Returnees from South America: Japan\u27s Model for Legal Multiculturalism?

In response to Japan\u27s increasing labor shortage, the Japanese government in 1990 enacted an extensive set of amendments to its restrictive Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act to allow for a controlled but broader method of regulating legal entry of foreign workers into Japan. Significant among those amendments are the provisions granting long-term resident status to persons of Japanese descent entering from abroad and the provisions offering additional rights to foreign-born spouses and children of Japanese nationals. These provisions are mainly targeted at descendants of Japanese who emigrated to South America ( Nikkeijin ). While most of the existing literature about minority rights in Japan focuses on (1) historic national minorities, (2) Korean and Chinese permanent residents, and (3) legal and illegal workers from Asia who are newcomers, this Comment discusses a fourth distinct group: the returnees or Nikkeijin from South America. This Comment examines and analyzes the way ethnic difference is accommodated within the Japanese legal system at the constitutional level, and focuses on the administrative and social accommodation of returnees as contrasted with the discourse of legal rights that is associated with other legal residents of Japan-for example, the Korean and Ainu populations. This Comment argues that the treatment of the returnees serves as a forum where Japanese policymakers can discuss a framework for multiculturalism that is not found in constitutional rights discourse, and concludes that although the returnees are small in number, they are legally and socially significant because provisions for their integration into Japanese society have become a catalyst for a de facto policy of legal multiculturalism in Japan

Circulating Biologically Active Adrenomedullin Predicts Organ Failure and Mortality in Sepsis

BACKGROUND: Sepsis is a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection. Biologically active adrenomedullin (bio-ADM) is an emerging biomarker for sepsis. We explored whether bio-ADM concentration could predict severity, organ failure, and 30-day mortality in septic patients. METHODS: In 215 septic patients (109 patients with sepsis; 106 patients with septic shock), bio-ADM concentration was measured at diagnosis of sepsis, using sphingotest bio-ADM (Sphingotec GmbH, Hennigsdorf, Germany) and analyzed in terms of sepsis severity, vasopressor use, and 30-day mortality. The number of organ failures, sequential (sepsis-related) organ failure assessment (SOFA) score, and 30-day mortality were compared according to bio-ADM quartiles. RESULTS: Bio-ADM concentration was significantly higher in patients with septic shock, vasopressor use, and non-survivors than in patients with solitary sepsis, no vasopressor use, and survivors, respectively (all P<0.0001). Bio-ADM quartiles were associated with the number of organ failures (P<0.0001), as well as SOFA cardiovascular, renal, coagulation, and liver subscores (all P<0.05). The 30-day mortality rate showed a stepwise increase in each bio-ADM quartile (all P<0.0001). Bio-ADM concentration and SOFA score equally predicted the 30-day mortality (area under the curve: 0.827 vs 0.830). CONCLUSIONS: Bio-ADM could serve as a useful and objective biomarker to predict severity, organ failure, and 30-day mortality in septic patients

Phenotypic Characterization of PNPase Mutation and Overexpression in C. elegans

PNPase, polynucleotide phosphorylase, is a multifunctional exoribonuclease protein with 3` terminal oligonucleotide polymerase activity. Coded by the PNPT1 gene, the protein is associated with mitochondrial homeostasis and functions as a possible target for cancer therapy. In this study, C. elegans was used to investigate the effect of mutation and overexpression of pnpt-1, the gene that encodes PNPase. It was determined that two specific mutations in pnpt-1 did not affect PNPase expression nor did they produce deleterious phenotypes that affected polycistronic transcript accumulation or ROS production. Creation of a stable overexpression model was achieved through Fusion PCR. However, different transgenic strains overexpressing PNPase produced opposite results for polycistronic transcript accumulation while ROS production saw no significant change, suggesting a mosaic overexpression model. In a cancer model, exogenous PNPase was present in the pachytene region of the germline and where expressed the cells were in non-germline cells suggesting differentiation mechanisms associated with overexpression of PNPase. However, further analysis of different mutations in pnpt-1 or optimizations to the overexpression model are necessary to provide a better understanding of PNPase function with mitochondria homeostasis and in a cancer model setting

Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle as Probe of Entanglement Entropy: Application to Superradiant Quantum Phase Transitions

Quantum phase transitions are often embodied by the critical behavior of purely quantum quantities such as entanglement or quantum fluctuations. In critical regions, we underline a general scaling relation between the entanglement entropy and one of the most fundamental and simplest measure of the quantum fluctuations, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Then, we show that the latter represents a sensitive probe of superradiant quantum phase transitions in standard models of photons such as the Dicke Hamiltonian, which embodies an ensemble of two-level systems interacting with one quadrature of a single and uniform bosonic field. We derive exact results in the thermodynamic limit and for a finite number N of two-level systems: as a reminiscence of the entanglement properties between light and the two-level systems, the product $\Delta x\Delta p$ diverges at the quantum critical point as $N^{1/6}$. We generalize our results to the double quadrature Dicke model where the two quadratures of the bosonic field are now coupled to two independent sets of two level systems. Our findings, which show that the entanglement properties between light and matter can be accessed through the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, can be tested using Bose-Einstein condensates in optical cavities and circuit quantum electrodynamicsComment: 7 pages, 3 figures. Published Versio

Twin weight discordance and maternal weight gain in twin pregnancies

Objective: To evaluate the association between twin weight discordance and maternal weight change during the gestational period. Method: One hundred forty‐seven twin pregnancies (Group A: < 25%, Group B: ≥ 25% birth weight discordance) were analyzed using Student’s t‐test, χ2‐test, and two‐way ANOVA at three gestational intervals: before 18 weeks, 18 to 28 weeks, and 28 weeks to birth. Result: There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups involving maternal age, parity, duration of pregnancy, height, pregravid weight, and conception method. Group A showed a pattern of constantly increasing maternal weight without a significant change in the twin weight discordance throughout gestation. However, Group B showed a fluctuation in maternal BMI with remarkably elevated twin weight discordance at 28 weeks to birth. Conclusion: The results suggest that in twin pregnancies constant maternal weight gain throughout gestation is important for maintaining a twin weight discordance of less than 25%.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/135432/1/ijgo176.pd

Bilinear interpolation on a virtual hexagonal structure

Spiral Architecture (SA) is a relatively new and powerful approach to machine vision system. The geometrical arrangement of pixels on SA can be described as a collection of hexagonal pixels. However, all the existing hardware for capturing image and for displaying image are produced based on rectangular architecture. Therefore, it becomes important to find a proper software approach to mimic SA so that images represented on the traditional square structure can be smoothly converted from or to the images on SA. For accurate image processing, it is critical to best maintain the image resolution during the image conversion. In this paper, we present an algorithm for bilinear interpolation of pixel values on a simulated SA. Our experimental results show that the bilinear interpolation improves the image representation accuracy while keeping the computation simple