An Investigation Into the Relationship Between Onset Age of Musical Lessons and Levels of Sociability in Childhood

Previous studies have suggested that musical training in childhood is beneficial for sociability. However, it remains unclear how age of onset of group music lessons is associated with the late sociability of children from a long-term perspective. This study investigated associations between group music lessons conducted at a music school and children’s levels of sociability by focusing on the age of onset of the lessons. We conducted a survey of 276 children aged 4–5 years (M = 58.5 months) and 6–7 years (M = 82.7 months) who commenced music lessons at ages 1, 2, 4, and 6 years. We found that (1) the empathy scores of children aged 6–7 years who began lessons when 1-year-old were greater than those who began lessons when 4-years-old, (2) the communication scores of children aged 4–5 years who began lessons when 1-year-old were greater than those who began lessons when older than 1 year, and (3) the empathy and extraversion scores were high in those aged 6–7 years who began lessons in that age range. The results suggest that early onset of music lessons could positively influence children’s sociability; in contrast, after about age 7 years, children who already had high sociability may be more inclined to select group music lessons. By focusing on the impact of regular group music lessons from a very young age on later levels of sociability, these results further elucidate the effects of musical lessons. In sum, participation in group music lessons 2–4 times per month can be effective social training for very young children and foster their later sociability

FINGER FORCES DURING BASEBALL PITCHING

A 3D force transducer was installed in an official baseball to make a direct measurement of finger force imparting on the ball during pitching. Eight collegiate pitchers threw a 4- seam fastball at their maximal speed. Force was measured separately from each of the index, middle, and ring fingers, and the thumb. Peaks and peak occurrence time of computed resultant and shear forces were evaluated. Index and middle finger forces generally had a bimodal pattern with the first and second peaks appeared at about 80, and 96% of the stride foot contact period, respectively. Their force magnitude reached 90 N. and above. Magnitude of shear force was about half of the resultant force. Forces by the thumb and ring finger were less than those by the index and middle fingers. The findings indicated that the fingers were applying considerably large magnitude of force during pitching

Investigation of Bacteria from Spoiled Bottled Salad Dressing Leading to Gas Explosion

Background: In 2020, an incident involving spoiled salad dressing from a commercial source occurred. Upon opening the bottle, the contents exploded from gas that seemed to have fermented inside the bottle. For safety concerns, we sought to investigate the bacteria from the salad dressing in order to notify the company that made the product and relevant authorities. Methods: Anaerobic and carbon dioxide culture methods were used. To determine species of colonies, MALDI-TOF-MS and 16S rRNA whole sequencing were performed. Results: There were no colonies grown in anaerobic condition; however, we obtained three colonies from the carbon dioxide atmosphere. We determined the first colony as Alkalihalobacillus clausii (Bacillus clausii), the second as Bacillus spp. such as B. australimaris, B. safensis or B. safensis subsp. osmophilus and the third as B. paralicheniformis. Phylogenic tree analysis using the16S rRNA sequence revealed these colonies to be in a proximity of known gas-producing species. The NCBI database search revealed that a key gas production pathway gene, pyruvate formate-lyase (pfl), of which the gene product catalyzes pyruvate to formate conversion, exists in B. paralicheniformis. Formate dehydrogenase (FdhH) produces CO2 from formate that the coding gene fdhF positive bacteria can participate in gas production when formate is present in the culture. And we found fdhF from A. clausii, B. australimaris/B. safensis and B. paralicheniformis. Furthermore, under butanediol producing pathway, genes coding two enzymes involved in CO2 production, namely als and ald, existed in B. australimaris/B. safensis and B paralicheniformis, whereas A. clausii possessed als. Conclusion: Candidate species A. clausii, B. australimaris/B. safensis and B. paralicheniformis from spoiled salad dressing were thought to produce CO2 gas each from their own enzymes, or in combination, which caused the explosion upon opening. The endospore forming nature of Bacillus should alert us to be cautious when considering food producing process regulations where we need to thoroughly heat any product during manufacture in order to inactivate any bacteria as there is the possibility of this type of dangerous occurrence

Antinociceptive Effects of Intrathecal Landiolol Injection in a Rat Formalin Pain Model

Perioperative beta-blocker administration has recently been recommended for patients undergoing cardiac or other surgery due to the beneficial cardiovascular effects of these agents. In addition, some studies have reported that perioperatively administered beta-blockers also have analgesic effects. In this study, to investigate the antinociceptive effects and the analgesic profile of landiolol, we examined the effects of intrathecal landiolol administration on nociceptive pain behavior and c-fos mRNA expression (a neural marker of pain) in the spinal cord using a rat formalin model. We found that pain-related behavior was inhibited by intrathecal landiolol administration. Moreover, the increase in c-fos mRNA expression on the formalin-injected side was less pronounced in rats administered landiolol than in saline administered controls. Thus, intrathecal administration of landiolol exhibited antinociceptive effects. Further investigation of the antinociceptive mechanism of landiolol is required

Natural van der Waals heterostructural single crystals with both magnetic and topological properties

Heterostructures having both magnetism and topology are promising materials for the realization of exotic topological quantum states while challenging in synthesis and engineering. Here, we report natural magnetic van der Waals heterostructures of (MnBi2Te4)m(Bi2Te3)n that exhibit controllable magnetic properties while maintaining their topological surface states. The interlayer antiferromagnetic exchange coupling is gradually weakened as the separation of magnetic layers increases, and an anomalous Hall effect that is well coupled with magnetization and shows ferromagnetic hysteresis was observed below 5 K. The obtained homogeneous heterostructure with atomically sharp interface and intrinsic magnetic properties will be an ideal platform for studying the quantum anomalous Hall effect, axion insulator states, and the topological magnetoelectric effect.Comment: 40 pages, 15 figure

Power-stage frequency response cancellation of DC-DC converter with digital control

Recently, the performance of the DSP and FPGA is developed remarkably. So, fully digital control is enabled in switch mode power supplies. However, in many cases, the control system is built by very complicatedly and very difficult theories such as the adaptive control. Furthermore, in most popular PID control, its design method of the parameters is not clear, so derivation of the optimal parameters is very difficult. This paper proposes the interesting control technique which is cancelled the transfer function of the converter by using pole-zero-cancellation method. This technique is very simple and easy to stability design.2010 International Symposium on Power Electronics, Electrical Drives, Automation and Motion (SPEEDAM 2010) : Pisa, Italy, 2010.06.14-2010.06.1

イソプロテレノール誘導肥大心においてNHE-1阻害薬は、ラット左心室の筋スライスのCa2+トランジェントを正常化する

We previously reported that left ventricular (LV) slices from isoproterenol (ISO)-induced hypertrophied rat hearts showed an increase of energy expenditure due to remodeling of Ca2+ handling in excitation–contraction coupling, i.e., suppressed SERCA2a activity and enhanced Na+/Ca2+exchanger-1 (NCX-1) activity. Na+/H+ exchanger-1 (NHE-1) inhibitor (NHEI) has been demonstrated to exert beneficial effects in the development of cardiac remodeling. We hypothesized that a novel NHE-1 selective inhibitor, BIIB723 prevents remodeling of Ca2+ handling in LV slices of ISO-induced hypertrophied rat hearts mediated by inhibiting NCX-1 activity. The significant shortening in duration of multi-cellular Ca2+ transient in ISO group was normalized in ISO + BIIB723 group. The significant increase in amplitude of multi-cellular Ca2+ waves (CaW) generated at high [Ca2+]o of LV slices in ISO group was also normalized in ISO + BIIB723 group. However, the enhanced NCX-1 activity was not antagonized by BIIB723. We recently reported that ISO-induced down-regulation of a Ca2+ handling protein, SERCA2a, was normalized by BIIB723. Therefore, it seems likely that BIIB723 normalized shortened multi-cellular Ca2+ transient duration and increased CaW amplitude in LV slices mediated via normalization of SERCA2a activity. Furthermore, the results presented here suggest the multi-cellular Ca2+ transient duration and CaW amplitude in LV slices might be better indices reflecting SERCA2a activity than SERCA2a protein expression level.博士（医学）・甲618号・平成26年3月17

Synthesis and Luminescence Properties of Near-Infrared N-Heterocyclic Luciferin Analogues for In Vivo Optical Imaging

As a means of achieving highly sensitive bioluminescence imaging of deep tissues utilizing the firefly luciferin-luciferase (L-L) reaction, we previously reported a luciferin analogue, AkaLumine, which exhibits high cell-permeability and emits near-infrared (NIR) light with high tissue-penetration by the L-L reaction. However, while AkaLumine enables us to observe targets in deep tissues, its poor solubility in aqueous media limits its utility for in vivo imaging. Herein, to address this issue, we have synthesized three AkaLumine derivatives with N-heterocyclic aromatic rings as new red luciferin analogues that have substantially higher solubility than that of AkaLumine in phosphate buffered saline solution. One of the derivatives (herein termed seMpai) exhibits an emission maximum at 675 nm upon L-L reaction with Photinus pyralis luciferase and presents an activity in mouse-tissue imaging similar to that of AkaLumine. It is hoped that seMpai will extend the application of high-sensitivity NIR bioluminescence imaging in a wide range of biomedical research fields