Mock Observatory: two thousand lightcone mock catalogues of luminous red galaxies from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Survey for the cosmological large-scale analysis

Estimating a reliable covariance matrix for correlation functions of galaxies is a crucial task to obtain accurate cosmological constraints from galaxy surveys. We generate 2,000 independent lightcone mock luminous red galaxy (LRGs) catalogues at $0.3 \leq z \leq 1.25$, designed to cover CAMIRA LRGs observed by the Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Programme (HSC SSP). We first produce full-sky lightcone halo catalogues using a COmoving Lagrangian Acceleration (COLA) technique, and then trim them to match the footprints of the HSC SSP S20A Wide layers. The mock LRGs are subsequently populated onto the trimmed halo catalogues according to the halo occupation distribution model constrained by the observed CAMIRA LRGs. The stellar mass ($M_{\star}$) is assigned to each LRG by the subhalo abundance-matching technique using the observed stellar-mass functions of CAMIRA LRGs. We evaluate photometric redshifts (photo-$z$) of mock LRGs by incorporating the photo-$z$ scatter, which is derived from the observed $M_{\star}$--photo-$z$-scatter relations of the CAMIRA LRGs. We validate the constructed full-sky halo and lightcone LRG mock catalogues by comparing their angular clustering statistics (i.e., power spectra and correlation functions) with those measured from the halo catalogues of full $N$-body simulations and the CAMIRA LRG catalogues from the HSC SSP, respectively. We detect clear signatures of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs) from our mock LRGs, whose angular scales are well consistent with theoretical predictions. These results demonstrate that our mock LRGs can be used to evaluate covariance matrices at large scales and provide predictions for the BAO detectability and cosmological constraints.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, submitted to MNRA

Heterotactic poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) prepared via radical polymerization in the presence of fluorinated alcohols

Radical polymerization of N-isopropylacrylamide in toluene at –40°C in the presence of fourfold amounts of fluorinated alcohols was investigated. The 13C NMR analysis of the obtained polymers suggested that the addition of fluorinated alcohols induced heterotactic-specificity in radical polymerization of NIPAAm, although syndiotactic poly(NIPAAm)s were obtained by adding alkyl alcohols as we have previously reported. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first synthesis of heterotactic poly(NIPAAm)

Potential Biases of the Transmission Risks of COVID-19 estimated by Contact Tracing Surveys in Japan

Introduction: Contact tracing surveys are being conducted to identify and isolate close contacts of an identified patient to reduce the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). However, the estimates of risk indexes based on information obtained from the surveys and normally used in practice can have biases comparing with true magnitude of risks of infection and spread.Method: We evaluated whether the estimates of the risk indexes obtained from information of the active epidemiological surveillance, contact tracing surveys in Japan, are suitable for quantitative assessment of the risk factors of COVID-19, using pseudo data via a simulation study. We discussed two types of risks considered in the issue of infectious disease, the probability of infection and that of spreading, and the estimates of these risks.Results and Discussion: A naive method to estimate the risks of infection and spreading of COVID-19 is to calculate the ratio of infected patients to close contacts and the ratio of patients who infected others to all the confirmed patients, respectively. However, these estimates could possibly have significant biases and result in being ineffective for both the exploration and the quantitative assessment of the risk factors in the following ordinary cases: a person contacts closely with many confirmed patients, or a confirmed patient contact closely with many people. Then, some steps are needed to reduce such possible biases for the estimation the risks of both the infection and spreading of COVID-19

Recombinant γY278H Fibrinogen Showed Normal Secretion from CHO Cells, but a Corresponding Heterozygous Patient Showed Hypofibrinogenemia

ArticleInternational journal of molecular sciences. 22(10): 5218(2021)journal articl

Heterozygous Variant Fibrinogen γA289V (Kanazawa III) Was Confirmed as Hypodysfibrinogenemia by Plasma and Recombinant Fibrinogens

Introduction: Congenital fibrinogen disorders are classified as afibrinogenemia, hypofibrinogenemia, dysfibrinogenemia, and hypodysfibrinogenemia. However, difficulties are associated with discriminating between dysfibrinogenemia, hypofibrinogenemia, and hypodysfibrinogenemia using routine analyses. We previously reported a heterozygous variant fibrinogen (γA289V; Kanazawa III) as hypodysfibrinogenemia; however, the same variant had previously been described as hypofibrinogenemia. To clarify the production of γA289V fibrinogen, we expressed recombinant γA289V (r-γA289V) fibrinogen and compared it with wild-type (WT) and adjacent recombinant variant fibrinogens. Methods: Target mutations were introduced into a fibrinogen γ-chain expression vector by site-directed mutagenesis, and the vector was then transfected into Chinese hamster ovary cells to produce recombinant fibrinogen. Fibrinogen was purified from the plasma of the proposita, and culture media and fibrinogen functions were analyzed using fibrin polymerization, plasmin protection, and FXIIIa-catalyzed fibrinogen cross-linking. Results: The fibrinogen concentration ratio of the culture media to cell lysates was markedly lower for r-γA289V fibrinogen than for WT. Because the secretion of recombinant γF290L (r-γF290L) fibrinogen was similar to WT, we compared r-γF290L fibrinogen functions with WT. The fibrin polymerization of Kanazawa III plasma (K-III) fibrinogen was significantly weaker than normal plasma fibrinogen. Moreover, K-III fibrinogen showed a markedly reduced “D:D” interaction. However, all functions of r-γF290L fibrinogen were similar to WT. An in silico analysis confirmed the above results. Conclusion: The present results demonstrated that γA289 is crucial for the γ-module structure, and the γA289V substitution markedly reduced fibrinogen secretion. Moreover, K-III fibrinogen showed markedly reduced fibrin polymerization and “D:D” interactions. γA289V fibrinogen was confirmed as hypodysfibrinogenemia.ArticleINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LABORATORY HEMATOLOGY.42(2):190-197(2020)journal articl