Privatization and government preference

This paper uses a mixed oligopoly model to examine the relationship between the privatization of a public firm and government preferences for tax revenue. From a public choice viewpoint, we assume the government prefers tax revenue to the sum of consumer and producer surplus, whereas the public firm only cares about the sum of consumer and producer surplus. The results indicate that if the government sufficiently prefers tax revenue, it will not privatize the public firm.Mixed oligopoly Privatization Taxation Government preference

Safety and efficacy of pirfenidone in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in clinical practice

SummaryBackgroudPrevious pirfenidone trials have only involved patients with mild-to-moderate idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). The aim of this study was to investigate the safety and efficacy of pirfenidone in patients with mild-to-severe IPF in clinical practice.MethodsThe clinical records of 76 patients who were diagnosed with IPF and received pirfenidone were reviewed.ResultsThe most frequent adverse event was anorexia, although the grade of anorexia in most patients was mild. Dose reduction of pirfenidone improved anorexia in 84% affected patients, which resulted in a high medication compliance rate. The mean forced vital capacity (FVC) at the initiation of pirfenidone therapy in this study was approximately 10% lower than that in previous clinical trials. The mean change in FVC during the 6-month period prior to the therapy initiation was −188 mL, which improved to −19 mL during the 6-month period after therapy. Significant attenuation in percentage predicted diffusion capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide decline was also achieved after pirfenidone therapy initiation. The efficacy of pirfenidone in attenuating the degree of FVC decline was higher in the group with FVC decline of ≥150 mL during the 6-month period prior to therapy initiation. The levels of serum markers, such as KL-6 and SP-D, were also lowered by the therapy.ConclusionsThese results showed that pirfenidone was well-tolerated and had beneficial effects in patients with mild-to-severe and/or progressive IPF. The degree of disease progression prior to the initiation of pirfenidone therapy had an impact on the response to the therapy

A Terrestrial SER Estimation Methodology based on Simulation coupled with One-Time Neutron Irradiation Testing

電子機器の信頼性評価の迅速化に光明 --様々な中性子施設で半導体ソフトエラー評価を可能にする技術を開発--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2023-06-08.Terrestrial soft error rates (SERs) are generally estimated by performing an experiment using spallation neutron beam with the energy spectrum being similar to that of the terrestrial neutrons or at least four measurements using various (quasi-)mono-energetic neutron and/or proton sources to determine the parameters of the Weibull function. We here propose a method to estimate the terrestrial SERs based on simulation coupled with one-time neutron irradiation testing which can be applied to various kinds of neutron sources. In this method, the dependences of single event upset (SEU) cross sections on the neutron energy and the critical charge are calculated by simulation using Particle and Heavy Ion Transport code System (PHITS). The critical charge is used as the only calibration parameter, which is adjusted to reproduce the SER measured by one-time neutron irradiation. The validity of our method is investigated for 65-nm bulk SRAMs with the measured data using various neutron sources in Japan. Our method generally provides the reasonable terrestrial SERs compared with those obtained by the Weibull function method. This result indicates the feasibility of evaluating the terrestrial SER using one of the various neutron sources available all over the world, including those not dedicated to SER measurement. We also investigate the necessity of the elaborated geometry of device under test (DUT) for the accuracy of the simulation. It is shown that detailed material compositions of DUT are not necessary in our method except when the one-time irradiation is performed using the neutron source that contains a high-quantity of low-energy neutrons below 8 MeV. Furthermore, we confirm that the configuration of the sensitive volume can be simplified without sacrificing the estimation accuracy. These simplifications in the simulation help to reduce the modeling and calculation cost in SER estimation

Mossbauer Spectrometer for Measurements in High Magnetic Fields(Part II. Several Instruments and Techniques Developed in HFLSM)

A Mossbauer spectrometer has been designed and constructed for measurements in high magnetic fields beyond 20 T which are generated by a hybrid magnet in the High Field laboratory for Superconducting Materials at Tohoku University. Simple ways were adopted in order to avoid some obstacles for the spectroscopy. The most serious problem was electromagnetic inductions occurring at metallic components in a source drive system. It was found that the replacement of an aluminum drive-rod to a Bakelite one improved remarkably the Mossbauer spectrum. Test measurements of a-Fe at room temperature were satisfactorily performed under the magnetic fields up to 10 T. The results agreed well with the theoretical expectation

Cloning of two members of the calcitonin-family receptors from stingray, Dasyatis akajei: Possible physiological roles of the calcitonin family in osmoregulation

In cartilaginous fish, two cDNAs encoding calcitonin-family receptors were isolated for the first time from the stingray brain. The open reading frame of one receptor cDNA coded a 525-amino acid protein. The amino acid identity of this receptor to human calcitonin-receptor-like receptor (CRLR) is 64.5%, frog CRLR is 64.7%, and flounder CRLR is 61.2% and this was higher than to human calcitonin receptor (CTR) (46.1%), frog CTR (54.7%), and flounder CTR (48.9%). We strongly suggested that this receptor is a ray CRLR based on phylogenetic analysis. In case of the second receptor, amino acid identity among CRLRs (human 50.5%, frog 50.7%, flounder 48.0%) and CTRs (human 43.2%, frog 49.1%, flounder 41.8%) was similar. From phylogenetic analysis of both CRLRs and CTRs, we believe that this receptor is ray CTR. The expression of ray CRLR mRNA was predominantly detected in the nervous system (brain) and vascular system (atrium, ventricle, and gill), which reflects the similar localization of CGRP in the nervous and vascular systems as mammals. It was observed that the second receptor was expressed in several tissues, namely cartilage, brain, pituitary gland, gill, atrium, ventricle, pancreas, spleen, liver, gall bladder, intestine, rectal gland, kidney, testis and ovary. This localization pattern was very similar to flounder CTR. Both receptor mRNAs were strongly expressed in the gill. This suggests that the calcitonin-family members are involved in the osmoregulation of stingray as this fish is known to be euryhaline. When a stingray was transferred to diluted seawater (20% seawater), the expression of both receptors significantly decreased in the gill. Similar results were obtained in the kidney of the stingray. Thus, our cloning and isolation of both receptors in the stingray will be helpful for elucidation of their physiological role(s) such as osmoregulation including calcium metabolism of cartilaginous fish. © 2012 Elsevier B.V

The whole blood transcriptional regulation landscape in 465 COVID-19 infected samples from Japan COVID-19 Task Force

「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19患者由来の血液細胞における遺伝子発現の網羅的解析 --重症度に応じた遺伝子発現の変化には、ヒトゲノム配列の個人差が影響する--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-23.Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a recently-emerged infectious disease that has caused millions of deaths, where comprehensive understanding of disease mechanisms is still unestablished. In particular, studies of gene expression dynamics and regulation landscape in COVID-19 infected individuals are limited. Here, we report on a thorough analysis of whole blood RNA-seq data from 465 genotyped samples from the Japan COVID-19 Task Force, including 359 severe and 106 non-severe COVID-19 cases. We discover 1169 putative causal expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) including 34 possible colocalizations with biobank fine-mapping results of hematopoietic traits in a Japanese population, 1549 putative causal splice QTLs (sQTLs; e.g. two independent sQTLs at TOR1AIP1), as well as biologically interpretable trans-eQTL examples (e.g., REST and STING1), all fine-mapped at single variant resolution. We perform differential gene expression analysis to elucidate 198 genes with increased expression in severe COVID-19 cases and enriched for innate immune-related functions. Finally, we evaluate the limited but non-zero effect of COVID-19 phenotype on eQTL discovery, and highlight the presence of COVID-19 severity-interaction eQTLs (ieQTLs; e.g., CLEC4C and MYBL2). Our study provides a comprehensive catalog of whole blood regulatory variants in Japanese, as well as a reference for transcriptional landscapes in response to COVID-19 infection

DOCK2 is involved in the host genetics and biology of severe COVID-19

「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19疾患感受性遺伝子DOCK2の重症化機序を解明 --アジア最大のバイオレポジトリーでCOVID-19の治療標的を発見--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-10.Identifying the host genetic factors underlying severe COVID-19 is an emerging challenge. Here we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) involving 2, 393 cases of COVID-19 in a cohort of Japanese individuals collected during the initial waves of the pandemic, with 3, 289 unaffected controls. We identified a variant on chromosome 5 at 5q35 (rs60200309-A), close to the dedicator of cytokinesis 2 gene (DOCK2), which was associated with severe COVID-19 in patients less than 65 years of age. This risk allele was prevalent in East Asian individuals but rare in Europeans, highlighting the value of genome-wide association studies in non-European populations. RNA-sequencing analysis of 473 bulk peripheral blood samples identified decreased expression of DOCK2 associated with the risk allele in these younger patients. DOCK2 expression was suppressed in patients with severe cases of COVID-19. Single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis (n = 61 individuals) identified cell-type-specific downregulation of DOCK2 and a COVID-19-specific decreasing effect of the risk allele on DOCK2 expression in non-classical monocytes. Immunohistochemistry of lung specimens from patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia showed suppressed DOCK2 expression. Moreover, inhibition of DOCK2 function with CPYPP increased the severity of pneumonia in a Syrian hamster model of SARS-CoV-2 infection, characterized by weight loss, lung oedema, enhanced viral loads, impaired macrophage recruitment and dysregulated type I interferon responses. We conclude that DOCK2 has an important role in the host immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and the development of severe COVID-19, and could be further explored as a potential biomarker and/or therapeutic target

Gateways to the FANTOM5 promoter level mammalian expression atlas

The FANTOM5 project investigates transcription initiation activities in more than 1,000 human and mouse primary cells, cell lines and tissues using CAGE. Based on manual curation of sample information and development of an ontology for sample classification, we assemble the resulting data into a centralized data resource (http://fantom.gsc.riken.jp/5/). This resource contains web-based tools and data-access points for the research community to search and extract data related to samples, genes, promoter activities, transcription factors and enhancers across the FANTOM5 atlas. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13059-014-0560-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users