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Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common cardiac arrhythmia resulting in increased risk of stroke. Despite highly heritable etiology, our understanding of the genetic architecture of AF remains incomplete. Here we performed a genome-wide association study in the Japanese population comprising 9, 826 cases among 150, 272 individuals and identified East Asian-specific rare variants associated with AF. A cross-ancestry meta-analysis of >1 million individuals, including 77, 690 cases, identified 35 new susceptibility loci. Transcriptome-wide association analysis identified IL6R as a putative causal gene, suggesting the involvement of immune responses. Integrative analysis with ChIP-seq data and functional assessment using human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes demonstrated ERRg as having a key role in the transcriptional regulation of AF-associated genes. A polygenic risk score derived from the cross-ancestry meta-analysis predicted increased risks of cardiovascular and stroke mortalities and segregated individuals with cardioembolic stroke in undiagnosed AF patients. Our results provide new biological and clinical insights into AF genetics and suggest their potential for clinical applications., 心房細動の遺伝的基盤を解明 --大規模ゲノムデータによる病態解明と遺伝的リスクスコア構築--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2023-01-20.

Edward T. Hall’s theory of proxemics suggests that various cultural and personal characteristics influence people’s preferences of personal space. “Personal space” can be defied as an invisible domain surrounding a person which they regard as their territory, and an unspoken bubble that travels with them wherever they go. Previous studies suggest that sex, intimacy, and nationality directly affect how someone reacts to another in their personal space. The present study purposed to explore with Japanese university students’ the influence of sex, intensity, and locality on the size of their personal space. Participants used tape measures and were asked to say stop when they began to feel anxious or uncomfortable with the approach of another individual. Results of the study indicate that individual characters such as sex influence Japanese university students’ interpersonal space preference. Results also suggest that there is a variation in interpersonal space preference based on participants’ locality and the intimacy among the participants., {"references":["] M. BaldassareandS. Feller,Cultural Variations in Personal Space. Ethos, 3,1975, 481-503.","] H. Hediger, Studies of the Psychology and Behaviour of Captive Animals in Zoos and Circuses(London: Butterworths Scientific Publications, 1955).","E. T. Hall,The Hidden Dimension(NY : Doubleday, 1966).","N. Bruno andM. Muzzolini, Proxemics Revisited: Similar Effects of Arms Length on Men's and Women's Personal Distances, Universal Journal of Psychology, 1(2), 2013, 46-52.","A. Y. Khan andA. Karmal, Exploring Reactions to Invasion of Personal Space in University Students, Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 20 (2), 2010, 80-9","N. M. SussmanandH. M. Rosenfeld, Influence of Culture, Language, and Sex on Conversational Distance, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42(1), 1982, 66-74.","L. L. Adler andM. A. Iverson, Interpersonal Distances a Function of Task Difficulty, Praise, Status Orientation, and Sex of Partner, Perceptual and Motor Skills, 39, 1974, 683-692","S. M. S. Ahmed, Invasion of Personal Space; A study of Departure Time as Affected by Sex of the Intruder, Sex of the Subject, and Saliency Condition,Perceptual and Motor Skills, 49, 1979, 85-86."]}

Rotating systems in thermal equilibrium are ubiquitous in our world. In the context of high energy physics, rotations would affect the phase structure of QCD. However, the standard Monte-Carlo methods in rotating systems are problematic because the chemical potentials for the angular momenta (angular velocities) cause sign problems even for bosonic variables. In this article, we demonstrate that the complex Langevin method (CLM) may overcome this issue. We apply the CLM to the Yang-Mills (YM) type one-dimensional matrix model (matrix quantum mechanics) that is a large-$N$ reduction (or dimensional reduction) of the $(D+1)$-dimensional U$(N)$ pure YM theory (bosonic BFSS model). This model shows a large-$N$ phase transition at finite temperature, which is analogous to the confinement/deconfinement transition of the original YM theory, and our CLM predicts that the transition temperature decreases as the angular momentum chemical potential increases. In order to verify our results, we compute several quantities via the minimum sensitivity method and find good quantitative agreements. Hence, the CLM properly works in this rotating system. We also argue that our results are qualitatively consistent with a holography and the recent studies of the imaginary angular velocity in QCD. As a byproduct, we develop an analytic approximation to treat the so-called ``small black hole" phase in the matrix model., 31 + 13 pages,16 figures. v2: minor corrections. v3: section 5 revised

Carbon dioxide (CO2) and light are essential for high photosynthetic rates of microalgal cultures. Microalgal photosynthetic behavior at low CO2 concentrations has not been revealed yet at the same level of detail as leaf photosynthesis. In the present study, we investigated the short-term photosynthetic response of suspended Chlorella sorokiniana to limiting light intensity and CO2 concentration. We used a novel CO2-based photosynthesis monitor originating from leaf research but equipped with an aquatic chamber sparged with CO2 enriched air. Photosynthesis was measured by employing a steady-state CO2 mass balance over the chamber. Light and carbon response curves were determined under constant pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen, light intensity or dissolved carbon dioxide. We determined the volumetric mass transfer coefficient of the aquatic chamber to accurately convert gaseous CO2 partial pressure into aqueous CO2 concentration to evaluate the CO2 response measurements. Light response measurements on dilute algal cultures revealed a high photosynthetic capacity on a time scale of minutes which by far exceeded the average CO2 uptake on a time scale of hours (cell growth). Light response measurements with dense and fully absorbing cultures provided accurate insight into the response of microalgal mass culture to changing incident irradiance, including the efficiency of photosynthesis of the algal culture as a whole. CO2 response measurements demonstrated severe CO2 limitation at dissolved CO2 levels of

Brazilian propolis AF-08 as a dietary supplement has been shown to be effective in alleviating symptoms of herpes simplex virus and respiratory syncytial virus infection in mice. The alleviation was associated with the modification of immunological activity by AF-08 as a cytokine regulator. The immunomodulatory activity of AF-08 was suggested to contribute to the severity of symptoms and pathogenesis in cytokine-mediated diseases. In this study, we investigated the effectiveness of AF-08 as a potential cytokine modulator in alleviating autoimmune diseases. The efficacy and cytokine-modulatory activity of AF-08 were examined in collagen-induced arthritis (CIA) in mice. Mice were immunized with type II collagen. AF-08 at 0, 30, or 100 mg/kg was administered orally to the immunized mice once daily for three weeks before and/or three times daily for two weeks after the onset of CIA. The development of arthritis of the paws and inflammatory cytokine levels in serum were examined. AF-08 at 100 mg/kg significantly reduced the incidence and severity of CIA prophylactically and therapeutically and reduced the rise of systemic interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α levels in the early phase of CIA. In the early phase of CIA, the reduction of inflammatory cytokine levels by AF-08 correlated with the amelioration of symptoms of CIA. AF-08 might inhibit the initiation of cytokine-mediated disease rather than suppressing disease progression without toxicity. AF-08 was confirmed to possess cytokine-modulatory activityin vivo. It is possible that AF-08 is a potential prophylactic and therapeutic agent for autoimmune diseases.

Covalent conjugates of multiple nutrients often exhibit greater biological activities than each individual nutrient and more predictable safety profiles than completely unnatural chemical entities. Here, we report the construction and application of a focused chemical library of 308 covalent conjugates of a variety of small-molecule nutrients. Screening of the library with a reporter gene of sterol regulatory element-binding protein (SREBP), a master regulator of mammalian lipogenesis, led to the discovery of a conjugate of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), glucosamine, and amino acids as an inhibitor of SREBP (molecule 1, DHG). Mechanistic analyses indicate that molecule 1 impairs the SREBP activity by inhibiting glucose transporters and thereby activating AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK). Oral administration of molecule 1 suppressed the intestinal absorption of glucose in mice. These results suggest that such synthetic libraries of nutrient conjugates serve as a source of novel chemical tools and pharmaceutical seeds that modulate energy metabolism.