PREDICT DIABETES INCIDENCE WITH HBA1C AND OTHER ITEMS

In diabetes screening with hemoglobin A1c in lieu of plasma glucose, the optimum cut-off point for predicting the incidence of diabetes mellitus in the four-year period was examined. In addition, considerations were given on items in the screening and questionnaire aside from hemoglobin A1c, which would be useful in predicting diabetes aside from hemoglobin A1c. The optimum cut-off point of hemoglobin A1c to predict diabetes, based on receiver operating characteristic curve, was 5.3 percent (sensitivity, 84.2%; specificity, 92.1%). Based on the logistic regression analysis, useful items (other than hemoglobin A1c) were alanine aminotransferase and γ-glutamyl transpeptidase. A combined application of hemoglobin A1c with alanine aminotransferase and γ-glutamyl transpeptidase for predicting the incidence of diabetes in the four-year period resulted in the sensitivity of 86.8% and the specificity of 96.3%. When the combined application was compared with the sole use of hemoglobin A1c at 5.3%, the combined use was superior to the latter in terms of both sensitivity and specificity, resulting in the reduction of false positives by more than 50%

The Sonoda–Tajima Cell Collection: A Human Genetics Research Resource with Emphasis on South American Indigenous Populations

The Sonoda–Tajima Cell Collection includes cell samples obtained from a range of ethnic minority groups across the world but in particular from South America. The collection is made all the more valuable by the fact that some of these ethnic populations have since died out, and thus it will be impossible to prepare a similar cell collection again. The collection was donated to our institute, a public cell bank in Japan, by Drs Sonoda and Tajima to make it available to researchers throughout the world. The original cell collection was composed of cryopreserved peripheral blood samples that would obviously have been rapidly exhausted if used directly. We, therefore, immortalized some samples with the Epstein–Barr virus and established B-lymphoblastoid cell lines (B-LCLs). As there is continuing controversy over whether the B-LCL genome is stably maintained, we performed an array comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) analysis to confirm the genomic stability of the cell lines. The array CGH analysis of the B-LCL lines and their parental B cells demonstrated that genomic stability was maintained in the long-term cell cultures. The B-LCLs of the Sonoda–Tajima Collection will therefore be made available to interested scientists around the world. At present, 512 B-LCLs have been developed, and we are willing to increase the number if there is sufficient demand

実践医療用語の語構成要素抽出の試み

Shonan Institute of TechnologyNational Institute for Japanese Language and LinguisticsMejiro UniversitySeinan Jo Gakuin UniversityNational Institute for Japanese Language and LinguisticsSeinan Jo Gakuin University会議名: 言語資源活用ワークショップ2018, 開催地: 国立国語研究所, 会期: 2018年9月4日-5日, 主催: 国立国語研究所 コーパス開発センター医療現場で用いられる電子カルテなどの記録文書（医療記録）に専門用語としての医療用語が大量に含まれている。医療記録に記載された言語情報を正確に理解・活用するためにはこれらの医療用語の理解が必要となる。医療記録に含まれる語には、複数の語からなる複合語や臨時一語も多く、これらは、病名、身体の部位名、処置名、薬剤名等、様々な用語から構成されている。しかし、現在はこの語構成要素の組み合わせのパターンや語構成要素間の関係などが曖昧である。そこで、本研究では複数の語からなる実践医療用語の語構成要素の抽出を試みた。語構成要素の条件を独自で定義した後、ComJisyoV5、と今後公開予定のV6の登録候補語に対象として、MecabMeCab0.996とUniDic-cwj-2.2.0を利用して形態素解析を行った。分割された単語の品詞情報を手がかりにして、単一単位となり得る品詞列を抽出した。次に抽出した候補リスト以外に語構成要素となる品詞列があるかについて検討を行った

Molecular Identification of Rickettsial Endosymbionts in the Non-Phagotrophic Volvocalean Green Algae

Background: The order Rickettsiales comprises Gram-negative obligate intracellular bacteria (also called rickettsias) that are mainly associated with arthropod hosts. This group is medically important because it contains human-pathogenic species that cause dangerous diseases. Until now, there has been no report of non-phagotrophic photosynthetic eukaryotes, such as green plants, harboring rickettsias. Methodology/Principal Findings: We examined the bacterial endosymbionts of two freshwater volvocalean green algae: unicellular Carteria cerasiformis and colonial Pleodorina japonica. Epifluorescence microscopy using 49-6-deamidino-2phenylindole staining revealed the presence of endosymbionts in all C. cerasiformis NIES-425 cells, and demonstrated a positive correlation between host cell size and the number of endosymbionts. Strains both containing and lacking endosymbionts of C. cerasiformis (NIES-425 and NIES-424) showed a.10-fold increase in cell number and typical sigmoid growth curves over 192 h. A phylogenetic analysis of 16 S ribosomal (r)RNA gene sequences from the endosymbionts of C. cerasiformis and P. japonica demonstrated that they formed a robust clade (hydra group) with endosymbionts of various non-arthropod hosts within the family Rickettsiaceae. There were significantly fewer differences in the 16 S rRNA sequences of the rickettsiacean endosymbionts between C. cerasiformis and P. japonica than in the chloroplast 16 S rRNA or 18 S rRNA of the host volvocalean cells. Fluorescence in situ hybridization demonstrated the existence of the rickettsiacea

Characterization and structural investigation of fractal porous-silica over an extremely wide scale range of pore size

We have succeeded in creating Menger sponge-like fractal body, i.e., porous-silica samples with Menger sponge-like fractal geometries, by a novel template method utilizing template particles of alkylketene dimer (AKD) and a sol-gel synthesis of tetramethyl orthosilicate (TMOS). We report here the first experimental results on characterization and structural investigations of the fractal porous-silica samples prepared with various conditions such as calcination temperature and packing condition of the template particles. In order to characterize the fractal porous-silica samples, pore volume distribution, porosity and specific surface area were measured over an extremely wide scale from 1 nm to 100 μm by means of mercury porosimetry, H-1 NMR cryoporometry, and nitrogen gas adsorption experiments together with direct evaluations of cross-sectional fractal dimension D_[cs], size limits of D_[cs]. We have found that the pore volume distribution and specific surface area of the fractal porous-silica samples can be discussed in terms of different fractal porous structures at different scale regions