How Much Did People Refrain from Service Consumption due to the Outbreak of COVID-19?

With the spread of coronavirus infections, there has been a growing tendency to refrain from consuming services such as eating out that involve contact with people. Self-restraint in service consumption is essential to stop the spread of infections, and the national government as well as local governments such as the Tokyo government are calling for consumers as well as _firms providing such services to exercise self-restraint. One way to measure the degree of self-restraint has been to look at changes in the flow of people using smart phone location data. As a more direct approach, this note uses credit card transaction data on service spending to examine the degree to which people exercise self-restraint. The results indicate that of men aged 35-39 living in the Tokyo metropolitan area, the share that used their credit card to pay for eating out in March 2020 was 27 percent. Using transaction data for January, i.e., before the full outbreak of the virus in Japan, yields an estimated share of 32 percent for March. This means that the number of people eating out fell by 15 percent. Apart from eating out, similar self-restraint effects can be observed in various other sectors such as entertainment, travel, and accommodation. Looking at the degree of self-restraint by age shows that the self-restraint effect was relatively large among those in their late 30s to early 50s. However, below that age bracket, the younger the age group, the smaller was the self-restraint effect. Moreover, the self-restraint effect was also small among those aged 55 and above. Further, the degree of self-restraint varies depending on the type of service; it is highest with regard to entertainment, travel, and accommodation. The number of people who spent on these services in March 2020 was about half of the number during normal times. However, the 80 percent reduction demanded by the government has not been achieved.Publisher\u27s another name: JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S) Central Bank Communication Desig

Online Consumption During the COVID-19 Crisis : Evidence from Japan

The spread of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) infections has led to substantial changes in consumption patterns. While demand for services that involve face-to-face contact has decreased sharply, online consumption of goods and services, such as through e-commerce, is increasing. The aim of this study is to investigate whether online consumption will continue to increase even after COVID-19 subsides, using credit card transaction data. Online consumption requires upfront costs, which have been regarded as one of the factors inhibiting the diffusion of online consumption. However, if many consumers made such upfront investments due to the coronavirus pandemic, they would have no reason to return to offline consumption after the pandemic has ended, and high levels of online consumption should continue. Our main findings are as follows. First, the main group responsible for the increase in online consumption are consumers who were already familiar with online consumption before the pandemic and purchased goods and service both online and offline. These consumers increased the share of online spending in their spending overall and/or stopped offline consumption completely and switched to online consumption only. Second, some consumers that had never used the internet for purchases before started to use the internet for their consumption activities due to COVID-19. However, the share of consumers making this switch was not very different from the trend before the crisis. Third, by age group, the switch to online consumption was more pronounced among youngsters than seniors. These findings suggest that it is not the case that during the pandemic a large number of consumers made the upfront investment necessary to switch to online consumption, so a certain portion of the increase in online consumption is likely to fall away again as COVID-19 subsides.Publiser\u27s another name: JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S) Central Bank Communication Desig

Ligneous periodontitis exacerbated by Behçet’s disease in a patient with plasminogen deficiency and a stop-gained variant PLG c.1468C > T: a case report

Background Plasminogen serves as the precursor to plasmin, an essential element in the fibrinolytic process, and is synthesized primarily in the liver. Plasminogen activation occurs through the action of plasminogen activator, converting it into plasmin. This conversion greatly enhances the fibrinolytic system within tissues and blood vessels, facilitating the dissolution of fibrin clots. Consequently, congenital deficiency of plasminogen results in impaired fibrin degradation. Patients with plasminogen deficiency typically exhibit fibrin deposits in various mucosal sites throughout the body, including the oral cavity, eyes, vagina, and digestive organs. Behcet's disease is a chronic recurrent systemic inflammatory disease with four main symptoms: aphthous ulcers of the oral mucosa, vulvar ulcers, skin symptoms, and eye symptoms, and has been reported worldwide. This disease is highly prevalent around the Silk Road from the Mediterranean to East Asia. We report a case of periodontitis in a patient with these two rare diseases that worsened quickly, leading to alveolar bone destruction. Genetic testing revealed a novel variant characterized by a stop-gain mutation, which may be a previously unidentified etiologic gene associated with decreased plasminogen activity. Case presentation This case report depicts a patient diagnosed with ligneous gingivitis during childhood, originating from plasminogen deficiency and progressing to periodontitis. Genetic testing revealed a suspected association with the PLG c.1468C > T (p.Arg490*) stop-gain mutation. The patient's periodontal condition remained stable with brief intervals of supportive periodontal therapy. However, the emergence of Behçet's disease induced acute systemic inflammation, necessitating hospitalization and treatment with steroids. During hospitalization, the dental approach focused on maintaining oral hygiene and alleviating contact-related pain. The patient's overall health improved with inpatient care and the periodontal tissues deteriorated. Conclusions Collaborative efforts between medical and dental professionals are paramount in comprehensively evaluating and treating patients with intricate complications from rare diseases. Furthermore, the PLG c.1468C > T (p.Arg490*) stop-gain mutation could contribute to the association between plasminogen deficiency and related conditions

Application of artificial sunlight for the elderly as a possible environmental nursing practice

Aging and aged societies have arrived in many countries where significant development of medicine and the economy has been achieved. Japan is a highly aged society with a shortage of carers both at home and in long-term care settings. In fact, more persons of advanced age who do not need intensive care in hospitals strongly desire health care to be delivered in their own home with their family. Environmental nursing practice, which means that nurses improve the environment of patients or the elderly properly in accordance with healthcare considerations, is currently playing a more important role, not only to prevent the elderly from contracting various diseases, but also to provide a facility for supporting an aged person to live a fulfilling life, preferably one that includes independence. This approach will lead to a reduction in medical expenditure by increasing the number of aged people with healthy longevity without the need for hospitalization or intensive care. This short communication focuses on healthy lighting for the elderly based on our research and experience regarding the beneficial effects of artificial sunlight on nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), asthma and food allergy, and ulcerative colitis in experimental animal models and clinical settings. Then, we review other studies and discuss how artificial sunlight would be useful for the elderly as one of the environmental nursing practices

Analysis of Transcriptional Regulatory Pathways of Photoreceptor Genes by Expression Profiling of the Otx2-Deficient Retina

In the vertebrate retina, the Otx2 transcription factor plays a crucial role in the cell fate determination of both rod and cone photoreceptors. We previously reported that Otx2 conditional knockout (CKO) mice exhibited a total absence of rods and cones in the retina due to their cell fate conversion to amacrine-like cells. In order to investigate the entire transcriptome of the Otx2 CKO retina, we compared expression profile of Otx2 CKO and wild-type retinas at P1 and P12 using microarray. We observed that expression of 101- and 1049-probe sets significantly decreased in the Otx2 CKO retina at P1 and P12, respectively, whereas, expression of 3- and 4149-probe sets increased at P1 and P12, respectively. We found that expression of genes encoding transcription factors involved in photoreceptor development, including Crx, Nrl, Nr2e3, Esrrb, and NeuroD, was markedly down-regulated in the Otx2 CKO at both P1 and P12. Furthermore, we identified three human retinal disease loci mapped in close proximity to certain down-regulated genes in the Otx2 CKO retina including Ccdc126, Tnfsf13 and Pitpnm1, suggesting that these genes are possibly responsible for these diseases. These transcriptome data sets of the Otx2 CKO retina provide a resource on developing rods and cones to further understand the molecular mechanisms underlying photoreceptor development, function and disease

A 2500 square-degree cosmic microwave background lensing map from combined South Pole telescope and planck temperature data, and cross-correlation with large-scale structure

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is one of the prime observables in studying cosmology. With the increased sensitivity and frequency coverage, the recent CMB experiments have allowed us to investigate subtle secondary e ects such as gravitational lensing. In this thesis, the theoret- ical background of CMB lensing is described, and the methods used to reconstruct a map of the gravitational lensing potential is outlined. The methodology is applied to temperature data ob- tained by the South Pole Telescope and Planck, and the resulting lensing map is presented. We perform numerous tests to verify that the lensing map is not dominated by systematic errors. This lensing map will be correlated with other probes of large-scale stucture, namely galaxy density and galaxy weak lensing. We simulate each of these data sets using Flask, a code that produces maps of correlated elds. Using the suite of simulation realizations, we calculate the correlations between the probes and estimate the covariance. The two-point correlation measure- ments for the individual probes are then combined to constrain cosmology. Finally we discuss the future landscape of multi-probe cosmological analyses.Le fond di us cosmologique (CMB) est un des observables les plus importants en cosmologie. Avec une sensibilité accrue au cours des dernières années, les expériences de mesure du CMB nous ont permis de mesurer des e ets secondaires subtils, tel que l’e et de lentillage gravitation- nel. Dans cette thèse, nous décrivons le cadre théorique de l’e et de lentillage du CMB ainsi que les méthodes utilisées pour reconstruire une carte de potentiel de l’e et de lentille gravitation- nelle. Cette méthodologie est appliquée à une carte en température du CMB obtenue à partirde données du télescope du Pôle Sud et du satellite Planck; la carte de potentiel résultante est présentée. Nous réalisons plusieurs tests pour véri er que la carte de lentillage obtenue ne corre- spond pas principalement à du bruit systématique.Cette carte de lentillage sera corrélée avec d’autres observations de la structure à grandes échelles, plus particulièrement la densité de galaxies ainsi que le lentillage des galaxies. Nous simulons chacune de ces observations à l’aide de Flask, un code qui produit des cartes de champs corrélés. En utilisant ces simulations, nous calculons les corrélations entre ces observations et esti- mons la variance. Ces di érentes mesures sont ensuite combinées pour contraindre les paramètres cosmologiques. Nous terminons en discutant le futur des analyses de paramètres cosmologiques utilisant ces observations combin es