Various herbivorous invertebrates in seagrass beds are considered to be generalists in food use and their diets may temporally fluctuate according to the availability of food sources. We assessed whether food sources of herbivorous gastropods vary in a subtropical seagrass bed in Nagura Bay, Ishigaki Island, where coexisting seaweeds grow densely in spring but minimally in summer. Abundant gastropods and their possible food sources were collected in spring and summer of 2013 and 2015, and their stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios were measured. Between the two seasons, each possible food source had similar isotopic values, but all the herbivorous gastropod species in summer were more enriched in 13C than the gastropod samples in spring. The mixing models in SIAR (Stable Isotope Analysis in R) showed that the total contribution rates of seaweeds, i.e. rhodophytes, phaeophytes and chlorophytes, for all herbivorous gastropod species decreased from spring to summer; in contrast, the contribution rate of seagrasses increased. Linear Mixed Models showed that the seasonal variation in δ13C of the herbivorous gastropods was larger than that of the possible food sources, adding further evidence to the seasonal change in food sources of the herbivorous gastropods. This seasonal change in food use appears to correspond to the change in seaweed biomass, suggesting that herbivorous gastropods flexibly change their diets depending on food availability.

Eosinophilic myocarditis is rare in children, and consequently, it is difficult to diagnose eosinophilic myocarditis rapidly. We report the clinical course of acute eosinophilic myocarditis with pericarditis in two adolescent boys and their associated electrocardiograms. The two patients, 13- and 14-year-old boys, developed cardiomegaly and chest pain with vomiting. On examination by two-dimensional echocardiography, thickening of the ventricular septum and a pericardial effusion were detected. The eosinophil count had increased by the pericardial effusion. Acute eosinophilic myocarditis often complicates a moderate to severe pericardial effusion owing to acute pericarditis. A cellular fraction analysis of the pericardial effusion is easy and useful for the diagnosis of eosinophilic myocarditis. Some serial changes in the electrocardiogram occur during each stage of acute eosinophilic myocarditis. They are induced by eosinophilic granules, which are capable of inducing tissue damage and dysfunction, and those changes in the electrocardiogram resemble the changes after an acute myocardial infarction. It is important to know the characteristics of eosinophilic myocarditis in order to prevent lethal complications.

In this article we examine the role of local politicians in affecting national-level election outcomes by focusing on the drastic municipal mergers in Japan that took place in the early 2000s. Specifically, we argue that the political party that relies most extensively on local politicians' efforts for electoral mobilization and monitoring will suffer an electoral slump when municipalities are merged and the number of municipal politicians is swiftly reduced. We empirically show that municipalities with a history of mergers exhibit significantly lower voter turnout and obtain a smaller vote share for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in national elections when compared to other municipalities without an experience of mergers. This result indicates that municipal politicians are indispensable human resources for LDP candidates running for the national parliament.

Indentation deformation of glass under a sharp diamond indenter causes cracking during and after a loading–unloading cycle. To get a deeper insight into the indentation cracking in glass, it is critical to understand the elastic and inelastic deformation behavior of glass under the indenter. In this study, in situ observations during Vickers indentations are carried out for silica, soda-lime, and lead–silicate glasses. It is found that the true contact area during indentation is different from the area estimated from the contact depth and the indenter geometry, and that the ridges of a Vickers indenter affect the contact shape during indentation. The contact region of silicate glasses under a Vickers indenter is not a regular square but a concave square. This results in edge cracking during indentation. It is concluded that the contact shape and the deformation mechanism of glass under the indenter are closely related to its cracking behaviors.

Amyloid fibrils, which are linear proteins with widths of less than 10 nm and lengths of more than 1 μm, were used as an amorphous carbon template for graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) synthesized by solid-phase graphitization using liquid Ga as the catalyst. The crystal quality of the GNRs improved with increasing synthesis temperature. However, the shape of the GNRs synthesized at temperatures higher than 900 °C became broader, losing the original amyloid shape, whereas the GNRs synthesized at 900 °C seemed to maintain the original amyloid shape in the SEM observation. The conducting paths of GNRs synthesized at 900 °C were found to be slightly diffused outside the topography of the GNRs in the conductive atomic force microscopy map. In addition, some of the sapphire terrace edges of the substrate showed conductivity, which indicates that the growth mechanism of graphene on a sapphire substrate might be a step-flow growth mode.

The synaptic terminals' withdrawal from the somata and proximal dendrites of injured motoneuron by the processes of glial cells following facial nerve axotomy has been the subject of research for many years. This phenomenon is referred to as synaptic stripping, which is assumed to help survival and regeneration of neurons via reduction of synaptic inputs. Because there is no disruption of the blood–brain barrier or infiltration of macrophages, the axotomy paradigm has the advantage of being able to selectively investigate the roles of resident glial cells in the brain. Although there have been numerous studies of synaptic stripping, the detailed mechanisms are still under debate. Here we suggest that the species and strain differences that are often present in previous work might be related to the current controversies of axotomy studies. For instance, the survival ratios of axotomized neurons were generally found to be higher in rats than in mice. However, some studies have used the axotomy paradigm to follow the glial reactions and did not assess variations in neuronal viability. In the first part of this article, we summarize and discuss the current knowledge on species and strain differences in neuronal survival, glial augmentation and synaptic stripping. In the second part, we focus on our recent findings, which show the differential involvement of microglia and astrocytes in synaptic stripping and neuronal survival. This article suggests that the comparative study of the axotomy paradigm across various species and strains may provide many important and unexpected discoveries on the multifaceted roles of microglia and astrocytes in injury and repair.

This study examines the effect of valency (defined as the associative value that represents the number of two-kanji words containing in first or second position the first-positional kanji of the word) on the recognition of two-kanji words in Japanese. Lexical decisions were 24 ms faster for words in the high-valency condition than in the low-valency condition, but were 26 ms slower for nonwords in the high-valency condition than in the low-valency condition. While these results suggested a significant interaction between valency and wordness, a regression analysis indicated that the frequency and valency of the first constituent kanji are significant factors for word recognition, and that the frequency of the first constituent kanji is a significant factor for nonword recognition. The secondary-frequency effect hypothesis is put forth to explain the effects of valency and other variables on lexical decision time.

We report Hall effect of charge carriers accumulated in organic field-effect transistors. Rubrene (C42H28) single crystals are shaped in to the Hall-bar congiguration in the devices so that the Hall signal is appropriately detected in external magnetic fields. It turned out that inverse Hall coefficient, having a positive sign, is close to the amount of electric-field induced charge upon the hole accumulation. The observation of the normal Hall effect means that the electromagnetic character of the surface charge is not of hopping carriers but resembles that of a two-dimensional hole-gas system. The direct access to the density of mobile charge carriers provides a tool to understand nontrivial features of organic field-effect transistors such as gate electric field dependent mobility.

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for imaging the interface between carbon nanofibers (CNFs) and the underlying substrate is presented. By irradiating the electron beam perpendicular to the substrate, bright contrast is observed at the region where a small gap exists between the CNF and substrate. The energy-diameter diagram for the observation of the bright contrast is derived, which can be understood by using the theory of electron penetration into solid. Monte Carlo simulation is performed to reproduce the experimental observation based on our model, and the contrast sensitivity to the gap height is discussed.

Intrinsic charge transport of copper phthalocyanine single-crystal field-effect transistors is measured as function of temperature up to above 100°C. The conduction of the accumulated carriers shows hopping-type transport, so that the field-effect mobility increases with temperature following activation-type temperature dependence throughout the measured temperature region. Due to excellent material stability at the high temperature, the mobility values are precisely reproduced after the heat cycles.

Although intrusions of glass fragments into the frontal sinuses are not uncommon in traffic accidents, a case with a tooth in the frontal sinus has never been reported. We report a patient with traumatic inclusion of an incisor tooth in the contralateral frontal sinus. Radiographic investigations demonstrated the tooth in the frontal sinus though no skin damage was recognized on the upper face. The usefulness of CT scan in localizing the missing tooth after facial trauma and its route of entry into the contralateral frontal sinus is discussed.

The process of the phase transformation of evaporated films of TiO0.5 has been demonstrated by in situ annealing using an electron microscope. Single crystals of the δ-phase, whose structure is identified with Andersson's hexagonal model, precipitate during annealing. Crystal structure images in cooperation with the calculated images reveal that the inner parts of the δ-phase crystal have various thickness. The transition structures I and II having ordered vacancies of titanium and oxygen respectively also appear on annealing. The difference in the distortion of their lattices from the parent rock-salt type lattice suggests that the effective atomic volume of titanium is larger than that of oxygen in the crystal of the transition structure. The observed transformations, α-phase → δ ;phase → transition structure, are explained by consideration of the structural relationships among these phases.