Search

Kei Takasawa,1 Hiroyo Mabe,2 Fusa Nagamatsu,2 Naoko Amano,3 Yuichi Miyakawa,4 Akito Sutani,4 Reiko Kagawa,5 Satoshi Okada,5 Yusuke Tanahashi,6 Shigeru Suzuki,6 Shota Hiroshima,7 Keisuke Nagasaki,7 Sumito Dateki,8 Shigeru Takishima,9 Ikuko Takahashi,10 Kenichi Kashimada1 1Department of Pediatrics and Developmental Biology, Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU), Tokyo, Japan; 2Department of Pediatrics, Kumamoto University Hospital, Kumamoto, Japan; 3Department of Pediatrics, Saitama City Hospital, Saitama, Japan; 4Department of Pediatrics, Kawaguchi Municipal Medical Center, Saitama, Japan; 5Department of Pediatrics, Hiroshima University Graduate School of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Hiroshima, Japan; 6Department of Pediatrics, Asahikawa Medical University, Asahikawa, Japan; 7Division of Pediatrics, Department of Homeostatic Regulation and Development, Niigata University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Niigata, Japan; 8Department of Pediatrics, Nagasaki University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki, Japan; 9Department of Pediatrics, Soka Municipal Hospital, Saitama, Japan; 10Department of Pediatrics, Akita University Graduate School of Medicine, Akita, JapanCorrespondence: Kei Takasawa, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, 1-5-45 Yushima, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8510, Japan, Tel +81-3-5803-5246, Fax +81-3-5803-5249, Email ktakasawa.ped@tmd.ac.jpIntroduction: Although the treatment success of long-term growth hormone therapy (GHT) is dependent on maintaining patients’ adherence to treatment, marked variations in adherence levels among children with GHT (eg, 7– 71% nonadherence) have been reported. Barriers to or promoters of GHT adherence have been discussed and investigated, and digital health technologies, such as electronic GH injection devices, may have the potential to assess adherence to GHT more accurately. Thus, we conducted a multicenter, retrospective cohort study using GH injection log analysis of an electronic GH device, GROWJECTOR®L, to qualify adherence and explore the factors influencing adherence.Methods: This study enrolled 41 patients (median[range] age, 5.8[3.0 ~ 17.0] years) with short stature from nine Japanese medical institutions. The injection log data (12– 48 weeks) were read by smartphones and collected into the data center through a cloud server.Results: Although cumulative adherence rates remained higher than 95% throughout the observation period, five (12.2%) patients had low adherence (< 85%). Subsequently, subgroup and logistic regression analyses for exploring factors affecting adherence revealed that self-selection of GH device and irregular injection schedule (ie, frequent injections after midnight) significantly affected adherence rate (p=0.034 and 0.048, respectively). In addition, higher rates of irregular injections significantly affected low adherence (median[range], 11.26[0.79 ~ 30.50]% vs 0.26[0.00 ~ 33.33]%, p = 0.029).Discussion: Our study indicated that injection log analysis using an electronic GH device could detect irregular injection schedules due to a night owl or disturbance in lifetime rhythm affecting low adherence and had significant potential to encourage collaborative monitoring of adherence with healthcare providers and patients themselves/caregivers, along with growing autonomy and shared decision-making. Our study suggests the significance of narrative and personal approaches to adherence of patients with GHT and the usefulness of digital devices for such an approach and for removing various barriers to patient autonomy, leading to improvement and maintenance of adherence.Keywords: GH therapy, digital health technology, shared decision- making, patient autonomy

Sato Y, Iwamoto J, Honda Y, Amano N. Ther Clin Risk Manag. 2013;9:171–176. The Editor and Publisher of Therapeutics and Clinical Risk Management wish to retract the published article. Following publication of the Expression of Concern, this article has been retracted due to acknowledgement of allegations of scientific misconduct regarding data integrity, inappropriate authorship, duplicate reporting, ethical oversight, and data fabrication. In addition, it has been recognised that numerous other publications from this research group have also been retracted. Our decision-making was informed by our policy on publishing ethics and integrity and the COPE guidelines on retraction. The retracted article will remain online to maintain the scholarly record, but it will be digitally watermarked on each page as “Retracted”.

Sato Y, Iwamoto J, Honda Y, Amano N. Ther Clin Risk Manag. 2013;9:171–176 The Editor and Publisher of Therapeutics and Clinical Risk Management wish to publish an Expression of Concern for the published article. Concerns were raised to the Editor regarding the scientific integrity of the articles content. We have contacted the authors requesting they supply information that would confirm the integrity of the data reported in the article but have received no response. Therefore, as we continue to work through the issues raised, we advise readers to interpret the information presented in the article with due caution. The authors have been notified about this Expression of Concern. Read the original article

Over 60 years ago, stone tools and remains of megafauna were discovered on the Southeast Asian islands of Flores, Sulawesi and Luzon, and a Middle Pleistocene colonization by Homo erectus was initially proposed to have occurred on these islands.sup.1-4. However, until the discovery of Homo floresiensis in 2003, claims of the presence of archaic hominins on Wallacean islands were hypothetical owing to the absence of in situ fossils and/or stone artefacts that were excavated from well-documented stratigraphic contexts, or because secure numerical dating methods of these sites were lacking. As a consequence, these claims were generally treated with scepticism.sup.5. Here we describe the results of recent excavations at Kalinga in the Cagayan Valley of northern Luzon in the Philippines that have yielded 57 stone tools associated with an almost-complete disarticulated skeleton of Rhinoceros philippinensis, which shows clear signs of butchery, together with other fossil fauna remains attributed to stegodon, Philippine brown deer, freshwater turtle and monitor lizard. All finds originate from a clay-rich bone bed that was dated to between 777 and 631 thousand years ago using electron-spin resonance methods that were applied to tooth enamel and fluvial quartz. This evidence pushes back the proven period of colonization.sup.6 of the Philippines by hundreds of thousands of years, and furthermore suggests that early overseas dispersal in Island South East Asia by premodern hominins took place several times during the Early and Middle Pleistocene stages.sup.1-4. The Philippines therefore may have had a central role in southward movements into Wallacea, not only of Pleistocene megafauna.sup.7, but also of archaic hominins.Stone tools and a disarticulated and butchered skeleton of Rhinoceros philippinensis, found in a securely dated stratigraphic context, indicate the presence of an unknown hominin population in the Philippines as early as 709 thousand years ago., Author(s): T. Ingicco [sup.1] [sup.2] [sup.3] [sup.4] , G. D. van den Bergh [sup.5] , C. Jago-on [sup.6] , J.-J. Bahain [sup.1] [sup.2] [sup.3] [sup.4] , M. G. Chacón [sup.1] [...]

Yoshihiro Sato,1 Jun Iwamoto,2 Yoshiaki Honda,1 Nobuko Amano3 1Department of Neurology, Mitate Hospital, Tagawa, Japan; 2Institute for Integrated Sports Medicine, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan; 3Department of Food and Nutrition, Tezukayama University, Nara, Japan Purpose: Vitamin D supplementation is suggested to reduce the risk of falls in older institutionalized or ambulatory individuals by 20%. The present study was undertaken to address the reduced risk, by vitamin D supplementation, of falls and hip fractures in patients with vascular Parkinsonism (VP) and Parkinson’s disease (PD). Patients and methods: In the open-label-study, 94 elderly patients with VP and 92 age-matched patients with PD were followed for 2 years. All patients received 1200 IU ergocalciferol daily. The number of falls per person and incidence of hip fractures were compared between the two groups. Results: At baseline, serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-OHD) levels were in the deficient range (

We carried out an experiment to produce the neutron-rich hypernucleus Λ6H via the (π−, K+) reaction on 6Li target at the pion beam momentum of 1.2 GeV/c (J-PARC E10). In order to calibrate the scale of the missing-mass or of the Λ binding energy of the hypernucleus, we also measured the 12C(π+, K+) Λ12C, p(π−, K+)Σ− and p(π+, K+)Σ+reactions. The experiment was performed at the J-PARC Hadron Hall K1.8 beam line in December 2012 and January 2013. The overall collected data sample corresponds to an integrated beam intensity of 1.65 × 1012 pions.

Nonhuman primates are among the most common taxa represented in Holocene faunal assemblages from Java. In this paper, we examined patterns of Cercopithecidae exploitation, from acquisition through processing, in two cave sites in eastern Java's Gunung Sewu region: Song Terus and Braholo Cave. Trachypithecus auratus accounts for more than 90% of the nonhuman primate remains recorded, suggesting deliberate targeting of this taxon over other monkey species. Skeletal element representation and the placement of butchery marks allowed us to reconstruct how monkey carcasses were processed. The consistency in the placement of butchery marks is highly suggestive of a systematic butchery process as well as of an intimate knowledge of monkey anatomy. In addition to being the major source of protein for the human inhabitants of the sites, leaf monkeys were also an important source of materials for tool and ornament manufacture. It further appears that leaf monkeys played a significant role in rituals, as several remains were found in association with a human inhumation. In this paper we describe the full chaîne opératoire applied in monkey processing, from acquisition to food processing to grave goods, developed by the inhabitants of the Gunung Sewu from the early Holocene onward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]