Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor: A Multifunctional Cytokine in Rheumatic Diseases

Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) was originally identified in the culture medium of activated T lymphocytes as a soluble factor that inhibited the random migration of macrophages. MIF is now recognized to be a multipotent cytokine involved in the regulation of immune and inflammatory responses. Moreover, the pivotal nature of its involvement highlights the importance of MIF to the pathogenesis of various inflammatory disorders and suggests that blocking MIF may be a useful therapeutic strategy for treating these diseases. This paper discusses the function and expressional regulation of MIF in several rheumatic diseases and related conditions

Intonational variations at the end of interrogative sentences in Japanese dialects : From the “Corpus of Japanese Dialects”

National Institute for Japanese Language and LinguisticsNational Institute for Japanese Language and LinguisticsNational Institute for Japanese Language and LinguisticsLREC 2018 Special Speech Sessions "Speech Resources Collection in Real-World Situations"; Phoenix Seagaia Conference Center, Miyazaki; 2018-05-09In general, it is said that interrogative sentences have a final rising intonation (Kori 2003). However, this rule is not true of some Japanese dialects. Kibe (2010, 2011,2013) classify sentence-final tones of interrogatives in Japanese dialects into four types: Type A as a rising tone (Tōkyō dialect), Type B as a falling tone (Hirosaki dialect, Kagoshima dialect), Type C as a rising/falling tone (Hiroshima dialect), and Type D as a gradual rising tone (Fukuoka dialect). Since the data in Kibe (2010, 2011 and 3013) were extracted from an existing nation-wide dialect survey where an elicitation task was employed, it is not clear whether how much such intonation patterns appear in a spontaneous speech in each region. This article examines sentence-final tones of interrogatives extracted from a natural discourse stored in the “Corpus of Japanese Dialects” (COJADS), which is currently in preparation for release by the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL). The results revealed that the four types are attestable even in a natural discourse, and furthermore, we identified a dialect such as Hirosaki dialect which distinguishes interrogatives from declaratives by the pitch range in the final falling tone

Indoor particle counts during Asian dust events under everyday conditions at an apartment in Japan.

[Objective]Asian dust storms originating from arid regions of Mongolia and China are a well-known springtime phenomenon throughout East Asia. Evidence is increasing for the adverse health effects caused by airborne desert dust inhalation. Given that people spend approximately 90 % of their time indoors, indoor air quality is a significant concern. The present study aimed to examine the influence of outdoor particulate matter (PM) levels on indoor PM levels during Asian dust events under everyday conditions. [Methods]We simultaneously monitored counts of particles larger than 0.3, 0.5, 1, 2, and 5 μm using two direct-reading instruments (KC-01D1 airborne particle counter; Rion), one placed in an apartment room and another on the veranda, under everyday conditions before and during an Asian dust event. We also examined how indoor particle counts were affected by opening a window, crawling, and air purifier use. [Results]An Asian dust event on 24 April 2012 caused 50- and 20-fold increases in PM counts in outdoor and indoor air, respectively. A window open for 10 min resulted in a rapid increase of indoor PM counts up to 70 % of outside levels that did not return to baseline levels after 3 h. An air purifier rapidly reduced PM counts for all particle sizes measured. [Conclusions]It is important to account for occupant behavior, such as window-opening and air purifier use, when estimating residential exposure to particulate matter

Gap interpolation by inpainting methods : Application to Ground and Space-based Asteroseismic data

In asteroseismology, the observed time series often suffers from incomplete time coverage due to gaps. The presence of periodic gaps may generate spurious peaks in the power spectrum that limit the analysis of the data. Various methods have been developed to deal with gaps in time series data. However, it is still important to improve these methods to be able to extract all the possible information contained in the data. In this paper, we propose a new approach to handle the problem, the so-called inpainting method. This technique, based on a sparsity prior, enables to judiciously fill-in the gaps in the data, preserving the asteroseismic signal, as far as possible. The impact of the observational window function is reduced and the interpretation of the power spectrum is simplified. This method is applied both on ground and space-based data. It appears that the inpainting technique improves the oscillation modes detection and estimation. Additionally, it can be used to study very long time series of many stars because its computation is very fast. For a time series of 50 days of CoRoT-like data, it allows a speed-up factor of 1000, if compared to methods of the same accuracy.Comment: 29 pages, 7 figures, A&A pending final acceptance from edito

A Crucial Role of Bone Morphogenetic Protein Signaling in the Wound Healing Response in Acute Liver Injury Induced by Carbon Tetrachloride

Background. Acute liver injury induced by administration of carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) has used a model of wound repair in the rat liver. Previously, we reported transient expression of bone morphogenetic protein (Bmp) 2 or Bmp4 at 6–24 h after CCl4 treatment, suggesting a role of BMP signaling in the wound healing response in the injured liver. In the present study, we investigated the biological meaning of the transient Bmp expression in liver injury. Methods. Using conditional knockout mice carrying a floxed exon in the BMP receptor 1A gene, we determined the hepatic gene expressions and proliferative activity following CCl4-treated liver. Results. We observed retardation of the healing response in the knockout mice treated with CCl4, including aggravated histological feature and reduced expressions of the albumin and Tdo2 genes, and a particular decrease in the proliferative activity shown by Ki-67 immunohistochemistry. Conclusion. Our findings suggest a crucial role of BMP signaling in the amelioration of acute liver injury

Pre-operative anxiety and nursing care - Through two students'case studies on surgical patients -

手術前の看護は,患者が安全･安楽に手術を受けることができ,術後の回復過程がスムーズにいくように援助することである.その看護の一つとして術前不安の緩和に向けての援助がある。その人の不安レベルに応じた適切な看護援助を行うためには,患者の不安を正しくアセスメントすることが重要になる｡看護学生にとって,患者の不安への理解は,臨床実習の場で,患者を観察したり,患者と向き合って話を交わしたり,ケアを行ったりする体験を通して培われていくものであると思われる｡本論文では,2名の学生が行った術前不安に関する事例研究から,客観的に分析する方法を用いて患者を観察したり, 患者の話を聞いたり,看護行為を行うことによって,術前不安と看護援助の理解が深められることを論述した｡Pre-operative nursing is to care and educate a patient so that he/she can undergo an operation at ease and in safety and recover quickly after surgery. One of the pre-operative nursing is to relieve anxiety. It's very important for pre-operative nursing to assess pre-operative anxiety and do the nursing action according to patient's anxiety level. Nursing student seems to have much understanding of pre-operative anxiety through observing a patient's behavior, talking with a patient, and caring a patient in clinical practice. Two students'case studies on surgical patients are presented in this paper. This paper shows how they promote deeper understanding of pre-operative anxiety and the nursing care is promoted by observing the patient and listening objectively to what the patient says and giving appropriate feedback

A Case Study Considering the Relationship between Children's Welfare and Injuries during School Hours and the Type of Clothing They Wear : Sports Wear Worn during P.E. Class for Example

学校教育の今日的課題として，子どもの健康・安全保障のための教職員の役割の明確化と 学校全体の取組体制の整備・充実が求められている。本共同研究は，この課題を考えるため に，教師の指導の下で行われる教科の中で，最も傷病の発生数の多い「体育（保健体育）」 の授業時間に着用を義務づけられている体操服（学校体操服）を取り上げ，わが国の学校教 育と体操服の歴史的考察および岡山県における学校体操服の現状と評価を調査・被服科学の 実験結果から試み，“子どもの健康と安全を守るための環境としての被服と教職員の役割” について検討したものである