Effect of Men’s Shirts on Impressions of Wearers’ Motivation and Performance

We investigated the effect of men’s dress shirts on impressions of wearers’ motivation and performance in the workplace, and appearance. A ready-made commercial shirt was used as a reference. Four types of shirts associated with high status (a high-priced ready-made shirt, a custom-made shirt, a high-end brand shirt, and a luxury brand shirt) were presented either alone or with neckties, on identical mannequins. Fifty-one Japanese university students in their 20s and 85 office workers in their 20s to 60s evaluated their impressions of the shirts. We provided no information about the shirts. Compared with the standard shirt, the evaluations of some shirts associated with high status were higher in both groups of participants. However, the presence of wrinkles was associated with lower evaluations, even for luxury brand shirts. Wearing a necktie improved participants’ evaluation of appearance and impression for all shirts. Overall, the results revealed that dress shirts affected participants’ impression of wearers’ motivation and performance

Th2 Suppressor Cells Are More Susceptible to Sphingosine Than Th1 Cells in Murine Contact Photosensitivity

Murine contact photosensitivity (CPS) to 3,3',4',5-tetrachlorosalicylanilide (TCSA) is a cutaneous delayed-type hypersensitivity reaction in which both positive and negative regulatory pathways exist. The latter pathway is mediated by antigen-specific, CD4+ suppressor T cells (CPS-Ts) that are Th2 cells. We examined the effects of sphingosine and synthetic cell-permeable analogs of ceramide on the cellular kinetics of CPS-Ts and immune lymph node cells from TCSA-photosensitized mice (CPS-LNC), along with other murine T-cell populations. The addition of sphingosine at 10 or 3 μM to in vitro cultures suppressed DNA synthesis of CPS-Ts and Th2 clones, including D10 cells and 24-2 cells, but not that of CPS-LNC or Th1 clones, including 23-1-8 and 28-4 cells. This suggested that sphingosine exerts its inhibitory effects preferentially on the proliferation of Th2 cells. Although suppressing DNA synthesis, sphingosine augmented the production and mRNA expression of interleukin-4 (IL-4) and enhanced the expression of the IL-4 receptor in CPS-Ts. In addition, the ability of sphingosine to induce signal transduction of CPS-Ts was confirmed by elevation of the intracellular free Ca++ concentration. Because CPS-Ts exposed to sphingosine exhibited a lower G2M/G1 ratio than control, these seemingly ambivalent phenomena may be caused by retardation of the G1 to S phase progression, a cell-cycle dysregulation known to augment cytokine production. In contrast to sphingosine, cell-permeable ceramide did not affect the proliferation of these cells when stimulated with mitogen/antigen and did not augment IL-4 production by CPS-Ts. Our study suggests that sphingosine modifies the Th1/Th2 balance by preferentially affecting the cellular kinetics of Th2

Anaerobic Biodegradation Tests of Poly(lactic acid) under Mesophilic and Thermophilic Conditions Using a New Evaluation System for Methane Fermentation in Anaerobic Sludge

Anaerobic biodegradation tests of poly(lactic acid) (PLA) powder were done at the thermophilic (55 °C) and mesophilic temperature (35 °C) under aquatic conditions [total solid concentrations of the used sludge were 2.07% (at 55 °C) and 2.24% (at 35 °C)] using a newly developed evaluation system. With this system, the evolved biogas is collected in a gas sampling bag at atmospheric pressure. This method is more convenient than using a pressure transducer or inverted graduated cylinder submerged in water. PLA was degraded about 60% in 30 days, about 80% in 40 days and about 90% in 60 days at 55 °C. On the other hand, the PLA degradation started in 55 days at 35 °C and degradation rate was much slower than at 55 °C

Treatment of T Lymphocytes with 8-Methoxypsoralen Plus Ultraviolet A Induces Transient but Biologically Active Th1-Skewing Cytokine Production

8-Methoxypsoralen plus ultraviolet A light is suggested to shift T lymphocytes from Th2 to Th1 cells. To clarify this issue, we examined the effects of 8-methoxypsoralen/ultraviolet A on the expression/production of cytokines in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from normal subjects and a Sézary syndrome patient. 8-Methoxypsoralen/ultraviolet A augmented the expression of mRNAs for interferon-γ and interleukin-2 and reduced those for interleukin-4 and interleukin-10. It seems that this enhancement of Th1 cytokines is caused by increment of cytokine production by Th1 cells but not by conversion of Th2 cells to produce Th1 cytokines. The number of interferon-γ-secreting lymphocytes was markedly increased in 8-methoxypsoralen/ultraviolet A-treated peripheral blood mononuclear cells 20 h after treatment, whereas that of Th2 cytokine-producing cells was decreased. Accordingly, the amount of interferon-γ was elevated in culture supernatants from 8-methoxypsoralen-phototreated peripheral blood mononuclear cells, whereas interleukin-4 was significantly reduced. This enhanced production of interferon-γ, however, was found only until 3 d after 8-methoxypsoralen phototreatment and was declined by 5 d after treatment. Finally, 8-methoxypsoralen/ultraviolet A treatment of T cells regulated their ability to induce keratinocyte CD54 expression. Our results show that 8-methoxypsoralen/ultraviolet A has a transient but biologically active Th1-skewing action in human T cells, suggesting that 8-methoxypsoralen/ultraviolet A exerts a beneficial therapeutic effect on Th2-mediated or Th2-malignant diseases

Impact of lymph node dissection on clinical outcomes of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma: Inverse probability of treatment weighting with survival analysis

Background: Lymph node metastasis (LNM) has been established as a critical risk factor for prognosis in intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC). The clinical implications of lymph node dissection (LND) have been debated. This study aimed to clarify the prognostic impact of LND by multicenter retrospective analysis. Methods: A total of 310 ICC patients who had undergone curative resection between 2000 and 2016 were retrospectively analyzed. The prognostic impact of LND was estimated under an inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) approach using propensity scores. Results: LND was performed for 224 patients (72%), with LNM pathologically confirmed in 90 patients (40%). Prognosis was poorer for patients with LNM (median survival, 16.9 months) than for those without (57.2 months; P Conclusions: LND could have a significant role to play in improving oncologic outcomes. Therapeutic LND should be implemented on the basis of tumor location and tumor advancement

Polyclonal Immunoglobulin Recovery after Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation Is an Independent Prognostic Factor for Survival Outcome in Patients with Multiple Myeloma

We retrospectively analyzed multiple myeloma (MM) patients who underwent autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) without maintenance therapy to assess the impact of recovery of normal immunoglobulin (Ig) on clinical outcomes. The recovery of polyclonal Ig was defined as normalization of all values of serum IgG, IgA, and IgM 1 year after ASCT. Among 50 patients, 26 patients showed polyclonal Ig recovery; 14 patients were in ≥complete response (CR) and 12 remained in non-CR after ASCT. The patients with Ig recovery exhibited a significantly better progression-free survival (PFS, median, 46.8 vs. 26.7 months, p = 0.0071) and overall survival (OS, median, not reached vs. 65.3 months, p < 0.00001) compared with those without Ig recovery. The survival benefits of Ig recovery were similarly observed in ≥CR patients (median OS, not reached vs. 80.5 months, p = 0.061) and non-CR patients (median OS, not reached vs. 53.2 months, p = 0.00016). Multivariate analysis revealed that non-CR and not all Ig recovery were independent prognostic factors for PFS (HR, 4.284, 95%CI (1.868–9.826), p = 0.00059; and HR, 2.804, 95%CI (1.334–5.896), p = 0.0065, respectively) and also for OS (HR, 8.245, 95%CI (1.528–44.47), p = 0.014; and HR, 36.55, 95%CI (3.942–338.8), p = 0.0015, respectively). Therefore, in addition to the depth of response, the recovery of polyclonal Ig after ASCT is a useful indicator especially for long-term outcome and might be considered to prevent overtreatment with maintenance therapy in transplanted patients with MM

Effects of 3 MeV Proton Irradiation on Superconductivity and CDW in 2H-NbSe2 Single Crystals

Interplay between superconductivity and charge-density wave (CDW) in 2H-NbSe2 single crystals irradiated by 3 MeV protons is studied. Both Tc and TCDW are found to decrease monotonically with the increase in irradiation dose. This behavior is different from electron-irradiated NbSe2, where TCDW is suppressed monotonically with the increase in dose, while Tc shows an initial enhancement before it starts to decrease. We attempt to explain this difference based on the negative pressure effect which has been reported in our previous study on NbSe2 irradiated by heavy ions