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Immunoglobulin (Ig) A nephropathy (IgAN) is the most common form of glomerular disease worldwide and is associated with a poor prognosis. Thus, development of a curative treatment and strategies for early diagnosis and treatment are urgently needed. Pathological analysis of renal biopsy is the gold standard for the diagnosis and assessment of disease activity; however, immediate and frequent assessment based on biopsy specimens is difficult. Therefore, a simple and safe alternative is desirable. On the other hand, it is now widely accepted that multi-hit steps, including production of aberrantly glycosylated serum IgA1 (first hit), and IgG or IgA autoantibodies that recognize glycan containing epitopes on glycosylated serum IgA1 (second hit) and their subsequent immune complex formation (third hit) and glomerular deposition (fourth hit), are required for continued progression of IgAN. Although the prognostic and predictive values of several markers have been discussed elsewhere, we recently developed a highly sensitive and specific diagnostic method by measuring serum levels of glycosylated serum IgA1 and related IgA immune complex. In addition, we confirmed a significant correlation between serum levels of these essential effector molecules and disease activity after treatment, suggesting that each can be considered as a practical surrogate marker of therapeutic effects in this slowly progressive disease. Such a noninvasive diagnostic and activity assessment method using these disease-oriented specific biomarkers may be useful in the early diagnosis of and intervention in IgAN, with appropriate indication for treatment, and thus aid in the future development and dissemination of specific and curative treatments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to reduce steps in developments of spacecraft and onboard instruments, we developed two tools SIB2PlanEditor and SIB2Viewer. SIB2PlanEditor is dedicated editor for test procedure described in the ISAS command plan language. SIB2Viewer is a program to enhance capability of user interface for SIB2 (SIB2UI). Both tools reduce simple work in developments and contribute designer of spacecraft and onboard instruments to concentrate on preparation of content of test procedure and design itself. This paper describes function of these tools and evaluated merits through trial usage. By usage of SIB2PlanEditor, time needed for input of test procedure is reduced by factor 1/3~1/2. These tools are also expected to contribute to reduce time of execution of electrical integration and test of the spacecraft through promotion of SIB2 input in earlier stage of the development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]