Development of Study on Current Account Imbalances and Foreign Sectors in Macro-econometric Models (Japanese)

Venture businesses serve an important role for economic development. Since the 1990s, the Japanese government has been seeking to boost the activities of venture businesses with its policy programs. Nevertheless, Japan has not yet realized an economy in which venture businesses lead the economy, and its venture policy is now at a turning point. To enhance the activities of venture businesses, it is essential to attract venture capitalists and their risk money. Accordingly, the Japanese government established the "Venture Fund Program" in 1999. The program finances private venture funds, providing venture businesses in the early stages with risk money and management support. The program supports 85 funds, and over 2000 venture businesses have received financing. Following 10 years of program implementation, it is high time to evaluate the performance of this policy. Not many evaluation studies on venture policy programs in Japan have been conducted. This research evaluates the program via data analysis and interviews. Our research has found that the program contributes to the growth of venture businesses and fosters the venture capital industry. On the other hand, we also found that those venture funds with multiple purposes other than promoting venture businesses experienced difficulties in terms of implementation. In order to enhance a venture economy, it is important to get an objective policy evaluation from academia.

A single amino acid mutation in an ABC transporter gene causes resistance to Bt toxin Cry1Ab in the silkworm, \u3cem\u3eBombyx mori\u3c/em\u3e

Bt toxins derived from the arthropod bacterial pathogen Bacillus thuringiensis are widely used for insect control as insecticides or in transgenic crops. Bt resistance has been found in field populations of several lepidopteran pests and in laboratory strains selected with Bt toxin. Widespread planting of crops expressing Bt toxins has raised concerns about the potential increase of resistance mutations in targeted insects. By using Bombyx mori as a model, we identified a candidate gene for a recessive form of resistance to Cry1Ab toxin on chromosome 15 by positional cloning. BGIBMGA007792-93, which encodes an ATP-binding cassette transporter similar to human multidrug resistance protein 4 and orthologous to genes associated with recessive resistance to Cry1Ac in Heliothis virescens and two other lepidopteran species, was expressed in the midgut. Sequences of 10 susceptible and seven resistant silkworm strains revealed a common tyrosine insertion in an outer loop of the predicted transmembrane structure of resistant alleles. We confirmed the role of this ATP-binding cassette transporter gene in Bt resistance by converting a resistant silkworm strain into a susceptible one by using germline transformation. This study represents a direct demonstration of Bt resistance gene function in insects with the use of transgenesis

Autobullectomy with COVID-19 in a patient with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

application/pdfA 72-year-old man with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) was admitted for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). He was discharged on day 30; however, he was readmitted 6 days later due to a left lung organizing pneumonia secondary to COVID-19. After methylprednisolone treatment, the patient was discharged on day 15. One year later, computed tomography showed shrinkage of emphysematous lesions, and both total lung capacity measured using computed tomography and fraction of low attenuation volume decreased in the left lung compared to that before COVID-19. Here, we report a rare case of autobullectomy with COVID-19 in a patient with COPD.Journal Articlejournal articl

Chiral and Achiral Pendant-Bound Poly(biphenylylacetylene)s Bearing Amide and/or Carbamate Groups: One-Handed Helix Formations and Chiral Recognition Abilities

A series of cis-poly(biphenylylacetylene) (PBPA) derivatives bearing chiral and achiral pendant groups at the 4’-position of the biphenyl units through an amide (–NHCO–) or carbamate (–NHCOO–) linker were synthesized by polymerization of the corresponding biphenylylacetylene (BPA) monomers that can be readily prepared in one step from a novel amino-functionalized BPA. An excess one-handed helix induction in the PBPAs through covalent and noncovalent chiral interactions and their chiral recognition abilities when used as chiral stationary phases (CSPs) for high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) were investigated. PBPAs bearing optically-pure L-amino acid residues showed unique two-state helical conformational changes between the extended and contracted helices regulated by the solvent-mediated on/off switching of the intramolecular hydrogen-bonding formations between the pendants or at each pendant. The chiral recognition abilities of the helical PBPAs were significantly influenced by the kinds of the pendant L-amino acid residues. The preferred-handed contracted helical PBPA carrying an L-leucine derived pendant showed an excellent chiral resolving power toward various racemic compounds including axially and point chiral compounds and chiral metal complexes. The elution orders of some racemates were completely reversed when its helical conformation was changed to the extended helix. On the other hand, the trans-enriched nonhelical L-leucine-bound PBPA derived from its preferred-handed cis-helical PBPA and achiral pendant-bound cis-helical PBPAs induced by noncovalent chiral interactions and subsequent static memory of the helicity showed a poor and no chiral recognition, respectively

Tactile Evaluation Feedback System for Multi-Layered Structure Inspired by Human Tactile Perception Mechanism

Tactile sensation is one type of valuable feedback in evaluating a product. Conventionally, sensory evaluation is used to get direct subjective responses from the consumers, in order to improve the product’s quality. However, this method is a time-consuming and costly process. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel tactile evaluation system that can give tactile feedback from a sensor’s output. The main concept of this system is hierarchically layering the tactile sensation, which is inspired by the flow of human perception. The tactile sensation is classified from low-order of tactile sensation (LTS) to high-order of tactile sensation (HTS), and also to preference. Here, LTS will be correlated with physical measures. Furthermore, the physical measures that are used to correlate with LTS are selected based on four main aspects of haptic information (roughness, compliance, coldness, and slipperiness), which are perceived through human tactile sensors. By using statistical analysis, the correlation between each hierarchy was obtained, and the preference was derived in terms of physical measures. A verification test was conducted by using unknown samples to determine the reliability of the system. The results showed that the system developed was capable of estimating preference with an accuracy of approximately 80%

Influence of Intestinal Indigenous Microbiota on Intrafamilial Infection by Helicobacter pylori in Japan

Helicobacter pylori is a causative pathogen of chronic gastritis, gastric ulcer disease, and gastric cancer. Humans are known to be a natural host for H. pylori and tend to acquire the pathogen before the age of 5 years. The infection may then persist lifelong if eradication therapy is not applied. One of the modes of transmission of H. pylori is between family members, and therefore, the presence of infected family members is an important risk factor in children. However, other environmental factors have not been fully analyzed. The present study was performed to clarify whether and to what extent intestinal microbiota affect H. pylori intrafamilial infection. The fecal specimens from H. pylori-infected infants and H. pylori-infected and non-infected family members were collected in cohort studies conducted by Sasayama City, Hyogo Prefecture from 2010 to 2013. In total, 18 fecal DNA from 5 families were analyzed. Samples were amplified using 16S rRNA universal primers, and the amplicons were sequenced using the Ion PGM system. Principal-coordinate analysis demonstrated that there was no difference in intestinal microbiota between H. pylori-positive and H. pylori-negative groups. In intrafamilial comparison tests, the Manhattan distance of intestinal microbiota between the H. pylori-infected infant proband and H. pylori-negative mother was nearest in the family with low intestinal microbial diversity. However, in the family with the highest intestinal microbial diversity, the nearest Manhattan distance was shown between the H. pylori-infected infant proband and H. pylori-infected mother. The results in this study showed that the composition of the intestinal microbiota was very similar between members of the same family, and as such, colonization with organisms highly similar to the infected parent(s) may be a risk factor for H. pylori infection in children

Quantifying recombination losses during charge extraction in bulk heterojunction solar cells using a modified charge extraction technique

A variety of charge extraction (CE) techniques have been developed to measure charge density and recombination coefficients in bulk heterojunction solar cells. Charge recombination during charge extraction as a major limitation of this method has not been systematically quantified. This study reports CE measurements using a newly designed fast switch, which enables the application of a reverse bias to the solar cells facilitating charge extraction. With applied reverse bias, more than 40% increase in the extracted charge is obtained in solar cells with thicker active layers or with fast recombination. The measured charge carrier lifetime increases by up to a factor of three at sufficiently high applied biases (up to 8 V), suggesting significant errors in CE measurements without applied bias. The increased extracted charges with increasing applied bias are attributed to a combination of three cases: (i) slightly faster charge extraction due to the larger electric field; (ii) increased charge extraction rate at high light intensities when the transients are space charge disturbed; (iii) increased charge separated lifetime during charge extraction attributed to the spatial separation of the electron and hole density due to the applied electric field