FUN WITH NORTH WIND! PHYSICAL-KNOWLEDGE ACTIVITIES FOR 6YEAR OLD PUPILS

The author developed an activity named “fun with the north wind” as a coursework of the first grade of primary school in winter. Children found the activity interesting, and the activity helped children to cooperate well and to make many scientific findings. The author believes that this activity, “fun with the north wind,” is an effective educational tool for the daily life studies on the point that it helps children develop abilities that the subject aims to. Further, the author argues that this activity is also helpful for children to obtain physical knowledge on the point that, as Kamii and Devries suggest, it enhances children’s interest in science and scientific skill through their own findings

PALF: Pre-Annotation and Camera-LiDAR Late Fusion for the Easy Annotation of Point Clouds

3D object detection has become indispensable in the field of autonomous driving. To date, gratifying breakthroughs have been recorded in 3D object detection research, attributed to deep learning. However, deep learning algorithms are data-driven and require large amounts of annotated point cloud data for training and evaluation. Unlike 2D image labels, annotating point cloud data is difficult due to the limitations of sparsity, irregularity, and low resolution, which requires more manual work, and the annotation efficiency is much lower than 2D image.Therefore, we propose an annotation algorithm for point cloud data, which is pre-annotation and camera-LiDAR late fusion algorithm to easily and accurately annotate. The contributions of this study are as follows. We propose (1) a pre-annotation algorithm that employs 3D object detection and auto fitting for the easy annotation of point clouds, (2) a camera-LiDAR late fusion algorithm using 2D and 3D results for easily error checking, which helps annotators easily identify missing objects, and (3) a point cloud annotation evaluation pipeline to evaluate our experiments. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm improves the annotating speed by 6.5 times and the annotation quality in terms of the 3D Intersection over Union and precision by 8.2 points and 5.6 points, respectively; additionally, the miss rate is reduced by 31.9 points

Cyclophosphamide Promotes Arrested Development of the Dental Root in Mice

Cyclophosphamide (CPA) is a commonly used chemotherapeutic agent to treat cancer. Among its many side effects is the well-known consequence on tooth development when administered at early ages. This study elucidated the effects of CPA on development of the mandibular molar in mice. Mice received a single intraperitoneal injection of CPA at different doses and development times. CPA treatment led to weight loss and alopecia but had no effect on disturbances in tooth eruption or crown shape. However, at higher doses, there was arrested root development and early apical foramen closure histologically related to the formation of the cervical loop structure in the apical portion of the root. In cell culture experiments, the Hertwig\u27s epithelial root sheath cell line (HERS01a) was cultured with or without CPA. At high doses of CPA, HERS01a cells showed decreases in E-cadherin expression, while N-cadherin expression was upregulated, indicating that this cadherin switch may promote an epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-like phenomenon. These findings suggest that administration of high doses of CPA can lead to arrested root development of the molars and an EMT-like phenomenon.福岡歯科大学2019年

BIOMECHANICAL CONSIDERATIONS OF TAKEUMA-WALKING IN WATER

"TAKEUMA" is one of Japanese classic style of playing. Usually it is played on land, but in water, one can easier ambulate with TAKEUMA in water, for buoyancy and resistance force. The purposes of this study were to clarify biomechanical features of TAKEUMA-walking in water and to compare the motion characteristics of skilled TAKEUMA players with those of unskilled. The TAKEUMA-walking motions were recorded both in a water tank and on land. It was revealed that the body inclination to the forward direction would be a key feature of the well-trained TAKEUMA-walking, and even in unskilled subjects the relatively greater forward-inclined posture was preserved in water. It is important to handle and hold a TAKEUMA by using upper limbs, especially forearms, when walking with TAKEUMA in water

IL-17F Induces CCL20 in Bronchial Epithelial Cells

IL-17F plays a crucial role in airway inflammatory diseases including asthma, but its function has not been fully elucidated. CCL20 is also involved in allergic airway inflammation, while its regulatory mechanisms remain to be defined. To further identify a novel role of IL-17F, the expression of CCL20 by IL-17F in bronchial epithelial cells and the signaling mechanisms involved were investigated. Bronchial epithelial cells were stimulated with IL-17F, and the levels of CCL20 gene and protein measured, with the effects of the addition of various kinase inhibitors and siRNAs also investigated. IL-17F significantly induced the expression of CCL20 gene and protein. Pretreatment with inhibitors for MEK1/2, Raf1 and MSK1, and overexpression of a Raf1 dominant-negative mutant significantly diminished IL-17F-induced CCL20 production. Moreover, transfection of the siRNAs targeting MSK1, p90RSK, and CREB blocked CCL20 expression. These findings suggest that IL-17F is able to induce CCL20 via Raf1-MEK1/2-ERK1/2-MSK1/p90RSK-CREB signaling pathway in bronchial epithelial cells. The IL-17F/CCL20 axis may be a novel pharmacological target for asthma

Mild inflammation persists in the glenohumeral joint of patients with shoulder instability:Cross-sectional study

OBJECTIVE: Approximately two-thirds of patients with history of shoulder dislocation may develop osteoarthritis (OA) of the glenohumeral joint. However, the biochemical mechanisms underlying the association between dislocation and OA are largely unknown. This study aimed to investigate macrophage markers and inflammatory cytokine expression associated with shoulder instability (SI) in comparison to rotator cuff tears (RCTs). DESIGN: This study included 30 patients with SI and 30 patients with RCTs. Synovial membrane samples were harvested from the rotator interval during the arthroscopic anatomical repair for both groups. The localization of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin (IL)-1β, and cluster of differentiation (CD) 68 in synovial membranes was determined by immunohistochemistry. Transcript-level expressions of the inflammatory cytokines (TNFA and IL1B) and macrophage markers pan-CD68 and -M1 (CD80 and CD86) were quantified. CD80 and CD86 expression in macrophages from the SI group was confirmed using flow cytometry. RESULTS: TNF-α, IL-1β, and CD68 were expressed in the synovial lining layer of the synovial tissue in both groups. In addition, the mRNA expressions of TNFA, IL1B, CD68, and CD80 were significantly higher in the SI group compared to the RCT group (P ​= ​0.012, 0.014, 0.022, 0.003, respectively). In samples from the SI group, 96.3% of CD68+/CD14+ macrophages were CD86-positive, whereas 2.5% of CD68+/CD14+/CD86+ cells were CD80-positive. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with SI had higher mRNA levels of TNFA, IL1B, CD68, and CD80 than those with RCTs. These findings may partially explain the biochemical mechanism underlying the frequent development and progression of osteoarthritis in patients with SI

Development of Subsea Creature Monitoring Station for AUV Exploration Assistance

In this paper, we introduce our recent result on developing a low cost monitoring station. This station is intended to monitor underwater images of subsea creatures wirelessly from a boat in advance before an exploration AUV is put into water. We describe the concept, the design and system integration of the station in the paper. We also present an experimental result that was carried out to test the implemented functions at Suruga bay at 65m water depth.The 2020 International Conference on Artificial Life and Robotics (ICAROB 2020), January 13-16, 2020, B-Con Plaza, Beppu, Oit