Large enhancement of the thermopower in Nax_xCoO2_2 at high Na doping

Research on the oxide perovskites has uncovered electronic properties that are strikingly enhanced compared with those in conventional metals. Examples are the high critical temperatures of the cuprate superconductors and the colossal magnetoresistance in the manganites. The conducting layered cobaltate $\rm Na_xCoO_2$ displays several interesting electronic phases as $x$ is varied including water-induced superconductivity and an insulating state that is destroyed by field. Initial measurements showed that, in the as-grown composition, $\rm Na_xCoO_2$ displays moderately large thermopower $S$ and conductivity $\sigma$. However, the prospects for thermoelectric cooling applications faded when the figure of merit $Z$ was found to be small at this composition (0.6$<x<$0.7). Here we report that, in the poorly-explored high-doping region $x>$0.75, $S$ undergoes an even steeper enhancement. At the critical doping $x_p\sim$ 0.85, $Z$ (at 80 K) reaches values $\sim$40 times larger than in the as-grown crystals. We discuss prospects for low-temperature thermoelectric applications.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figure

Genotype prevalence and age distribution of human papillomavirus from infection to cervical cancer in Japanese women: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: National HPV vaccination coverage in Japan is less than one percent of the eligible population and cervical cancer incidence and mortality are increasing. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to provide a comprehensive estimate of HPV genotype prevalence for Japan. Methods: English and Japanese databases were searched to March 2021 for research reporting HPV genotypes in cytology and histology samples from Japanese women. Summary estimates were calculated by disease stage from cytology only assessment – Normal, ASCUS, LSIL, HSIL and from histological assessment – CIN1, CIN2, CIN3/AIS, ICC (ICC-SCC, and ICC-ADC), and other. A random-effects meta–analysis was used to calculate summary prevalence estimates of any-HPV, high-risk (HR) and low-risk (LR) vaccine types, and vaccine genotypes (bivalent, quadrivalent, or nonavalent). This study was registered with PROSPERO: CRD42018117596. Results: A total of 57759 women with normal cytology, 1766 ASCUS, 3764 LSIL, 2017 HSIL, 3130 CIN1, 1219 CIN2, 869 CIN3/AIS, and 4306 ICC (which included 1032 ICC-SCC, and 638 ICC-ADC) were tested for HPV. The summary estimate of any-HPV genotype in women with normal cytology was 15·6% (95% CI: 12·3–19·4) and in invasive cervical cancer (ICC) was 85·6% (80·7–89·8). The prevalence of HR-HPV was 86·0% (95% CI: 73·9–94·9) for cytological cases of HSIL, 76·9% (52·1–94·7) for histological cases of CIN3/AIS, and 75·7% (68·0–82·6) for ICC. In women with ICC, the summary prevalence of bivalent vaccine genotypes was 58·5% (95% CI: 52·1–64·9), for quadrivalent genotypes was 58·6% (52·2–64·9) and for nonavalent genotypes was 71·5% (64·9–77·6), and of ICC cases that were HPV positive over 90% of infections are nonavalent vaccine preventable. There was considerable heterogeneity in all HPV summary estimates and for ICC, this heterogeneity was not explained by variability in study design, sample type, HPV assay type, or HPV DNA detection method, although studies published in the 1990s had lower prevalence estimates of any-HPV and HR HPV genotypes. Interpretations: HPV prevalence is high among Japanese women. The nonavalent vaccine is likely to have the greatest impact on reducing cervical cancer incidence and mortality in Japan

The Ctf18 RFC-like complex positions yeast telomeres but does not specify their replication time

Peer reviewedPreprin

TbPIF5 Is a Trypanosoma brucei Mitochondrial DNA Helicase Involved in Processing of Minicircle Okazaki Fragments

Trypanosoma brucei's mitochondrial genome, kinetoplast DNA (kDNA), is a giant network of catenated DNA rings. The network consists of a few thousand 1 kb minicircles and several dozen 23 kb maxicircles. Here we report that TbPIF5, one of T. brucei's six mitochondrial proteins related to Saccharomyces cerevisiae mitochondrial DNA helicase ScPIF1, is involved in minicircle lagging strand synthesis. Like its yeast homolog, TbPIF5 is a 5′ to 3′ DNA helicase. Together with other enzymes thought to be involved in Okazaki fragment processing, TbPIF5 localizes in vivo to the antipodal sites flanking the kDNA. Minicircles in wild type cells replicate unidirectionally as theta-structures and are unusual in that Okazaki fragments are not joined until after the progeny minicircles have segregated. We now report that overexpression of TbPIF5 causes premature removal of RNA primers and joining of Okazaki fragments on theta structures. Further elongation of the lagging strand is blocked, but the leading strand is completed and the minicircle progeny, one with a truncated H strand (ranging from 0.1 to 1 kb), are segregated. The minicircles with a truncated H strand electrophorese on an agarose gel as a smear. This replication defect is associated with kinetoplast shrinkage and eventual slowing of cell growth. We propose that TbPIF5 unwinds RNA primers after lagging strand synthesis, thus facilitating processing of Okazaki fragments

Decitabine impact on the endocytosis regulator RhoA, the folate carriers RFC1 and FOLR1, and the glucose transporter GLUT4 in human tumors.

BackgroundIn 31 solid tumor patients treated with the demethylating agent decitabine, we performed tumor biopsies before and after the first cycle of decitabine and used immunohistochemistry (IHC) to assess whether decitabine increased expression of various membrane transporters. Resistance to chemotherapy may arise due to promoter methylation/downregulation of expression of transporters required for drug uptake, and decitabine can reverse resistance in vitro. The endocytosis regulator RhoA, the folate carriers FOLR1 and RFC1, and the glucose transporter GLUT4 were assessed.ResultsPre-decitabine RhoA was higher in patients who had received their last therapy &gt;3&nbsp;months previously than in patients with more recent prior therapy (P = 0.02), and varied inversely with global DNA methylation as assessed by LINE1 methylation (r = -0.58, P = 0.006). Tumor RhoA scores increased with decitabine (P = 0.03), and RFC1 also increased in patients with pre-decitabine scores ≤150 (P = 0.004). Change in LINE1 methylation with decitabine did not correlate significantly with change in IHC scores for any transporter assessed. We also assessed methylation of the RFC1 gene (alias SLC19A1). SLC19A1 methylation correlated with tumor LINE1 methylation (r = 0.45, P = 0.02). There was a small (statistically insignificant) decrease in SLC19A1 methylation with decitabine, and there was a trend towards change in SLC19A1 methylation with decitabine correlating with change in LINE1 methylation (r = 0.47, P &lt;0.15). While SLC19A1 methylation did not correlate with RFC1 scores, there was a trend towards an inverse correlation between change in SLC19A1 methylation and change in RFC1 expression (r = -0.45, P = 0.19).ConclusionsIn conclusion, after decitabine administration, there was increased expression of some (but not other) transporters that may play a role in chemotherapy uptake. Larger patient numbers will be needed to define the extent to which this increased expression is associated with changes in DNA methylation

Employee share ownership in a unionised duopoly

Profit sharing schemes have been analysed assuming Cournot competition and decentralised wage negotiations, and it has been found that firms share profits in equilibrium. This paper analyses a different remuneration system: employee share ownership. We find that whether firms choose to share ownership or not depends on both the type of competition in the product market and the way in which workers organise to negotiate wages. If wage setting is decentralised, under duopolistic Cournot competition both firms share ownership. If wage setting is centralised, only one firm shares ownership if the degree to which goods are substitutes takes an intermediate value; otherwise, the two firms share ownership. In this case, if the union sets the same wage for all workers neither firm shares ownership. Therefore, centralised wage setting discourages share ownership. Fi- nally, under Bertrand competition neither firm shares ownership regardless of how workers are organised to negotiate wages.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A case study of new assessment and training of unilateral spatial neglect in stroke patients: effect of visual image transformation and visual stimulation by using a head mounted display system (HMD)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Unilateral spatial neglect (USN) is most damaging to an older stroke patient who also has a lower performance in their activities of daily living or those elderly who are still working. The purpose of this study was to understand more accurately pathology of USN using a new HMD system.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Two stroke patients (Subject A and B) participated in this study after gaining their informed consent and they all had Left USN as determined by clinical tests. Assessments of USN were performed by using the common clinical test (the line cancellation test) and six special tests by using HMD system in the object-centered coordinates (OC) condition and the egocentric coordinates (EC) condition. OC condition focused the test sheet only by a CCD. EC condition was that CCD can always follow the subject's movement. Moreover, the study focused on the effect of the reduced image condition of real image and the arrows.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In Patient A who performed the common test and special tests of OC and EC conditions, the results showed that for the line cancellation test under the common condition, both of the percentage of the correct answers at the right and left sides in the test sheet was 100 percent. However, in the OC condition, the percentage of the correct answers at the left side in the test sheet was 44 percent and the right side was 94 percent. In the EC condition, the left side was 61 percent and the right side was 67 percent. In Patient B, according to the result of the use of reduced image condition and the arrows condition by HMD system, these line cancellation scores more increased than the score of the common test.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The results showed that the assessment of USN using an HMD system may clarify the left neglect area which cannot be easily observed in the clinical evaluation for USN. HMD may be able to produce an artificially versatile environment as compared to the common clinical evaluation and treatment.</p

External tagging does not affect the feeding behavior of a coral reef fish, Chaetodon vagabundus (Pisces: Chaetodontidae)

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2009. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Environmental Biology of Fishes 86 (2009): 447-450, doi:10.1007/s10641-009-9545-9.Increasingly, the ability to recognize individual fishes is important for studies of population dynamics, ecology, and behavior. Although a variety of methods exist, external tags remain one of the most widely applied because they are both effective and cost efficient. However, a key assumption is that neither the tagging procedure nor the presence of a tag negatively affects the individual. While this has been demonstrated for relatively coarse metrics such as growth and survival, few studies have examined the impact of tags and tagging on more subtle aspects of behavior. We tagged adult vagabond butterflyfish (Chaetodon vagabundus) occupying a 30-ha insular reef in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea, using a commonly-utilized t-bar anchor tag. We quantified and compared feeding behavior (bite rate), which is sensitive to stress, of tagged and untagged individuals over four separate sampling periods spanning four months post-tagging. Bite rates did not differ between tagged and untagged individuals at each sampling period and, combined with additional anecdotal observations of normal pairing behavior and successful reproduction, suggest that tagging did not adversely affect individuals.The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from the Fulbright Program, National Science Foundation and the Australian Research Council

Parametric study of EEG sensitivity to phase noise during face processing

&lt;b&gt;Background: &lt;/b&gt; The present paper examines the visual processing speed of complex objects, here faces, by mapping the relationship between object physical properties and single-trial brain responses. Measuring visual processing speed is challenging because uncontrolled physical differences that co-vary with object categories might affect brain measurements, thus biasing our speed estimates. Recently, we demonstrated that early event-related potential (ERP) differences between faces and objects are preserved even when images differ only in phase information, and amplitude spectra are equated across image categories. Here, we use a parametric design to study how early ERP to faces are shaped by phase information. Subjects performed a two-alternative force choice discrimination between two faces (Experiment 1) or textures (two control experiments). All stimuli had the same amplitude spectrum and were presented at 11 phase noise levels, varying from 0% to 100% in 10% increments, using a linear phase interpolation technique. Single-trial ERP data from each subject were analysed using a multiple linear regression model. &lt;b&gt;Results: &lt;/b&gt; Our results show that sensitivity to phase noise in faces emerges progressively in a short time window between the P1 and the N170 ERP visual components. The sensitivity to phase noise starts at about 120–130 ms after stimulus onset and continues for another 25–40 ms. This result was robust both within and across subjects. A control experiment using pink noise textures, which had the same second-order statistics as the faces used in Experiment 1, demonstrated that the sensitivity to phase noise observed for faces cannot be explained by the presence of global image structure alone. A second control experiment used wavelet textures that were matched to the face stimuli in terms of second- and higher-order image statistics. Results from this experiment suggest that higher-order statistics of faces are necessary but not sufficient to obtain the sensitivity to phase noise function observed in response to faces. &lt;b&gt;Conclusion: &lt;/b&gt; Our results constitute the first quantitative assessment of the time course of phase information processing by the human visual brain. We interpret our results in a framework that focuses on image statistics and single-trial analyses

Bilateral spondylolysis of inferior articular processes of the fourth lumbar vertebra: a case report

Lumbar spondylolysis, a well known cause of low back pain, usually affects the pars interarticularis of a lower lumbar vertebra and rarely involves the articular processes. We report a rare case of bilateral spondylolysis of inferior articular processes of L4 vertebra that caused spinal canal stenosis with a significant segmental instability at L4/5 and scoliosis. A 31-year-old male who had suffered from low back pain since he was a teenager presented with numbness of the right lower leg and scoliosis. Plain X-rays revealed bilateral spondylolysis of inferior articular processes of L4, anterolisthesis of the L4 vertebral body, and right lateral wedging of the L4/5 disc with compensatory scoliosis in the cephalad portion of the spine. MR images revealed spinal canal stenosis at the L4/5 disc level. Posterior lumbar interbody fusion of the L4/5 was performed, and his symptoms were relieved