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 mesoporous ionic solid with 272 Auᴵ₆Agᴵ₃Cuᴵᴵ₃ complex cations in a super huge crystal lattice

Chem. Sci., 2021,12, 11045-11055

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)

Effects of mask fitness and worker education on the prevention of occupational dust exposure

To decrease the incidence of pneumoconiosis, we examined dust protective mask performance and its relation to pulmonary function as well as the effects of worker education on the proper wearing of masks. One hundred and seventy-eight workers from 15 factories subject to dust exposure participated in this study. All participants were interviewed to obtain relevant personal information and underwent both a mask leakage and a pulmonary function test. The mask leakage was expressed as a percentage, with under 10% leakage indicating that the dust protective mask worked efficiently. In addition, 23 workers from 2 factories were educated on how to wear masks properly. The average mask leakage was 24.3%, and 58% of workers wore ineffective masks. Though pulmonary function was almost normal, the percent vital capacity (%VC) tended to be lower depending on the mask leakage. Mask education, which was very easy and took only a short time, dramatically decreased average mask leakage from 32.1% to 10.5% (p0.001). Educating workers to wear masks properly might prevent the worsening of pulmonary function in response to dust exposure. Appropriate mask fitness by education could be useful in preventing the development of pneumoconiosis.</p

Establishment of an Epicutaneously Sensitized Murine Model of Shellfish Allergy and Evaluation of Skin Condition by Raman Microscopy

Background: Shellfish allergy is one of the most common food allergies. Recent studies have shown that sensitization to allergens via the skin is involved in the development of food allergies. In this study, a mouse model of shrimp allergy was generated by epicutaneous sensitization and used to identify skin conditions associated with susceptibility to sensitization. Methods: Four-week-old female BALB/c mice were sensitized by repeated application of 0.1 mg of tropomyosin to tape-stripped skin on days 0, 7, and 15, followed by a challenge on days 28 and 35. Results: Epicutaneously sensitized mice exhibited higher serum levels of tropomyosin-specific IgE on day 15 than control mice. After the oral challenge, model mice had higher anaphylaxis scores and lower rectal temperature. After three tape-strip treatments for sensitization, the skin was analyzed by Raman microscopy. The sensitized mice exhibited lower relative intensities of Raman bands at 399, 915, and 1073 cm−1 than control mice, which could be helpful noninvasive markers in screening for potential sensitization via the skin. Conclusions: An epicutaneous sensitization shellfish allergy model was generated. This model will be useful in studies to elucidate the pathogenesis of skin sensitization. Raman microscopy may also be valuable for capturing subtle skin changes leading to sensitization

Asbestos-Induced Cellular and Molecular Alteration of Immunocompetent Cells and Their Relationship with Chronic Inflammation and Carcinogenesis

Asbestos causes lung fibrosis known as asbestosis as well as cancers such as malignant mesothelioma and lung cancer. Asbestos is a mineral silicate containing iron, magnesium, and calcium with a core of SiO2. The immunological effect of silica, SiO2, involves the dysregulation of autoimmunity because of the complications of autoimmune diseases found in silicosis. Asbestos can therefore cause alteration of immunocompetent cells to result in a decline of tumor immunity. Additionally, due to its physical characteristics, asbestos fibers remain in the lung, regional lymph nodes, and the pleural cavity, particularly at the opening sites of lymphatic vessels. Asbestos can induce chronic inflammation in these areas due to the production of reactive oxygen/nitrogen species. As a consequence, immunocompetent cells can have their cellular and molecular features altered by chronic and recurrent encounters with asbestos fibers, and there may be modification by the surrounding inflammation, all of which eventually lead to decreased tumor immunity. In this paper, the brief results of our investigation regarding reduction of tumor immunity of immunocompetent cells exposed to asbestos in vitro are discussed, as are our findings concerned with an investigation of chronic inflammation and analyses of peripheral blood samples derived from patients with pleural plaque and mesothelioma that have been exposed to asbestos

The anharmonic vibration of Li in lithium amide

A large amplitude rattling-type anharmonic vibration of Li is possible without guest-host type structure, as we report here for tetragonal LiNH2 crystal. The low temperature (0.4–300 K) specific heat capacity and Raman spectroscopy support the phonon model of site-specific Li activities governed by the symmetry of the potential energy distribution around the Li atoms in LiNH2, which yields the anharmonic Li3 vibration (optical) in one direction (either X or Y axis of the crystal), while the Li1 and Li2 atoms remain silent. Our finding may help to correlate ionic conductivity, thermal, and hydrogenation properties of LiNH2

Space demostration of bare electrodynamic tape-tether technology on the sounding rocket S520-25

A spaceflight validation of bare electro dynamic tape tether technology was conducted. A S520-25 sounding rocket was launched successfully at 05:00am on 31 August 2010 and successfully deployed 132.6m of tape tether over 120 seconds in a ballistic flight. The electrodynamic performance of the bare tape tether employed as an atmospheric probe was measured. Flight results are introduced through the present progressive report of the demonstration and the results of flight experiment are examined as the premier report of the international cooperation between Japan, Europe, USA and Australia. Future plans for maturing space tether technology, which will play an important role for future space activities, are also discussed

Preventive effects of betamethasone valerate ointment for radiation-induced severe oral mucositis in patients with oral or oropharyngeal cancer: protocol for a multicentre, phase II, randomised controlled trial (Bet-ROM study)

Introduction: This is a randomised, multi-centre, open-label, phase II study to evaluate the efficacy of betamethasone valerate ointment on radiation-induced oral mucositis in patients with head and neck cancer undergoing concomitant radiotherapy with cisplatin or cetuximab.Methods and analysis: The trial will take place at seven hospitals in Japan. Patients will be randomised (1:1) into betamethasone and control groups after the occurrence of grade 1 oral mucositis. In the betamethasone group, patients will use betamethasone valerate ointment five times a day, in addition to usual oral hygiene guidance. The primary endpoint is the incidence and onset time of grade 3 oral mucositis. The secondary endpoints are the incidence and onset time of grade 2 oral mucositis, incidence and onset time of oral candidiasis, completion of radiation therapy and adverse events. Target accrual is 102 patients with a two-sided type I error rate of 5% and 80% power to detect an 80% risk reduction in the incidence of grade 3 oral mucositis.Ethics and dissemination: This study was approved by the Clinical Research Review Board of Nagasaki University (No. CRB20-009). All participants will be required to provide written informed consent. Findings will be disseminated through scientific and professional conferences and peer-reviewed journal publication. The datasets generated during the study will be available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.Trial registration number: jRCTs071200013

A hydroxypropyl methylcellulose plaque assay for human respiratory syncytial virus

ウイルスの研究において感染性のあるウイルス粒子を正確に定量することは，病原性の評価のみならずウイルスに対する新規治療薬の効果を客観的に評価するために極めて重要な手技である．プラークアッセイ法はウイルス粒子を定量するために不可欠な技術であるが，Respiratory syncytial virus（RSV）において，プラークアッセイ法を安定して行うことはしばしば困難である．今回我々は，overlay material（充填化合物）が細胞増殖に与える影響を中心にRSVおよびhuman metapneumovirus（hMPV）におけるプラークアッセイ法の最適化の検討を行った