Oral health status: relationship to nutrient and food intake among 80‐year‐old Japanese adults

Objectives The aim of this cross‐sectional study was to investigate the relationship of oral health status defined on the basis of presence of posterior occluding pairs ( POP s) and adequacy of removable denture fit as determined by self‐report to nutrient and food intake among older Japanese. Methods The subjects were 353 Japanese aged 80 years in 2008 and were classified into four groups according to the number of POP s, defined as pairs of occluding natural, restored, or fixed prosthetic postcanine teeth (range: 0–8) and removable denture status. The groups were: (i) good dentition ( n  =   56; 8 POP s and no removable prosthesis), (ii) well‐fitting dentures ( n  =   158; <8 POP s with self‐reported good‐fitting dentures), (iii) ill‐fitting dentures ( n  =   70; <8 POP s with self‐reported ill‐fitting dentures), and (iv) compromised dentition ( n  =   69; <8 POP s and no removable prosthesis). Multivariable analysis of the differences in nutrient and food intake outcome variables which were collected via validated food frequency questionnaire among the four oral health status groups was conducted using general linear models. Results Intake of multiple nutrients was significantly ( P  <   0.05) lower in the group with ill‐fitting dentures or compromised dentition than in the good dentition group. Vegetable, fish, and shellfish consumption was significantly lower in the ill‐fitting dentures or compromised dentition groups. No significant differences were seen in dietary intake between the well‐fitting dentures and good dentition groups. Conclusions Dietary intake was poorer in those with self‐perceived ill‐fitting dentures or fewer POP s than among those having all POP s. Regular dental care to maintain intact dentition, as well as dental treatment to replace missing teeth and ensure adequate denture fit and function, may be important to the diet intake and subsequent nutritional status of older Japanese.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/108691/1/cdoe12100.pd

A comparative profile of urinary scent signals of two endangered Japanese populations of leopard cat

Two subspecies of mainland leopard cats (Prionailurus bengalensis), Iriomote cats (Prionailurus bengalensis iriomotensis), and Tsushima leopard cats (Prionailurus bengalensis euptilurus), are small, endangered felids that are endemic to the Japanese islands, Iriomote-jima and Tsushima, respectively. Both subspecies have an estimated population size of only about 100 individuals each. Therefore, it is crucial to expand our understanding of these subspecies to successfully conserve them. While their morphology, anatomy, ecology, pathology, and genetics are well studied, little is known about their physiology regulated in subspecies-specific manners. This study characterized their urinary volatile and nonvolatile organic compounds, with which individuals express their physiological status and territorial ownership. We found significantly higher levels of 3-mercapto-3-methyl-1-butanol and its structural analogs, which are scent signals of domestic cats, in the urinary headspace of Iriomote cats than in that of Tsushima leopard cats. There were no differences in the urinary levels of felinine, an amino acid that acts as a precursor of 3-mercapto-3-methyl-1-butanol, suggesting the variation of catalytic activities for decomposing felinine to 3-mercapto-3-methyl-1-butanol between subspecies. Both subspecies exhibited physiological proteinuria due to the secretion of carboxylesterase 5A, also known as cauxin, for the production of felinine. In conclusion, while the two endangered Japanese subspecies of mainland leopard cats share similar genetic backgrounds, urinary contents of metabolites vary between the subspecies. We suggest that after the separation into two subspecies, the regulation of the metabolic pathway for 3-mercapto-3-methyl-1-butanol production likely evolved differently in each subspecies in response to their specific environments

Augmenting Music Sheets with Harmonic Fingerprints

Conventional Music Notation (CMN) is the well-established foundation for the written communication of musical information, such as rhythm, harmony, or timbre. However, CMN suffers from the complexity of its visual encoding and the need for extensive training to acquire proficiency and legibility. While alternative notations using additional visual variables (such as color to improve pitch identification) have been proposed, the music community does not readily accept notation systems that vary widely from the CMN. Therefore, to support student musicians in understanding the harmonic relationship of notes, instead of replacing the CMN, we present a visualization technique that augments a digital music sheet with a harmonic fingerprint glyph. Our design exploits the circle of fifths - a fundamental concept in music theory, as a visual metaphor. By attaching these visual glyphs to each bar of a selected composition we provide additional information about the salient harmonic features available in a musical piece. We conducted a user study to analyze the performance of experts and non-experts in an identification and comparison task of recurring patterns. The evaluation shows that the harmonic fingerprint supports these tasks without the need for close-reading, as when compared to a not-annotated music sheet.Comment: (9+1) pages; 5 figures; User Stud

イブンカカン コミュニケーション ノウリョク ノ タメ ノ キョウイク ト ソノ キョウザイカ ニ ツイテ -ハンガリー ノ ニホンゴキョウイク キョウカショ 『デキル』 サクセイ ヲ レイ ト シテ-

本稿ではハンガリーにおける日本語教育教科書『できる』の開発を例に、日本語教育における異文化間コミュニケーション能力の育成の方法とその教材化について一例を示す。ハンガリーの言語教育は欧州評議会の政策に影響を受けており、言語能力のみならず文化的な能力の育成も重要視されている。『できる』においては、Byram、L&aacute;z&aacute;r といった欧州評議会の活動に参加している教育者のモデルを参照し、五つの異文化間能力の定義付けを行い、段階的に教育を行う方法をとった。実際の教材化に当たっては、異文化間能力養成を異なった機能を持つ教科書のコーナーに分散させることで、異文化間能力が静態的な知識に終わることなく、創造的で動態的な性格を持つように複合的なデザインを行った。しかし、異文化間コミュニケーション能力は言語使用者の行動として発現するため、教材の使い方についてより多くの注意が必要である。This is a report on the development of education for intercultural communicative competence through Japanese language teaching in Hungary and the design of a textbook, titled "Dekiru." Language education in Hungary is influenced by the policies of the Council of Europe, which emphasize cultural as well as language education. In the `Dekiru\u27 textbook we define five intercultural competences and adopt a gradual approach to enhance them; referring to the education model developed by Byram and L&aacute;z&aacute;r, who have participated in the Council of Europe\u27s activities. In the textbook, intercultural competences are promoted by various methods, so that learners can gain modifiable and dynamic competences, rather than static knowledge. The goal of education for intercultural communicative competences is to change learners\u27 actions in practice; therefore, it is important to pay attention to the way the textbooks is used

The characteristic response of domestic cats to plant iridoids allows them to gain chemical defense against mosquitoes

ネコのマタタビ反応の謎を解明 --マタタビ反応はネコが蚊を忌避するための行動だった--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2021-01-21.Domestic cats and other felids rub their faces and heads against catnip (Nepeta cataria) and silver vine (Actinidia polygama) and roll on the ground as a characteristic response. While this response is well known, its biological function and underlying mechanism remain undetermined. Here, we uncover the neurophysiological mechanism and functional outcome of this feline response. We found that the iridoid nepetalactol is the major component of silver vine that elicits this potent response in cats and other felids. Nepetalactol increased plasma β-endorphin levels in cats, while pharmacological inhibition of μ-opioid receptors suppressed the classic rubbing response. Rubbing behavior transfers nepetalactol onto the faces and heads of respondents where it repels the mosquito, Aedes albopictus. Thus, self-anointing behavior helps to protect cats against mosquito bites. The characteristic response of cats to nepetalactol via the μ-opioid system provides an important example of chemical pest defense using plant metabolites in nonhuman mammals

ニホンゴ ガクシュウ サイト 「マルゴト + (マルゴトプラス)」 ノ カイハツ -カダイ スイコウ ト イブンカ リカイ ヲ タスケル ウェブサイト-

JF 日本語教育スタンダード準拠の海外の成人向け教科書『まるごと日本のことばと文化』の開発に合わせ、関西国際センターでは、この教科書を使って学ぶ学習者のためのサポートサイト「まるごと+(まるごとプラス)」を開発した。「『日本語を使ってできること』が増やせる」、「『リアリティ』のある練習ができる」、「大人が『楽しく使える』」の3つをキーコンセプトとして定め、課題遂行を意識した練習、異文化理解のための情報やきっかけを提供するサイトを目指すこととした。「まるごと+」は教科書の「入門A1」、「初級1 A2」の2つのレベルに対応した種々のコンテンツを提供しており、動画を使った会話練習や異文化理解のためのコンテンツを中心に、学習者や教師から好評を得ている。本稿では、「まるごと+」の開発方針とそれをどのように具現化したか、また、サイトの反響を報告する。MARUGOTO Plus is a support website for Japanese language learners developed by The Japan Foundation Japanese-Language Institute, Kansai. It was created in conjunction with the "Marugoto :Japanese Language and Culture" textbook, which is based on the JF Standard for Japanese-Language Education and aimed at adults overseas. "MARUGOTO Plus" was developed with three key concepts inmind, "Increasing the `Things able to be accomplished using Japanese\u27", "Ability to practice with `Practical\u27settings", and "`Fun to use\u27 for adults". It aims to assist with the practice of task performance and the creation of opportunities to gather information for intercultural understanding. "MARUGOTO Plus"is compatible with two levels of the textbook, "Starter A1" and "Elementary 1 A2", and offers a variety of content. This paper will report about the concept of "MARUGOTO Plus" and how the site was realized according to the concept and, in addition, the reactions to the site

Co-existence of acute myeloid leukemia with multilineage dysplasia and Epstein-Barr virus-associated T-cell lymphoproliferative disorder in a patient with rheumatoid arthritis: a case report

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease mediated by inflammatory processes mainly at the joints. Recently, awareness of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-associated T-cell lymphoproliferative disorder (T-LPD) has been heightened for its association with methotraxate usage in RA patients. In the contrary, acute myeloid leukemia with multilineage dysplasia (AML-MLD) has never been documented to be present concomitantly with the above two conditions. In this report we present a case of an autopsy-proven co-existence of AML-MLD and EBV-associated T-LPD in a patient with RA

Integrative Annotation of 21,037 Human Genes Validated by Full-Length cDNA Clones

The human genome sequence defines our inherent biological potential; the realization of the biology encoded therein requires knowledge of the function of each gene. Currently, our knowledge in this area is still limited. Several lines of investigation have been used to elucidate the structure and function of the genes in the human genome. Even so, gene prediction remains a difficult task, as the varieties of transcripts of a gene may vary to a great extent. We thus performed an exhaustive integrative characterization of 41,118 full-length cDNAs that capture the gene transcripts as complete functional cassettes, providing an unequivocal report of structural and functional diversity at the gene level. Our international collaboration has validated 21,037 human gene candidates by analysis of high-quality full-length cDNA clones through curation using unified criteria. This led to the identification of 5,155 new gene candidates. It also manifested the most reliable way to control the quality of the cDNA clones. We have developed a human gene database, called the H-Invitational Database (H-InvDB; http://www.h-invitational.jp/). It provides the following: integrative annotation of human genes, description of gene structures, details of novel alternative splicing isoforms, non-protein-coding RNAs, functional domains, subcellular localizations, metabolic pathways, predictions of protein three-dimensional structure, mapping of known single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), identification of polymorphic microsatellite repeats within human genes, and comparative results with mouse full-length cDNAs. The H-InvDB analysis has shown that up to 4% of the human genome sequence (National Center for Biotechnology Information build 34 assembly) may contain misassembled or missing regions. We found that 6.5% of the human gene candidates (1,377 loci) did not have a good protein-coding open reading frame, of which 296 loci are strong candidates for non-protein-coding RNA genes. In addition, among 72,027 uniquely mapped SNPs and insertions/deletions localized within human genes, 13,215 nonsynonymous SNPs, 315 nonsense SNPs, and 452 indels occurred in coding regions. Together with 25 polymorphic microsatellite repeats present in coding regions, they may alter protein structure, causing phenotypic effects or resulting in disease. The H-InvDB platform represents a substantial contribution to resources needed for the exploration of human biology and pathology

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