教養教育英語科目におけるTOEIC® Speaking and Writingの導入

本論文では，広島大学外国語教育研究センターで実施したTOEIC® Speaking and Writing IP テストの結果を報告する。広島大学が2014年に文部科学省の「スーパーグローバル大学創成支援タイプA：トップ型」を受ける13大学の一つとして認定されたことを受け，本センターでは2016年に小規模編成型英語授業プログラム，HiSPEC プログラムを開始した。本論文で実施報告をするTOEIC® Speaking and Writing IP テストは，このプログラムの成果を評価するために導入されることとなったものである。HiSPEC プログラムは2年後に中止となったが，TOEIC® Speaking and Writing IP テストはその後も通常カリキュラムの下で2019年まで4年連続で実施された。本論文では，2016年から2017年までのHiSPEC プログラムの下でのTOEIC® Speaking and Writing IP テスト実施を振り返り，2018年と2019年の通常カリキュラムの下での実施への移行について，2019年のスコア報告を中心として述べる。スピーキングとライティングの総合的なスコアを見ると，2019年が四年間で最も成果をあげた年であり，比較的短期間で学生のスコアを向上させることができた。しかし，ライティングのみのスコアの向上は，過去3年間の成績に比べて小さいものであった。This paper reports the results of the TOEIC® Speaking and Writing IP test administered by the Institute for Foreign Language Research and Education at Hiroshima University. In response to Hiroshima University’s accreditation by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology as one of the 13 universities involved in the “Top Global University Project” in 2014, the administration of the TOEIC® Speaking and Writing IP test was initiated at our institute to evaluate the outcomes of a small-scale English language accelerator program launched in 2016. The program was discontinued after two years, but the TOEIC® Speaking and Writing IP test continued to be administered for four consecutive years, until 2019. This paper reviews the program from 2016 to 2017 and describes its integration into the mainstream curriculum in 2018 and 2019. When looking at the overall results for speaking and writing, 2019 was the most accomplished year. The results showed that students were able to improve their scores in a relatively short period of time. However, the improvement in writing scores was smaller than those in the previous three years

Diffraction microtomography with sample rotation: influence of a missing apple core in the recorded frequency space

Diffraction microtomography in coherent light is foreseen as a promising technique to image transparent living samples in three dimensions without staining. Contrary to conventional microscopy with incoherent light, which gives morphological information only, diffraction microtomography makes it possible to obtain the complex optical refractive index of the observed sample by mapping a three-dimensional support in the spatial frequency domain. The technique can be implemented in two configurations, namely, by varying the sample illumination with a fixed sample or by rotating the sample using a fixed illumination. In the literature, only the former method was described in detail. In this report, we precisely derive the three-dimensional frequency support that can be mapped by the sample rotation configuration. We found that, within the first-order Born approximation, the volume of the frequency domain that can be mapped exhibits a missing part, the shape of which resembles that of an apple core. The projection of the diffracted waves in the frequency space onto the set of sphere caps covered by the sample rotation does not allow for a complete mapping of the frequency along the axis of rotation due to the finite radius of the sphere caps. We present simulations of the effects of this missing information on the reconstruction of ideal objects.Comment: 7 pages, 11 figures, presented at Focus On Microscopy 200

Multiomics surface receptor profiling of the NCI-60 tumor cell panel uncovers novel theranostics for cancer immunotherapy.

BACKGROUND Immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) has revolutionized cancer therapy. However, therapeutic targeting of inhibitory T cell receptors such as PD-1 not only initiates a broad immune response against tumors, but also causes severe adverse effects. An ideal future stratified immunotherapy would interfere with cancer-specific cell surface receptors only. METHODS To identify such candidates, we profiled the surface receptors of the NCI-60 tumor cell panel via flow cytometry. The resulting surface receptor expression data were integrated into proteomic and transcriptomic NCI-60 datasets applying a sophisticated multiomics multiple co-inertia analysis (MCIA). This allowed us to identify surface profiles for skin, brain, colon, kidney, and bone marrow derived cell lines and cancer entity-specific cell surface receptor biomarkers for colon and renal cancer. RESULTS For colon cancer, identified biomarkers are CD15, CD104, CD324, CD326, CD49f, and for renal cancer, CD24, CD26, CD106 (VCAM1), EGFR, SSEA-3 (B3GALT5), SSEA-4 (TMCC1), TIM1 (HAVCR1), and TRA-1-60R (PODXL). Further data mining revealed that CD106 (VCAM1) in particular is a promising novel immunotherapeutic target for the treatment of renal cancer. CONCLUSION Altogether, our innovative multiomics analysis of the NCI-60 panel represents a highly valuable resource for uncovering surface receptors that could be further exploited for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes in the context of cancer immunotherapy

Governance of Digital Health Data on Cooperatively Organized Platforms – a Design Thinking Approach

More and more stakeholders are collecting data for improving their services: from scientific research over public administration to commercial enterprises. Existing data management services offer few rights of co-determination for their users. Data cooperatives aim to provide a democratic alternative to this. Through such a platform cooperative members are supposed to be enabled to share their data in a self-determined way. In this paper, we present a design thinking-based user research with stakeholders of data cooperatives in a health-data context. We provide an overview of motivations, expectations, and interfaces between a cooperative and individuals as cooperative members, organizations, representatives from research, and policy makers. In an iterative process, 34 interviews were conducted with different stakeholder groups, from which 7 personas were subsequently derived. For these, 4 prototypes were developed and tested with potential users. Our results show that all interviewed groups were very interested in the concept of data cooperatives. At the same time, it proves challenging to reconcile the conflicting internal and external requirements and to implement attractive value propositions for all stakeholders

The distribution of stellar mass in the low-redshift Universe

We use a complete and uniform sample of almost half a million galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to characterise the distribution of stellar mass in the low-redshift Universe. Galaxy abundances are well determined over almost four orders of magnitude in stellar mass, and are reasonably but not perfectly fit by a Schechter function with characteristic stellar mass m* = 6.7 x 10^10 M_sun and with faint-end slope \alpha = -1.155. For a standard cosmology and a standard stellar Initial Mass Function, only 3.5% of the baryons in the low-redshift Universe are locked up in stars. The projected autocorrelation function of stellar mass is robustly and precisely determined for r_p < 30 Mpc/h. Over the range 10 kpc/kpc < r_p < 10 Mpc/h it is extremely well represented by a power law. The corresponding three-dimensional autocorrelation function is \xi*(r) = (r/6.1 Mpc/h)^{-1.84}. Relative to the dark matter, the bias of the stellar mass distribution is approximately constant on large scales, but varies by a factor of five for r_p < 1 Mpc/h. This behaviour is approximately but not perfectly reproduced by current models for galaxy formation in the concordance LCDM cosmology. Detailed comparison suggests that a fluctuation amplitude \sigma_8 ~ 0.8 is preferred to the somewhat larger value adopted in the Millennium Simulation models with which we compare our data. This comparison also suggests that observations of stellar mass autocorrelations as a function of redshift might provide a powerful test for the nature of Dark Energy.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Monthly Notices, two appendices added to explore possible systematic biases due to the stellar mass definition and surface density limit

Dissipational versus Dissipationless Galaxy Formation and the Dark Matter Content of Galaxies

We examine two extreme models for the build-up of the stellar component of luminous elliptical galaxies. In one case, we assume the build-up of stars is dissipational, with centrally accreted gas radiating away its orbital and thermal energy; the dark matter halo will undergo adiabatic contraction and the central dark matter density profile will steepen. For the second model, we assume the central galaxy is assembled by a series of dissipationless mergers of stellar clumps that have formed far from the nascent galaxy. In order to be accreted, these clumps lose their orbital energy to the dark matter halo via dynamical friction, thereby heating the central dark matter and smoothing the dark matter density cusp. The central dark matter density profiles differ drastically between these models. For the isolated elliptical galaxy, NGC 4494, the central dark matter densities follow the power-laws r^(-0.2) and r^(-1.7) for the dissipational and dissipationless models, respectively. By matching the dissipational and dissipationless models to observations of the stellar component of elliptical galaxies, we examine the relative contributions of dissipational and dissipationless mergers to the formation of elliptical galaxies and look for observational tests that will distinguish between these models. Comparisons to strong lensing brightest cluster galaxies yield median M*/L_B ratios of 2.1+/-0.8 and 5.2+/-1.7 at z=0.39 for the dissipational and dissipationless models, respectively. For NGC 4494, the best-fit dissipational and dissipationless models have M*/L_B=2.97 and 3.96. Comparisons to expected stellar mass-to-light ratios from passive evolution and population syntheses appear to rule out a purely dissipational formation mechanism for the central stellar regions of giant elliptical galaxies.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, accepted to Ap