Study of food allergy among university students in Japan

ABSTRACTBackgroundAllergens that cause food allergy vary considerably according to race, environment, dietary habits and age. However, data on the actual situation of food allergy in young adult students are limited in Japan. The aim of the present study was to investigate the actual situation of food allergy in young adults.MethodsFood allergy was examined, along with the presence or absence of allergic rhinitis, atopic dermatitis and bronchial asthma complicating food allergy, in 2053 Japanese university students.ResultsFood allergy was noted in 5.2% of subjects, with a higher prevalence in female students. In terms of the causative allergen, the rank order of incidence was egg, buckwheat, shrimp, crab, mackerel, milk, yam, beef fat, shellfish and other foods. In comparison with Western countries, the incidence of allergy to buckwheat and seafood tended to be higher. Among students with a food allergy, the proportion of those with allergic rhinitis, atopic dermatitis and bronchial asthma was 45.8, 29.0 and 12.1%, respectively, showing higher prevalences than in students without any food allergy.ConclusionIn the future, the number of young adults with food allergy complicated by other allergic diseases will increase and measures against this issue seem to be necessary

Analysis of spinner straightening utilizing the finite element method

This paper presents analysis methods utilizing the Finite Element Method for spinner straightening, and shows a guideline for optimum conditions. Two types of analysis methods were composed. Model [F-Expl], “full actual model with explicit scheme”, considers the rotational movement of dies as the actual process using the explicit scheme. Model [BndCr], “a model carrying out fundamental analysis on one cross section based on simple bending in the Finite Element Method (FEM)”, uses the FEM only for calculation of simple bending without rotation for obtaining the deformed bar shape. A series of experiments were conducted in an actual production line as well as the analyses by Model [F-Expl] and [BndCr]. The examination mainly focused upon the effect of straightening intensity by changing the die positions. The experimental and analytical results show some mechanism of straightening and a basic guideline for the optimum working condition

Evidence mining and novelty assessment of protein–protein interactions with the ConsensusPathDB plugin for Cytoscape

Summary: Protein–protein interaction detection methods are applied on a daily basis by molecular biologists worldwide. After generating a set of potential interactions, biologists face the problem of highlighting the ones that are novel and collecting evidence with respect to literature and annotation. This task can be as tedious as searching for every predicted interaction in several interaction data repositories, or manually screening the scientific literature. To facilitate the task of evidence mining and novelty assessment of protein–protein interactions, we have developed a Cytoscape plugin that automatically mines publication references, database references, interaction detection method descriptions and pathway annotation for a user-supplied network of interactions. The basis for the annotation is ConsensusPathDB—a meta-database that integrates numerous protein–protein, signaling, metabolic and gene regulatory interaction repositories for currently three species: Homo sapiens, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Mus musculus

Visceral Fat Accumulation is Associated with Oxidative Stress and Increased Matrix Metalloproteinase-9 Expression in Atherogenic Factor-overlapped Model Rats

Visceral fat accumulation in lifestyle-related diseases increases the risk of atherosclerosis. Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) play an important role in the progression of atherosclerosis. We examined atherogenic factor-overlapped model rats to clarify the relationships among visceral fat, oxidative stress, and MMPs. We used four groups of male, 11-month-old, spontaneously hypertensive hyperlipidemic rats (SHHRs) or Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats. Animals were fed either a diet of high fat and 30% sucrose solution (HFDS) or a normal diet (ND) ad libitum for 6 months. The visceral fat weight increased by approximately three fold in SHHR-HFDS compared to SHHR-ND. The oxidative stress marker in plasma and MMP-9 mRNA expression in white blood cells increased in SHHR-HFDS compared to the other groups. A correlation was determined between oxidative stress and visceral fat or MMP-9 mRNA in all rats. Lipid deposition and immunostaining of CD68 and MMP-9 were observed mainly in the intima of aorta in SHHR-HFDS, while tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 mRNA expression decreased in both SHHR groups. The findings suggested that increased oxidative stress due to the visceral fat accumulation induced MMP-9 expression and macrophage accumulation in the intima of aorta in lifestyle-related disease model rats

A case of esophageal cancer with mesojejunal lymph node metastasis after total gastrectomy

A 56-year-old man was diagnosed with esophageal cancer by upper gastrointestinal endoscopy for examination of dysphagia. The patient had undergone total gastrectomy and jejunal interposition 4 years previously for a gastric cancer at the pT1N0M0 stage according to the UICC-TNM classification. Enhanced CT findings revealed a 3-cm-diameter mass located near the superior mesenteric artery. We conducted subtotal esophagectomy associated with partial jejunectomy including mesojejunectomy. The mass was histologically diagnosed to be mesojejunal lymph node metastasis from esophageal cancer. Mesojejunal lymph node metastasis from esophageal cancer developing after total gastrectomy has been reported in only three cases including ours. The present lymph node metastases may have occurred via the newly developed lymphatic drainage route through the esophagojejunostomy, and this metastatic lymph node can be considered the regional lymph node. Therefore, resection of the interposed jejunal limb with mesojejunectomy may be rational in surgery on esophageal cancer developing after total gastrectomy

The 2nd DBCLS BioHackathon: interoperable bioinformatics Web services for integrated applications

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The interaction between biological researchers and the bioinformatics tools they use is still hampered by incomplete interoperability between such tools. To ensure interoperability initiatives are effectively deployed, end-user applications need to be aware of, and support, best practices and standards. Here, we report on an initiative in which software developers and genome biologists came together to explore and raise awareness of these issues: BioHackathon 2009.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Developers in attendance came from diverse backgrounds, with experts in Web services, workflow tools, text mining and visualization. Genome biologists provided expertise and exemplar data from the domains of sequence and pathway analysis and glyco-informatics. One goal of the meeting was to evaluate the ability to address real world use cases in these domains using the tools that the developers represented. This resulted in i) a workflow to annotate 100,000 sequences from an invertebrate species; ii) an integrated system for analysis of the transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs) enriched based on differential gene expression data obtained from a microarray experiment; iii) a workflow to enumerate putative physical protein interactions among enzymes in a metabolic pathway using protein structure data; iv) a workflow to analyze glyco-gene-related diseases by searching for human homologs of glyco-genes in other species, such as fruit flies, and retrieving their phenotype-annotated SNPs.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Beyond deriving prototype solutions for each use-case, a second major purpose of the BioHackathon was to highlight areas of insufficiency. We discuss the issues raised by our exploration of the problem/solution space, concluding that there are still problems with the way Web services are modeled and annotated, including: i) the absence of several useful data or analysis functions in the Web service "space"; ii) the lack of documentation of methods; iii) lack of compliance with the SOAP/WSDL specification among and between various programming-language libraries; and iv) incompatibility between various bioinformatics data formats. Although it was still difficult to solve real world problems posed to the developers by the biological researchers in attendance because of these problems, we note the promise of addressing these issues within a semantic framework.</p

The DBCLS BioHackathon: standardization and interoperability for bioinformatics web services and workflows. The DBCLS BioHackathon Consortium*

Web services have become a key technology for bioinformatics, since life science databases are globally decentralized and the exponential increase in the amount of available data demands for efficient systems without the need to transfer entire databases for every step of an analysis. However, various incompatibilities among database resources and analysis services make it difficult to connect and integrate these into interoperable workflows. To resolve this situation, we invited domain specialists from web service providers, client software developers, Open Bio* projects, the BioMoby project and researchers of emerging areas where a standard exchange data format is not well established, for an intensive collaboration entitled the BioHackathon 2008. The meeting was hosted by the Database Center for Life Science (DBCLS) and Computational Biology Research Center (CBRC) and was held in Tokyo from February 11th to 15th, 2008. In this report we highlight the work accomplished and the common issues arisen from this event, including the standardization of data exchange formats and services in the emerging fields of glycoinformatics, biological interaction networks, text mining, and phyloinformatics. In addition, common shared object development based on BioSQL, as well as technical challenges in large data management, asynchronous services, and security are discussed. Consequently, we improved interoperability of web services in several fields, however, further cooperation among major database centers and continued collaborative efforts between service providers and software developers are still necessary for an effective advance in bioinformatics web service technologies

The 3rd DBCLS BioHackathon: improving life science data integration with Semantic Web technologies.

BACKGROUND: BioHackathon 2010 was the third in a series of meetings hosted by the Database Center for Life Sciences (DBCLS) in Tokyo, Japan. The overall goal of the BioHackathon series is to improve the quality and accessibility of life science research data on the Web by bringing together representatives from public databases, analytical tool providers, and cyber-infrastructure researchers to jointly tackle important challenges in the area of in silico biological research. RESULTS: The theme of BioHackathon 2010 was the 'Semantic Web', and all attendees gathered with the shared goal of producing Semantic Web data from their respective resources, and/or consuming or interacting those data using their tools and interfaces. We discussed on topics including guidelines for designing semantic data and interoperability of resources. We consequently developed tools and clients for analysis and visualization. CONCLUSION: We provide a meeting report from BioHackathon 2010, in which we describe the discussions, decisions, and breakthroughs made as we moved towards compliance with Semantic Web technologies - from source provider, through middleware, to the end-consumer.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Atrasentan and renal events in patients with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease (SONAR): a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial

Background: Short-term treatment for people with type 2 diabetes using a low dose of the selective endothelin A receptor antagonist atrasentan reduces albuminuria without causing significant sodium retention. We report the long-term effects of treatment with atrasentan on major renal outcomes. Methods: We did this double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial at 689 sites in 41 countries. We enrolled adults aged 18–85 years with type 2 diabetes, estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR)25–75 mL/min per 1·73 m 2 of body surface area, and a urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio (UACR)of 300–5000 mg/g who had received maximum labelled or tolerated renin–angiotensin system inhibition for at least 4 weeks. Participants were given atrasentan 0·75 mg orally daily during an enrichment period before random group assignment. Those with a UACR decrease of at least 30% with no substantial fluid retention during the enrichment period (responders)were included in the double-blind treatment period. Responders were randomly assigned to receive either atrasentan 0·75 mg orally daily or placebo. All patients and investigators were masked to treatment assignment. The primary endpoint was a composite of doubling of serum creatinine (sustained for ≥30 days)or end-stage kidney disease (eGFR <15 mL/min per 1·73 m 2 sustained for ≥90 days, chronic dialysis for ≥90 days, kidney transplantation, or death from kidney failure)in the intention-to-treat population of all responders. Safety was assessed in all patients who received at least one dose of their assigned study treatment. The study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT01858532. Findings: Between May 17, 2013, and July 13, 2017, 11 087 patients were screened; 5117 entered the enrichment period, and 4711 completed the enrichment period. Of these, 2648 patients were responders and were randomly assigned to the atrasentan group (n=1325)or placebo group (n=1323). Median follow-up was 2·2 years (IQR 1·4–2·9). 79 (6·0%)of 1325 patients in the atrasentan group and 105 (7·9%)of 1323 in the placebo group had a primary composite renal endpoint event (hazard ratio [HR]0·65 [95% CI 0·49–0·88]; p=0·0047). Fluid retention and anaemia adverse events, which have been previously attributed to endothelin receptor antagonists, were more frequent in the atrasentan group than in the placebo group. Hospital admission for heart failure occurred in 47 (3·5%)of 1325 patients in the atrasentan group and 34 (2·6%)of 1323 patients in the placebo group (HR 1·33 [95% CI 0·85–2·07]; p=0·208). 58 (4·4%)patients in the atrasentan group and 52 (3·9%)in the placebo group died (HR 1·09 [95% CI 0·75–1·59]; p=0·65). Interpretation: Atrasentan reduced the risk of renal events in patients with diabetes and chronic kidney disease who were selected to optimise efficacy and safety. These data support a potential role for selective endothelin receptor antagonists in protecting renal function in patients with type 2 diabetes at high risk of developing end-stage kidney disease. Funding: AbbVie