G. M. マイヤー著, 麻田四郎・山宮不二人共訳「国際貿易と経済発展」

書

Incarcerated Amyand’s Hernia

A 76-year-old Japanese man was transferred to our hospital to undergo rehabilitation after traffic accident-related injuries. Seven days post-admission, he presented with abdominal pain and an 8-cm lump in the right inguinal region. He was diagnosed with an incarcerated inguinal hernia and underwent elective surgery the day after manual reduction. He had a normal vermiform appendix which was observed to have adhered to the right indirect hernia sac. An appendectomy and hernia repair using lightweight mesh were performed. We discuss the surgical management of this rare incarcerated Amyand’s hernia and the relevant literature

Developmental Trajectories of Multicompetent Writers:An Ecological-Historical Approach to L1/L2 Writing Abilities and L2 Proficiency

This mixed-methods study reports how Japanese multilingual writers develop their first-language (L1) Japanese and (second-language) L2 English writing abilities and L2 proficiency over the course of their university life. The study draws on Cook’s (2016a) multicompetence perspective, which emphasizes that knowledge of more than one language within a person’s mind is interdependent and distinct from monolingual competence. The study was framed by Gaddis’s (2002) ecological-historical approach to explore both regularity and randomness in the developmental trajectories of 22 participants observed yearly over four years. Data included scores on L2 proficiency tests, L1 and L2 compositions rated by two writing specialists, and in-depth interviews about participants’ beliefs about L1 and L2 writing. Statistically, k-means cluster analysis probed possible patterns in chronological changes caused by the dynamic interaction between L2 writing ability, L2 proficiency, and L1 writing ability. Over four years (a) a lack of L1 and L2 writing instruction in high school made university L2 writing instruction especially effective in improving participants’ L1 and L2 writing ability; (b) shared patterns were found in longitudinal changes in the three variables, supporting the multilingual repertoire perspective; (c) internal and external factors such as personal goals and job hunting affected some participants in a complex and unique manner, suggesting that L2 writers grow both regularly and randomly as they respond to each environment; and (d) the ecological-historical approach was particularly useful in this exploration

X-Ray Reflection Nebulae with Large Equivalent Widths of Neutral Iron Ka Line in the Sgr C Region

This paper reports on the first results of the Suzaku observation in the Sgr C region. We detected four diffuse clumps with strong line emission at 6.4keV, Ka from neutral or low-ionized Fe. One of them, M359.38-0.00, is newly discovered with Suzaku. The X-ray spectra of the two bright clumps, M359.43-0.07 and M359.47-0.15, after subtracting the Galactic center diffuse X-ray emission (GCDX), exhibit strong Ka line from FeI with large equivalent widths (EWs) of 2.0-2.2keV and clear Kb of FeI. The GCDX in the Sgr C region is composed of the 6.4keV- and 6.7keV-associated components. These are phenomenologically decomposed by taking relations between EWs of the 6.4keV and 6.7keV lines. Then the former EWs against the associated continuum in the bright clump regions are estimated to be 2.4(+2.3_-0.7)keV. Since the two different approaches give similar large EWs of 2keV, we strongly suggest that the 6.4keV clumps in the Sgr C region are due to X-ray reflection/fluorescence (the X-ray reflection nebulae).Comment: Accepted for publication in PAS

Impact of astrophysical effects on the dark matter mass constraint with 21cm intensity mapping

We present an innovative approach to constraining the non-cold dark matter model using a convolutional neural network (CNN). We perform a suite of hydrodynamic simulations with varying dark matter particle masses and generate mock 21cm radio intensity maps to trace the dark matter distribution. Our proposed method complements the traditional power spectrum analysis. We compare our CNN classification results with those from the power spectrum of the differential brightness temperature map of 21cm radiation, and find that the CNN outperforms the latter. Moreover, we investigate the impact of baryonic physics on the dark matter model constraint, including star formation, self-shielding of HI gas, and UV background model. We find that these effects may introduce some contamination in the dark matter constraint, but they are insignificant when compared to the realistic system noise of the SKA instruments.Comment: 17 pages, 12 figure

Bifocal contact lenses: History, types, characteristics, and actual state and problems

Since people who wear contact lenses (CL) often continue using CL even when they develop presbyopia, there are growing expectations for bifocal CL. To understand actual state and problems, history, types, and their characteristics are summarized in this review. Bifocal CL have a long history over 70 years. Recently, bifocal CL have achieved remarkable progress. However, there still is an impression that prescription of bifocal CL is not easy. It should also be remembered that bifocal CL have limits, including limited addition for near vision, as well as the effects of aging and eye diseases in the aged, such as dry eye, astigmatism, cataract, etc. Analysis of the long-term users of bifocal CL among our patients has revealed the disappearance of bifocal CL that achieved unsatisfactory vision and poor contrast compared with those provided by other types of CL. Changing the prescription up to 3 times for lenses of the same brand may be appropriate. Lenses that provide poor contrast sensitivity, suffer from glare, or give unsatisfactory vision have been weeded out. The repeated replacement of products due to the emergence of improved or new products will be guessed

Free energy molecular dynamics simulations of pulsed-laser-irradiated SiO2: Si–Si bond formation in a matrix of SiO2

Recent experiments have shown that pure Si structures in a matrix of SiO2 can be formed by electron excitation techniques, with appealing applications in nanotechnology. Our ab initio simulations provide an insight into the underlying mechanism, showing that electron excitations weaken Si–O bonds in SiO2, dislodge O atoms and allow Si dangling bonds to reconstruct in stable Si–Si structures below the melting temperature. Differences in diffusivity of O (fast) and Si (slow) are shown to play a decisive role in the process

An efficient early-pooling protocol for environmental DNA metabarcoding

Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding, a method that applies high-throughput sequencing and universal primer sets to eDNA analysis, has been a promising approach for efficient, comprehensive biodiversity monitoring. However, significant money-, labor-, and time-costs are still required for performing eDNA metabarcoding. In this study, we assessed the performance of an “early-pooling” protocol (a protocol based on 1st PCR tagging) to reduce the experimental costs of library preparation for eDNA metabarcoding. Specifically, we performed three experiments to investigate the effects of 1st PCR-tagging and 2nd PCR-indexing protocols on the community composition revealed by eDNA metabarcoding, the effects of post-1st PCR exonuclease purification on tag jumping (corresponds to index hopping in 2nd PCR indexing), and the effects of the number of PCR replicates and the eDNA template volume on the number of detected OTUs. Analyses of 204 eDNA libraries from three natural aquatic ecosystems and one mock eDNA sample showed that (i) 1st PCR tagging does not cause clear biases in the outcomes of eDNA metabarcoding, (ii) post-1st PCR exonuclease purification reduces the risk of tag jumping, and (iii) increasing the eDNA template volume may increase the number of detected OTUs and reduce variations in the detected community compositions, similar to increasing the number of 1st PCR replicates. Our results show that an early-pooling protocol with post-1st PCR exonuclease purification and an increased amount of the DNA template reduces the risk of tag jumping, the costs for consumables and reagents (except for many tagged 1st PCR primers), and the handling time in library preparation, and produces similar results to a 2nd PCR-indexing protocol. Therefore, once a target metabarcoding region is selected and a set of tagged-1st PCR primers is prepared, the early-pooling protocol provides a cost, labor, and time-efficient approach for processing a large number of samples