A Hedonic Price Comparison of Manufactured and Site-Built Homes in the Non-MSA United States

This research used the hedonic price technique to focus on a housing characteristic that has been studied infrequently: whether a home is site-built or manufactured. Two hedonic price regression models were used to determine the predictive power of construction type on home price. The first, which controlled for factors found to relate to home prices in previous research, showed a significant difference between the prices of the two types of homes. The second, which also included other variables through a stepwise regression, found that the type of construction had more predictive power than any other explanatory variable in the model

The Learning Place of Creative Arts in Education: The Role of Teachers in Students’ Inspired Thoughts and Activities

本研究は，芸術教育の学校現場でみられる多様な創造的な学びに目を向け，個性豊かな創造性の芽生えとその育ちに寄り添う教師の役割について検討したものである。高等学校の美術の授業では，教師は具体的な指示をあえて避け，生徒に自らの目的や問いを立てさせることを通して渾沌とした状況と向き合わせた。美術と音楽活動を連携させた中学校では，設定した場面ごとに，生徒の創造性を引き出すための例示，他者や事物との多彩な関わり方，省察の視点など多くの支援をおこなった。生徒たちの「表現したい」という創造的な思いを拾い上げ唯一無二のモノとして育てるためには，その芽生えの瞬間を見逃さず丁寧に支援することが重要である。学校教育で目指す自己実現的創造性の育成（フロントランナー型創造性）は，生徒自身の新しい価値を追求することであり，同時に，社会にとっての新しい創造性の追求へとつながる

Decision-Making Based on Social Conventional Rules by Elderly People

Information used by older adults engaging in a social decision making task of judging a protagonist as a good or a bad person was investigated. Older (n = 100, 50 women, mean age = 63.6 years) and younger (n = 100, 50 women, mean age = 25.7 years) adults participated in a web-based survey. In Experiment 1, we assessed participants’ rapid decision-making processes when making good or bad judgments after reading consecutive sentences without reviewing previously read sentences. The percentages of good judgments were analyzed. In Experiment 2, two protagonists engaging in a deliberate decision-making process were presented, and participants were asked to judge better and worse protagonists. The percentages of behavior-based judgments were analyzed. Results of Experiment 1 indicated that older adults judged protagonists as “good” more often than younger adults. Especially, older adults judged protagonists with good behavior as being “good.” In Experiment 2, older adults made behavior-based judgments more than younger people. Additionally, older and younger adults used information on personalities of protagonists for making judgments in situations with bad outcomes, or incongruent. Moreover, multiple regression analysis suggested that people with more general trust engaged more, whereas people with more caution engaged less in making behavior-based judgments

Does Marital Status of Parents Relate to Family Communication Regarding Finances?

How do youth and parents perceive their communication with each other? How do they perceive communication about money with each other? Are there differences between married-parent families and single-parent families? The reported study examined the discrepancies in perception between parents and youth and compares these differences between married and single-parent families. Although single-parent families had greater discrepancies in perceptions regarding communication in general, there was no evidence of such differences in discrepancies regarding communication about money. The finding suggests the importance of youth development programs to provide information and encouragement to both youth and their parents

A Clinical Study of Photodynamic Therapy for Superficial Esophageal Carcinoma by YAG-OPO Laser

A cooperative clinical study of photodynamic therapy (PDT) for superficial esophageal carcinoma was conducted at 6 medical institution. PHE (2mg/kg) with high tumor affinity was used as the oncotropic compound. The light source was a pulse wave YAG-OPO laser with high penetration into the tissue. Irradiation was performed at an energy density of 60–180 J/cm2 48–72 h after PHE administration. Eight lesions in 6 patients were treated. All were type 0-II superficial carcinomas. The depth of invasion was EP–MM for 6 lesions and SM for 2 lesions. A complete response (CR) was achieved in all patients after one session of PDT. Five adverse events, including anemia and fever, were reported by 4 patients, but all were WHO grade 2 or lower and transient. PDT using PHE and YAG-OPO laser was therefore considered effective as a curative therapy for superficial esophageal carcinoma

Cooperative Clinical Trial of Photodynamic Therapy for Early Gastric Cancer With Photofrin Injection® and YAG-OPO Laser

Background and Objective: Photodynamic therapy (PDT) treats malignant tumors using photosensitizers and light. We employed a new pulse laser as the excitation light source for PDT, i.e. an optical parametric oscillator (OPO) system pumped by a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser, because it provides extremely high peak power

Aluminium reduces sugar uptake in tobacco cell cultures: a potential cause of inhibited elongation but not of toxicity

Aluminium is well known to inhibit plant elongation, but the role in this inhibition played by water relations remains unclear. To investigate this, tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.) suspension-cultured cells (line SL) was used, treating them with aluminium (50 μM) in a medium containing calcium, sucrose, and MES (pH 5.0). Over an 18 h treatment period, aluminium inhibited the increase in fresh weight almost completely and decreased cellular osmolality and internal soluble sugar content substantially; however, aluminium did not affect the concentrations of major inorganic ions. In aluminium-treated cultures, fresh weight, soluble sugar content, and osmolality decreased over the first 6 h and remained constant thereafter, contrasting with their continued increases in the untreated cultures. The rate of sucrose uptake, measured by radio-tracer, was reduced by approximately 60% within 3 h of treatment. Aluminium also inhibited glucose uptake. In an aluminium-tolerant cell line (ALT301) isogenic to SL, all of the above-mentioned changes in water relations occurred and tolerance emerged only after 6 h and appeared to involve the suppression of reactive oxygen species. Further separating the effects of aluminium on elongation and cell survival, sucrose starvation for 18 h inhibited elongation and caused similar changes in cellular osmolality but stimulated the production of neither reactive oxygen species nor callose and did not cause cell death. We propose that the inhibition of sucrose uptake is a mechanism whereby aluminium inhibits elongation, but does not account for the induction of cell death

Imaging mass spectrometry analysis reveals an altered lipid distribution pattern in the tubular areas of hyper-IgA murine kidneys.

Immunoglobulin A (IgA) nephropathy is the most common glomerular disease worldwide. To investigate the pathogenesis of this renal disease, we used animal models that spontaneously develop mesangioproliferative lesions with IgA deposition, which closely resemble the disease in humans. We analyzed the molecular distribution of lipids in hyper-IgA (HIGA) murine kidneys using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-quadrupole ion trap-time of flight (MALDI-QIT-TOF)-based imaging mass spectrometry (IMS), which supplies both spatial distribution of the detected molecules and allows identification of their structures by their molecular mass signature. For both HIGA and control (Balb/c) mice, we found two phosphatidylcholines, PC(16:0/22:6) and PC(18:2/22:6), primarily located in the cortex area and two triacylglycerols, TAG(16:0/18:2/18:1) and TAG(18:1/18:2/18:1), primarily located in the hilum area. However, several other molecules were specifically seen in the HIGA kidneys, particularly in the tubular areas. Two HIGA-specific molecules were O-phosphatidylcholines, PC(O-16:0/22:6) and PC(O-18:1/22:6). Interestingly, common phosphatidylcholines and these HIGA-specific ones possess 22:6 lipid side chains, suggesting that these molecules have a novel, unidentified renal function. Although the primary structure of the HIGA-specific molecules corresponding to m/z 854.6, 856.6, 880.6, and 882.6 remained undetermined, they shared similar fragmentation patterns, indicating their relatedness. We also showed that all the HIGA-specific molecules were derived from urine, and that artificial urinary stagnation-due to unilateral urethral obstruction-caused HIGA-specific distribution of lipids in the tubular area

Quantification of polyphosphate: different sensitivities to short-chain polyphosphate using enzymatic and colorimetric methods as revealed by ion chromatography

Polyphosphate is ubiquitous and has a variety of biochemical functions. Among polyphosphate quantification methods, an enzymatic assay using Escherichia coli polyphosphate kinase (PPK), in which polyphosphate is converted to adenosine 5′-triphosphate and quantified by luciferase assay, is the most specific and most sensitive. However, chain-length specificity of the assay has not been analyzed in detail so far. Ion chromatography equipped with an on-line hydroxide eluent generator enabled us to analyze polyphosphate up to 50 inorganic phosphate (Pi) residues, and we employed this method to investigate the chain-length specificity of PPK in this study. Several fractions of short-chain polyphosphate were prepared by electrophoresis, and the chain-length distribution was analyzed before and after 1–6 h PPK reaction by ion chromatography. Polyphosphates longer than 23 Pi residues were processed by PPK completely after 1 h incubation, but complete processing of those between 11 and 22 Pi residues required 6 h incubation. Limited processing of polyphosphates of 10 Pi residues or shorter were observed even after 6 h incubation. Metachromasy of Toluidine blue O, an alternative method for polyphosphate quantification, showed broader chain-length specificity although it was not as sensitive as the enzymatic assay. Combination of these two methods would be practically applicable to analysis of polyphosphate dynamics in living organisms