomes unstable in a saddle region of strain between the rebounding jet and a primary spanwise vortex, resulting in spanwise undulations of the vorticity. The undulations are amplified on a braid in this saddle region, leading to a vortex loop with counter-rotating vorticity. This vortex loop consequently envelops adjacent primary vortices, to form a typical rib structure. This rib component (the stretched vortex loop) in the large-scale vortex structure, which intensifies in the strains associated with the multiple primary vortices generated throughout the splash-up cycle, appears to be the previously found obliquely descending eddy.

Temperature dependency of the dielectric property of c-axis-oriented SrBi4Ti4O15 films was investigated in a temperature range from 80 to 400 K. c-axis-oriented epitaxial films with the film thickness of 30 and 140 nm were grown on (100)cSrRuO3//(100)SrTiO3 substrates by metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). Increasing lattice distortions along the a- and c-axes with decreasing film thickness was ascertained by XRD reciprocal space mapping. However, capacitance change normalized by the capacitance data at 300 K for with temperature was independent of the film thickness; it increased from 80 to 230 K and contrary decreased with increasing the temperature. Especially, the temperature coefficient of capacitance from 230 to 330 K was almost the same. It indicates that dielectric characteristics of these films for the temperature are independent of the film thickness in the actual use. Moreover, the same mesurement for the 120 nm-thick fiber-textured c-axis-oriented SrBi4Ti4O15 film deposited on the (100)cLaNiO3/(111)Pt/TiO2/SiO2/(100)Si substrate was also investigated. Resultant capacitance change with the temperature was basically the same with that of the epitaxial one, even though the temperature at maximum capacitance value was slightly shifted to lower temperature of 200 K. These data suggest that of capacitance change with the temperature was almost independent of the film thickness and the in-plane orientation.

During the process of follicular atresia, cells are observed to invade the zona pellucida (invasive cells) where they presumably play an important role in eliminating degraded oocytes. Although our preliminary studies have suggested that these cells may originate from granulosa cells and not from macrophages, a detailed morphological analysis of the cells has not been conducted. The objective of this study was to characterize the cells more precisely by electron microscopy and immunohistochemistry, using sexually immature mice. The results show that the invasive cells were first observed within advanced primary (non-antral) atretic follicles. The cells frequently contained cytoplasmic lysosome-like granules after passing through the zona pellucida. F4/80 and Mac-1, reported as macrophage-specific antibodies, were reactive with the cells in most cases, but some immunonegative invasive cells were also observed. The ultrastructural features of the invasive cells were quite similar to those of granulosa cells, not macrophages. Gap junctions, which are typical cytoplasmic structures of epithelial cells, were frequently identified between neighbouring cells. Although direct evidence indicating a contribution by the cells to the elimination of degenerated oocytes was not obtained, our results strongly suggest that the invasive cells originated from granulosa cells surrounding the zona pellucida, and that they may have a macrophage-like cell function for the elimination of oocytes from atretic follicles in mice.

Oral administration of raffinose, a naturally occurring indigestible oligosaccharide, has reportedly ameliorated atopic dermatitis in human subjects although the mechanism is unknown. The present study investigated the effect of dietary raffinose on allergen-induced airway eosinophilia in ovalbumin-sensitised Brown Norway rats as an atopic disease model. Brown Norway rats were immunised by subcutaneous injection with ovalbumin on day 0 and fed either a control diet or the diet supplemented with raffinose (50 g/kg diet). The rats were exposed to aerosolised ovalbumin on day 20, and broncho-alveolar lavage fluid was obtained on the next day. The number of eosinophils in the fluid was significantly lower in the rats fed the raffinose diet than in those fed the control diet. Dietary raffinose significantly reduced IL-4 and IL-5 mRNA levels in lung tissue and tended to lower ovalbumin-specific Ig E levels. Suppression of eosinophilia by dietary raffinose was still observed in caecectomised and neomycin-administered rats, suggesting little contribution by the colonic bacteria to the effect of raffinose. Intraperitoneal administration of raffinose also suppressed eosinophilia. Significant concentrations of raffinose were detected in portal venous and abdominal arterial plasma after the intragastric administration of raffinose. Overall, the findings suggest that dietary raffinose ameliorates allergic airway eosinophilia at least partly via post-absorptive mechanisms in Brown Norway rats.

In rats, in contrast with human subjects who develop megaloblastic anaemia due to vitamin B12 deficiency, haematological abnormalities with anaemia were not observed under normoxic conditions even though plasma vitamin B12 concentration was reduced to <15 % of a normal concentration by depleting dietary vitamin B12. To elucidate whether erythropoiesis was affected by vitamin B12 deficiency in rats, these vitamin B12-deficient rats were exposed to hypoxia (10·5 % O2) to stimulate erythropoiesis. In the vitamin B12-sufficient control rats, erythrocyte count was significantly (P<0·05) increased 1 week after starting the hypoxic exposure. However, the hypoxia-induced erythropoiesis was affected by vitamin B12 deficiency, and no significant increase in the erythrocyte count was observed even after 6-week exposure to hypoxia in the vitamin B12-deficient rats. In the vitamin B12-deficient rats in hypoxia, erythrocytes became abnormally enlarged, and haemoglobin concentration in peripheral blood was increased in proportion to the increase of mean corpuscular volume. However, the level of the increase in the haemoglobin concentration was significantly (P<0·05) lower in the vitamin B12-deficient rats compared with that in the -sufficient controls. In addition, in the vitamin B12-deficient rats, in contrast to the -sufficient rats, serum erythropoietin concentration was not normalized even after 6-week exposure to hypoxia. These results indicate that a megaloblastic anaemia-like symptom is induced when the vitamin B12-deficient rats are exposed to hypoxia.