Semi-parabolic bifurcations in complex dimension two

Parabolic bifurcations in one complex dimension demonstrate a wide variety of interesting dynamical phenomena. In this paper we consider the bifurcations of a holomorphic diffeomorphism in two complex dimensions with a semi-parabolic, semiattracting fixed point

網膜静脈分枝閉塞症に伴う黄斑浮腫眼おける光干渉断層計での中心窩視細胞内節外節ラインの隆起 (foveal bulge) の評価

PURPOSE: To determine whether a significant correlation exists between the presence of a bulge in the photoreceptor inner segment/outer segment (IS/OS) line and the best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) in eyes with resolved macular edema associated with branch retinal vein occlusion (BRVO). DESIGN: Retrospective, observational case series. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of patients who had a complete resolution of macular edema and had an intact IS/OS line in the central fovea in the spectral-domain optical coherence tomographic (SDOCT) images. Thirty-one eyes with macular edema associated with BRVO (BRVO group) and 31 unaffected fellow eyes (control group) of 31 patients were evaluated. In normal eyes, the intact IS/OS line determined by SDOCT has a bulge at the central fovea, called the foveal bulge. The eyes in the BRVO group were classified by the presence or absence of foveal bulge, and the characteristics of the 2 groups were compared. RESULTS: A foveal bulge was present in 7 of 31 eyes in the BRVO group. The incidence of a foveal bulge was significantly lower in the BRVO group (22.6%) than in the control group (100%; P < .0001). All 7 eyes with foveal bulge had a decimal BCVA of ≥1.0 at the final visit. The incidence of a foveal bulge was significantly higher in eyes with BCVA of ≥1.0 (77.8%) than in the eyes with BCVA of <1.0 (0%; P < .0001). CONCLUSIONS: The foveal bulge is a good marker of the functional properties of the fovea in eyes with resolved macular edema associated with BRVO.博士（医学）・乙第1416号・平成30年3月15日Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Research into Development of Beliefs about the Goals and Purposes of Science Teaching : Analysis of Life Stories of Five Experienced Science Teachers

This research, through analysis of five experienced science teachers’ life stories, was done to further evaluate prior research into beliefs of science teachers. Furthermore, it attempts to clarify the development of beliefs about the goals and purposes of science teaching to show how beliefs about the goals and purposes of science teaching develop through pre- and in-service teacher education/training, the value of this, and suggestions towards the realization of this. First, an overall concept of beliefs about the goals and purposes of science teaching is clarified by further evaluation of prior research. Next, life story was utilized as a research methodology for the clarification of belief development, and an interview survey was planned and conducted based on this methodology. The stories gained were analyzed, and the facts that various experiences, whether in or out of school, have an influence to clarify beliefs about the goals and purposes of science teaching, that there are cases where experiences outside of school can provide motivation for adding new concepts to one’s beliefs about the goals and purposes of science teaching, and that beliefs about the goals and purposes of science teaching that were held at the time of becoming a science teacher do not change throughout a professional career, were all made clear. Based on the above results, the development throughout one’s professional career concerning beliefs about the goals and purposes of science teaching is perceived as part of a science teacher’s consecutive professional learning, which happens in and out of school. Pre-service teacher education should make a vital role as giving an opportunity for developing beliefs about goals and purposes of science teaching. Suggestions were gained for how to realize development of beliefs about the goals and purposes of science teaching through pre- and in-service teacher education, as well as the value of this.This article translated into Japanese is published in the journal Gakushu Shisutemu Kenkyu, Vol.3

Research into Development of Beliefs about the Goals and Purposes of Science Teaching : Analysis of Life Stories of Five Experienced Science Teachers

本研究では，理科教師の信念に関する先行研究の精査と５名の熟練理科教師のライフストーリーの分析により，理科教授の目的・目標についての信念の発達を明らかにすることを通じて，現職教育及び教員養成教育において理科教授の目的・目標についての信念を発達させることの価値とその具現化に向けた示唆を得ることを目的とした。まず，先行研究を精査し，理科教授の目的・目標についての信念という概念を明確化した。次に，信念の発達を明らかにすることに適した研究の方法論としてライフストーリーを採用し，それに基づいたインタビュー調査を計画・実施した。さらに，得られた語りを分析し，学校の内外を問わず様々な経験が理科教授の目的・目標についての信念を明確にするような影響を与えていること，学校外での経験をきっかけとして新たな概念が理科教授の目的・目標についての信念に加わる場合があること，理科教師になった時点で保持していた理科教授の目的・目標についての信念が教職生活を通じて変わっていないことを明らかにした。以上の結果を踏まえ，教職生活における理科教授の目的・目標についての信念の発達が学校内外における理科教師の連続的な学びとして捉えられること，教員養成教育が理科教授の目的・目標についての信念を構築する場として重要な役割を担っていること，という現職教育及び教員養成教育において理科教授の目的・目標についての信念を発達させることの価値とその具現化に向けた示唆を得た。This research, through analysis of five experienced science teachers’ life stories, was done to further evaluate prior research into beliefs of science teachers. Furthermore, it attempts to clarify the development of beliefs about the goals and purposes of science teaching to show how beliefs about the goals and purposes of science teaching develop through pre- and in-service teacher education/training, the value of this, and suggestions towards the realization of this. First, an overall concept of beliefs about the goals and purposes of science teaching is clarified by further evaluation of prior research. Next, life story was utilized as a research methodology for the clarification of belief development, and an interview survey was planned and conducted based on this methodology. The stories gained were analyzed, and the facts that various experiences, whether in or out of school, have an influence to clarify beliefs about the goals and purposes of science teaching, that there are cases where experiences outside of school can provide motivation for adding new concepts to one’s beliefs about the goals and purposes of science teaching, and that beliefs about the goals and purposes of science teaching that were held at the time of becoming a science teacher do not change throughout a professional career, were all made clear. Based on the above results, the development throughout one’s professional career concerning beliefs about the goals and purposes of science teaching is perceived as part of a science teacher’s consecutive professional learning, which happens in and out of school. Pre-service teacher education should make a vital role as giving an opportunity for developing beliefs about goals and purposes of science teaching. Suggestions were gained for how to realize development of beliefs about the goals or purposes of science teaching through pre- and in-service teacher education, as well as the value of this

Jugular Vein Technique for Serial Blood Sampling in the Hamster

The puncture is performed via the external jugular vein in hamster (100g) under appropriate anesthesia and will give 1 ml within 30 seconds with certainty and security. Blood volumes up to 1 ml have been obtained once a week for a period of 20 weeks

Distribution of Lenticular Astigmatism in a Pre-Cataract Surgery Population

Recently custom ablation of LASIK (laserin situ keratomileusis) has rapidly evolved. It could achieve supervision temporarily, but we suspect that the vision could deteriorate due to against-the rule astigmatism decades after the operation. To clarify this concern, we evaluated distribution of the total and corneal astigmatism of 101 eyes of 65 pre-cataract surgery patients (meanage:73 years). Then we calculated the lenticular astigrlatism by vector analysis. The mean amounts of total and corneal astigmatism were 1.22±1.50D and 0.97±0.84D each. The percentages of no astigmatism: oblique: with-the-rule: against-the-rule were 32: 4: 15: 50 and 7: 28: 26: 40, respectively. The mean amount of lenticular astigrlatism measured by vector analysis was 1.6± 1.4D. The percentage of no astigmatism: oblique: with-the-rule: against-the-rule was 2: 0: 39: 59. This biased distribution of astigmatism might have contributed to the biased distribution (no and against-the-rule) of total astigmatism. These data indicate that in a pre-cataract surgery population against-the-rule astigmatism is predominant in both corneal and lenticular astigmatism. We suspect that custom correction of adolescent eyes, in which with-the-rule astigmatism is predominant, might elicit more against-the-rule astigmatism when they reach pre-cataract surgery age population, leading to a decline in quality of vision

Deep Collaborative Filtering Approaches for Context-Aware Venue Recommendation

In recent years, vast amounts of user-generated data have being created on Location-Based Social Networks (LBSNs) such as Yelp and Foursquare. Making effective personalised venue suggestions to users based on their preferences and surrounding context is a challenging task. Context-Aware Venue Recommendation (CAVR) is an emerging topic that has gained a lot of attention from researchers, where context can be the user's current location for example. Matrix Factorisation (MF) is one of the most popular collaborative filtering-based techniques, which can be used to predict a user's rating on venues by exploiting explicit feedback (e.g. users' ratings on venues). However, such explicit feedback may not be available, particularly for inactive users, while implicit feedback is easier to obtain from LBSNs as it does not require the users to explicitly express their satisfaction with the venues. In addition, the MF-based approaches usually suffer from the sparsity problem where users/venues have very few rating, hindering the prediction accuracy. Although previous works on user-venue rating prediction have proposed to alleviate the sparsity problem by leveraging user-generated data such as social information from LBSNs, research that investigates the usefulness of Deep Neural Network algorithms (DNN) in alleviating the sparsity problem for CAVR remains untouched or partially studied

Pravastatin restored the infarct size-limiting effect of ischemic preconditioning blunted by hypercholesterolemia in the rabbit model of myocardial infarction

AbstractOBJECTIVESWe tested to find out whether pravastatin restores the infarct size (IS)-limiting effect of ischemic preconditioning (IP) and if it has any effect on the IP-induced activation of adenosine producing enzyme ecto-5′-nucleotidase which plays a key role in the IP-induced cardioprotection.BACKGROUNDThe IS-limiting effect of IP is blunted by hypercholesterolemia. Recently, HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors are shown to have direct cytoprotective effects.METHODSRabbits were fed with a normal or cholesterol (1%) added diet with or without pravastatin (5 mg/kg/day) treatment. Infarct size was measured after 30 min occlusion and 3 h reperfusion of circumflex coronary artery with or without the IP procedure (5 min occlusion and 10 min reperfusion). Additionally, ecto-5′-nucleotidase activities of ischemic and nonischemic myocardium were measured immediately after IP procedure.RESULTSThis dose of pravastatin did not normalize the increased level of serum cholesterol. The IS-limiting effect of preceding IP (IS reduced from 36.7% to 9.6%, p < 0.001) was abolished by hypercholesterolemia (from 46.1% to 31.3%, p = NS) and restored by pravastatin treatment (from 35.2% to 9.4%, p < 0.001). Pravastatin treatment did not affect IS or the effect of IP under normocholesterolemia. The activation of ecto-5′-nucleotidase presented as the activity ratio of ischemic to nonischemic myocardium (3.1-fold in normocholesterolemia) was blunted by hypercholesterolemia (1.8-fold, p < 0.05) and restored by pravastatin treatment (2.9-fold).CONCLUSIONSPravastatin, at the dose serum cholesterol was not normalized, restored the IS-limiting effect of IP and IP-induced ecto-5′-nucleotidase activation, which were both blunted by hypercholesterolemia. The activation of ecto-5′-nucleotidase may be worth further investigation as a possible mechanism for the hypercholesterolemia-induced retardation and pravastatin-mediated restoration of the cardioprotective effect of IP