Enforced Granulocyte/Macrophage Colony-stimulating Factor Signals Do Not Support Lymphopoiesis, but Instruct Lymphoid to Myelomonocytic Lineage Conversion

We evaluated the effects of ectopic granulocyte/macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) signals on hematopoietic commitment and differentiation. Lineage-restricted progenitors purified from mice with the ubiquitous transgenic human GM-CSF receptor (hGM-CSFR) were used for the analysis. In cultures with hGM-CSF alone, hGM-CSFR–expressing (hGM-CSFR+) granulocyte/monocyte progenitors (GMPs) and megakaryocyte/erythrocyte progenitors (MEPs) exclusively gave rise to granulocyte/monocyte (GM) and megakaryocyte/erythroid (MegE) colonies, respectively, providing formal proof that GM-CSF signals support the GM and MegE lineage differentiation without affecting the physiological myeloid fate. hGM-CSFR transgenic mice were crossed with mice deficient in interleukin (IL)-7, an essential cytokine for T and B cell development. Administration of hGM-CSF in these mice could not restore T or B lymphopoiesis, indicating that enforced GM-CSF signals cannot substitute for IL-7 to promote lymphopoiesis. Strikingly, >50% hGM-CSFR+ common lymphoid progenitors (CLPs) and >20% hGM-CSFR+ pro-T cells gave rise to granulocyte, monocyte, and/or myeloid dendritic cells, but not MegE lineage cells in the presence of hGM-CSF. Injection of hGM-CSF into mice transplanted with hGM-CSFR+ CLPs blocked their lymphoid differentiation, but induced development of GM cells in vivo. Thus, hGM-CSF transduces permissive signals for myeloerythroid differentiation, whereas it transmits potent instructive signals for the GM differentiation to CLPs and early T cell progenitors. These data suggest that a majority of CLPs and a fraction of pro-T cells possess plasticity for myelomonocytic differentiation that can be activated by ectopic GM-CSF signals, supporting the hypothesis that the down-regulation of GM-CSFR is a critical event in producing cells with a lymphoid-restricted lineage potential

Utility of Plain Chest Computed Tomography in Diagnosing Cardioembolic Stroke due to Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation

Background：Diagnosing cardioembolic stroke due to paroxysmal atrial fibrillation（PAF）is difficult, mainly due to low detection rate. We evaluated whether left atrial volume, which can be simply measured using non-contrast chest computed tomography（CT-LAV）, can contribute to the diagnosis of cardioembolic stroke due to PAF（PAF-CE）.Methods：Fifty-one consecutive patients with acute ischemic stroke within 24 h of onset were included in this study. Upon admission, we measured the left atrial diameter using transthoracic echocardiography（TTE-LAD）and CT-LAV. Patient background factors such as sex, age, and stroke risk factors were noted as well as brain natriuretic peptide（BNP）value and QTc interval were evaluated on admission. Utilities of BNP value, CT-ALV, and TTE-LAD in PAF-CE diagnosis were compared.Results：Patients were classified into three groups：cerebral thrombosis（CTB）group including large-artery atherosclerosis and small-vessel occlusion（n＝16）, cardioembolic stroke due to non-valvular atrial fibrillation（AF-CE）group（n＝20）, and cardioembolic stroke due to paroxysmal atrial fibrillation（PAF-CE）group（n＝15）. BNP value was highest in the AF-CE group（240.5 pg/mL）, followed by the PAF-CE（187.9 pg/mL）and CTB groups（35.0 pg/mL）（p＜0.001）. There was a significant difference in TTE-LAD among the groups（AF-CE group, 43.8 mm；PAF-CE group, 38.3 mm；CTB group, 34.1 mm）（p＜0.001）. CT-LAV was higher in the AF-CE group（142 mm3）than in the PAF-CE（95.8 mm3）and CTB groups（95.8 mm3）（p＜0.001）. In differentiating PAF-CE, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.867, 0.742, and 0.845 for BNP value, TTE-LAD, and CT-LAV, respectively. A cut-off CT-LAV value of ≥ 69.6 mm3 had a high diagnostic rate（＞80％ of sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy）.Conclusion：CT-LAV can be useful in diagnosing PAF-CE. Further studies with larger sample size are required to confirm our findings and determine better cut-off value for CT-LAV

Hematological studies on iron- and folate-requirements in pregnancy

Hematological changes and serum iron, vitamin B12 and folate levels after administration of iron plus folic acid were com· pared with changes and levels after supplement of iron alone in 100 pregnant women. No hematological benefits by adding folic acid was revealed. It is concluded that folic acid deficiency in pregnant women is mild and routine supplementation of folic acid is not necessary except for proved cases of folate deficiency. As to the reason why folic acid deficiency is so mild and megaloblastic anemia is so rare in Japan, uniformity of dietary habits, i. e. boiled rice as basic food, was discussed.</p

TAT モノガタリ ニ ミラレル タイジン フアン ノ アラワレカタ ノ トクチョウ ニツイテ : ジコ コウテイ イシキ トノ カンレン カラ

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of psychological projective method TAT (Thematic apperception test) as an assessment tool detecting interpersonal anxiety and affirmative self-consciousness on undergraduate students. On the first study, subjects’ narratives to all of TAT cards were analyzed in criteria of evoking high anxiety response and self-affirmatives. Eleven of TAT cards were selected as stimulus cards projecting anxiety and self-affirmative. Subjects responded to an interpersonal-anxiety questionnaire and a self-affirmative questionnaire, and they were asked to make narratives of selected eleven of TAT cards. The result showed that subjects with high interpersonal-anxiety gave narratives of conflicting or keeping a positive interrelationship with others. On the other hand, subjects with high self-affirmative gave narratives of having a positive interrelationship or expressing a positive expectation to their future. For the next study, five of eleven cards were selected in criteria of projecting high self-anxiety and self-affirmative; cards 1, 2, 9GF, 13B and 14 were selected. On the second study, post-TAT questionnaire items were created for feedback to subject’s self-understanding of anxiety or affirmative. And the responses of post-TAT questionnaire items were examined. Result showed that subjects with high-anxiety were sensitive to expression of gazing. Through responding to post-TAT questionnaire items, subjects noticed new aspect of interpersonal relationship and their self-recognition as a result

Screening of sleep apnea based on heart rate variability and long short-term memory

Purpose: Sleep apnea syndrome (SAS) is a prevalent sleep disorder in which apnea and hypopnea occur frequently during sleep and result in increase of the risk of lifestyle-related disease development as well as daytime sleepiness. Although SAS is a common sleep disorder, most patients remain undiagnosed because the gold standard test polysomnography (PSG), is high-cost and unavailable in many hospitals. Thus, an SAS screening system that can be used easily at home is needed. Methods: Apnea during sleep affects changes in the autonomic nervous function, which causes fluctuation of the heart rate. In this study, we propose a new SAS screening method that combines heart rate measurement and long short-term memory (LSTM) which is a type of recurrent neural network (RNN). We analyzed the data of intervals between adjacent R waves (R-R interval; RRI) on the electrocardiogram (ECG) records, and used an LSTM model whose inputs are the RRI data is trained to discriminate the respiratory condition during sleep. Results: The application of the proposed method to clinical data showed that it distinguished between patients with moderate-to-severe SAS with a sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 100%, results which are superior to any other existing SAS screening methods. Conclusion: Since the RRI data can be easily measured by means of wearable heart rate sensors, our method may prove to be useful as an SAS screening system at home

pi+ pi0 Mass Difference in the Hidden Local Symmetry: A Dynamical Origin of Little Higgs

We calculate pi+ pi0 mass difference $\Delta m_\pi^2 \equiv m_{\pi^+}^2 -m_{\pi^0}^2$ in the Hidden Local Symmetry (HLS) model, based on the Wilsonian matching and Wilsonian renormalization-group equations. Even without a1 meson the result agrees well with the experiment in sharp contrast to the conventional approach where the a1 meson plays a crucial role. For large Nf QCD, there arises a large hierarchy between $\Delta m_\pi^2$ and the pi decay constant $F_\pi^2$, $\Delta m_\pi^2/F_\pi^2 \ll 1$, near the critical point where the chiral symmetry gets restored as the vector manifestation and the HLS model becomes a little Higgs model with two sites and two links, with the dynamically generated gauge coupling of the composite rho becoming vanishingly small.Comment: 4 page