Citizen science "Thundercloud Project" -- multi-point radiation measurements of gamma-ray glows from accelerated electrons in thunderstorms

38th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2023), 26 July - 3 August, 2023, Nagoya, JapanIt has been a long-standing question whether cosmic rays promote the triggering of lightning and how cosmic-ray air showers interact with the electric field of thunderclouds. The strong electric field in the thunderclouds accelerates electrons to the relativistic regime, of which seed electrons are thought to be supplied from cosmic-ray air shower. Such relativistic electrons emit bremsstrahlung photons in gamma rays, which have been detected by on-ground measurements called gamma-ray glows. Low-altitude winter thunderstorm in Japan provides an ideal environment for observations of gamma-ray glows. We newly launched the citizen science ``Thundercloud Project" to construct a multi-point radiation mapping campaign for glows from winter thunderstorms around Kanazawa, Japan. We developed a new handy radiation monitor and shipped about 60 detectors to citizen supporters. The radiation data are stored in the microSD cards in the detectors, and a part of them is remotely sent to the web server so that researchers and supporters can watch the real-time data. In addition, an automatic alert is sent to public Twitter from the server when a glow is detected. The purpose of this project is (1) to characterize the methodological condition of electron acceleration, (2) to investigate whether accelerated relativistic electrons can enhance the chance of the initiation of lightning discharges, and (3) to find a new way of the citizen science to join in the cutting edge science in the physics field. Here we report this growing citizen science project and examples of successful gamma-ray glow observations. Our first scientific result from this citizen science project was published in Tsurumi et al., GRL 2023, where we reported lightning discharges started in or near the electron acceleration site of a gamma-ray glow

Design and baseline characteristics of the finerenone in reducing cardiovascular mortality and morbidity in diabetic kidney disease trial

Background: Among people with diabetes, those with kidney disease have exceptionally high rates of cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality and progression of their underlying kidney disease. Finerenone is a novel, nonsteroidal, selective mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist that has shown to reduce albuminuria in type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) while revealing only a low risk of hyperkalemia. However, the effect of finerenone on CV and renal outcomes has not yet been investigated in long-term trials. Patients and Methods: The Finerenone in Reducing CV Mortality and Morbidity in Diabetic Kidney Disease (FIGARO-DKD) trial aims to assess the efficacy and safety of finerenone compared to placebo at reducing clinically important CV and renal outcomes in T2D patients with CKD. FIGARO-DKD is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, event-driven trial running in 47 countries with an expected duration of approximately 6 years. FIGARO-DKD randomized 7,437 patients with an estimated glomerular filtration rate >= 25 mL/min/1.73 m(2) and albuminuria (urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio >= 30 to <= 5,000 mg/g). The study has at least 90% power to detect a 20% reduction in the risk of the primary outcome (overall two-sided significance level alpha = 0.05), the composite of time to first occurrence of CV death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or hospitalization for heart failure. Conclusions: FIGARO-DKD will determine whether an optimally treated cohort of T2D patients with CKD at high risk of CV and renal events will experience cardiorenal benefits with the addition of finerenone to their treatment regimen. Trial Registration: EudraCT number: 2015-000950-39; ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02545049

Invitation games: An experimental approach to coalition formation

This paper studies how to form an efficient coalition$da group of people. More specifically, we compare two mechanisms for forming a coalition by running a laboratory experiment and reveal which mechanism leads to higher social surplus. In one setting, we invite the subjects to join a meeting simultaneously, so they cannot know the other subjects' decisions. In the other setting, we ask them sequentially, which allows each subject to know his or her predecessor's choice. Those who decide to join the meeting form a coalition and earn payoffs according to their actions and individual preferences. As a result, we obtain the following findings. First, the sequential mechanism induces higher social surplus than the simultaneous mechanism. Second, most subjects make choices consistent with the subgame-perfect Nash equilibrium in the sequential setting and choose the dominant strategy in the simultaneous setting, when a dominant strategy exists. Finally, when the subjects need to look further ahead to make a theoretically rational choice, they are more likely to fail to choose rationally