高齢脳卒中リハビリテーション患者におけるMini Nutritional Assessment Short-FormとGeriatric Nutritional Risk Indexの併存的および予測的妥当性

Background: Malnutrition might worsen the clinical outcomes in stroke patients, although few nutritional screening tools have assessed their validity. Methods: We assessed clinical data of consecutive stroke patients aged ≥65 years in rehabilitation hospital from 2015 to 2017 using the Mini Nutritional Assessment Short-Form (MNA-SF) and the Geriatric Nutritional Risk Index (GNRI) for index testing. The European Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition diagnostic criteria for malnutrition (ESPEN-DCM) was used as a reference standard. The receiver-operating characteristics curve was illustrated by the sensitivity (Se) and specificity (Sp). The Youden index was used to define the cut-off value for malnutrition detection or screening. The Functional Independence Measure (FIM) and discharge destination were compared for verifying predictive validity. Results: We enrolled 420 patients for the analysis. Of them, 125 patients were included in malnutrition group (mean age: 80 years) and 295 in non-malnutrition group (mean age: 77 years) by the ESPEN-DCM. The area under the curve of the MNA-SF and the GNRI were 0.890 and 0.865, respectively. Se and Sp cut-off values to detect or screen malnutrition were 5 (Se: 0.78; Sp: 0.85) and 7 (Se: 0.96; Sp: 0.57) for the MNA-SF and 92 (Se: 0.74; Sp: 0.84) and 98 (Se: 0.93; Sp: 0.50) for the GNRI, respectively. The GNRI were associated with discharge destination, whereas no correlation was observed between the MNA-SF and outcomes by multivariable analysis. Conclusions: The MNA-SF and GNRI have fair concurrent validity if appropriate cut-off values were used. The GNRI exhibits good predictive validity in stroke patients

総合的な視点に基づいた児童英語指導法に関する研究 : 英語を専科としない学生による積極的かつ専門的アプローチをめざして

The concern of this paper is to clarify a joint research project conducted in 2005 at Toyo Eiwa University, whose purpose was mainly to explore ways to instruct Toyo Eiwa students to teach English to children in a significant and effective way. In 2002, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) introduced in the nation\u27s public elementary schools the "Period of Integrated Study," in which they could conduct English-related activities for the purpose of promoting international understanding. In the following year, the MEXT established an Action Plan to "Cultivate Japanese with English Abilities," one of whose focuses is to support and enhance English conversation activities in elementary schools. Therefore, teaching English to children, both preschoolers and schoolchildren, have been attracting much attention of teachers and educators, not to mention the parents. Such being the case, several faculty members with different academic backgrounds set up a joint research project in order to investigate into good ways for our students to contribute to meeting the needs of the society; even though they do not major in English, they can support those teachers in kindergarten and elementary school as undergraduates, and will be able to do so in the future at different stages of their life. The joint research actually aimed at serving a double purpose; for the faculty to search for a didactics of training especially Toyo Eiwa students to teach English to small children in various approaches, and for these students to receive training in teaching English to children with heightening their awareness of the meaning of international understanding. We have made full use of the research results in an elective English course, "Children and English," which was first introduced in our curriculum in 2005, by taking turns to interact with the students as instructors as well as co-learners

Demonstration of a spherical plasma mirror for the counter-propagating kilojoule-class petawatt LFEX laser system

A counter-propagating laser-beam platform using a spherical plasma mirror was developed for the kilojoule-class petawatt LFEX laser. The temporal and spatial overlaps of the incoming and redirected beams were measured with an optical interferometer and an x-ray pinhole camera. The plasma mirror performance was evaluated by measuring fast electrons, ions, and neutrons generated in the counter-propagating laser interaction with a Cu-doped deuterated film on both sides. The reflectivity and peak intensity were estimated as ∼50% and ∼5 × 1018 W/cm2, respectively. The platform could enable studies of counter-streaming charged particles in high-energy-density plasmas for fundamental and inertial confinement fusion research.Kojima S., Abe Y., Miura E., et al. Demonstration of a spherical plasma mirror for the counter-propagating kilojoule-class petawatt LFEX laser system. Optics Express 30, 43491 (2022); https://doi.org/10.1364/oe.475945

Generating the Expression of the Move of Go by Classifier Learning

Part 7: Game DesignInternational audienceThe ancient Chinese board game, Go, with its simple rules yet highly complex strategies, requires players to encircle more territory than their opponent. However, owing to the rise in the capabilities of Go-playing software and a lack of Go instructors in Japan, there is a need for a software that actively assists human players in learning the high-level strategies required to win the game. This study focuses on generating a review for each consecutive player’s move. This paper studies how to generate an expression for each move based on the distribution of the stones on the board. To this task of generating the expression for each move in a game of Go, we apply a classifier learning technique

Synthesis of a 1,2-Dithienylethene-Containing Donor-Acceptor Polymer via Palladium-Catalyzed Direct Arylation Polymerization (DArP)

This paper reports the synthesis of D-A polymers containing 1, 2-dithienylethene (DTE) units via palladium-catalyzed direct arylation polymerization (DArP). The reaction of dibromoisoindigo (1-Br) and DTE (2-H), in the presence of Pd2(dba)3·CHCl3 (0.5 mol%), P(2-MeOC6H4)3 (L1) (2 mol%), pivalic acid (1 equiv) as catalyst precursors, and Cs2CO3 (3 equiv) as a base affords poly(1-alt-2) with a high molecular weight (Mn up to 44, 900). Although, it has been known that monomers, with plural C–H bonds, tend to form insoluble materials via direct arylation at undesirable C–H positions; the reaction of 1-Br and 2-H cleanly proceeds without insolubilization. The resulting polymer has a well-controlled structure and exhibits good charge transfer characteristics in an organic field-effect transistor (OFET), compared to the polymer produced by Migita–Kosugi–Stille cross-coupling polymerization. The DArP product displays an ideal linear relationship in the current–voltage curve, whereas the Migita–Kosugi–Stille product shows a VG-dependent change in the charge mobility

Successful perioperative management of living-donor liver transplantation for a patient with severe methylmalonic acidemia: a case report

Abstract Background Methylmalonic acidemia (MMAemia) is a rare hereditary disease affecting organic acid metabolism. It causes recurrent metabolic acidosis and secondary mitochondrial dysfunction, resulting in a poor prognosis. Liver transplantation (LT) has been performed to facilitate the metabolism of organic acids and improve the prognosis of MMAemia. However, there have been few reports on perioperative management of LT. Case presentation A 22-month-old female with severe MMAemia was scheduled to receive LT to relieve recurrent metabolic acidosis despite dietary and pharmacological treatment. General anesthesia was maintained without propofol or nitrous oxide, which can worsen MMAemia-induced metabolic acidosis during anesthesia for LT. Strict metabolic and respiratory management enabled the operation to be successfully performed without metabolic acidosis. Conclusion Perioperative management of LT for MMAemia is challenging for anesthesiologists because of the possibility of serious metabolic acidosis. We succeeded in preventing metabolic decompensation by avoiding the use of propofol and nitrous oxide

PML-RARα induces all-trans retinoic acid-dependent transcriptional activation through interaction with MED1

Reviewing current results and applications in the domain of (digital) cultural heritage, such as virtual reality, digital information management,multimedia, makes evident that technologies and systems are nowadays pervasive in the investigation phases and in the analysis and exploitation of the scientific data. Applications of virtual reality by means of 3D representations of architectural and historical models are attracting a wide range of audience – especially in the tourist and multimedia sector. Typically, the emphasis is given to the visual representation and its impact to the user, giving less importance to the scientific accuracy and capacity of the platform to represent the whole “knowledge” associated to the cultural asset. There is a demanding need to envision approaches to communize all the elements of such multidisciplinary knowledge. A data set of coherent, structured, multidisciplinary, multi-source, multi-media information (that can be physically distributed) - constituted by “markers” (i.e. pertinent to a specific domain such as architectural, technical, structural, historical, bibliographical, archive related, photographical, physical, chemical, ...) – should give the capacity to implement Cultural Heritage platforms around a sort of a “Digital Foundation” of assets to support different applications and user experiences. Current approaches and availability of digital libraries, the accessibility of distributed information (e.g. by internet), the capacity to model data and meta-data, the availability of instruments to accurately position objects in space and time (together with ontological representations) let us envision a novel model of representing a dynamical evolving multi-source “digital foundation”. The above model, as the result of a multidisciplinary approach coming from a long experience in research and technologies in various fields (ICT architectures, Digital Libraries, Knowledge representation, Distributed infrastructures, GIS and applications of Satellite Navigation) and projects (National and European) is now experimented around the UNESCO Villa Adriana in Tivoli (Rome, Italy). It constitutes the center of excellence that allowed the authors to preliminary build a digital foundation for the area, demonstrating the capability to generate (among other features) accurate 3D virtual reality representations, distributed multi-source/multi-target and multi-modal representation for virtual guides and to support archeological studies and excavations for professional users. It furthermore implements capacities to manage, to control and to develop the necessary knowledge for the safeguard and conservation of the immense material associated to archeological sites

Evaluation of Cell Responses of <i>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</i> under Cultivation Using Wheat Bran as a Nutrient Resource by Analyses of Growth Activities and Comprehensive Gene Transcription Levels

Wheat bran has high nutritional values and is also cheaper than yeast nitrogen base as an important component of a medium. Although its use in microbial cultivations is expected, research and development has hardly progressed so far. In this study, with experimental Saccharomyces cerevisiae BY4741, the cell responses to wheat bran as a nutrient were evaluated by analyses of cell growth, ethanol production, and comprehensive gene transcription levels. Comparing wheat bran and yeast nitrogen base, BY4741 showed specific growth rates of 0.277 ± 0.002 and 0.407 ± 0.035 as a significant difference. Additionally, wheat bran could be used as a restricted media component like yeast nitrogen base. However, in 24 h of cultivation with wheat bran and yeast nitrogen base, although conversion ratios of ethanol productions showed no significant difference at 63.0 ± 7.2% and 62.5 ± 8.2%, the ratio of cell production displayed a significant difference at 7.31 ± 0.04% and 4.90 ± 0.16%, indicating a different cell response. In fact, the comprehensive evaluation of transcription levels strongly suggested major changes in glucose metabolism. This study indicated that BY4741 could switch transcription levels efficiently to use wheat bran