Derivation and Test of Predictions of a Discrete Latent State Model for Signed Number Addition Test Performance

This study is an investigation of the performance of a discrete latent state model devised by Paulson (1982) to account for signed-number arithmetic test data gathered by Birenbaum and Tatsuoka (1980). One hundred twenty nine students took a test which consists of sixteen item types with four parallel arithmetic items of each type. The present study utilizes the five addition item types of four items each; hence, there are four parallel subtests. Responses to the addition items can be analyzed in terms of two components: the sign component (is the sign correct?), and the absolute value component (is the size of the answer correct?). Paulson\u27s model describes how students perform on the two components separately and how the component responses are related. This study examines the parallelism of the four subtests, in terms of equality of means, standard deviations, and correlations between all pairs of subtests. Decision consistency between subtests is another useful indicator of measurement reliability, particularly for tests of concept mastery. The model implies that the consistency between any two pairs of subtests should be equal; this implication is tested. The specific numerical values predicted by the model for the means, standard deviations, correlations, and decision consistency indices are tested against the corresponding observed statistics. All the analyses described so far are done separately for both the sign and the absolute value components of the responses. A method to synthesize overall correct response from estimated parameter values of two components is derived and tested against observed values. The results are that parallel items within item types are not all parallel and finer characterization would be needed to describe the items completely. However, the deviations from strict parallelism are slight. Paulson\u27s model demonstrates good predictive ability; on both components and on the overall responses. Most of the deviations from the prediction can be attributed to not strictly parallel subtests and estimated parameter values not being the best possible estimates

Anomalous effects of dense matter under rotation

We study the anomaly induced effects of dense baryonic matter under rotation. We derive the anomalous terms that account for the chiral vortical effect in the low-energy effective theory for light Nambu-Goldstone modes. The anomalous terms lead to new physical consequences, such as the anomalous Hall energy current and spontaneous generation of angular momentum in a magnetic field (or spontaneous magnetization by rotation). In particular, we show that, due to the presence of such anomalous terms, the ground state of the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) under sufficiently fast rotation becomes the "chiral soliton lattice" of neutral pions that has lower energy than the QCD vacuum and nuclear matter. We briefly discuss the possible realization of the chiral soliton lattice induced by a fast rotation in noncentral heavy ion collisions.Comment: 15 page

The automorphism group of the Fra\"iss\'e limit of finite Heyting algebras

Roelcke non-precompactness, non-simplicity, and non-amenability of the automorphism group of the Fra\"iss\'e limit of finite Heyting algebras are examined among others.Comment: Submitted to Journal of Symbolic Logic; 15 page

環境変化に応じた大腸菌異物排出システムの制御

The rising incidence of bacterial multidrug resistance has become a serious worldwide issue. The resistance-nodulation-cell division (RND)-type xenobiotic efflux system plays a major role in multidrug resistance of gram-negative bacteria. The only constitutively expressed RND system of Escherichia coli consists of the inner membrane transporter AcrB, the membrane fusion protein AcrA, and the outer membrane channel TolC. The latter two components are shared with another RND-type transporter AcrD, the expression of which is induced by environmental stimuli. In CHAPTER II of this study, I demonstrate how the RND-type ternary complexes, spanning the two membranes and the cell wall, are formed in vivo. Most foci of AcrB fused to green fluorescent protein (GFP) were fixed in the presence of TolC but showed lateral displacements when tolC was deleted. The fraction of fixed AcrB-GFP foci decreased with increasing levels of AcrD. I therefore propose that AcrD replaces AcrB in the complex with AcrA and TolC through a process I named "transporter exchange." Moreover, transporter exchange was suppressed by AcrB-specific substrates, suggesting that the ternary complex is stabilized when it is in action. These results suggest that the assembly of the RND-type efflux system is dThe rising incidence of bacterial multidrug resistance has become a serious worldwide issue. The resistance-nodulation-cell division (RND)-type xenobiotic efflux system plays a major role in multidrug resistance of gram-negative bacteria. The only constitutively expressed RND system of Escherichia coli consists of the inner membrane transporter AcrB, the membrane fusion protein AcrA, and the outer membrane channel TolC. The latter two components are shared with another RND-type transporter AcrD, the expression of which is induced by environmental stimuli. In CHAPTER II of this study, I demonstrate how the RND-type ternary complexes, spanning the two membranes and the cell wall, are formed in vivo. Most foci of AcrB fused to green fluorescent protein (GFP) were fixed in the presence of TolC but showed lateral displacements when tolC was deleted. The fraction of fixed AcrB-GFP foci decreased with increasing levels of AcrD. I therefore propose that AcrD replaces AcrB in the complex with AcrA and TolC through a process I named "transporter exchange." Moreover, transporter exchange was suppressed by AcrB-specific substrates, suggesting that the ternary complex is stabilized when it is in action. These results suggest that the assembly of the RND-type efflux system is dynamically regulated in response to external stimuli, shedding new light on bacterial adaptive antibiotic resistance. Indole plays important roles in a wide variety of bacterial physiology such as virulence, drug resistance, persister cell formation, motility, and quorum sensing, among other diverse physiological processes. The expression of the inner membrane transporter gene acrD is induced by the presence of high concentrations of indole via a two-component system (TCS) consisting of the sensor kinase BaeS and the response regulator BaeR. In CHAPTER III of this study, I first observed GFP-fused AcrD encoded by the chromosomal gene with the native promoter. Observation of AcrD-GFP foci required very high concentrations of indole. In contrast, AcrD-GFP foci were readily detected in a fo/C-deletion derivative strain without exposing to exogenous indole. The deletion of the tryptophanase gene tnaA or the TCS genes baeSR abolished the constitutive expression of AcrD-GFP in the fo/C-deleted strain. I next measured indole concentrations in the presence and absence of TolC. The intracellular concentration of indole in the fo/C-deleted strain was about three times as high as that in the parental strain. In contrast, TolC had little effect on the extracellular concentration of indole. These results suggest that TolC is involved in indole efflux. Moreover, I examined whether the interaction between TolC and an inner membrane transporter is required for indole efflux. A mutant TolC protein, defective in coupling to the inner membrane transporter, decreased the level of accumulation of intracellular indole, though not as effectively as the wild-type protein. It was suggested that TolC provides a channel not only for drugs but also for indole to diffuse out of cell, and that E. coli monitors changes in the intracellular concentration of indole rather than extracellular one. Fluorescent proteins such as GFP have been used for labeling a cellular proteins. However, their large molecular weight of fluorescent proteins often interfere with the function of host protein, which would lead us to misdirected interpretations. In CHAPTER IV of this study, I applied florescent labeling methods other than fluorescent proteins to xenobiotic efflux and environment signaling systems. The fluorescein arsenical hairpin (FlAsH) specifically binds to a short peptide sequence of Cys-Cys-Pro-Gly-Cys-Cys (TC-tag), and it becomes fluorescent only when it binds covalently to a TC-tag. The TC-tagged outer membrane channel TolC of a part of the RND efflux system was labeled by FlAsH. This method resulted in the lateral localization of TolC without loss of their host functions. Moreover, I also used this FlAsH labeling method for the cytoplasmic signaling protein of Vibrio cholerae. I observed that the GFP-fused histidine kinase CheAl of V. cholerae was localized to a cell pole and lateral region of the membrane with standing incubation or in the presence of sodium azide (NaN3) that inhibits cytochrome c oxydase, whereas the protein was diffused in cellular cytosol without such treatments. The localization pattern of TC-tagged CheAl was consistent with those of the GFP fusions, arguing strongly that the behaviors of CheAl-GFP reflects the localization of the native protein. Next, I visualized the taurine/amino acid chemoreceptor Mlp37 of V. cholerae in vivo by using the fluorescently labeled L-serine 5(6)-carboxyfluorescein ester (Ser-FAM). Upon treatment with Ser-FAM, fluorescent spots were detected at poles of cells expressing wild-type mlp37. Moreover, fluorescent spots of Ser-FAM were decreased in the presence of non-fluorescent attractants serine and taurine, but not the weakest attractant L-glutamate, suggesting that the former attractants compete with Ser-FAM for binding to Mlp37. These results provide, for the first time, a tool to visualize direct ligand binding to a bacterial chemoreceptor in vivo and can also be applied to visualize signaling of TCSs and substrate transport in the xenobiotic efflux systems.博士(生命科学)法政大学 (Hosei University

Coating thermal noise of a finite-size cylindrical mirror

Thermal noise of a mirror is one of the limiting noise sources in the high precision measurement such as gravitational-wave detection, and the modeling of thermal noise has been developed and refined over a decade. In this paper, we present a derivation of coating thermal noise of a finite-size cylindrical mirror based on the fluctuation-dissipation theorem. The result agrees to a previous result with an infinite-size mirror in the limit of large thickness, and also agrees to an independent result based on the mode expansion with a thin-mirror approximation. Our study will play an important role not only to accurately estimate the thermal-noise level of gravitational-wave detectors but also to help analyzing thermal noise in quantum-measurement experiments with lighter mirrors.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure

Longitudinal association between mental health and future antibiotic prescriptions in healthy adults: Results from the LOHAS

Objectives: To investigate the association of mental health and subjective physical functioning with future antibiotic prescriptions. Design: Prospective cohort study. Setting: A rural town in Japan. Participants: Participants who completed the baseline survey (2008-2010) of the Locomotive Syndrome and Health Outcomes in the Aizu Cohort Study (LOHAS) were recruited. Participants were limited to those without comorbidities according to the Charlson comorbidity index. Participants using antibiotics at baseline were excluded. Mental health and physical functioning were assessed using the Mental Health and Physical Functioning domains of the Short-Form 12 Health Survey, and depressive symptoms were assessed using the Mental Health Inventories at baseline. Main outcome measures: The main outcome was antibiotic prescriptions found in claims data during 1 year after the baseline survey. Results: A total of 967 participants were included in the analysis, and 151 (15.6%) participants with at least one missing variable for the confounding factors were excluded, leaving 816 participants for the primary analysis. Among the 816 participants, 65 (8.0%) were newly prescribed at least one antibiotic during the 1-year follow-up period. The most frequently prescribed antibiotics were third-generation cephalosporins (44 prescriptions; 35.5%), macrolides (28 prescriptions; 22.6%), and quinolones (23 prescriptions; 18.6%). A multivariable logistic regression analysis showed an association between higher mental health scores and future antibiotic prescriptions (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 1.40 per 1 standard deviation [SD] increase; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.03-1.90), whereas no significant relationship was observed between Physical Functioning scores and future antibiotic prescriptions (AOR, 0.95 per 1 SD increase; 95% CI, 0.75-1.22). During the secondary analysis, adults with depressive symptoms were less likely to be prescribed antibiotics (AOR, 0.27; 95% CI, 0.11-0.70). Conclusions: Better mental health was associated with increased future antibiotic prescriptions for healthy community-dwelling Japanese adults, suggesting that mentally healthier adults could be a target population for reducing antimicrobial use

Multiscale and hierarchical reaction mechanism in a lithium-ion battery

The key to improving the performance of lithium-ion batteries is to precisely elucidate the temporal and spatial hierarchical structure of the battery. Lithium-ion batteries consist of cathodes and anodes and a separator containing an electrolyte. The cathodes and anodes of lithium-ion batteries are made of a composite material consisting of an active material, a conductive material, and a binder to form a complex three-dimensional structure. The reaction proceeds as lithium ions are repeatedly inserted into and removed from the active material. Therefore, the lattice of the active material is restructured due to ion diffusion, which results in phase change. At the active material–electrolyte interface, the insertion and de-insertion of lithium ions proceed with the charge transfer reaction. The charge–discharge reaction of a lithium-ion battery is a nonequilibrium state due to the interplay of multiple phenomena. Analysis after disassembling a battery, which is performed in conventional battery research, does not provide an accurate understanding of the dominant factors of the reaction rate and the degradation mechanism, in some cases. This review introduces the results of research on the temporal and spatial hierarchical structure of lithium-ion batteries, focusing on operando measurements taken during charge–discharge reactions. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the hierarchical reaction mechanism of lithium-ion batteries. Chapter 2 introduces the operando measurement technique, which is useful for analysis. Chapter 3 describes the reaction at the electrode–electrolyte interface, which is the reaction field, and Chapter 4 discusses the nonequilibrium structural change caused by the two-phase reaction in the active material. Chapter 5 introduces the study of the unique reaction heterogeneity of a composite electrode, which enables practical energy storage. Understanding the hierarchical reaction mechanism will provide useful information for the design of lithium-ion batteries and next-generation batteries