Yamagata University

In recent years, small buildings are often built on developed ground, and the proportion of ground reinforcement has increased. In conventional ground reinforcement design for small buildings, seismic force design has been omitted without a clear evidence. In this study, 1) the damage of the ground reinforcement under great earthquakes by the questionnaire survey and 2) verification of the horizontal resistance safety by the parametric study were performed. It was found that there was no damage due to the level 1 earthquake motion, and safety against seismic force is ensured sufficiently if the contact pressure of ground is as small as a detached house.

There is an urgent need to develop global observation networks to quantify biodiversity trends for evaluating achievements of targets of Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Camera traps are a commonly used tool, with the potential to enhance global observation networks for monitoring wildlife population trends and has the capacity to constitute global observation networks by applying a unified sampling protocol. The Snapshot protocol is simple and easy for camera trapping which is applied in North America and Europe. However, there is no regional camera-trap network with the Snapshot protocol in Asia. We present the first dataset from a collaborative camera-trap survey using the Snapshot protocol in Japan conducted in 2023. We collected data at 90 locations across nine arrays for a total of 6162 trap-nights of survey effort. The total number of sequences with mammals and birds was 7967, including 20 mammal species and 23 avian species. Apart from humans, wild boar, sika deer and rodents were the most commonly observed taxa on the camera traps, covering 57.9% of all the animal individuals. We provide the dataset with a standard format of Wildlife Insights, but also with Camtrap DP 1.0 format. Our dataset can be used for a part of the global dataset for comparing relative abundances of wildlife and for a baseline of wildlife population trends in Japan. It can also used for training machine-learning models for automatic species identifications.

Background COVID‐19, caused by SARS‐CoV‐2, was first documented in Japan in January 2020. We previously reported an increased risk of rhinovirus infections among children during the early phase of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Here, we assessed the impact of COVID‐19 on respiratory virus infections after SARS‐CoV‐2 spread nationwide. Methods We analyzed clinical specimens from 4012 patients with respiratory infections in Yokohama, Japan from January 2018 to April 2023. Results Among 15 representative respiratory viruses we detected (influenza virus, rhinovirus, coxsackievirus, echovirus, enterovirus, human coronavirus 229E, HKU1, NL63, and OC43, human metapneumovirus, human parainfluenza virus, human parechovirus, RSV, human adenovirus, human bocavirus, human parvovirus B19, herpes simplex virus type 1, and varicella‐zoster virus), influenza was most affected by the COVID‐19 pandemic, with no influenza viruses detected for nearly 3 years. Conclusions The decrease in influenza infections following the emergence of SARS‐CoV‐2 may have contributed to the previously reported increase in rhinovirus infections. The rhinovirus outbreak, rather than SARS‐CoV‐2, may have contributed to the decrease in enveloped virus infections (RSV, parainfluenza viruses, metapneumovirus, and coronavirus 229E, HKU1, NL63, and OC43), possibly due to negative virus‐virus interactions.

Sulfonium cations and sulfonium-based polymers have received increased interest as biomedical and ion-conductive materials because of their unique cationic features. However, the feasible construction of cationic nanostructures via polymerization-induced self-assembly (PISA) remains limited owing to charge repulsion. In this study, we report the efficient synthesis of sulfonium cation-based nano-objects from P(MTEA(S⁺)[R⁻])s with different counter anions (R = bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide, TFSI; trifluoromethanesulfonate, OTf; and chloride, Cl), which were prepared by reversible addition–fragmentation chain-transfer (RAFT) of 2-(methylthio)ethyl acylate (MTEA) and a subsequent anion exchange reaction. RAFT dispersion copolymerization of styrene (St) and N-phenylmaleimide (PMI) using cationic P(MTEA(S⁺)[R⁻]) macro-chain transfer agents (CTAs) afforded various assembled structures (worms, vesicles, and nanotubes) by tuning the chain lengths of the P(MTEA(S⁺)[R⁻]) and P(St-alt-PMI) blocks and their composition and polymerization conditions (e.g., monomer concentration and solvent polarity). Depending on the three cationic macro-CTAs, the PISA of St and PMI enabled the efficient copolymerization and construction of cationic assemblies, including unique nanotubes. This is the first study demonstrating the successful integration of the sulfonium macro-CTA and PISA, enabling the design and manipulation of cationic nano-objects with various morphologies and unique functionalities originating from sulfonium cations.

The frontal prism in the Japan Trench on the 2011 Tohoku‐Oki earthquake (Mw 9.0, March 11, 2011) rupture zone had been drilled during the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expeditions 343 and 343 T. We investigated fossil diatoms and radiolarians to determine age constraints on the cored sediments and reveal the behavior of sediment deformation history. Although diatoms and radiolarians abundances are varied in samples from common to rare with poor to moderate preservation in studied sediments, general biostratigraphic schemes in the North Pacific are applicable and well constrain the age of those sediments, except for samples from fault clay in which fossils were barren. These results suggest that there are three large stratigraphic gaps at ~830 mbsf between the Cretaceous chert and the upper Miocene pelagic clay, at ~820 mbsf between the upper Miocene and the Pliocene –Quaternary, and at ~670 mbsf between the upper Miocene and the Pliocene –Quaternary. The former likely represents a hiatus or unconformity derived from tectonic erosion just above the incoming Pacific Plate, and the latter two correspond to an injection of late Quaternary material above the plate boundary fault due to an increase in volcanic activity in the NE Japan arc after 8 Ma. The Upper Miocene pelagic sequence below the plate boundary décollement comprises reversed stratigraphy, suggesting deformation by thrusting, slumping, folding, etc., indicating structural complexity in the frontal prism of the subduction zone most likely due to the subduction of horst‐and‐graben.

Purpose Knowing the dietary behavior for obese women and those with excessive weight gain during pregnancy may facilitate better gestational weight management. We aimed to determine the dietary behavior characteristics of pregnant women with pre-pregnancy obesity and excessive weight gain. Methods Following term singleton deliveries, 238 mothers completed a 24-item dietary behavior questionnaire (DBQ) to identify causes of excessive weight gain during pregnancy concerning misperceptions and regrets concerning weight gain, eating quickly without chewing well, uneven taste preferences when eating out or at restaurants, worries about running out of food, worries about running out of fruit and vegetables, eating fruit and sweets when available, and reluctance to leaving food on their plate. Pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) was divided into thin, normal, moderately overweight, and severely overweight categories. Using Japanese Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology Weight Gain Guidelines, weight gain during pregnancy was classified as exceeding recommended or within recommended limits. Student's t-, one-way analysis of variance, and multiple comparison tests were used to determine associations between each group and the DBQ scores. Results Of 218 (99.0%) valid responses, women with class 1 and 2 obesity scored significantly higher than women in thin and normal weight groups regarding misperceptions and regrets concerning weight gain and reluctance to leave food on their plate (class 1 obese vs. thin group, p < 0.01; class 2 obese vs. thin group, p < 0.01). Women with class 2 obesity scored significantly higher than the other groups in eating quickly without chewing well and uneven taste preferences when eating out or at restaurants, respectively (p < 0.01). In the exceeding recommended weight gain group, scores were significantly higher for misperceptions and regrets concerning weight gain and reluctance to leave food on their plate (p < 0.0001 and p < 0.001, respectively). Conclusion The eating behavior characteristics of pregnant women with obesity or excessive weight gain have been clarified. Pregnant women with class 2 obesity tend to eat quickly without chewing thoroughly and show a preference for certain tastes. These findings suggest that assessing eating behavior during pregnancy could lead to better guidance on appropriate weight gain.

A three-dimensional fine-segmented sampling calorimeter enables us to measure the profiles of generated shower particles along the photon’s direction. For a feasibility study, a toy detector was designed via Geant4 simulation. It consists of alternating layers of a 1-mm-thick lead absorber and a 5-mm-thick plastic scintillator. The plastic scintillator is segmented into 15-mm-wide strips, alternately oriented in the vertical and horizontal directions. The energy deposits of each strip are used to train the machine learning algorithm (XGboost) to deduce the given angle, and the resolution of its angle reconstruction is expected to be 1.3 degrees for 1 GeV photon. We fabricate a small sampling calorimeter to validate the simulation results. We use 0.15-mm-thick tungsten strips instead of lead plates and 1mm-square scintillating fibers instead of plastic scintillators for better energy resolution. This updated configuration indicates no significant difference in the angular resolution, while the energy resolution significantly improves. Its performance shows a reasonable agreement between the Monte Carlo expectation and the obtained data with a positron beam. A detailed study is underway to understand the measured data thoroughly.

The adaptation of plants to environmental conditions involves a transcriptional response. “Field transcriptomics” is an emerging concept for studying plants in their natural habitat. However, this term includes studies in which cold storage was possible until further processing in a laboratory. Previous studies proposing onsite RNA extraction methods are limited to descriptions of RNA purity, quantity, and quality, and lack a thorough evaluation of transcriptome quality, and transcriptomic evaluations of RNA storage solutions in plants are, to our knowledge, only available for periods of less than a day. This issue is critical for studying plants in geographically difficult-to-access regions, where keeping the cold chain is unrealistic. In this study, the transcriptome of the non-model plant Helonias orientalis (order: Liliales) was evaluated before and after storage of the leaf tissue for one and fourteen days at 25 °C in RNA later and TRIzol, respectively. Additionally, field-friendly protocols were similarly evaluated for onsite plant RNA extraction at ambient temperature with lightweight equipment that can run on a portable generator, including a guanidine isothiocyanate-free protocol that is compatible with the polyphenol-rich wild strawberry Fragaria vesca . The quality of the transcriptome assembly after 1-day storage and our optimized onsite methods had similar results to that of the state-of-the-art. However, in terms of differential expression analysis, onsite extraction methods performed better overall than the stored tissue samples. We expect that our onsite RNA extraction methods will provide valuable insights into the transcriptional regulation of plants in areas where research equipment is difficult to access.

Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a leading cause of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) worldwide. Nucleos(t)ide analogues (NAs) are widely used in chronically HBV‐infected patients, but the risk of HCC still remains in NA‐treated patients. In this study, we aimed to validate the HCC risk scores for HBV‐infected patients treated with nucleos(t)ide analogues (NAs). Among a total of 360 chronically HBV‐infected patients who were treated with NAs, 253 patients without a history of HCC were used to validate the PAGE‐B, mPAGE‐B, PAGED‐B, APA‐B, and aMAP scores, as well as a recently developed score, the FAL‐1 score, which consists of the FIB‐4 index and ALT at 1 year of NA. In this cohort, the cumulative incidence of HCC at 5, 10, and 15 years was 2.9%, 7.8% and 11.0%, respectively. Most scores significantly stratified the HCC incidence and, for the FAL‐1 score, the cumulative incidence of HCC at 10 years was 0%, 11.3% and 17.2% for the score‐0 ( n = 91), score‐1 ( n = 129) and score‐2 ( n = 30) groups, respectively. Compared with the other scores, the FAL‐1 score was shown to efficiently identify patients at very low risk of HCC. An analysis using both this validation and the previously reported derivation cohorts demonstrated the utility in patients with either HBV genotype B or C. In conclusion, the utility of the FAL‐1 score was reproduced in this validation study as well as other scores. In particular, the FAL‐1 score may be useful to efficiently identify patients with a low risk of HCC.

This study aimed to characterize salivary microbiota in patients with oral cancer using 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing. DNA was extracted from saliva samples of 23 patients with oral cancer and 95 age-matched controls. A metagenomic analysis was performed using 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing. Patients with oral cancer exhibited lower α-diversity, as indicated by the Chao-1 index, compared to the control group, and significant differences in β-diversity were observed between the two groups. At the genus level, 25 bacterial species such as Lautropia, Megasphaera, Lactobacillus, Kingella, Gemella, Staphylococcus, and Propionibacterium were identified in patients with oral cancer, with more than half being Gram-positive facultative anaerobes or anaerobes. The reduced bacterial diversity in saliva of patients with oral cancer suggests dysbiosis during oral carcinogenesis may contribute to changes in bacterial distribution within the oral cavity.

Prolonged compression restricts blood flow, which can result in an insufficient supply of the oxygen and nutrients that are necessary for cells to live and thrive. A pressure ulcer (PU) is a pathological condition of prolonged ischemia and is associated with a loss of epidermis, which could expose the dermis and deeper tissues. It is necessary to remove the causative pressure and resume blood flow, but injurious damage to the ischemic area could occur with a delay after blood reflow, which could result in reperfusion injury. In the early stages of compression, muscle cells, which are highly dependent on aerobic respiration, are preferably damaged, and then the injury could spread to other dermal and epithelial cells. Infiltrated leukocytes release a variety of substances such as cytokines and reactive oxygen species (ROS) that act as anti-microorganisms, but these could also aggravate inflammation. The ROS are deeply involved in the pathogenesis of this condition, and, hence, antioxidant compounds and enzymes play a vital role in preventing the progression of PUs. We focus on oxidative stress in PUs, which is exacerbated by the actions of ischemia/reperfusion, and we discuss effective prevention and treatment from the perspectives of micronutrients and antioxidants.

Cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) is widely used in radiotherapy to image patient configuration before treatment but its image quality is lower than planning CT due to scattering, motion, and reconstruction methods. This reduces the accuracy of Hounsfield units (HU) and limits its use in adaptive radiation therapy (ART). However, synthetic CT (sCT) generation using deep learning methods for CBCT intensity correction faces challenges due to deformation. To address these issues, we propose enhancing CBCT quality using a conditional denoising diffusion probability model (CDDPM), which is trained on pseudo-CBCT created by adding pseudo-scatter to planning CT. The CDDPM transforms CBCT into high-quality sCT, improving HU accuracy while preserving anatomical configuration. The performance evaluation of the proposed sCT showed a reduction in mean absolute error (MAE) from 81.19 HU for CBCT to 24.89 HU for the sCT. Peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) improved from 31.20 dB for CBCT to 33.81 dB for the sCT. The Dice and Jaccard coefficients between CBCT and sCT for the colon, prostate, and bladder ranged from 0.69 to 0.91. When compared to other deep learning models, the proposed sCT outperformed them in terms of accuracy and anatomical preservation. The dosimetry analysis for prostate cancer revealed a dose error of over 10% with CBCT but nearly 0% with the sCT. Gamma pass rates for the proposed sCT exceeded 90% for all dose criteria, indicating high agreement with CT-based dose distributions. These results show that the proposed sCT improves image quality, dosimetry accuracy, and treatment planning, advancing ART for pelvic cancer.

Background The effectiveness of intraperitoneal chemotherapy using paclitaxel (i.p.‐PTX) in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) patients with peritoneal dissemination remains elusive. The aim of this study is to investigate the clinical outcome of patients treated with i.p.‐PTX combined with systemic chemotherapy compared with current standard chemotherapy including gemcitabine plus nab‐paclitaxel and FOLFIRINOX. Methods Data of patients with peritoneal dissemination was retrospectively collected and analyzed (i.p.‐PTX, n = 83; control, n = 86). Inverse probability of treatment‐weighted analyses (IPTW) was used to balance baseline characteristics between two groups. Survival curves were estimated using Kaplan–Meier method, and the differences were compared using the log‐rank test. Results No significant differences were noted in overall survival (14.9 vs. 15.5 months, p = 0.481) and progression free survival (9.5 vs. 9.1 months, p = 0.267) between i.p.‐PTX and the control groups. Nevertheless, i.p.‐PTX (9.9 months) significantly prolonged the median progression‐free survival (PFS) time compared with the control (8.6 months), among the matched patients using IPTW (hazard ratio 0.666, p = 0.041). Moreover, subgroup analysis among the patients whose primary tumor were evaluated either as resectable or borderline resectable disease revealed significantly better overall survival in the i.p.‐PTX group compared with the control group (21.3 vs. 14.7 months, hazard ratio; 0.532, p = 0.033). Conversion surgery was more frequently performed in the i.p.‐PTX group than the control group (24% vs. 4%, p = 0.006). Conclusion The i.p. PTX regimen prolonged PFS but not overall survival, and subgroup analysis suggested the possibility of survival benefit in patients with occult peritoneal dissemination whose primary tumor was classified as resectable/borderline resectable disease.

Background Delusional disorder, somatic type (DDST) is characterized by the presence of persistent delusions related to having a physical illness or bodily dysfunction, despite contradictory medical evidence. Antipsychotics like pimozide have shown efficacy in the treatment of DDST, and several case reports suggest that antidepressants may also be effective for this disorder. We are the first to report the effectiveness of escitalopram, which is a most selective and potent serotonin reuptake inhibitor, in a patient with DDST. Case Presentation The case was a 62‐year‐old woman with DDST, presenting with oral somatic delusions. Escitalopram treatment (10 mg/day, increased to 20 mg/day) led to significant symptom improvement, and the symptoms of DDST had nearly resolved ∼5 weeks after the initiation of escitalopram. Single‐photon emission computed tomography imaging during DDST symptoms showed reduced regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in the cerebral cortex, particularly in the temporal and parietal lobes, with follow‐up imaging after 9 weeks of escitalopram treatment demonstrating rCBF improvement correlating with clinical recovery. Conclusion This case suggests that escitalopram was effective in treating DDST, providing further support for the involvement of serotonergic dysfunction in the pathophysiology of DDST. The improvement in rCBF following treatment suggests that DDST may be associated with reduced rCBF in the temporal and parietal lobes.

Striga hermonthica, an obligate parasitic plant that causes severe agricultural damage, recognizes its hosts by perceiving haustorium-inducing factors (HIFs). Perception of HIFs induces rapid transformation of S. hermonthica radicles into prehaustoria, the early-stage organs of haustorium structures for host invasion. HIFs consist of various aromatic compounds, including quinones, lignin monomers, and flavonoids. However, the downstream molecular pathways that orchestrate the developmental events are largely unknown. Here, we report that S. hermonthica root tip cells rapidly deposit lignin, a major cell-wall component, as a functional response to HIFs. Concomitant with enhanced lignin levels, genes involved in lignin monomer biosynthesis and lignin polymerization, including several respiratory burst oxidase homologs (RBOHs) and Class III peroxidases, are highly induced by HIFs. Perturbing the lignin monomer biosynthesis largely compromises prehaustorium formation. HIF-induced Class III peroxidases facilitate prehaustorium formation by promoting lignification. Our study demonstrates that cell wall lignification is a converged cellular process downstream of various HIFs that functions to guide root meristematic cells to build the prehaustoria.

Hermansky–Pudlak syndrome (HPS) is a rare autosomal recessive disorder characterized by oculocutaneous albinism and systemic complications, including bleeding tendencies. While 11 genes associated with HPS have been identified, cases of HPS5 remain exceedingly rare, particularly in Japan. Here, we report two Japanese patients with novel pathological HPS5 variants, expanding the genetic spectrum of this disorder. Both patients exhibited typical features of mild skin and hair hypopigmentation, and significant ocular involvement. Genetic analysis revealed a heterozygous nonsense variant, NG_008877.1 (NM_181507.2): c.2275G>T, in both patients, inherited from their fathers. Additionally, maternal variants NG_008877.1 (NM_181507.2): c.2952‐13G>A and NG_008877.1 (NM_181507.2): c.1128A>G were identified in patient 1 and patient 2, respectively. These variants, initially presumed non‐pathogenic, were found to induce alternative splicing, leading to truncated protein production. Our findings highlight the functional importance of synonymous variants and their potential role in HPS. This report represents the first documented case of a synonymous pathogenic variant associated with HPS and underscores the need for comprehensive genetic and transcriptomic analyses in rare genetic disorders.

The comfortable application of creams and powders and the texture of human skin and hair are essential factors in the design of cosmetics and cosmetic raw materials. However, the mechanisms underlying these diverse and delicate tactile sensations are poorly understood. We developed a “biomimetic tactile sensing system” to reproduce the interfacial phenomena that occur on the skin surfaces and evaluated the “moist” and “dry” sensations of surface-treated cosmetic powders and the texture of organogel and dispersion formulations. This tactile sensing system consists of a finger model contact probe that mimics the fingerprint and mechanical properties of a human finger and a sinusoidal motion friction evaluation device that can reproduce natural and smooth motions. The finger model contact probe, which mimics the fingerprint and mechanical properties of a human finger, was designed such that the elastic modulus, which reflects hardness, and the surface energy, which affects adhesion, were comparable to those of human skin. In addition, grooves of hundreds of micrometers were engraved to imitate fingerprints. A scotch yoke mechanism that converts elliptical motion into sinusoidal motion was introduced into a sinusoidal motion friction evaluation device to reproduce natural and smooth motions. We analyzed the relationship between sensory evaluation and friction data for cosmetics and cosmetic ingredients and constructed a physical model of tactile sensation evocation. For example, the “moistness” of cosmetic powder was strongly felt when the friction coefficient in the sliding process was low, and a gap existed where the frictional force reached its maximum value. Commercially available makeup cosmetics and sunscreens were characterized based on their friction dynamics and classified accordingly. The wax derived from rice bran and rice paraffin was shown to have high oil-gelling ability, and the resulting gel was smooth to the touch, indicating that it is suitable as a raw material for lipstick and cleansing products. Fullsize Image