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Our team, Hibikino-Musashi@Home (HMA), was founded in 2010. It is based in Japan in the Kitakyushu Science and Research Park. Since 2010, we have annually participated in the RoboCup@Home Japan Open competition in the open platform league (OPL).We participated as an open platform league team in the 2017 Nagoya RoboCup competition and as a domestic standard platform league (DSPL) team in the 2017 Nagoya, 2018 Montreal, 2019 Sydney, and 2021 Worldwide RoboCup competitions.We also participated in theWorld Robot Challenge (WRC) 2018 in the service-robotics category of the partner-robot challenge (real space) and won first place. Currently, we have 27 members from nine different laboratories within the Kyushu Institute of Technology and the university of Kitakyushu. In this paper, we introduce the activities that have been performed by our team and the technologies that we use., Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2005.14451, arXiv:2006.01233

RationaleThe mechanism by which acute allograft rejection leads to chronic rejection remains poorly understood despite its common occurrence. Exosomes, membrane vesicles released from cells within the lung allograft, contain a diverse array of biomolecules that closely reflect the biologic state of the cell and tissue from which they are released. Exosome transcriptomes may provide a better understanding of the rejection process. Furthermore, biomarkers originating from this transcriptome could provide timely and sensitive detection of acute cellular rejection (AR), reducing the incidence of severe AR and chronic lung allograft dysfunction and improving outcomes.ObjectivesTo provide an in-depth analysis of the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid exosomal shuttle RNA population after lung transplantation and evaluate for differential expression between acute AR and quiescence.MethodsSerial bronchoalveolar lavage specimens were ultracentrifuged to obtain the exosomal pellet for RNA extraction, on which RNA-Seq was performed.Measurements and main resultsAR demonstrates an intense inflammatory environment, skewed toward both innate and adaptive immune responses. Novel, potential upstream regulators identified offer potential therapeutic targets.ConclusionsOur findings validate bronchoalveolar lavage fluid exosomal shuttle RNA as a source for understanding the pathophysiology of AR and for biomarker discovery in lung transplantation.

Infection of human B cells with wild-type Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in vitro leads to activation and proliferation that result in efficient production of lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs). Latent Membrane Protein 2 (LMP2) is expressed early after infection and previous research has suggested a possible role in this process. Therefore, we generated recombinant EBV with knockouts of either or both protein isoforms, LMP2A and LMP2B (Δ2A, Δ2B, Δ2A/Δ2B) to study the effect of LMP2 in early B cell infection. Infection of B cells with Δ2A and Δ2A/Δ2B viruses led to a marked decrease in activation and proliferation relative to wild-type (wt) viruses, and resulted in higher percentages of apoptotic B cells. Δ2B virus infection showed activation levels comparable to wt, but fewer numbers of proliferating B cells. Early B cell infection with wt, Δ2A and Δ2B viruses did not result in changes in latent gene expression, with the exception of elevated LMP2B transcript in Δ2A virus infection. Infection with Δ2A and Δ2B viruses did not affect viral latency, determined by changes in LMP1/Zebra expression following BCR stimulation. However, BCR stimulation of Δ2A/Δ2B cells resulted in decreased LMP1 expression, which suggests loss of stability in viral latency. Long-term outgrowth assays revealed that LMP2A, but not LMP2B, is critical for efficient long-term growth of B cells in vitro. The lowest levels of activation, proliferation, and LCL formation were observed when both isoforms were deleted. These results suggest that LMP2A appears to be critical for efficient activation, proliferation and survival of EBV-infected B cells at early times after infection, which impacts the efficient long-term growth of B cells in culture. In contrast, LMP2B did not appear to play a significant role in these processes, and long-term growth of infected B cells was not affected by the absence of this protein. © 2013 Wasil et al.

Bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS) is the major obstacle to long-term survival after lung transplantation, yet markers for early detection and intervention are currently lacking. Given the role of regulatory T cells (Treg) in modulation of immunity, we hypothesized that frequencies of Treg in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) after lung transplantation would predict subsequent development of BOS. Seventy BALF specimens obtained from 47 lung transplant recipients were analyzed for Treg lymphocyte subsets by flow cytometry, in parallel with ELISA measurements of chemokines. Allograft biopsy tissue was stained for chemokines of interest. Treg were essentially all CD45RA(-), and total Treg frequency did not correlate to BOS outcome. The majority of Treg were CCR4(+) and CD103(-) and neither of these subsets correlated to risk for BOS. In contrast, higher percentages of CCR7(+) Treg correlated to reduced risk of BOS. Additionally, the CCR7 ligand CCL21 correlated with CCR7(+) Treg frequency and inversely with BOS. Higher frequencies of CCR7(+) CD3(+)CD4(+)CD25(hi)Foxp3(+)CD45RA(-) lymphocytes in lung allografts is associated with protection against subsequent development of BOS, suggesting that this subset of putative Treg may down-modulate alloimmunity. CCL21 may be pivotal for the recruitment of this distinct subset to the lung allograft and thereby decrease the risk for chronic rejection.

Virus-specific memory CD8+ T cells play a prominent role in protection of a host from recurring and persistent virus infection. It is known that memory CD8+ T cells undergo a series of differentiation stages to become fully matured effector cells. There are several important aspects of the current CD8+T cell memory phenotype model that need to be more thoroughly defined. In specific aim 1, it was hypothesized that CD27+CD28+ undifferentiated CD8+ memory T cells specific for non-persistent virus influenza A (FluA) would have phenotypic markers associated with more differentiated (effector) phenotypes. Results showed that in spite of the phenotypic enrichment of FluA-specific memory CD8+ T cells in the undifferentiated stage, they displayed effector markers indicative of late stage differentiated effector cells. In specific aim 2, it was further hypothesized that the most undifferentiated CD62L+ central memory CD8+T cells would have the effector function including immediate cytoplasmic production of gamma-IFN upon antigenic-stimulation. Results showed that CD62L+ CD8+ T cells are capable of immediate gamma IFN production after antigen-specific stimulation in the presence of the CD62 sheddase inhibitor, GM6001, highlighting the need to re-evaluate the defining markers of virus-specific central memory CD8+ cells and/or their functions. In specific aim 3, this dissertation tests the hypothesis that memory-effector differentiation of HIV-1-specific memory CD8+ T cells is impaired during the course of persistent HIV-1 infection. Detailed comparison of CD27 and CD57 co-expression on HIV-1-specific CD8+ T cells showed that these cells had a significantly lower proportion of the CD27-CD57high effector subset. Moreover, these cells did not display progression from CD27+CD57- (immature memory), through CD27lowCD57low (transitional memory-effector) to CD27-CD57high (effector subset) that was seen in well differentiated EBV-specific CD8+ T cells and was common in CMV-specific CD8

The seasonal variations of arsenic species were studied in the mesotrophic northern and eutrophic southern basins of Lake Biwa in Japan. The variations of arsenic species in lake water largely depend on biological processes, such as the metabolism of phytoplankton, decomposition of organic matter by bacteria, and microbial reduction of iron and manganese oxides in sediments. These results show that eutrophication affects the concentration and speciation of arsenic in the lake water.

Vol. 1 contains: "Papers presented at the Southern California Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference, held August 4-6, 1989 at the University of California, Los Angeles"; v. 2-<12 >: papers presented at the annual Conferences, held each different times and places, Vol. 2, <11 > edited by Patricia M. Clancy; v. 3-<10, 12 >: has each different editor or editors, Vol. 4 and following, conference name changed to Japanese/Korean Linguistics Conference, Includes bibliographical references and indexes, http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/cam024/90002550.html