A Practice of English Extensive Reading

The Foreign Language Center(FLC)of Jissen Women\u27s University offers an Integrated English course required for the first-year students. The aim of this course is to enhance motivation for the students to acquire English and help the students to be autonomous learners. On a trial basis, a practice of English extensive reading project was adopted in 2006 and has been improved year by year. The reason whywe focused on reading was that reading is both a thinking process and a productiveactivity. It is more than just receiving meaning in a literal sense. It involves bringing a greater thinking ability or cognitive effort. In our previous studies(Jones et al. 2009, 2010), we examined the significance and effect of extensive reading in learning English. The result suggested that extensive reading is an effective way to enhance students\u27 positive attitude toward learning English. In the first semester of 2011, all students who took the Integrated English course participated in the project. The total number of the students was 701,and the students\u27 majors were Japanese Literature, English, Food and Health Science, and Humanities and Social Sciences. In extensive reading, students do selfselected reading with only minimal accountability, writing brief summaries orcomments on what they have read. This paper will show how we managed the project and analyzes the data obtained, which demonstrated that extensive reading had a good influence on learners\u27 sense and attitude toward learning English

An Overview of English Extensive Reading Program

In this paper, we review the changes in attitude toward reading English shown by students as a result of participating in an extensive reading program. The top classes for each department studying Integrated English in the first semester of 2012 were given the challenge of reading extensively in English, using simple readers from leading publishers. Before and after the program, the non-English majors were asked to answer a questionnaire designed to reveal their attitudes toward reading English and to determine what methods they employed when reading in English. Specifically, they were asked in the pre-program questionnaire if they liked reading English, while in the post-program questionnaire they were asked if they had come to like reading English as a result of participating in the extensive reading program. They were also asked if they were worried about skipping unknown words and how often they resorted to using a dictionary when encountering such unknown words. The results showed that students given the choice to freely select books to read came to like reading English, whereas those students who were simply handed books to read did not show any change. At the same time, the students found that they did not need to worry about skipping words and became more independent of their dictionary

A Survey of English Extensive Reading -With Special Reference to University Students\u27 Positive Attitude-

Reading in language teaching is the most important of the four skills though the current focus is on listening and speaking. Reading is both a thinking process and a productive activity. It is more than just receiving meaning in a literal sense. It involves using a greater thinking ability or cognitive effort. In this paper the authors examine extensive reading as a whole and practice a method of extensive reading that is most suitable to university students. First the authors instruct 200 students in introductory reading strategies of extensive reading. After that the authors give them a chance to read extensively through their free choice among approximately 500 different books. Prior to the beginning of this practice, the students were given a questionnaire about English language learning. The same questionnaire was administered at the end of the semester. The results suggest that extensive reading is an effective way to enhance students\u27 positive attitude toward learning English

Functional brown adipose tissue limits cardiomyocyte injury and adverse remodeling in catecholamine-induced cardiomyopathy

Brown adipose tissue (BAT) has well recognized thermogenic properties mediated by uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1); more recently, BAT has been demonstrated to modulate cardiovascular risk factors. To investigate whether BAT also affects myocardial injury and remodeling, UCP1-deficient (UCP1−/−) mice, which have dysfunctional BAT, were subjected to catecholamine-induced cardiomyopathy. At baseline, there were no differences in echocardiographic parameters, plasma cardiac troponin I (cTnI) or myocardial fibrosis between wild-type (WT) and UCP1−/− mice. Isoproterenol infusion increased cTnI and myocardial fibrosis and induced left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy in both WT and UCP1−/− mice. UCP1−/− mice also demonstrated exaggerated myocardial injury, fibrosis, and adverse remodeling, as well as decreased survival. Transplantation of WT BAT to UCP1−/− mice prevented the isoproterenol-induced cTnI increase and improved survival, whereas UCP1−/− BAT transplanted to either UCP1−/− or WT mice had no effect on cTnI release. After 3 days of isoproterenol treatment, phosphorylated AKT and ERK were lower in the LV's of UCP1−/− mice than in those of WT mice. Activation of BAT was also noted in a model of chronic ischemic cardiomyopathy, and was correlated to LV dysfunction. Deficiency in UCP1, and accompanying BAT dysfunction, increases cardiomyocyte injury and adverse LV remodeling, and decreases survival in a mouse model of catecholamine-induced cardiomyopathy. Myocardial injury and decreased survival are rescued by transplantation of functional BAT to UCP1−/− mice, suggesting a systemic cardioprotective role of functional BAT. BAT is also activated in chronic ischemic cardiomyopathy

The whole blood transcriptional regulation landscape in 465 COVID-19 infected samples from Japan COVID-19 Task Force

「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19患者由来の血液細胞における遺伝子発現の網羅的解析 --重症度に応じた遺伝子発現の変化には、ヒトゲノム配列の個人差が影響する--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-23.Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a recently-emerged infectious disease that has caused millions of deaths, where comprehensive understanding of disease mechanisms is still unestablished. In particular, studies of gene expression dynamics and regulation landscape in COVID-19 infected individuals are limited. Here, we report on a thorough analysis of whole blood RNA-seq data from 465 genotyped samples from the Japan COVID-19 Task Force, including 359 severe and 106 non-severe COVID-19 cases. We discover 1169 putative causal expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) including 34 possible colocalizations with biobank fine-mapping results of hematopoietic traits in a Japanese population, 1549 putative causal splice QTLs (sQTLs; e.g. two independent sQTLs at TOR1AIP1), as well as biologically interpretable trans-eQTL examples (e.g., REST and STING1), all fine-mapped at single variant resolution. We perform differential gene expression analysis to elucidate 198 genes with increased expression in severe COVID-19 cases and enriched for innate immune-related functions. Finally, we evaluate the limited but non-zero effect of COVID-19 phenotype on eQTL discovery, and highlight the presence of COVID-19 severity-interaction eQTLs (ieQTLs; e.g., CLEC4C and MYBL2). Our study provides a comprehensive catalog of whole blood regulatory variants in Japanese, as well as a reference for transcriptional landscapes in response to COVID-19 infection

DOCK2 is involved in the host genetics and biology of severe COVID-19

「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19疾患感受性遺伝子DOCK2の重症化機序を解明 --アジア最大のバイオレポジトリーでCOVID-19の治療標的を発見--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-10.Identifying the host genetic factors underlying severe COVID-19 is an emerging challenge. Here we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) involving 2, 393 cases of COVID-19 in a cohort of Japanese individuals collected during the initial waves of the pandemic, with 3, 289 unaffected controls. We identified a variant on chromosome 5 at 5q35 (rs60200309-A), close to the dedicator of cytokinesis 2 gene (DOCK2), which was associated with severe COVID-19 in patients less than 65 years of age. This risk allele was prevalent in East Asian individuals but rare in Europeans, highlighting the value of genome-wide association studies in non-European populations. RNA-sequencing analysis of 473 bulk peripheral blood samples identified decreased expression of DOCK2 associated with the risk allele in these younger patients. DOCK2 expression was suppressed in patients with severe cases of COVID-19. Single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis (n = 61 individuals) identified cell-type-specific downregulation of DOCK2 and a COVID-19-specific decreasing effect of the risk allele on DOCK2 expression in non-classical monocytes. Immunohistochemistry of lung specimens from patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia showed suppressed DOCK2 expression. Moreover, inhibition of DOCK2 function with CPYPP increased the severity of pneumonia in a Syrian hamster model of SARS-CoV-2 infection, characterized by weight loss, lung oedema, enhanced viral loads, impaired macrophage recruitment and dysregulated type I interferon responses. We conclude that DOCK2 has an important role in the host immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and the development of severe COVID-19, and could be further explored as a potential biomarker and/or therapeutic target