Straight-to-Curvilinear Motion Transition of a Swimming Droplet Caused by the Susceptibility to Fluctuations

泳ぐ水滴はなぜ直進しないのか？. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2021-08-23.In this Letter, a water-in-oil swimming droplet’s transition from straight to curvilinear motion is investigated experimentally and theoretically. An analysis of the experimental results and the model reveal that the motion transition depends on the susceptibility of the droplet’s direction of movement to external stimuli as a function of environmental parameters such as droplet size. The simplicity of the present experimental system and the model suggests implications for a general class of transitions in self-propelled swimmers

ホイクガクセイ ガ エラブ ニユウジ ノ エホン

A lot of children, brought up in IT society, are absorbed in TV and video games. Young people who are weak at thinking, imagining by themselves or keeping company with others are increasing. There are calls for the importance of reading picture books to children who have been brought up in such surroundings since their infancy. This study put special emphasis on babies. We carried out questionnaire to nursery school teachers, students majoring in nursing and their parents for the purpose of researching on what kind of picture books they actually chose and from which point of view they chose them. In addition, we took account of the interviews of some librarians. As a result of this research, the teachers\u27 responses were similar to the students\u27. We wondered if it was because of the effects of nursing class and student teaching. In order to confirm this, we also carried out questionnaire to students majoring in other subjects. From this study, we think it is important for students to enjoy reading a lot of picture books for themselves and to take interest in the pleasure of reading through class and student teaching. We will aim to have our students accumulate some experiences in reading picture books and get abilities of choosing appropriate books according to circumstances from various viewpoints

ホイクナイヨウヒョウゲンオンガクノジッセンニツイテ チュウゴク チンタオシ ヨウジエン ニ オイテ

YOKOI visited the two kindergartens in Quindao City, China Sep.2008 and played panel theater: " Felt Stories." In this paper, we show how the preparations and demonstrations of the panel theater were done and also consider the feedback from the viewpoint of the players\u27 impressions

On the top of ARB N/L type Ca channel blocker leads to less elevation of aldosterone

Synopsis The activation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) is one of the unfavourable characteristics of calcium channel blocker (CCB). N type calcium channel is thought to be involved in renin gene transcription and adrenal aldosterone release. Accordingly, N/L type CCB has a possibility of less elevation of plasma aldosterone concentrations (PAC) among CCBs. In a monotherapy study, we had already demonstrated that N/L type CCB leads to less activation of the RAS compared with L type CCB. The objective of this study is to substantiate the hypothesis that at the condition of additive administration on the top of an angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB), still N/L type CCB leads to less elevation of PAC compared with L type one. Subjects were 60 hypertensives administered with valsartan. As an open label study, amlodipine (L type) or cilnidipine (N/L type) were administered on the top of valsartan (ARB) in a cross-over manner. Results were as follows (valsartan + amlodipine compared with valsartan + cilnidipine): systolic blood pressure (SBP)/diastolic blood pressure (DBP) (mmHg): 132 + − 10/76 + − 10 compared with 131 + − 10/77 + − 9, P = 0.95/0.48, plasma renin activity (PRA) (ng/ml·h): 2.41 + − 2.67 compared with 2.00 + − 1.50 P = 0.20, PAC (pg/ml): 77.3 + − 31.0 compared with 67.4 + − 24.8, P < 0.05, urinary albumin excretion (UAE) (mg/gCr): 105.9 + − 216.1 compared with 73.9 + − 122.2, P < 0.05. Thus, PAC at cilnidipine was significantly lower than those at amlodipine in spite of the comparable BP reductions. Besides, UAE was significantly lower at cilnidipine. In conclusion, on the top of the ARB, it is suggested that cilnidipine administration might lead to less elevation of PAC and reduction in UAE compared with amlodipine

The whole blood transcriptional regulation landscape in 465 COVID-19 infected samples from Japan COVID-19 Task Force

「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19患者由来の血液細胞における遺伝子発現の網羅的解析 --重症度に応じた遺伝子発現の変化には、ヒトゲノム配列の個人差が影響する--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-23.Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a recently-emerged infectious disease that has caused millions of deaths, where comprehensive understanding of disease mechanisms is still unestablished. In particular, studies of gene expression dynamics and regulation landscape in COVID-19 infected individuals are limited. Here, we report on a thorough analysis of whole blood RNA-seq data from 465 genotyped samples from the Japan COVID-19 Task Force, including 359 severe and 106 non-severe COVID-19 cases. We discover 1169 putative causal expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) including 34 possible colocalizations with biobank fine-mapping results of hematopoietic traits in a Japanese population, 1549 putative causal splice QTLs (sQTLs; e.g. two independent sQTLs at TOR1AIP1), as well as biologically interpretable trans-eQTL examples (e.g., REST and STING1), all fine-mapped at single variant resolution. We perform differential gene expression analysis to elucidate 198 genes with increased expression in severe COVID-19 cases and enriched for innate immune-related functions. Finally, we evaluate the limited but non-zero effect of COVID-19 phenotype on eQTL discovery, and highlight the presence of COVID-19 severity-interaction eQTLs (ieQTLs; e.g., CLEC4C and MYBL2). Our study provides a comprehensive catalog of whole blood regulatory variants in Japanese, as well as a reference for transcriptional landscapes in response to COVID-19 infection

Lenvatinib Suppresses Angiogenesis through the Inhibition of both the VEGFR and FGFR Signaling Pathways

Lenvatinib mesilate (lenvatinib) is an oral multiple-receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor that selectively inhibits the kinase activities of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Receptor (VEGFR) 1-3, Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor (FGFR) 1-4, Platelet-Derived Growth Factor Receptor (PDGFR) α, KIT, and RET. The VEGFR and FGFR signaling pathways are the master regulators of normal and tumor angiogenesis. Lenvatinib showed significant activity in patients with radioiodine-refractory thyroid cancer in a Phase III study and is used in the United States, the European Union, and Japan. Moreover, based on Phase II study, lenvatinib has been approved in the United States for the treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma in combination with everolimus. In addition, the efficacy of lenvatinib is being evaluated in other cancers, including hepatocellular carcinoma and endometrial cancer. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the mechanism underlying the clinical activities of lenvatinib by using in vitro and in vivo angiogenesis models.&nbsp;First, we established an in vitro tube formation system, in which capillary-like structures formed on basement membrane extract in response to pro-angiogenic factors. Lenvatinib suppressed tube formation induced by bFGF alone and by bFGF plus VEGF. Furthermore, plasma levels of VEGF and FGF23, pharmacodynamic biomarkers of inhibition of the VEGFR and FGFR signaling pathways, respectively, were up-regulated after the administration of lenvatinib to mice. By contrast, the administration of another VEGFR inhibitor, sorafenib tosylate (sorafenib), up-regulated plasma levels of VEGF but not FGF23. Finally, lenvatinib suppressed bFGF-driven angiogenesis in Matrigel plug assays at low dosage (3 mg/kg), whereas sorafenib did so only at a higher dose (30 mg/kg). These results indicate that lenvatinib inhibits both VEGFR and FGFR in vitro and in vivo. This combined inhibition of both VEGFR and FGFR may lead significant clinical activities.</p

Swimming droplet in 1D geometries, an active Bretherton problem

We investigate experimentally the behavior of self-propelled water-in-oil droplets, confined in capillaries of different square and circular cross-sections. The droplet's activity comes from the formation of swollen micelles at its interface. In straight capillaries the velocity of the droplet decreases with increasing confinement. However at very high confinement, the velocity converges toward a non-zero value, so that even very long droplets swim. Stretched circular capillaries are then used to explore even higher confinement. The lubrication layer around the droplet then takes a non-uniform thickness which constitutes a significant difference with usual flow-driven passive droplets. A neck forms at the rear of the droplet, deepens with increasing confinement, and eventually undergoes successive spontaneous splitting events for large enough confinement. Such observations stress the critical role of the activity of the droplet interface on the droplet's behavior under confinement. We then propose an analytical formulation by integrating the interface activity and the swollen micelles transport problem into the classical Bretherton approach. The model accounts for the convergence of the droplet's velocity to a finite value for large confinement, and for the non-classical shape of the lubrication layer. We further discuss on the saturation of the micelles concentration along the interface, which would explain the divergence of the lubrication layer thickness for long enough droplets, eventually leading to the spontaneous droplet division