EDUCATION ON DISASTER PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE OF DENTAL HYGIENISTS IN VOCATIONAL UNIVERSITIES/COLLEGES IN JAPAN

Due to the increasing global frequency of disasters, disaster preparedness training is becoming more important. The fact that Japan has many earthquakes is well known worldwide. In the field of nursing, the importance of disaster preparedness education in universities has gradually increased in Japan. Many people lose their homes in earthquakes and have to live in shelters. The relationship between pneumonia and the oral cavity environment is understood; for example, in certain shelter environments that provide an insufficient water supply, oral cavity hygiene is affected. Keeping a clean oral cavity prevents death from pneumonia, especially in elderly people. To keep a clean oral cavity, the role of dental hygienists is important. In Japan, education on disaster preparedness and response for dental hygienists in vocational university/college is rarely provided. Therefore, this is the focus of our research. We administered an anonymous questionnaire survey to 119 dental hygienist training schools by mailing them surveys asking about their education on disaster preparedness and response for dental hygienists. In this paper, we report on the education on disaster preparedness and response for dental hygienists in vocational universities and colleges in Japan.&nbsp

THE FIRST-YEAR EXPERIENCE INCORPORATING THE ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT APPROACH AT KOBE TOKIWA UNIVERSITY

In Japan, the first-year experience that rapidly gained attention at the beginning of the twenty-first century was clearly positioned in 2008 as formal undergraduate educational programs (The Central Council for Education, 2008). The term “first-year experience” is defined as a “comprehensive educational program primarily created for freshmen” to promote their smooth transition from high school to university and to create successful academic and social experiences at university (The Central Council for Education, 2008). Thus, the first-year experience is a specific program with activities implemented by diverse universities to fit the unique needs of their first-year university students (Tachi, 2008). One important issue of the first-year experience within the undergraduate program has been identifying ways to guarantee the quality of education. Kobe Tokiwa University’s four departments (medical technology, nursing, child education, and dental hygiene) require students to gain strong abilities to collaborate and cooperate in teams to be responsible for future team medical care or a school as a team. Therefore, in 2018, the university implemented a first-year experience program that incorporated the organizational development approach instead of the conventional human resource development approach. This article shares our experiences using a first-year experience program that incorporates the organizational development approach, and we discuss the potential of this approach for the first-year experience. To estimate the effectiveness of organizational development approach in FYE, we analyzed and compared the interim data that were reported on students in 2017 and 2018 using a text mining method. By introducing this “Organizational Development” approach into the students’ first-year educational curriculum, results suggest that it is possible to “deepen self-understanding” and “cooperate in self-understanding of others” at an early stage of a student’s enrollment. It is thought that this approach could become another effective method for universities to use for training professional persons as interpersonal aid workers

ANALYZING STUDENTS’ COURSE EVALUATIONS USING TEXT MINING: VISUALIZATION OF OPEN-ENDED RESPONSES IN A CO-OCCURRENCE NETWORK

Japan’s Standards for Establishment of Universities states, “A university shall conduct organized training and research to improve the content and methodology used in courses at said university.” Based on this, most of Japan’s universities have recently implemented course evaluations by students. Student course evaluations are intended to quantify and provide an understanding of students’ satisfaction with their courses, and all universities are implementing them as one way to objectively evaluate courses. These course evaluations often combine computer-graded multiple-choice items with open-ended items. Computer-graded multiple-choice items are easy to assess because the responses are quantifiable. However, open-ended items’ responses are text data, and objectively grasping the students’ general tendencies is challenging. Moreover, it is difficult to avoid risking arbitrary and subjective interpretations of the data by the analysts who summarize them. Therefore, to avoid these risks as much as possible, the so-called “text-mining” method or “quantitative content analysis” approach might be useful. This study shares our experiences using text mining to analyze students’ course evaluations through the visualization of their open-ended responses in a co-occurrence network, and we discuss the potential of this method.&nbsp

β-delayed neutron and γ-ray spectroscopy of ^<17>C utilizing spin-polarized ^<17>B

Excited states in ^C were investigated through the measurement of β -delayed neutrons and γ rays emitted in the β decay of ^B. In the measurement, three negative-parity states and two inconclusive states were identified in ^C above the neutron threshold energy, and seven γ lines were identified in a β -delayed multiple neutron emission of the ^Bβ decay. From these transitions, the β-decay scheme of ^B was determined. In particular, a de-excitation 1766-keVγ line from the first excited state of ^C was observed in coincidence with the emitted β-delayed neutrons, and this changes the previously reported β-decay scheme of ^B and level structure of ^C. In the present work, the β-NMR technique is combined with the β-delayed particle measurements using a fragmentation-induced spin-polarized ^B beam. This new scheme allows us to determine the spin parity of β-decay feeding excited states based on the difference in the discrete β-decay asymmetry parameters, provided the states are connected through the Gamow-Teller transition. In this work, I^π=1/2^−, 3/2^−, and (5/2^−) are assigned to the observed states at E_x = 2.71(2), 3.93(2), and 4.05(2) MeV in ^C, respectively

GPRC5A facilitates cell proliferation through cell cycle regulation and correlates with bone metastasis in prostate cancer

The prognosis of patients with progressive prostate cancers that are hormone refractory and/or have bone metastasis is poor. Multiple therapeutic targets to improve prostate cancer patient survival have been investigated, including orphan GPCRs. In our study, we identified G Protein-Coupled Receptor Class C Group 5 Member A (GPRC5A) as a candidate therapeutic molecule using integrative gene expression analyses of registered data sets for prostate cancer cell lines. Kaplan-Meier analysis of TCGA data sets revealed that patients who have high GPRC5A expression had significantly shorter overall survival. PC3 prostate cancer cells with CRISPR/Cas9-mediated GPRC5A knockout exhibited significantly reduced cell proliferation both in vitro and in vivo. RNA-seq revealed that GPRC5A KO PC3 cells had dysregulated expression of cell cycle-related genes, leading to cell cycle arrest at the G2/M phase. Furthermore, the registered gene expression profile data set showed that the expression level of GPRC5A in original lesions of prostate cancer patients with bone metastasis was higher than that without bone metastasis. In fact, GPRC5A KO PC3 cells failed to establish bone metastasis in xenograft mice models. In addition, our clinical study revealed that GPRC5A expression levels in prostate cancer patient samples were significantly correlated with bone metastasis as well as the patient's Gleason score (GS). Combined assessment with the immunoreactivity of GPRC5A and GS displayed higher specificity for predicting the occurrence of bone metastasis. Together, our findings indicate that GPRC5A can be a possible therapeutic target and prognostic marker molecule for progressive prostate cancer