Research on Programs for Abusive Parents in Japan and Korea（2）

This study follows Research into Programs for Abusive Parents in Japan and Korea (1), published in March 2011. The paper clarified the following two points: 1) the characteristics of child abuse in Japan and Korea and legal provisions for the parents, and 2) the content of programs for parents in Japan and Korea. This study examines the characteristics of child abuse programs in Japan and Korea, featuring five points, as a follow-up to the previous paper. These five points are as follows: 1) limitations of parent training based on behavioral therapy, 2) human relationship of healing, 3) resolving the internal conflict in the past and present, 4) the culture of the parent–child relationship and partner relationships in Japan and Korea, and 5) group work and empowerment

ニッカン ノ ギャクタイ ヲ シタ オヤ ニ タイスル プログラム ニ カンスル ケンキュウ 1

The description of this research is divided into two parts, the first half and the second half. This manuscript, which is the first half, describes the statistics of child abuse in Japan and Korea, and thelaws and regulations of the programs for abusive parents, before clarifying the details of the programs for abusive parents in Japan and Korea. This research is a comparative study of programs implemented in Japan and Korea for parents who have abused their children, based on interviews carried out in Japan and Korea. It examines the characteristics of child abuse in Japan and Korea, the ways in which the programs are conducted in order to adapt to family relationships (parent-child relationships and spousal relationships)and educational culture in families behind this issue, and the tasks to be faced

Seasonal pigment fluctuation in diploid and polyploid Arabidopsis revealed by machine learning-based phenotyping method PlantServation

Long-term field monitoring of leaf pigment content is informative for understanding plant responses to environments distinct from regulated chambers but is impractical by conventional destructive measurements. We developed PlantServation, a method incorporating robust image-acquisition hardware and deep learning-based software that extracts leaf color by detecting plant individuals automatically. As a case study, we applied PlantServation to examine environmental and genotypic effects on the pigment anthocyanin content estimated from leaf color. We processed >4 million images of small individuals of four Arabidopsis species in the field, where the plant shape, color, and background vary over months. Past radiation, coldness, and precipitation significantly affected the anthocyanin content. The synthetic allopolyploid A. kamchatica recapitulated the fluctuations of natural polyploids by integrating diploid responses. The data support a long-standing hypothesis stating that allopolyploids can inherit and combine the traits of progenitors. PlantServation facilitates the study of plant responses to complex environments termed "in natura"

Vascularized subcutaneous human liver tissue from engineered hepatocyte/fibroblast sheets in mice

Subcutaneous liver tissue engineering is an attractive and minimally invasive approach used to curative treat hepatic failure and inherited liver diseases. However, graft failure occurs frequently due to insufficient infiltration of blood vessels (neoangiogenesis), while the maintenance of hepatocyte phenotype and function requires invivo development of the complex cellular organization of the hepatic lobule. Here we describe a subcutaneous human liver construction allowing for rapidly vascularized grafts by transplanting engineered cellular sheets consisting of human primary hepatocytes adhered onto a fibroblast layer. The engineered hepatocyte/fibroblast sheets (EHFSs) showed superior expression levels of vascularization-associated growth factors (vascular endothelial growth factor, transforming growth factor beta 1, and hepatocyte growth factor) invitro. EHFSs developed into vascularized subcutaneous human liver tissues contained glycogen stores, synthesized coagulation factor IX, and showed significantly higher synthesis rates of liver-specific proteins (albumin and alpha 1 anti-trypsin) invivo than tissues from hepatocyte-only sheets. The present study describes a new approach for vascularized human liver organogenesis under mouse skin. This approach could prove valuable for establishing novel cell therapies for liver diseases

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

A Fibulin-1 Homolog Interacts with an ADAM Protease that Controls Cell Migration in C. elegans

AbstractADAM (a disintegrin and metalloprotease) family proteins play important roles in animal development and pathogenesis [1]. In C. elegans, a secreted ADAM protein, MIG-17, acts from outside the gonad to control the migration of gonadal distal tip cells (DTCs) that promote gonad morphogenesis [2]. Here, we report that dominant mutations in the fbl-1 gene encoding fibulin-1 spliced isoforms, which are calcium binding extracellular matrix proteins, bypass the requirement for MIG-17 activity in directing DTC migration. Specific amino acid substitutions in the third EGF-like motif of one of the two isoforms, FBL-1C, which corresponds to mammalian fibulin-1C, suppress mig-17 mutations. FBL-1C is synthesized in the gut cells and localizes strongly to the gonadal basement membrane in a MIG-17-dependent manner. Localization of mutant FBL-1C is weaker than that of the wild-type protein and is insensitive to MIG-17 activity, suggesting that it gains a novel function that compensates for its reduced molecular density. We propose that proteolysis by MIG-17 recruits FBL-1C to the gonadal basement membrane, where it is required for the guidance of DTCs, and that mutant FBL-1C acts in a manner that mimics the downstream events of MIG-17-mediated proteolysis