Proposal and Evaluation of Toilet Timing Suggestion Methods for the Elderly

Elderly people need to urinate frequently, and when they go on outings they often have a difficult time finding restrooms. Because of this, researching a body water management system is needed. Our proposed system calculates timing trips to the toilet in consideration with both their schedules and the amount of body water needing to be expelled, and recommends using the restroom with sufficient time before needing to urinate. In this paper, we describe the suggested methods of this system and show the experimental results for the toilet timing suggestion methods

Association between education and television viewing among older working and retired people: a comparative study of Finland and Japan

Abstract Background Educational attainment is associated with physical activity among older people. However, little is known about its association with sedentary lifestyle in European as well as Asian nations. This study aims to examine the associations between educational attainment and daily television viewing as an indicator of a sedentary lifestyle among older working and retired people in Finland and Japan. Methods We used cross-sectional harmonized data from two cohorts, the Finnish Public Sector study (n = 10,744) and the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study (n = 2493), evaluating individuals aged 65–75 years old. We defined high-duration television viewing as ≥4 h per day. Poisson regression was used to examine the association between educational attainment and high-duration television viewing, stratified by the current working status. Models were adjusted for age, sex, household size, smoking, alcohol, body mass index, chronic diseases, mental disorders, and physical activity. Results Of the participants, 27% in Finland and 30% in Japan reported high-duration television viewing. Compared with a low education (≤9 years), Finnish and Japanese retirees with a high education (≥13 years) had less high-duration television viewing [prevalence ratio, PR 0.68 (95% confidence interval 0.63–0.73) and 0.66 (0.55–0.79), respectively]. The corresponding PRs for Finnish and Japanese retirees with intermediate education were also lowered [0.89 (0.83–0.95) and 0.79 (0.68–0.91), respectively]. Among older people still at work, educational attainment was associated with high-duration television viewing among the Japanese but not among the Finnish. Conclusion A similar association between educational attainment and high-duration television viewing in Finland and Japan particularly after retirement suggests a robust and consistent impact of educational attainment on a sedentary lifestyle after retirements

Efficient generation of thymic epithelium from induced pluripotent stem cells that prolongs allograft survival

The thymus plays a significant role in establishing immunological self-tolerance. Previous studies have revealed that host immune reaction to allogeneic transplants could be regulated by thymus transplantation. However, physiological thymus involution hinders the clinical application of these insights. Here, we report an efficient generation of thymic epithelial-like tissue derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and its potential to regulate immune reaction in allogeneic transplantation. We established an iPSC line which constitutively expresses mouse Foxn1 gene and examined the effect of its expression during in vitro differentiation of thymic epithelial cells (TECs). We found that Foxn1 expression enhances the differentiation induction of cells expressing TEC-related cell surface molecules along with upregulation of endogenous Foxn1. iPSC-derived TECs (iPSC-TECs) generated T cells in nude recipient mice after renal subcapsular transplantation. Moreover, iPSC-TEC transplantation to immuno-competent recipients significantly prolonged the survival of allogeneic skin. Our study provides a novel concept for allogeneic transplantation in the setting of regenerative medicine

Induction of macrophage-like immunosuppressive cells from common marmoset ES cells by stepwise differentiation with DZNep

Recent progress in regenerative medicine has enabled the utilization of pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) as the resource of therapeutic cells/tissue. However, immune suppression is still needed when the donor-recipient combination is allogeneic. We have reported previously that mouse PSCs-derived immunosuppressive cells contribute to prolonged survival of grafts derived from the same mouse PSCs in allogeneic recipients. For its clinical application, a preclinical study using non-human primates such as common marmoset must be performed. In this study, we established the induction protocol of immunosuppressive cells from common marmoset ES cells. Although similar immunosuppressive macrophages could not be induced by same protocol as that for mouse PSCs, we employed an inhibitor for histone methyltransferase, DZNep, and succeeded to induce them. The DZNep-treated macrophage-like cells expressed several immunosuppressive molecules and significantly inhibited allogeneic mixed lymphocyte reaction. The immunosuppressive cells from non-human primate ESCs will help to establish an immunoregulating strategy in regenerative medicine using PSCs

Establishment of an experimental model for MHC homo-to-hetero transplantation

Preventing rejection is a major challenge in transplantation medicine, even when using pluripotent stem cell-derived grafts. In iPS cell (iPSC)-based transplantation, to reduce the risk of rejection, it is thought to be optimal that preparing the cells from donors whose human leukocyte antigen-haplotype are homozygous. Generally, this approach is referred to as major histocompatibility complex (MHC) homo-to-hetero transplantation, which is MHC-matched but minor antigen-mismatched. To investigate the immune response in the MHC homo-to-hetero transplantation, we established a murine experimental system in which MHC-matched but minor antigen-mismatched tissue (skin) grafts were transplanted into MHC-heterozygous recipients. Unexpectedly, only minor antigen-mismatched grafts were rejected at the same time points as rejection of fully allogeneic grafts. A vigorous anti-donor type T cell response was detected in vitro and conventional immunosuppressants targeting T cell activation had limited effects on controlling rejection. However, anti-donor antibodies were not detected only in the minor antigen-mismatched transplantation. This murine transplantation model can be used to further analyze immunological subjects for MHC homo-to-hetero iPSC-based transplantation