The Asuka-90 meteorites collection from Antarctica: Searching, initial processing and preliminary identification

Over 2400 meteorites have been collected by the Japanese Antarctic Research Expeditions (JARE) on the bare icefield around the Sor Rondane Mountains in Queen Maud Land, East Antarctica, since 1986. The Asuka wintering party of JARE-30 (1989-91) carried out a meteorite search during a geological survey, and collected 48 meteorites on the bare icefield around Mt. Balchen in the eastern part of the mountains on November 1990. During the initial processing, the specimens were officially named the Asuka (A)-9001 to A-9048,in order of discovery. The Asuka-90 meteorites collection was cataloged by the National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR) with details of find, weight, dimensions, brief identification and classification data, and comments. According to the preliminary identification, the Asuka-90 meteorites include one achondrite and 47 ordinary chondrites, the total weight being 11.48kg. The largest specimen is an L chondrite of about 3.27kg. The Asuka-90 meteorites included no irons, no stony-irons and no carbonacous chondrites

Relations between Sleep Time and SNS Texts

Sleeping habits are one of the major issues in today’s healthcare. In this paper, we consider the problem of analyzing sleeping habits of people using social networking service (SNS) texts. As the first step toward predicting user’s sleeping time using SNS texts, we assume that the time span between the user’s last post in one day and the first post the next day can be used as a pseudo-indicator for the user’s sleeping time if the user posts the text sufficiently frequently. We call such tweet time spans “pseudo-sleeping time” if the first tweet of the next day include “Good morning” or similar words. We try to predict such pseudo-sleeping time using the text (tweet) of the preceding tweet (i.e., the last tweet of the day). Preliminary experiments show that the tweet text contains some useful information to predict the user’s pseudo-sleeping time

A Proposal of the Fingerprint Optimization Method for the Fingerprint-Based Indoor Localization System with IEEE 802.15.4 Devices

Nowadays, human indoor localization services inside buildings or on underground streets are in strong demand for various location-based services. Since conventional GPS cannot be used, indoor localization systems using wireless technologies have been extensively studied. Previously, we studied a fingerprint-based indoor localization system using IEEE802.15.4 devices, called FILS15.4, to allow use of inexpensive, tiny, and long-life transmitters. However, due to the narrow channel band and the low transmission power, the link quality indicator (LOI) used for fingerprints easily fluctuates by human movements and other uncontrollable factors. To improve the localization accuracy, FILS15.4 restricts the detection granularity to one room in the field, and adopts multiple fingerprints for one room, considering fluctuated signals, where their values must be properly adjusted. In this paper, we present a fingerprint optimization method for finding the proper fingerprint parameters in FILS15.4 by extending the existing one. As the training phase using the measurement LQI, it iteratively changes fingerprint values to maximize the newly defined score function for the room detecting accuracy. Moreover, it automatically increases the number of fingerprints for a room if the accuracy is not sufficient. For evaluations, we applied the proposed method to the measured LQI data using the FILS15.4 testbed system in the no. 2 Engineering Building at Okayama University. The validation results show that it improves the average detection accuracy (at higher than 97%) by automatically increasing the number of fingerprints and optimizing the values

Prognostic value of RKIP and p-ERK in gastric cancer

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway participates in several steps of tumour development and is considered a prominent therapeutic target for the design of chemotherapeutic agents. We evaluated the expressions of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), mitogen-activated protein kinase (MEK), an upstream regulator of ERK, and Raf kinase inhibitor protein (RKIP), and investigated correlations of these expressions with clinicopathological features and outcomes in gastric cancer.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Tumour samples were obtained from 105 patients with gastric adenocarcinomas who underwent radical gastrectomy. The expressions of phosphorylated ERK (p-ERK), phosphorylated MEK (p-MEK), and RKIP were analysed by immunohistochemical staining.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Expression of RKIP, p-MEK, and p-ERK was found in 69 (66%), 54 (51%), and 64 (61%) of all tumours, respectively. RKIP expression negatively correlated with the depth of invasion (p < 0.001), lymph node involvement (p = 0.028), and Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) stage (p = 0.007). RKIP expression was associated with significantly longer relapse-free survival (RFS) (p = 0.0033), whereas p-MEK was not (p = 0.79). Patients with p-ERK expression had slightly, but not significantly shorter RFS than those without such expression (p = 0.054). Patients with positive p-ERK and negative RKIP expression had significantly shorter RFS than the other patients (p < 0.001). The combination of RKIP and p-ERK expression was an independent prognostic factor (hazard ratio, 2.4; 95% confidence interval, 1.3 - 4.6; p = 0.008).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our results demonstrated that loss of RKIP was associated with tumour progression and poor survival. Negative RKIP expression combined with positive p-ERK expression was an independent predictor of poor outcomes in patients with gastric cancer.</p

Classification of Smartphone Application Reviews Using Small Corpus Based on Bidirectional LSTM Transformer

This paper provides the classification of the review texts on a smartphone application posted on social media. We propose a high performance binary classification method (positive/negative) of review texts, which uses the bidirectional long short-term memory (biLSTM) self-attentional Transformer and is based on the distributed representations created by unsupervised learning of a manually labelled small review corpus, dictionary, and an unlabeled large review corpus. The proposed method obtained higher accuracy as compared to the existing methods, such as StarSpace or the Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformer (BERT)

Risk factors for lens opacification in Icelanders 50 years and older. Reykjavík Eye Study

Neðst á síðunni er hægt að nálgast greinina í heild sinni með því að smella á hlekkinn View/OpenObjective: To examine risk factors for cortical and nuclear lens opacification in older citizens of Reykjavík. Material and methods: 1045 persons, 583 females and 462 males age 50 years and older were randomly sampled and underwent detailed eye examination including slit-lamp and Scheimpflug photography of the lens and answered a questionnaire. The photographs were used for the diagnosis of lens opacification. The data was analysed using a logistic regression model. Results: An increased risk was found with ageing for developing both nuclear (OR=1.23: 95% CI 1.19-1.26: p<.001) and severe cortical lens opacification (OR=1.19: 95% CI 1.16-1.22: p<.001). Cigarette-smoking for more than 20 pack-years increased risk for nuclear lens opacification (OR=2.52: 95% CI 1.52-4.13: p<.001) as well as pipe- or cigar-smoking (OR=2.48: 95% CI 1.20-5.12: p<.05). Those who spent more than 4 hours/day outside on weekdays in their 20's - 30's and 40's and 50's were found to have increased risk of severe cortical lens opacification (OR=2.80: 95% CI 1.01-7.80: p<.05 and OR=2.91: 95% CI 1.13-9.62: p<.05, respectively). Systemic corticosteroid use was also found to be a significant risk factor for cortical lens opacification (OR=3.70: 95% CI 1.43-9.56: p<.05). Conclusion: In our study, ageing is the main risk factor for both cortical and nuclear lens opacification. Important modifiable risk factors are smoking for nuclear lens opacification and systemic corticosteroid use and outdoor exposure for cortical lens opacification.Tilgangur: Í rannsókninni voru skoðaðir áhættuþættir fyrir skýmyndun í kjarna og berki augasteins meðal Reykvíkinga 50 ára og eldri. Efniviður og aðferðir: Þátt tóku 583 konur og 462 karlar sem öll voru 50 ára eða eldri og höfðu verið valin með slembiúrtaki úr Þjóðskrá. Þátttakendur svöruðu spurningalista um heilsufar og lífsvenjur. Þeir gengust undir augnskoðun, meðal annars á augasteinum sem voru skoðaðir í raufarsmásjá og myndaðir með Scheimpflug-tækni. Í þessari rannsókn var sérstaklega litið á þá hópa sem höfðu væga byrjandi skýmyndun einskorðaða við börk (stig I), þá sem höfðu svæsnari skýmyndun í berki einvörðungu (stig II-III) og loks alla þá sem höfðu ský í kjarna augasteins. Gögnin voru greind með lógistískri aðhvarfsgreiningu. Niðurstöður: Hærri aldur reyndist vera áhættuþáttur fyrir bæði skýmyndun í kjarna og berki. Reykingar juku hættuna á skýmyndun í kjarna. Þeir sem voru að meðaltali meira en fjórar klukkustundir á dag úti við á virkum dögum var hættara við svæsnari skýmyndun í berki, sem og þeim sem höfðu almennt notað barkstera. Lithimnur af blönduðum lit, fjarsýni, neysla síldar, sardína og rækja auk jurtaolíu, reyndust allt vera verndandi þættir gegn skýmyndun í berki. Ályktanir: Aldur er afgerandi áhættuþáttur fyrir skýmyndun bæði í kjarna og berki. Reykingar auka áhættu á skýmyndun í kjarna en hafa ekki áhrif á skýmyndun í berki. Þessu er öfugt farið með almenna notkun barkstera, mikla útiveru, fjarsýni og neyslu ýmissa fæðutegunda. Ólíkir áhættuþættir hafa áhrif á skýmyndun mismunandi hluta augasteinsins

Adsorption of Urinary Proteins on the Conventionally Used Urine Collection Tubes: Possible Effects on Urinary Proteome Analysis and Prevention of the Adsorption by Polymer Coating

One possible factor determining recovery of trace amount of protein biomarker candidates during proteome analyses could be adsorption on urine tubes. This issue, however, has not been well addressed so far. Recently, a new technical device of surface coating by poly(2-methacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine (MPC)-co-n-butyl methacrylate (BMA)) (poly(MPC-co-BMA)) has been developed mainly to prevent the adsorption of plasma proteins. We assessed whether conventionally used urine tubes adsorb trace amount of urinary proteins and, if any, whether the surface coating by poly(MPC-co-BMA) can minimize the adsorption. Proteinuric urine samples were kept in poly(MPC-co-BMA)-coated and noncoated urine tubes for 15 min and possibly adsorbed proteins and/or peptides onto urine tubes were analyzed by SDS-PAGE, 2-DE, and the MALDI-TOF MS. It was found that a number of proteins and/or peptides adsorb on the conventionally used urine tubes and that surface coating by poly(MPC-co-BMA) can minimize the adsorption without any significant effects on routine urinalysis test results. Although it remains to be clarified to what extent the protein adsorption can modify the results of urinary proteome analyses, one has to consider this possible adsorption of urinary proteins when searching for trace amounts of protein biomarkers in urine