Free products of coarsely convex spaces and the coarse Baum-Connes conjecture

The first author and Oguni introduced a wide class of metric spaces, called coarsely convex spaces. It includes Gromov hyperbolic metric spaces, CAT(0) spaces, systolic complexes, proper injective metric spaces. We introduce the notion of free products of metric spaces and show that free products of symmetric geodesic coarsely convex spaces are also symmetric geodesic coarsely convex spaces. As an application, it follows that free products of symmetric geodesic coarsely convex spaces satisfy the coarse Baum-Connes conjecture.Comment: 27 pages, 9 figure

Reduced tubulin polyglutamylation suppresses flagellar shortness in Chlamydomonas

Ciliary length control is an incompletely understood process essential for normal ciliary function. The flagella of Chlamydomonas mutants lacking multiple axonemal dyneins are shorter than normal; previously it was shown that this shortness can be suppressed by the mutation suppressor of shortness 1 (ssh1) via an unknown mechanism. To elucidate this mechanism, we carried out genetic analysis of ssh1 and found that it is a new allele of TPG2 (hereafter tpg2-3), which encodes FAP234 functioning in tubulin polyglutamylation in the axoneme. Similar to the polyglutamylation-deficient mutants tpg1 and tpg2-1, tpg2-3 axonemal tubulin has a greatly reduced level of long polyglutamate side chains. We found that tpg1 and tpg2-1 mutations also promote flagellar elongation in short-flagella mutants, consistent with a polyglutamylation-dependent mechanism of suppression. Double mutants of tpg1 or tpg2-1 and fla10-1, a temperature-sensitive mutant of intraflagellar transport, underwent slower flagellar shortening than fla10-1 at restrictive temperatures, indicating that the rate of tubulin disassembly is decreased in the polyglutamylation-deficient flagella. Moreover, alpha-tubulin incorporation into the flagellar tips in temporary dikaryons was retarded in polyglutamylation-deficient flagella. These results show that polyglutamylation deficiency stabilizes axonemal microtubules, decelerating axonemal disassembly at the flagellar tip and shifting the axonemal assembly/disassembly balance toward assembly

The relationship of car driving and bicycle riding on physical activity and social participation in Japanese rural areas

Limited transportation leads to restriction of activity. However, few studies have paid attention to the effect of the type of transportation. This study focused on car driving and bicycle riding and aimed to examine the association of these transportation methods with physical activity and social participation in Japanese older adults. This cross-sectional study included 374 Japanese older adults living in a rural area. Physical activity was evaluated using the Physical Activity Scale for the Elderly. The data on transportation mode and 4 types of social participation were obtained from a self-reported questionnaire. An analysis of covariance and a multivariate Poisson regression analysis were conducted to evaluate associations. The sample comprised 304 participants who usually drive a car and 106 who regularly ride a bicycle. Although there was no significant association between car driving and physical activity, bicycle riding showed positive association with leisure time activity (p = .009), household activity (p = .001), and total physical activity (p community association (PR = 1.75, 95% CI: 1.11–2.77) and volunteer activities (PR = 1.62, 95% CI: 1.08–2.43). These results suggested that car driving and bicycle riding have different effects on physical activity and social participation.本文pdf：タイトル表記無

Comparison of the diagnostic value of 3 T MRI after intratympanic injection of GBCA, electrocochleography, and the glycerol test in patients with Meniere's disease

Conclusion. 3 T MRI after intratympanic injection of gadolinium-based contrast agent (GBCA) is more useful for the diagnosis of endolymphatic hydrops compared with the glycerol test and electrocochleography (ECoG). Objective: To investigate the relationship between 3 T MRI after intratympanic injection of GBCA, the glycerol test, and ECoG in patients with Meniere's disease (MD). Methods: A total of 20 patients with MD were evaluated. Diluted gadodiamide (a gadolinium-based contrast agent) was administered to the bilateral tympanic cavity by injection through the tympanic membrane. After 24 h, the endolymphatic hydrops was evaluated by a 3.0 T MR scanner. To investigate cochlear hydrops, the glycerol test and ECoG were carried out in all patients. Results: A positive result was observed in 11 patients (55%) in the glycerol test and in 12 patients (60%) by ECoG. The incidence of positive findings when evaluating the same patients with both the glycerol test and ECoG increased to 75%. Nineteen of 20 (95%) patients showed positive results for 3 T MRI.ArticleACTA OTO-LARYNGOLOGICA. 132(2):141-145 (2012)journal articl

Noise robust automatic charge state recognition in quantum dots by machine learning and pre-processing, and visual explanations of the model with Grad-CAM

Charge state recognition in quantum dot devices is important in preparation of quantum bits for quantum information processing. Towards auto-tuning of larger-scale quantum devices, automatic charge state recognition by machine learning has been demonstrated. In this work, we propose a simpler method using machine learning and pre-processing. We demonstrate the operation of the charge state recognition and evaluated an accuracy high as 96%. We also analyze the explainability of the trained machine learning model by gradient-weighted class activation mapping (Grad-CAM) which identifies class-discriminative regions for the predictions. It exhibits that the model predicts the state based on the change transition lines, indicating human-like recognition is realized.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figure