Policy Making for Global Transportation Planning using the Delphi-Scenario Writing with a New Concept of 'Future Vision'

The personal trip survey plays a vital role in global, multi-modal transportation planning. The four-step method for estimating travel demand based on data from the personal trip survey has been systematized during the course of long-term studies and practical applications. This method therefore has been widely used in various aspects of transportation planning. However, it is usually concerned with travel demand and very useful in periods of economic expansion. Now that emphasis is being placed on quality because the economy has taken a downturn, the conventional method should be reconsidered in terms of a qualitative, political approach. The present study deals with a new methodology for establishing a qualitative, long-term view of regional requirements. In other words, the purpose of this study is to create a socio-economic vision of the future for proper transportation planning for a target region. This study calls it 'future vision', which consists of several future images when considering the changing characteristics of the region and relationship with surrounding areas. These future images can cover all transportation-related topics, from global problems to local issues. Each future image is composed of scenarios that reflect the future direction and role of transportation planning, which fully describes infrastructures as well as management. Transportation planning experts employed brainstorming to create an initial version of the future vision. The brainstorming brought many important keywords related to the future images. The planners assembled keywords and added sentences to set up scenarios. This version was revised by using the Delphi questionnaire method in order to eliminate obvious errors and improper perspectives, while incorporating missing information. The Delphi method was conducted on researchers, engineers, planners, and administrators that are well versed in transportation planning. A procedure was also developed to update almost automatically according to the results of the questionnaire. The revised version of the future vision was again checked and revised similarly by the Delphi method and the updating procedure. Actually, the future vision was refined twice, which led to the final version of the future vision having a high degree of accuracy and feasibility. The future vision is qualitative and policy-oriented, while the conventional four-step method is quantitative and demand-oriented. Two different approaches should work together for the comprehensive transportation planning. This study finally introduced a hybrid method between the two approaches by discussing a way of linking the future vision with the conventional personal trip survey system. The proposed linkage produced (1) hearing recommendations of various people in many positions, (2) enhancement of the transportation planning by sharing and solving anticipated problems, and (3) incorporation of more policy-oriented planning elements.

Integrative Annotation of 21,037 Human Genes Validated by Full-Length cDNA Clones

The human genome sequence defines our inherent biological potential; the realization of the biology encoded therein requires knowledge of the function of each gene. Currently, our knowledge in this area is still limited. Several lines of investigation have been used to elucidate the structure and function of the genes in the human genome. Even so, gene prediction remains a difficult task, as the varieties of transcripts of a gene may vary to a great extent. We thus performed an exhaustive integrative characterization of 41,118 full-length cDNAs that capture the gene transcripts as complete functional cassettes, providing an unequivocal report of structural and functional diversity at the gene level. Our international collaboration has validated 21,037 human gene candidates by analysis of high-quality full-length cDNA clones through curation using unified criteria. This led to the identification of 5,155 new gene candidates. It also manifested the most reliable way to control the quality of the cDNA clones. We have developed a human gene database, called the H-Invitational Database (H-InvDB; http://www.h-invitational.jp/). It provides the following: integrative annotation of human genes, description of gene structures, details of novel alternative splicing isoforms, non-protein-coding RNAs, functional domains, subcellular localizations, metabolic pathways, predictions of protein three-dimensional structure, mapping of known single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), identification of polymorphic microsatellite repeats within human genes, and comparative results with mouse full-length cDNAs. The H-InvDB analysis has shown that up to 4% of the human genome sequence (National Center for Biotechnology Information build 34 assembly) may contain misassembled or missing regions. We found that 6.5% of the human gene candidates (1,377 loci) did not have a good protein-coding open reading frame, of which 296 loci are strong candidates for non-protein-coding RNA genes. In addition, among 72,027 uniquely mapped SNPs and insertions/deletions localized within human genes, 13,215 nonsynonymous SNPs, 315 nonsense SNPs, and 452 indels occurred in coding regions. Together with 25 polymorphic microsatellite repeats present in coding regions, they may alter protein structure, causing phenotypic effects or resulting in disease. The H-InvDB platform represents a substantial contribution to resources needed for the exploration of human biology and pathology

Immediate virological response predicts the success of short-term peg-interferon monotherapy for chronic hepatitis C

AIM: To investigate the efficacy of short-term peg-interferon (PEG-IFN) monotherapy for chronic hepatitis C patients who achieved an immediate virological response

Coevolutionary dynamics between tribe Cercopithecini tetherins and their lentiviruses

Human immunodeficiency virus, a primate lentivirus (PLV), causes AIDS in humans, whereas most PLVs are less or not pathogenic in monkeys. These notions suggest that the co-evolutionary process of PLVs and their hosts associates with viral pathogenicity, and therefore, that elucidating the history of virus-host co-evolution is one of the most intriguing topics in the field of virology. To address this, recent studies have focused on the interplay between intrinsic anti-viral proteins, such as tetherin, and viral antagonists. Through an experimental-phylogenetic approach, here we investigate the co-evolutionary interplay between tribe Cercopithecini tetherin and viral antagonists, Nef and Vpu. We reveal that tribe Cercopithecini tetherins are positively selected, possibly triggered by ancient Nef-like factor(s). We reconstruct the ancestral sequence of tribe Cercopithecini tetherin and demonstrate that all Nef proteins are capable of antagonizing ancestral Cercopithecini tetherin. Further, we consider the significance of evolutionary arms race between tribe Cercopithecini and their PLVs