Milnacipran affects mouse impulsive, aggressive, and depressive-like behaviors in a distinct dose-dependent manner

Serotonin/noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) are widely used for the treatment for major depressive disorder, but these drugs induce several side effects including increased aggression and impulsivity, which are risk factors for substance abuse, criminal involvement, and suicide. To address this issue, milnacipran (0, 3, 10, or 30 mg/kg), an SNRI and antidepressant, was intraperitoneally administered to mice prior to the 3-choice serial reaction time task, residente-intruder test, and forced swimming test to measure impulsive, aggressive, and depressive-like behaviors, respectively. A milnacipran dose of 10 mg/kg suppressed all behaviors, which was accompanied by increased dopamine and serotonin levels in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) but not in the nucleus accumbens (NAc). Although the most effective dose for depressive-like behavior was 30 mg/kg, the highest dose increased aggressive behavior and unaffected impulsive behavior. Increased dopamine levels in the NAc could be responsible for the effects. In addition, the mice basal impulsivity was negatively correlated with the latency to the first agonistic behavior. Thus, the optimal dose range of milnacipran is narrower than previously thought. Finding drugs that increase serotonin and dopamine levels in the mPFC without affecting dopamine levels in the NAc is a potential strategy for developing novel antidepressants

Single-epoch supernova classification with deep convolutional neural networks

Supernovae Type-Ia (SNeIa) play a significant role in exploring the history of the expansion of the Universe, since they are the best-known standard candles with which we can accurately measure the distance to the objects. Finding large samples of SNeIa and investigating their detailed characteristics have become an important issue in cosmology and astronomy. Existing methods relied on a photometric approach that first measures the luminance of supernova candidates precisely and then fits the results to a parametric function of temporal changes in luminance. However, it inevitably requires multi-epoch observations and complex luminance measurements. In this work, we present a novel method for classifying SNeIa simply from single-epoch observation images without any complex measurements, by effectively integrating the state-of-the-art computer vision methodology into the standard photometric approach. Our method first builds a convolutional neural network for estimating the luminance of supernovae from telescope images, and then constructs another neural network for the classification, where the estimated luminance and observation dates are used as features for classification. Both of the neural networks are integrated into a single deep neural network to classify SNeIa directly from observation images. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method and reveal classification performance comparable to existing photometric methods with multi-epoch observations.Comment: 7 pages, published as a workshop paper in ICDCS2017, in June 201

Reflection-Symmetry Protected Antiferromagnetic Topological Insulator in Three-Dimensional Heavy-Fermion Systems

We study the topological properties of an antiferromagnetic phase with reflection symmetry in three-dimensional heavy-fermion systems. We here propose a reflection-symmetric topological state in the three-dimensional antiferromagnetic phase and demonstrate how the paramagnetic phase changes into the antiferromagnetic topological phase of f -electron materials such as SmB6.Comment: 6pages, 2figure

Resonant Spin-Flavor Conversion of Supernova Neutrinos: Dependence on Electron Mole Fraction

Detailed dependence of resonant spin-flavor (RSF) conversion of supernova neutrinos on electron mole fraction Ye is investigated. Supernova explosion forms a hot-bubble and neutrino-driven wind region of which electron mole fraction exceeds 0.5 in several seconds after the core collapse. When a higher resonance of the RSF conversion is located in the innermost region, flavor change of the neutrinos strongly depends on the sign of 1-2Ye. At an adiabatic high RSF resonance the flavor conversion of bar{nu}_e -> nu_{mu,tau} occurs in Ye 0.5 and inverted mass hierarchy. In other cases of Ye values and mass hierarchies, the conversion of nu_e -> bar{nu}_{mu,tau} occurs. The final bar{nu}_e spectrum is evaluated in the cases of Ye 0.5 taking account of the RSF conversion. Based on the obtained result, time variation of the event number ratios of low bar{nu}_e energy to high bar{nu}_e energy is discussed. In normal mass hierarchy, an enhancement of the event ratio should be seen in the period when the electron fraction in the innermost region exceeds 0.5. In inverted mass hierarchy, on the other hand, a dip of the event ratio should be observed. Therefore, the time variation of the event number ratio is useful to investigate the effect of the RSF conversion.Comment: 16 pages, 33 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review

OPTIMAL PATHWAY IN INNER LANE CURVING DURING MAXIMAL EFFORT SPRINT SPEED SKATING

The purpose of this study was to investigate experimentally the optimal pathway in the inner lane curving during maximal effort sprint skating with reference to changes in skating speed and crossover cycle motion for three different types of pathway by using wide-range three-dimensional motion analysis. This study suggests that the optimal pathway to enter the first inner curve might be to pass through the center of a 4m-wide lane or across a slightly more outer position at the inflection point of the skating oval. Taking the recommended pathway, skaters would improve their crossover technique, especially for the left stroke, and their final lap time could be faster in spite of the disadvantage of the roundabout way

Improvement of the Anaerobic Digestion Performance for Fish Industry Waste Recycles

Poster Sessio