College Students‘ GIS Spatial Concept Knowledge Assessed by Concept Maps

The development of spatial thinking proficiency has been increasingly demanded in Geographic Information System (GIS) education. Despite this educational trend, there is little empirical research on college students' spatial concept knowledge, which critically affects the quality of spatial thinking. This study addressed the following three research questions: 1) What differences exist between students' understandings of spatial concepts at the beginning, middle, and end of an introductory-level GIS course?, 2) What spatial misconceptions students may possess while taking an introductory-level GIS course?, and 3) Which spatial concepts are easy or hard for undergraduate students to understand? The researcher asked twelve participants who were taking an introductory-level GIS course to create concept maps about space and revised their concept maps in three experiment sessions. For the first question, the researcher scored the sixty obtained concept maps and statistically analyzed those scores to examine if there is any significant difference among the scores of the three experiment sessions. For the second question, the researcher examined participants' misconceptions by analyzing the incorrect statements of distortion, map projection, and scale. For the third question, the researcher statistically analyzed concept-based scores to examine if there is any significant difference among the scores of three different complexity levels. A main finding for the first question was that there was a significant difference among the scores of the concept maps created in the first session and the scores of the concept maps revised in the second and third sessions. This implied that participants could successfully revise their own original concept maps in the middle of a semester. The result of the study of the second question indicated that a half of participants misunderstood the concepts of map projections and scale. This result suggested that some undergraduate students may have difficulty shifting from scientifically inappropriate spatial concept knowledge to appropriate knowledge. Analysis of the third question resulted that the concept-based scores of simple spatial concepts are significantly higher than the scores of complicated spatial concepts. This result inferred that participants' scores decreased as the complexity of the concepts increased

Examination of the Effective Utilization of the CARELINK® Remote Monitoring System after its Introduction

AbstractBackground: Japan started using the CARELINK® (Medtronic, Inc, Minneapolis, MN, USA) remote monitoring system in April 2009. However, in some cases, the device failed to transmit a message after registration or according to schedule. We investigated the difference between patients who could make effective use of CARELINK® system and those who could not.Subjects and Method: Sixty patients who had registered until December 2009 at our institution were analyzed. These patients were divided into two groups: those who were able to use the device effectively (group G, n = 49) and those who were not (group F = 11). Patient background, automatic or manual telemetries, new or existing implant patient, presence of adverse events, and the use or non-use of a checklist at the time of introduction were compared between the two groups.Results: In group G, more patients used a checklist at the time of introduction than that in group F (use of checklist/total, 31/49 in group G vs. 3/11 in group F; P, 0.029). No significant difference was observed in other factors between the two groups.Conclusion: We consider that the method used to explain the system are important to make the patients understand handling methods of CARELINK® system. The number of patients introduced to remote monitoring of implantable devices will continue to increase in the future; therefore, we must continue to develop innovative approaches for their effective us

Formulae Based on Biomathematics to Estimate the Standard Value of Fetal Growth of Japanese

We devised biomathematics-based formulae to estimate the standard values of fetal growth of Japanese after 22 weeks' gestation. The growth rates of bi-parietal diameter (BPD), abdominal circumference (AC), femur length (FL), and estimated fetal body weight (EFBW) at the time of gestation were assumed to be proportional to the product of the value at the time and the rest value of an unknown maximum value, respectively. The EFBW was also assumed to follow a multiple logistic function of BPD, AC and FL to fit the standard values of Japanese fetuses published by the Japan Society of Ultrasonics in Medicine. The Mann-Whitney test was used for statistical analysis. The values as a function of gestational day, t, were as follows: BPD(t)=99.6/(1+exp (2.725−0.01837＊t)) (mm); AC(t)=39.7/(1+exp (2.454−0.01379＊t)) (cm); FL(t)=79.6/(1+exp (2.851−0.01710＊t)) (mm); EFBW(t)=8045.1/(1+exp (6.028−0.06582＊BPD(t)−0.1469＊AC(t)+ 0.07377＊FL(t))) (g). EFBW as a function of BPD, AC and FL was as follows: EFBW=8045.1/(1+exp (4.747+ 0.02584＊BPD+0.1010＊AC−0.1416＊FL)) (g). When the BPD, AC and FL were at −2 standard deviation (SD), −1SD, mean and + 2SD, the EFBW values calculated by the formula were statistically closer to the standard values than conventional formulas with p-values of 4.871×10−7, 4.228×10−7, 9.777×10−7 and 0.028, respectively. The formulae based on biomathematics might be useful to estimate the fetal growth standard values

CVIT expert consensus document on primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in 2018

While primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) has significantly contributed to improve the mortality in patients with ST segment elevation myocardial infarction even in cardiogenic shock, primary PCI is a standard of care in most of Japanese institutions. Whereas there are high numbers of available facilities providing primary PCI in Japan, there are no clear guidelines focusing on procedural aspect of the standardized care. Whilst updated guidelines for the management of acute myocardial infarction were recently published by European Society of Cardiology, the following major changes are indicated; (1) radial access and drug-eluting stent over bare metal stent were recommended as Class I indication, and (2) complete revascularization before hospital discharge (either immediate or staged) is now considered as Class IIa recommendation. Although the primary PCI is consistently recommended in recent and previous guidelines, the device lag from Europe, the frequent usage of coronary imaging modalities in Japan, and the difference in available medical therapy or mechanical support may prevent direct application of European guidelines to Japanese population. The Task Force on Primary Percutaneous Coronary Intervention of the Japanese Association of Cardiovascular Intervention and Therapeutics (CVIT) has now proposed the expert consensus document for the management of acute myocardial infarction focusing on procedural aspect of primary PCI

CsFTL3, a chrysanthemum FLOWERING LOCUS T-like gene, is a key regulator of photoperiodic flowering in chrysanthemums

Chrysanthemum is a typical short-day (SD) plant that responds to shortening daylength during the transition from the vegetative to the reproductive phase. FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT)/Heading date 3a (Hd3a) plays a pivotal role in the induction of phase transition and is proposed to encode a florigen. Three FT-like genes were isolated from Chrysanthemum seticuspe (Maxim.) Hand.-Mazz. f. boreale (Makino) H. Ohashi & Yonek, a wild diploid chrysanthemum: CsFTL1, CsFTL2, and CsFTL3. The organ-specific expression patterns of the three genes were similar: they were all expressed mainly in the leaves. However, their response to daylength differed in that under SD (floral-inductive) conditions, the expression of CsFTL1 and CsFTL2 was down-regulated, whereas that of CsFTL3 was up-regulated. CsFTL3 had the potential to induce early flowering since its overexpression in chrysanthemum could induce flowering under non-inductive conditions. CsFTL3-dependent graft-transmissible signals partially substituted for SD stimuli in chrysanthemum. The CsFTL3 expression levels in the two C. seticuspe accessions that differed in their critical daylengths for flowering closely coincided with the flowering response. The CsFTL3 expression levels in the leaves were higher under floral-inductive photoperiods than under non-inductive conditions in both the accessions, with the induction of floral integrator and/or floral meristem identity genes occurring in the shoot apexes. Taken together, these results indicate that the gene product of CsFTL3 is a key regulator of photoperiodic flowering in chrysanthemums

Analysis of Expressed Sequence Tags from the Fungus Aspergillus oryzae Cultured Under Different Conditions

We performed random sequencing of cDNAs from nine biologically or industrially important cultures of the industrially valuable fungus Aspergillus oryzae to obtain expressed sequence tags (ESTs). Consequently, 21 446 raw ESTs were accumulated and subsequently assembled to 7589 non-redundant consensus sequences (contigs). Among all contigs, 5491 (72.4%) were derived from only a particular culture. These included 4735 (62.4%) singletons, i.e. lone ESTs overlapping with no others. These data showed that consideration of culture grown under various conditions as cDNA sources enabled efficient collection of ESTs. BLAST searches against the public databases showed that 2953 (38.9%) of the EST contigs showed significant similarities to deposited sequences with known functions, 793 (10.5%) were similar to hypothetical proteins, and the remaining 3843 (50.6%) showed no significant similarity to sequences in the databases. Culture-specific contigs were extracted on the basis of the EST frequency normalized by the total number for each culture condition. In addition, contig sequences were compared with sequence sets in eukaryotic orthologous groups (KOGs), and classified into the KOG functional categories

CVIT expert consensus document on primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in 2018

While primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) has significantly contributed to improve the mortality in patients with ST segment elevation myocardial infarction even in cardiogenic shock, primary PCI is a standard of care in most of Japanese institutions. Whereas there are high numbers of available facilities providing primary PCI in Japan, there are no clear guidelines focusing on procedural aspect of the standardized care. Whilst updated guidelines for the management of acute myocardial infarction were recently published by European Society of Cardiology, the following major changes are indicated; (1) radial access and drug-eluting stent over bare metal stent were recommended as Class I indication, and (2) complete revascularization before hospital discharge (either immediate or staged) is now considered as Class IIa recommendation. Although the primary PCI is consistently recommended in recent and previous guidelines, the device lag from Europe, the frequent usage of coronary imaging modalities in Japan, and the difference in available medical therapy or mechanical support may prevent direct application of European guidelines to Japanese population. The Task Force on Primary Percutaneous Coronary Intervention of the Japanese Association of Cardiovascular Intervention and Therapeutics (CVIT) has now proposed the expert consensus document for the management of acute myocardial infarction focusing on procedural aspect of primary PCI

Use of the index of pulmonary vascular disease for predicting long-term outcome of pulmonary arterial hypertension associated with congenital heart disease

AimsLimited data exist on risk factors for the long-term outcome of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) associated with congenital heart disease (CHD-PAH). We focused on the index of pulmonary vascular disease (IPVD), an assessment system for pulmonary artery pathology specimens. The IPVD classifies pulmonary vascular lesions into four categories based on severity: (1) no intimal thickening, (2) cellular thickening of the intima, (3) fibrous thickening of the intima, and (4) destruction of the tunica media, with the overall grade expressed as an additive mean of these scores. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between IPVD and the long-term outcome of CHD-PAH.MethodsThis retrospective study examined lung pathology images of 764 patients with CHD-PAH aged <20 years whose lung specimens were submitted to the Japanese Research Institute of Pulmonary Vasculature for pulmonary pathological review between 2001 and 2020. Clinical information was collected retrospectively by each attending physician. The primary endpoint was cardiovascular death.ResultsThe 5-year, 10-year, 15-year, and 20-year cardiovascular death-free survival rates for all patients were 92.0%, 90.4%, 87.3%, and 86.1%, respectively. The group with an IPVD of ≥2.0 had significantly poorer survival than the group with an IPVD <2.0 (P = .037). The Cox proportional hazards model adjusted for the presence of congenital anomaly syndromes associated with pulmonary hypertension, and age at lung biopsy showed similar results (hazard ratio 4.46; 95% confidence interval: 1.45–13.73; P = .009).ConclusionsThe IPVD scoring system is useful for predicting the long-term outcome of CHD-PAH. For patients with an IPVD of ≥2.0, treatment strategies, including choosing palliative procedures such as pulmonary artery banding to restrict pulmonary blood flow and postponement of intracardiac repair, should be more carefully considered