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The World Health Organization initiated a global surveillance system for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in 2015, and the pilot surveillance is ongoing. The real-time RT-PCR RSV assays (Pan-RSV and duplex assays) developed by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are applied as the standard assays. To introduce these as standard assays in Japan, their practicality was evaluated using 2261 specimens obtained from pediatric inpatients in Japan, which were collected from 2018 to 2021. Although the Pan-RSV and duplex assays had similar analytical sensitivities, they yielded 630 (27.9%) and 786 (34.8%) RSV-positive specimens, respectively (p < 0.001). Although sequencing analysis showed mismatches in the reverse primer used in the Pan-RSV assay, these mismatches did not affect its analytical sensitivity. The analysis of read numbers of RSV isolates from air–liquid interface culture of human bronchial/tracheal epithelial cells showed that the duplex assay had a greater number of reads than did the Pan-RSV assay. Therefore, the duplex assay has superior detection performance compared with the Pan-RSV assay, but the two assays have similar analytical sensitivities.

In recent years, with the maturing of society and advances in technology, consumers' demand for manufacturing has been increasing. Of particular note in demand is the appearance quality of the product. Under visual inspection at the time of manufacture, skilled workers have classified the causes of defects in the product's appearance according to their experience and have dealt with them quickly. Due to a serious shortage of workers and the aging of skilled workers, there are many opportunities for inexperienced workers, such as foreign technical interns, to take charge of the work at manufacturing sites. While introducing "automatic visual inspection by a camera," the authors have developed a system that can automatically classify the causes of defects. Also, when the classification work was carried out for the inexperienced workers, the application to the education was seen. The authors propose a classification method based on machine learning with skilled workers' knowledge. This paper analyzes the process of classifying production data into the causes of contaminated products (CP) by skilled workers. First, the occurrence interval of CP was divided into sparse or dense groups. Second, a decision tree learned from causes' labels with a skilled worker was developed as a group label classifier (GLC). When production data were used to validate the prediction capability, high accurate predictions were obtained. This indicates that even inexperienced workers can take measures according to the cause of product defects during production, which is useful for the education of field workers by the GLC.

ObjectivePlacental abruption is a significant obstetric complication that affects both maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity. The present study examined the effect of maternal age on the incidence of placental abruption.MethodsWe used data of singleton pregnancies from the Japan Environment and Children's Study, which was a prospective birth cohort study conducted between January 2011 and March 2014 across 15 regional centers in Japan. A multiple regression model was used to identify whether maternal age (ResultsA total of 94,410 Japanese women (93,994 without placental abruption and 416 with placental abruption) were recruited. Herein, 764, 8421, 25915, 33517, and 25793 women were aged ConclusionsIn the Japanese general population, besides advanced maternal age, teenage pregnancy was associated with placental abruption. Recently, the mean maternal age has been changing in Japan. Therefore, it is important for obstetric care providers to provide proper counseling to young women based on up-to-date evidence.

Skin inflammation leads to altered cytokine/chemokine production and causes systemic inflammation. The systemic mechanism of atopic dermatitis (AD) is recognized to affect systemic metabolism. This study aimed to examine the relationship between early-onset persistent eczema and body weight, height, and body mass index (BMI), in addition to food allergy in a birth cohort among infants. This study design was a nationwide, multicenter, prospective birth cohort study-the Japan Environment and Children's Study (JECS). Generalized linear models were fitted for z scores of weight, height, BMI, and food allergy to evaluate the relationship between eczema and these outcomes for infants at age1, 2, and 3 years. Persistent eczema was negatively associated with height at the age of 2 years (estimated coefficient, -0.127; 95% confidence interval [CI], -0.16 to -0.095) and 3 years (-0.177; 95% CI, -0.214 to -0.139). The same tendency was also observed with weight and BMI. Early disease onset at younger than 1 year and persistent eczema had the strongest association with development of food allergy at age 3 years (OR, 11.794; 95% CI, 10.721-12.975). One phenotype of eczema with early-onset and persistent disease creates a risk of both physical growth impairment and development of food allergy. Infants who present with the early-onset and persistent type of eczema should be carefully evaluated daily for impaired physical growth and development of food allergy.

Background: Capturing epidemiological signatures is essential to document burdens of disease and to design health care services, including prevention measures, clinical interventions, and policies. There are large geographical and ethnic variations in the epidemiology of allergic and immunological diseases. Various data are available from North America and Europe, but the epidemiology of allergic and immunological diseases in Asia is not well documented. Objective: To characterize epidemiological signatures of allergic and immunological disease in young children in Japan. Methods: This was a national, multicenter, prospective birth cohort study: Japan Environment and Children's Study (JECS). A general population of 103,060 women was enrolled during pregnancy. Allergic and immunological outcomes were assessed among young children using questionnaire data. Results: The prevalence of caregiver-reported immediate food allergy was 7.6%, 6.7%, and 4.9% at age 1, 2, and 3 years, respectively. Hen egg allergy was most common (5.4% prevalence at age 1 year) followed by allergies to cow milk and wheat. Several patterns of allergic symptom clusters were identified. Physician diagnosed, as reported by the caregiver, non-IgE mediated gastrointestinal food allergy affected 0.5% of infants. By contrast, caregiver-reported gastrointestinal food allergies affected 1.4% of children. Kawasaki disease affected 0.3% and 0.4% children, respectively, at age 1 and 3 years. Primary immunodeficiency disorders affected 0.005% children at age 3 years. Conclusion: These data provide important epidemiological signatures of allergy and immunology in young Japanese children including the age-specific prevalence of allergic disease, Kawasaki disease, and primary immune deficiency.

Background: Birch pollen allergy affects pregnant women, and such allergy may affect the development of allergic diseases in their children. Using nationwide birth cohort data, this study aimed to investigate the prevalence of birch pollen IgE positivity and to identify correlating factors in pregnant women in Hokkaido, Japan, a high-latitude island. Methods: Participants included 6856 pregnant women. Participants responded to questionnaires regarding lifestyle factors and history of allergies. Data regarding parity, height, and pre-pregnancy weight were collected from medical records. Blood samples were obtained from participants during the first trimester of pregnancy, and serum allergen-specific IgE titers were determined. Results: The serum of 30.2% participants was positive for birch pollen IgE (≥0.35 UA/mL). Such positivity significantly correlated with a history of other allergic diseases, particularly food allergy and allergic rhinitis/hay fever. In multivariate logistic regression analysis, pre-pregnancy high body mass index (BMI ≥ 25) significantly correlated with birch pollen IgE positivity [odds ratio (OR), 1.24; 95% CI, 1.05–1.47; reference BMI, 18.5–24.9] and higher income (≥10 million yen per year; OR,0.55; 95% CI, 0.37–0.81; reference, household income

Systemic lupus erythematosus, simply known as lupus, is associated with adverse obstetric outcomes. This study evaluated the incidence of preterm births (before 37 and 34 weeks), low birthweight infants (

Glucocorticoids play an important role in endocrine control. The association of glucocorticoid receptor (GR) gene polymorphisms with altered sensitivity to glucocorticoid therapy has been reported in adults. However, there are few such reports in infants. The present study analyzed the prevalence of four GR polymorphisms in preterm infants born before 30 weeks of gestation and determined the associations between these polymorphisms and clinical outcomes in the infants. Methods: Totally, 41 preterm infants born at two hospitals in Fukushima were retrospectively screened for the presence of four GR gene polymorphisms, using a TaqMan single-nucleotide polymorphism genotyping assay. The effect of GR gene polymorphisms on clinical outcomes during hospitalization was evaluated. The following primary clinical outcomes were assessed: refractory hypotension in the acute phase and/or severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia, maximum dopamine and dobutamine doses administered, and total hydrocortisone dose administered in the first 48 h of life. Multivariate analysis with logistic regression was used to assess the association between clinical factors and refractory hypotension. Results: Of the four GR polymorphisms, only the BclI polymorphism was detected. The genotype distribution was as follows: C/C, 33; C/G, 8; and G/G, 0 infants. Significant differences were observed between the C/C and C/G genotypes with respect to the following variables: refractory hypotension (6% vs. 50%), dopamine dose [3.0 (2.0–4.0) vs. 4.8 (4.0–7.5) μg/kg/min], dobutamine dose [2.4 (0.0–3.6) vs. 4.0 (0–10.0) μg/kg/min], and total hydrocortisone dose administered in the first 48 h of life [2.0 (0–10.0) vs. 6.0 (0–12.0) mg/kg]. Multivariate analysis showed that the BclI genotype (C/C) was significantly less associated with refractory hypotension in the acute phase (odds ratio, 0.008; 95% confidence interval, 0.000–0.371; p = 0.013). Conclusion: The incidence of refractory hypotension in infants with the C/C genotype was initially expected to be higher than that in infants with the C/G genotype. However, the results of this study were rather different from what we originally expected. The suppressive effect of antenatal steroid use on the HPA axis of the preterm infants with the BclI variant may be associated with refractory hypotension in the acute phase.

Abstract Cortical laminar necrosis comprises ischemic neuronal changes and glial reaction. Despite fewer reports in the pediatric population, we encountered a case of cortical laminar necrosis with influenza virus A infection in an infant.

Animal behavior is the final and integrated output of brain activity. Thus, recording and analyzing behavior is critical to understand the underlying brain function. While recording animal behavior has become easier than ever with the development of compact and inexpensive devices, detailed behavioral data analysis requires sufficient prior knowledge and/or high content data such as video images of animal postures, which makes it difficult for most of the animal behavioral data to be efficiently analyzed. Here, we report a versatile method using a hybrid supervised/unsupervised machine learning approach for behavioral state estimation and feature extraction (STEFTR) only from low-content animal trajectory data. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, we analyzed trajectory data of worms, fruit flies, rats, and bats in the laboratories, and penguins and flying seabirds in the wild, which were recorded with various methods and span a wide range of spatiotemporal scales—from mm to 1,000 km in space and from sub-seconds to days in time. We successfully estimated several states during behavior and comprehensively extracted characteristic features from a behavioral state and/or a specific experimental condition. Physiological and genetic experiments in worms revealed that the extracted behavioral features reflected specific neural or gene activities. Thus, our method provides a versatile and unbiased way to extract behavioral features from simple trajectory data to understand brain function.

The present study examined whether a web-based intervention could promote weight-loss maintenance, after weight loss. The study was a two-phase, 27-month, randomized controlled trial conducted in Ibaraki, Japan, from 2014 to 2017; 133 participants were recruited through local newspaper advertisements. The eligibility criteria were as follows: age of 40–64 years, body mass index of 25–40 kg/m2, and having at least one metabolic syndrome component. In phase 1, a 3-month, group-based weight-loss program was provided to all eligible participants (n = 119). We then randomly assigned (1:1) participants who had lost 5% or more of their weight during phase 1 (n = 95) to either the self-help (mean 3-month weight loss 7.30 kg) or the web-support group (7.00 kg). Participants in the web-support group regularly reported their body weight and physical activity through a web-based system. They received monthly personalized feedback from a study staff for 24 months. The primary outcome, 27-month body-weight change (mean ± standard deviation), in the self-help and web-support groups were − 5.3 ± 5.0 kg and −4.5 ± 4.9 kg, respectively. There was no significant difference. An exploratory secondary analysis demonstrated that those with greater 27-month increases in their step count, assessed with an accelerometer, lost more weight with no difference in changes in energy intake. The mean 27-month body-weight change in the 4th quartile of changes in step count was −7.78 kg. Although web-based intervention using an activity monitor failed to promote weight-loss maintenance, increased physical activity was associated with successful weight-loss maintenance. Keywords: Body weight changes, Exercise, Diet, Obesity management

Our previous research (Naganuma, Hashimoto, 2018) demonstrates that the anomaly detection in the injection molding clamping unit will be made possible by evaluating the operating mode. Based on our previous research, this article suggests the sign of failure in the injection molding clamping unit can detected the anomaly detection through the unusual values of the production machine. A plastic injection molding manufacturing company built a data network system that collects a machine state log in the factory and saves data in the server. Over the past two years, two failures of clamping unit in the injection molding machine occurred under the production and the machine data of both cases are logged . We use a threshold method to detect the anomaly of the clamping unit. This thresholding is obtained by the maximum accuracy of the confusion matrix. It was tested against the two failure cases, which number of data is about 1.8 million cycle data. As a result, we discovered that this threshold method can detect the anomaly for both cases before the machine has to be shut down by the failure. Thus, it is expected to be useful for the preventive maintenance and the quality assurance of products due to its ability to detect the sign of failure in the injection molding machine.

Selenium (Se) acts as a cofactor of antioxidant enzymes. Preconception care may reduce the risk of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). We examined the association between preconception Se intake and the risk of GDM in Japanese women. Using the Japan Environment and Children’s Study database, we identified 92,764 Japanese women recruited between January 2011 and March 2014. Participants were categorized into five groups according to preconception Se intake quintiles (Q1 and Q5 were the lowest and highest Se intake groups, respectively). GDM was categorized as early-onset (Eo-GDM) or late-onset (Lo-GDM) diagnosed before or after 24 weeks, respectively. Multiple logistic regressions were performed to identify the effect of preconception Se intake on GDM, Eo-GDM, and Lo-GDM. Using Q3 (the middle Se intake group) as the reference, a multiple logistic regression analysis showed that the highest (Q5) Se intake group demonstrated increased risks of GDM (adjusted odds ratio (aOR): 1.15, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.01–1.30) and the lowest (Q1) Se intake group had increased risks of Lo-GDM (aOR: 1.19, 95% CI: 1.01–1.41). Thus, both high and low preconception Se intakes increase risks of glucose intolerance during pregnancy. This finding may indicate new recommendations for preconception Se intake to prevent GDM.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) is a late-onset, intractable, and fatal viral disease caused by persistent infection of the central nervous system by a mutant strain of the measles virus. Ribavirin intracerebroventricular therapy has already been administered to several SSPE patients in Japan based on fundamental and clinical research findings from our group, with positive therapeutic effects reported in some patients. However, the efficacy of this treatment approach has not been unequivocally established. Hence, development of more effective therapeutic methods using new antiviral agents is urgently needed. This review describes the current status of SSPE treatment and research, highlighting promising approaches to the development of more effective therapeutic methods.

Locating food sources is essential for the survival of animals. Here, the authors identify two functionally and anatomically distinct classes of sweet taste receptor neurons in Drosophila legs, involved in feeding initiation and sugar-dependent suppression of locomotion.

This article suggests the machine operation mode can be estimated from sensors attached to the machine in the production line. An injection molding machine (IMM), which is widely operated in the plastics industry, was used in this research within an actual production line. Four strain sensors were attached to the IMM to measure the clamping force in each production cycle. Auto or semi-auto mode was estimated from the clamping force sequence. Auto mode is continuous production by the machine itself, while semi-auto mode involves intermittent human operation and includes such functions as machine start, machine finish, and trouble shooting. Approximately 340000 cycle data were obtained in 10-week production. The changing value was calculated by the binomial filter statistical technique, as well as the differencing of time series data from the clamping force in each cycle. And the relationship between changing value and operation mode is evaluated by the area under the curve (AUC) calculated from the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC curve). As a result, we obtained that AUC value was 0.86 from 10-week production data, which means operation mode can be estimated from the changing value of clamping force in a high level. This estimating method has a low computational cost; therefore it is easy to install on a machine's board control system. We expect that this method will be used to detect the defective product, the machine malfunction or the mold failure.

Brains regulate behavioral responses with distinct timings. Here we investigate the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the timing of decision-making during olfactory navigation in Caenorhabditis elegans. We find that, based on subtle changes in odor concentrations, the animals appear to choose the appropriate migratory direction from multiple trials as a form of behavioral decision-making. Through optophysiological, mathematical and genetic analyses of neural activity under virtual odor gradients, we further find that odor concentration information is temporally integrated for a decision by a gradual increase in intracellular calcium concentration ([Ca2+]i), which occurs via L-type voltage-gated calcium channels in a pair of olfactory neurons. In contrast, for a reflex-like behavioral response, [Ca2+]i rapidly increases via multiple types of calcium channels in a pair of nociceptive neurons. Thus, the timing of neuronal responses is determined by cell type-dependent involvement of calcium channels, which may serve as a cellular basis for decision-making.

Objective: Our previous study, a 6-month randomised controlled trial, demonstrated that a group-based support promoted weight loss as compared to an education-only intervention. The purpose of this study was to examine weight loss maintenance for 2 years. Methods: Originally, 188 overweight Japanese adults, aged 40-65 years, were randomly assigned to 3 groups: control, education-only or group-based support. After the 6-month intervention, 125 participants in the education-only and the group-based support groups were followed up for 2 years. The primary outcome was the amount of weight lost. The participants were retrospectively grouped into quartiles of percent weight loss for secondary analyses. Results: At the end of follow-up, the amount of weight lost in the education-only and the group-based support groups was the same (3.3 kg). Secondary analyses using data of those who completed the study (n = 100) revealed that the participants in the highest quartile of percent weight loss significantly increased their step counts and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity compared with the lowest quartile. No significant differences were observed in the energy intake among the four groups. Conclusion: The effects of group-based support disappear within 2 years. Increasing physical activity may be a crucial factor for successful maintenance of weight loss.

The authors propose a Manchester Encoding inspired illumination modulation strategy to properly index the temporally-aligned vision frames, which are successfully synchronized by the LED reference signal. Based on signal normalization, Manchester Encoded reference signals carry temporal information owing to serial communication and thus can timestamp the output vision frame. Both simulated and experimental results show satisfactory robustness to various disturbances, such as dynamic targets, fluctuant optical intensity, and unfixed cameras, etc. The 1,000 Hz vision sensor is locked to 500 Hz temporally modulated LED illumination with only 24 μs jitters. This result is believed to be applicable to low-cost wireless vision sensor network.

Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) is a persistent, progressive, and fatal degenerative disease resulting from persistent measles virus (MV) infection of the central nervous system. Most drugs used to treat SSPE have been reported to have limited effects. Therefore, novel therapeutic strategies are urgently required. The SSPE virus, a variant MV strain, differs virologically from wild-type MV strain. One characteristic of the SSPE virus is its defective production of cell-free virus, which leaves cell-to-cell infection as the major mechanism of viral dissemination. The fusion protein plays an essential role in this cell-to-cell spread. It contains two critical heptad repeat regions that form a six-helix bundle in the trimer similar to most viral fusion proteins. In the case of human immunodeficiency virus type-1 (HIV-1), a synthetic peptide derived from the heptad repeat region of the fusion protein enfuvirtide inhibits viral replication and is clinically approved as an anti-HIV-1 agent. The heptad repeat regions of HIV-1 are structurally and functionally similar to those of the MV fusion protein. We therefore designed novel peptides derived from the fusion protein heptad repeat region of the MV and examined their effects on the measles and SSPE virus replication in vitro and in vivo. Some of these synthetic novel peptides demonstrated high antiviral activity against both the measles (Edmonston strain) and SSPE (Yamagata-1 strain) viruses at nanomolar concentrations with no cytotoxicity in vitro. In particular, intracranial administration of one of the synthetic peptides increased the survival rate from 0% to 67% in an SSPE virus-infected nude mouse model.

To acquire images of dynamic scenes from multiple points of view simultaneously, the acquisition time of vision sensors should be synchronized. In this paper, an illumination-based synchronization derived from the phase-locked loop (PLL) mechanism based on the signal normalization method is proposed and evaluated. To eliminate the system dependency due to the amplitude fluctuation of the reference illumination, which may be caused by the moving objects or relative positional distance change between the light source and the observed objects, the fluctuant amplitude of the reference signal is normalized framely by the estimated maximum amplitude between the reference signal and its quadrature counterpart to generate a stable synchronization in highly dynamic scenes. Both simulated results and real world experimental results demonstrated successful synchronization result that 1,000-Hz frame rate vision sensors can be successfully synchronized to a LED illumination or its reflected light with satisfactory stability and only 28-μs jitters.

To acquire images of dynamic scenes from multiple points of view simultaneously, the acquisition time of vision sensors should be synchronized. This paper describes an illumination-based synchronization method derived from the phase-locked loop (PLL) algorithm. Incident light to a vision sensor from an intensity-modulated illumination source serves as the reference signal for synchronization. Analog and digital computation within the vision sensor forms a PLL to regulate the output signal, which corresponds to the vision frame timing, to be synchronized with the reference. Simulated and experimental results show that a 1,000 Hz frame rate vision sensor was successfully synchronized with 32 μs jitters.

Object recognition and pose estimation is an important task in computer vision. A pose estimation algorithm using only depth information is proposed in this paper. Foreground and background points are distinguished based on their relative positions with boundaries. Model templates are selected using synthetic scenes to make up for the point pair feature algorithm. An accurate and fast pose verification method is introduced to select result poses from thousands of poses. Our algorithm is evaluated against a large number of scenes and proved to be more accurate than algorithms using both color information and depth information.

Motivated by biological interests in analyzing navigation behaviors of flying animals, we attempt to build a system measuring their motion states. To do this, in this paper, we build a vision system to detect unknown fast moving objects within a given space, calculating their motion parameters represented by positions and poses. We proposed a novel method to detect reliable interest points from images of moving objects, which can be hardly detected by general purpose interest point detectors. 3D points reconstructed using these interest points are then grouped and maintained for detected objects, according to a careful schedule, considering appearance and perspective changes. In the estimation step, a method is introduced to adapt the robust estimation procedure used for dense point set to the case for sparse set, reducing the potential risk of greatly biased estimation. Experiments are conducted against real scenes, showing the capability of the system of detecting multiple unknown moving objects and estimating their positions and poses.

Bin picking refers to picking the randomly-piled objects from a bin for industrial production purposes, and robotic bin picking is always used in automated assembly lines. In order to achieve a higher productivity, a fast and robust pose estimation algorithm is necessary to recognize and localize the randomly-piled parts. This paper proposes a pose estimation algorithm for bin picking tasks using point cloud data. A novel descriptor Curve Set Feature (CSF) is proposed to describe a point by the surface fluctuation around this point and is also capable of evaluating poses. The Rotation Match Feature (RMF) is proposed to match CSF efficiently. The matching process combines the idea of the matching in 2D space of origin Point Pair Feature (PPF) algorithm with nearest neighbor search. A voxel-based pose verification method is introduced to evaluate the poses and proved to be more than 30-times faster than the kd-tree-based verification method. Our algorithm is evaluated against a large number of synthetic and real scenes and proven to be robust to noise, able to detect metal parts, more accurately and more than 10-times faster than PPF and Oriented, Unique and Repeatable (OUR)-Clustered Viewpoint Feature Histogram (CVFH).

Machine vision systems have been widely used for image analysis, especially that which is beyond human ability. In biology, studies of behavior help scientists to understand the relationship between sensory stimuli and animal responses. This typically requires the analysis and quantification of animal locomotion. In our work, we focus on the analysis of the locomotion of the fruit fly D r o s o p h i l a m e l a n o g a s t e r , a widely used model organism in biological research. Our system consists of two components: fly detection and tracking. Our system provides the ability to extract a group of flies as the objects of concern and furthermore determines the heading direction of each fly. As each fly moves, the system states are refined with a Kalman filter to obtain the optimal estimation. For the tracking step, combining information such as position and heading direction with assignment algorithms gives a successful tracking result. The use of heading direction increases the system efficiency when dealing with identity loss and flies swapping situations. The system can also operate with a variety of videos with different light intensities.