The effectiveness of Japan's Negative Interest rate policy

This paper investigates the effect of zero and negative interest rate policy of Japan on the inflation rate and the role of exchange rate in conducting the zero and negative interest rate policy. The disappointing economic performance thus seems primarily due to a series of adverse economic shocks rather than an extraordinary policy error. The empirical analysis is based on, primarily, a stylized VAR model of the Japanese economy with the innovation that the interest rate policy, and the exchange rate—two important parameters for assessing the stance of monetary policy—are allowed to vary over time. Secondly, the estimated VAR model investigates whether alternative interest-rate policy approaches proposed in the literature could have improved macroeconomic performance. Though, Granger causality method has been used in the earlier literature to measure the causation of interest rate on inflation rate and it also used to see the block and instantaneous causality between the systems of variables. Next, using an estimated structural model, I identified a number of adverse shocks occurring after the 1990s. It thus follows that int. rate policy was not solely responsible for the stimulation neither in inflation growth performance nor in increasing the output growth. Aiming for a low inflation level and responding to the economy according to a conventional policy rule provided insufficient insurance against the contractionary shocks that occurred over the 1990s

The role of phosphodiesterase 4B in IL-8/LTB4-induced human neutrophil chemotaxis evaluated with a phosphodiesterase 4B inhibitor

PDE4B was previously shown to be a dominant PDE4 subtype of neutrophils. However, its physiological role in the neutrophil function has not been evaluated. In this study, the inhibitory effects of a phosphodiesterase 4B (PDE4B)-selective inhibitor (compound A) and subtype non-selective PDE4 inhibitors (roflumilast and cilomilast) were evaluated in human peripheral blood cells. Compound A, roflumilast and cilomilast inhibited TNF-α production by LPS-stimulated human mononuclear cells in a similar manner. However, the inhibitory effect of compound A on IL-8 or LTB4-induced chemotactic response of neutrophils was modest even at the highest concentration (10 µmol L-1), whereas roflumilast and cilomilast inhibited IL-8 or LTB4-induced neutrophil chemotaxis. Our results suggest that PDE4B does not play an important role during the chemotactic response of human neutrophils

Sentinel-1 data to support monitoring deforestation in tropical humid forests

In recent years, methodologies for deforestation detection that use satellite data have been developed, primarily using optical data, which cannot detect deforestation in the presence of clouds. In this paper, we discuss a methodology developed to detect deforestation using Sentinel-1 data and that aims to complement typical early warning system based on optical satellite images such as one the Peruvian Government employs. The methodology was applied in three pilot areas in the tropical humid forest of Peru. Sentinel-1 data were acquired in Interferometric Wide Swath (IW) mode and VH polarization. We use a Gamma-Map filter to reduce the speckle noise, and the average of 3 chrono-sequentially continuous images to reduce the multi-temporal variation of the forest backscattering. This produced 6 time series for each pilot area. For the detection of deforestation, we used an algorithm based on the difference and ratio between the images before and after deforestation. The accuracy assessment revealed a user’s accuracy greater than 95%. We also made a multitemporal comparison between our results and the early warning tropical forest loss alerts that use only Landsat data, which showed that until the end of the study period 33.26% of the deforestation we detected was not detected by the early warning alerts that use Landsat data

Bile Duct Regeneration with an Artificial Bile Duct Made of Gelatin Hydrogel Nonwoven Fabrics

Although choledochojejunostomy is the standard technique for biliary reconstruction, there are various associated problems that need to be solved such as reflux cholangitis. Interposition with an artificial bile duct (ABD) to replace the resected bile duct maintains a physiological conduit for bile and may solve this problem. This study investigated the usefulness of an ABD made of gelatin hydrogel nonwoven fabric (GHNF). GHNF was prepared by the solution blow spinning method. The migration and activity of murine fibroblast L929 cells were examined in GHNF sheets. L929 cells migrated into GHNF sheets, where they proliferated and synthesized collagen, suggesting GHNF is a promising scaffold for bile duct regeneration. ABDs made of GHNF were implanted in place of resected bile duct segments in rats. The rats were killed at 2, 6, and 12 weeks postimplantation. The implantation site was histologically evaluated for bile duct regeneration. At postoperative 2 weeks, migrating cells were observed in the ABD pores. The implanted ABD was mostly degraded and replaced by collagen fibers at 6 weeks. Ki67-positive bile duct epithelial cells appeared within the implanted ABD. These were most abundant within the central part of the ABD after 6 weeks. The percentages of Ki67-positive cells were 31.7 ± 9.1% in the experimental group and 0.8 ± 0.6% in the sham operation group at 6 weeks (p < 0.05), indicating that mature biliary epithelial cells at the stump proliferated to regenerate the biliary epithelium. Biliary epithelial cells had almost completely covered the bile duct lumen at 12 weeks (epithelialization ratios: 10.4 ± 6.9% at 2 weeks, 93.1 ± 5.1% at 6 weeks, 99.2 ± 1.6% at 12 weeks). The regenerated epithelium was positive for the bile duct epithelium marker cytokeratin 19. Bile duct regeneration was accompanied by angiogenesis, as evidenced by the appearance of CD31-positive vascular structures. Capillaries were induced 2 weeks after implantation. The number of capillaries reached a maximum at 6 weeks and decreased to the same level as that of normal bile ducts at 12 weeks. These results showed that an ABD of GHNF contributed to successful bile duct regeneration in rats by facilitating the cell migration required for extracellular matrix synthesis, angiogenesis, and epithelialization. Impact Statement Development of an artificial bile duct (ABD) enables physiological biliary reconstruction and may solve clinical problems associated with choledochojejunostomy. In this study, we created ABDs with gelatin hydrogel nonwoven fabric and implanted them in place of resected bile duct in rats. We evaluated the process of bile duct regeneration as well as decomposition of the ABD and demonstrated successful regeneration of resected bile duct, highlighting the possibility of this novel biliary reconstruction method to replace choledochojejunostomy

Pengaruh Komunikasi Terapeutik Perawat Terhadap Kepuasan Pasien Di Rawat Jalan RSUD Jogja

The Objective of this study is to know influence of nurse therapeutic communication to satisfaction of patients satisfaction in RSUD Yogyakarta. The study was a quantitative research methods such as surveys of descriptive inferential research with cross sectional approach. Number of samples in this research is 285 sample in inpatient and 140 in emergency room. The instrument used a questionnaire. Analysis of data using multiple linear regression. This study show that there is the influence of therapeutic communication nurse to satisfaction of outpatients and Emergency room in RSUD Yogyakarta, and orientation phase is a phase that most influence on patient satisfaction. The most influential to therapeutic communication is termination stage

Metabolic syndrome and metabolically unhealthy obesity with cancer mortality

Purpose The association between metabolic syndrome (MetS) and the risk of death from cancer is still a controversial issue. The purpose of this study was to examine the associations of MetS and metabolically unhealthy obesity (MUHO) with cancer mortality in a Japanese population. Methods We used data from the Japan Multi-Institutional Collaborative Cohort Study. The study population consisted of 28,554 eligible subjects (14,103 men and 14,451 women) aged 35–69 years. MetS was diagnosed based on the criteria of the National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III (NCEP-ATP III) and the Japan Society for the Study of Obesity (JASSO), using the body mass index instead of waist circumference. The Cox proportional hazards analysis was used to estimate adjusted hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for total cancer mortality in relation to MetS and its components. Additionally, the associations of obesity and the metabolic health status with cancer mortality were examined. Results During an average 6.9-year follow-up, there were 192 deaths from cancer. The presence of MetS was significantly correlated with increased total cancer mortality when the JASSO criteria were used (HR = 1.51, 95% CI 1.04–2.21), but not when the NCEP-ATP III criteria were used (HR = 1.09, 95% CI 0.78–1.53). Metabolic risk factors, elevated fasting blood glucose, and MUHO were positively associated with cancer mortality (P <0.05). Conclusion MetS diagnosed using the JASSO criteria and MUHO were associated with an increased risk of total cancer mortality in the Japanese population