Mental Health in Local Public Employees Affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake

The Great East Japan Earthquake was a complex disaster with a variety of destructive effects, including tsunami damage and damage due to the nuclear power plant accident. Local public employees who work for disaster-struck municipalities, while themselves disaster victims, are engaged in unimaginably difficult work including disaster relief and recovery. This study presents the outcomes of a two-stage panel survey on mental health conducted once in 2015 and once in 2016. The subjects were 672 local public employees in one disaster group that suffered tsunami damage and another disaster group that suffered damage from the nuclear disaster. Results showed the high-risk rate on the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) was 11.9% for the tsunami-disaster group and 31.4% for the nuclear- accident group at Time 1. At Time 2, it was 8.9% for the tsunami-disaster group and 27.2% for the nuclear-accident group. From Time 1 to Time 2, the high-risk rate significantly decreased in both groups, but the percentage of high-risk persons remained elevated in the nuclear- accident group. In addition, factors predicting high risk for mental health issues by group were examined by logistic regression analysis. As a result, it was shown that the risk of traumatic stress and psychiatric disorders was increased by the occurrence of burnout as a result of high stress due to work experience after the disaster. Based on these results, future issues concerning stress care for local disaster public employees were discussed

Magnetized Fast Isochoric Laser Heating for Efficient Creation of Ultra-High-Energy-Density States

The quest for the inertial confinement fusion (ICF) ignition is a grand challenge, as exemplified by extraordinary large laser facilities. Fast isochoric heating of a pre-compressed plasma core with a high-intensity short-pulse laser is an attractive and alternative approach to create ultra-high-energy-density states like those found in ICF ignition sparks. This avoids the ignition quench caused by the hot spark mixing with the surrounding cold fuel, which is the crucial problem of the currently pursued ignition scheme. High-intensity lasers efficiently produce relativistic electron beams (REB). A part of the REB kinetic energy is deposited in the core, and then the heated region becomes the hot spark to trigger the ignition. However, only a small portion of the REB collides with the core because of its large divergence. Here we have demonstrated enhanced laser-to-core energy coupling with the magnetized fast isochoric heating. The method employs a kilo-tesla-level magnetic field that is applied to the transport region from the REB generation point to the core which results in guiding the REB along the magnetic field lines to the core. 7.7 $\pm$ 1.3 % of the maximum coupling was achieved even with a relatively small radial area density core ($\rho R$ $\sim$ 0.1 g/cm$^2$). The guided REB transport was clearly visualized in a pre-compressed core by using Cu-$K_\alpha$ imaging technique. A simplified model coupled with the comprehensive diagnostics yields 6.2\% of the coupling that agrees fairly with the measured coupling. This model also reveals that an ignition-scale areal density core ($\rho R$ $\sim$ 0.4 g/cm$^2$) leads to much higher laser-to-core coupling ($>$ 15%), this is much higher than that achieved by the current scheme

A unique actual experience for recognizing the various roles of healthcare professionals while enhancing pharmacy students\u27 motivation

薬学生に医療従事者の役割や医療チームの重要性を認識させることは極めて重要である。そこで我々は、病院診療科の視察体験が薬学生にどのような効果をもたらすか検討した。本学薬学4年生15名に宮崎大学医学部附属病院放射線科への視察の機会を与え、他の15名には、対照群として視察の機会を与えなかった。視察体験をした学生は、医療従事者が行う診断や患者への治療を、説明を受けながら観察し、さらに医療従事者と質疑応答の時間を持った。視察体験が学生に及ぼす効果は、学生への質問調査によって評価した。視察体験をした学生は医師及びコメディカル職員とのコミュニケーションに大きな興味を示した。また、視察体験をした全ての学生は医療チームの重要性を認識し、医療における知識の修得が必要と考えていた。それ故に診療科の視察体験は、高学年の薬学生において医療従事者の役割の重要性を理解する有意な実地演習であり、教育方略になると考えた。This study aimed to have pharmacy students understand the medical care team and recognize the importance of each healthcare professional\u27s role in medical practice through the implementation of a oneday visitation experience. Thirty fourth-year pharmacy students participated in the study. Half were given an opportunity to visit the Department of Radiology at University of Miyazaki Hospital; the other half were not, and served as the control group. The students observed the medical team diagnose and provide medical treatment to patients and received explanations from various healthcare professionals. They then had a question-and-answer session with healthcare professionals. The students were subsequently given questionnaires to evaluate the impact the visitation experience had on them. Students evinced huge enthusiasm in communicating with physicians and allied healthcare professionals in the one-day experience. The experience increased their motivation to study pharmacy and helped them recognize the importance of the medical care team. Students showed a positive attitude toward the one-day experience. This experiential visit was therefore very meaningful for senior-year pharmacy students. A visitation experience in a department providing diagnosis and treatment for patients affords a unique practical training and educational strategy for understanding the role of each healthcare professional

Dynamic Expression of Cadherins Regulates Vocal Development in a Songbird

BACKGROUND: Since, similarly to humans, songbirds learn their vocalization through imitation during their juvenile stage, they have often been used as model animals to study the mechanisms of human verbal learning. Numerous anatomical and physiological studies have suggested that songbirds have a neural network called 'song system' specialized for vocal learning and production in their brain. However, it still remains unknown what molecular mechanisms regulate their vocal development. It has been suggested that type-II cadherins are involved in synapse formation and function. Previously, we found that type-II cadherin expressions are switched in the robust nucleus of arcopallium from cadherin-7-positive to cadherin-6B-positive during the phase from sensory to sensorimotor learning stage in a songbird, the Bengalese finch. Furthermore, in vitro analysis using cultured rat hippocampal neurons revealed that cadherin-6B enhanced and cadherin-7 suppressed the frequency of miniature excitatory postsynaptic currents via regulating dendritic spine morphology. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: To explore the role of cadherins in vocal development, we performed an in vivo behavioral analysis of cadherin function with lentiviral vectors. Overexpression of cadherin-7 in the juvenile and the adult stages resulted in severe defects in vocal production. In both cases, harmonic sounds typically seen in the adult Bengalese finch songs were particularly affected. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our results suggest that cadherins control vocal production, particularly harmonic sounds, probably by modulating neuronal morphology of the RA nucleus. It appears that the switching of cadherin expressions from sensory to sensorimotor learning stage enhances vocal production ability to make various types of vocalization that is essential for sensorimotor learning in a trial and error manner

Impact of COVID-19 on cardiovascular testing in the United States versus the rest of the world

Objectives: This study sought to quantify and compare the decline in volumes of cardiovascular procedures between the United States and non-US institutions during the early phase of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the care of many non-COVID-19 illnesses. Reductions in diagnostic cardiovascular testing around the world have led to concerns over the implications of reduced testing for cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality. Methods: Data were submitted to the INCAPS-COVID (International Atomic Energy Agency Non-Invasive Cardiology Protocols Study of COVID-19), a multinational registry comprising 909 institutions in 108 countries (including 155 facilities in 40 U.S. states), assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on volumes of diagnostic cardiovascular procedures. Data were obtained for April 2020 and compared with volumes of baseline procedures from March 2019. We compared laboratory characteristics, practices, and procedure volumes between U.S. and non-U.S. facilities and between U.S. geographic regions and identified factors associated with volume reduction in the United States. Results: Reductions in the volumes of procedures in the United States were similar to those in non-U.S. facilities (68% vs. 63%, respectively; p = 0.237), although U.S. facilities reported greater reductions in invasive coronary angiography (69% vs. 53%, respectively; p < 0.001). Significantly more U.S. facilities reported increased use of telehealth and patient screening measures than non-U.S. facilities, such as temperature checks, symptom screenings, and COVID-19 testing. Reductions in volumes of procedures differed between U.S. regions, with larger declines observed in the Northeast (76%) and Midwest (74%) than in the South (62%) and West (44%). Prevalence of COVID-19, staff redeployments, outpatient centers, and urban centers were associated with greater reductions in volume in U.S. facilities in a multivariable analysis. Conclusions: We observed marked reductions in U.S. cardiovascular testing in the early phase of the pandemic and significant variability between U.S. regions. The association between reductions of volumes and COVID-19 prevalence in the United States highlighted the need for proactive efforts to maintain access to cardiovascular testing in areas most affected by outbreaks of COVID-19 infection

Glycosylation of human CRLR at Asn123 is required for ligand binding and signaling

AbstractCalcitonin receptor-like receptor (CRLR) constitutes either a CGRP receptor when complexed with receptor activity-modifying protein 1 (RAMP1) or an adrenomedullin receptor when complexed with RAMP2 or RAMP3. RAMP proteins modify the glycosylation status of CRLR and determine their receptor specificity; when treated with tunicamycin, a glycosylation inhibitor, CHO-K1 cells constitutively expressing both RAMP2 and CRLR lost the capacity to bind adrenomedullin. Similarly, in HEK293 EBNA cells constitutively expressing RAMP1/CRLR receptor complex CGRP binding was remarkably inhibited. Whichever RAMP protein was co-expressing with CRLR, the ligand binding was sensitive to tunicamycin. There are three putative Asn-linked glycosylation sites in the extracellular, amino terminal domain of CRLR at positions 66, 118 and 123. Analysis of CRLR mutants in which Gln was substituted for selected Asn residues showed that glycosylation of Asn123 is required for both the binding of adrenomedullin and the transduction of its signal. Substituting Asn66 or Asn118 had no effect. FACS analysis of cells expressing FLAG-tagged CRLRs showed that disrupting Asn-linked glycosylation severely affected the transport of the CRLR protein to the cell surface on N66/118/123Q mutant, and slightly reduced the level of the cell surface expression of N123Q mutant compared with wild-type CRLR. But other single mutants (N66Q, N118Q) had no effect for other single mutants. Our data shows that glycosylation of Asn66 and Asn118 is not essential for ligand binding, signal transduction and cell surface expression, and Asn123 is important for ligand binding and signal transduction rather than cell surface expression. It thus appears that glycosylation of Asn123 is required for CRLR to assume the appropriate conformation on the cell surface through its interaction with RAMPs

Stereoselective Synthesis of Tetrasubstituted Alkenes via a Cp*Co-III-Catalyzed C-H Alkenylation/Directing Group Migration Sequence

A highly atom economical and stereoselective synthesis of tetrasubstituted alpha,beta-unsaturated amides was achieved by a Cp*Co-III-catalyzed C-H alkenylation/directing group migration sequence. A carbamoyl directing group, which is typically removed after C-H functionalization, worked as an internal acylating agent and migrated onto the alkene moiety of the product. The directing group migration was realized with the Cp*Co-III catalyst, while a related Cp*Rh-III catalyst did not promote the migration process. The product was further converted into two types of tricyclic compounds, one of which had fluorescent properties