Roles of the Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide Family in the Central Nervous System

The calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) family is composed of CGRP, adrenomedullin (AM), AM2 (identical to intermedin), AM5 and amylin. These peptides are widely distributed in peripheral tissues and the central nervous system (CNS). They activate a cAMP-dependent pathway via complexes of calcitonin receptor or calcitonin receptor-like receptor and receptor activity-modifying proteins. They are involved in several physiological and pathological functions such as water intake, feeding, and modulation of cardiovascular and neuroendocrine systems. Previous studies have shown that a central administration of these neuropeptides activated various areas in the CNS and induced physiological effects. Our previous studies showed that centrally administered AM family (AM, AM2 and AM5) induces the expressions of the c-fos gene in the oxytocin-secreting neurons in the supraoptic and the paraventricular nuclei of the hypothalamus and elicits a marked increase in plasma oxytocin levels in conscious rats. Here, I review the roles of the CGRP family in the CNS

Dynamic Network DEA and An application to Japanese Prefectures

Workshop 2013 on Dynamic and Network DEA (January 29-30, 2013)The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we develop a multi-period dynamic multi-process network DEA (data envelopment analysis) model. Second, we apply this methodology to Japanese prefectural time series data. In this framework, we specify that prefectural technology consists of two sectors, called the human capital generating sector and the physical capital formation sector. Each sector has its own exogenous inputs, and carry-overs in preceding and subsequent periods as well as final output. We assume that the final output is jointly produced by the two sectors.This workshop is supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 22310093 under the title “Theory and Applications of Dynamic DEA with Network Structure.

ケツニョウ : ヒニョウキカ ノ タチバ カラ

In patients without significant urologic symptoms, microscopic hematuria is occasionally detected on routine urinalysis. Patients with microscopic hematuria detected at a health examination or screening urinalysis, who were advised by a consulted urologist, were increased recently. In spite of undergoing a full urological evaluation, there are many patients that urologists can not detect the origin of microscopic hematuria. Once asymptomatic microscopic hematuria is established and no etiological cause is identified, we must follow the patient. In this short review, I explained the several urologic diseases that cause microscopic hematuria and mentioned how to do follow-up patients with microscopic hematuria

A dynamic-network slacks-based measure with an application to Japanese Prefectures

Workshop 2015 -Advances in DEA Theory and Applications (December 1-2, 2015)This paper develops a dynamic-network DEA (data envelopment analysis) model where total output is jointly produced from two sectors: a human capital sector and a physical capital sector. While human capital is treated as an exogenous input, physical capital production is an intermediate output of one period that becomes an input to a subsequent period. The method is applied using pooled data on 47 Japanese prefectures during the period 2007-2009.The workshop is supported by JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science), Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B), #25282090, titled “Studies in Theory and Applications of DEA for Forecasting Purpose.本研究はJSPS科研費 基盤研究(B) 25282090の助成を受けたものです

Generating Accurate and Consistent Top-Of-Atmosphere Reflectance Products from the New Generation Geostationary Satellite Sensors

GeoNEX is a collaborative project by scientists from NASA, NOAA, JAXA, and other organizations around the world with the purpose of generating a suite of Earth-monitoring products using data streams from the latest geostationary (GEO) sensors including the GOES-16/17 ABI and the Himawari-8/9 AHI. An accurate and consistent top-of-atmosphere (TOA) reflectance product, in particular the bidirectional reflectance factor (BRF), is the starting point in the scientific processing chain. We describe the main considerations and corresponding algorithms in generating the GeoNEX TOA BRF product. First, a special advantage of geostationary data streams is their high temporal resolution (~10 minutes per full-disk scan), providing a key source of information for many downstream products. To fully utilize this high temporal frequency demands a high georegistration accuracy for every acquired image. Our analysis shows that there can be substantial georegistration uncertainties in both GOES and Himawari L1b data which we addressed by implementing a phase-based correction algorithm to remove residual errors. Second, geostationary sensors have distinct illumination-view geometry features in that the solar angle changes for every pixel. Therefore, to accurately derive a BRF requires a solar position algorithm and the estimation of the pixel-wise acquisition time within an uncertainty of 10 seconds. Third, we discuss the measures we adopted to check and correct residual radiometric calibration issues of individual sensors to enable time-series analysis as well as the cross calibration between different satellite sensors (including those from low-Earth orbit). Finally, we also explain the rationale for the choice of the global grid/tile system of the GeoNEX TOA BRF product

Observed Trend in Surface Wind Speed Over the Conterminous USA and CMIP5 Simulations

There has been no spatial surface wind map even over the conterminous USA due to the difficulty of spatial interpolation of wind field. As a result, the reanalysis data were often used to analyze the statistics of spatial pattern in surface wind speed. Unfortunately, no consistent trend in wind field was found among the available reanalysis data, and that obstructed the further analysis or projection of spatial pattern of wind speed. In this study, we developed the methodology to interpolate the observed wind speed data at weather stations using random forest algorithm. We produced the 1-km daily climate variables over the conterminous USA from 1979 to 2015. The validation using Ameriflux daily data showed that R2 is 0.59. Existing studies have found the negative trend over the Eastern US, and our study also showed same results. However, our new datasets also revealed the significant increasing trend over the southwest US especially from April to June. The trend in the southwestern US represented change or seasonal shift in North American Monsoon. Global analysis of CMIP5 data projected the decrease trend in mid-latitude, while increase trend in tropical region over the land. Most likely because of the low resolution in GCM, CMIP5 data failed to simulate the increase trend in the southwest US, even though it was qualitatively predicted that pole ward shift of anticyclone help the North American Monsoon

An Introduction to the Geostationary-NASA Earth Exchange (GeoNEX) Products: 1. Top-of-Atmosphere Reflectance and Brightness Temperature

GeoNEX is a collaborative project led by scientists from NASA, NOAA, and many other institutes around the world to generate Earth monitoring products using data streams from the latest Geostationary (GEO) sensors including the GOES-16/17 Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI), the Himawari-8/9 Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI), and more. An accurate and consistent product of the Top-Of-Atmosphere (TOA) reflectance and brightness temperature is the starting point in the scientific processing pipeline and has significant influences on the downstream products. This paper describes the main steps and the algorithms in generating the GeoNEX TOA products, starting from the conversion of digital numbers to physical quantities with the latest radiometric calibration information. We implement algorithms to detect and remove residual georegistration uncertainties automatically in both GOES and Himawari L1bdata, adjust the data for topographic relief, estimate the pixelwise data-acquisition time, and accurately calculate the solar illumination angles for each pixel in the domain at every time step. Finally, we reproject the TOA products to a globally tiled common grid in geographic coordinates in order to facilitate intercomparisons and/or synergies between the GeoNEX products and existing Earth observation datasets from polar-orbiting satellites