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Purpose Erectile dysfunction (ED) is one of the increasing diseases with aging society. The basis of ED derived from local penile abnormality is poorly understood because of the complex three‐dimensional (3D) distribution of sinusoids in corpus cavernosum (CC). Understanding the 3D histological structure of penis is thus necessary. Analyses on the status of regulatory signals for such abnormality are also performed. Methods To analyze the 3D structure of sinusoid, 3D reconstruction from serial sections of murine CC were performed. Histological analyses between young (2 months old) and aged (14 months old) CC were performed. As for chondrogenic signaling status of aged CC, SOX9 and RBPJK staining was examined. Results Sinusoids prominently developed in the outer regions of CC adjacent to tunica albuginea. Aged CC samples contained ectopic chondrocytes in such regions. Associating with the appearance of chondrocytes, the expression of SOX9, chondrogenic regulator, was upregulated. The expression of RBPJK, one of the Notch signal regulators, was downregulated in the aged CC. Conclusions Prominent sinusoids distribute in the outer region of CC which may possess important roles for erection. A possibility of ectopic chondrogenesis induced by alteration of SOX9/Notch signaling with aging is indicated.

The bubbles of water jet cavitation and of multifunction cavitation (MFC) generated by nozzles with diameters of 0.1, 0.2 and 0.8 mm were investigated for the collapse pressure of microjets, the nozzle-specimen distance, the degree of processing, the photocatalyst characteristics for titanium oxide particles, and the multi-bubble sonoluminescence. The dependence of these characteristics on the nozzle diameter was clarified. The nozzle-specimen distance became shorter as the nozzle diameter decreased. The titanium oxide powder was processed with MFC using 0.8, 0.2 and 0.1 mm water jet nozzles. More hydrogen was generated with a nozzle diameter of 0.8 mm than with a 0.1 mm nozzle. A 0.2 mm nozzle generated less hydrogen than a 0.1 mm nozzle because the water jet pressure from a 0.2 mm nozzle was lower. A 0.1 mm nozzle produced the same luminous intensity from cavitation bubbles as a 0.8 mm nozzle. These results mean that the bubble temperature attained by 0.1 and 0.8 mm nozzles is relatively high. The smaller the nozzle diameter becomes, the smaller the bubble diameter and the lower the collapse pressure of the microjet, which leads to a lower degree of processing and reduced influence on photocatalytic properties.

Ultracompact minihalos~(UCMHs) can form after the epoch of matter-radiation equality, if the density fluctuations of dark matter have significantly large amplitude on small scales. The constraint on the UCMH abundance allows us to access such small-scale fluctuations. In this paper, we present that, through the measurement of 21-cm fluctuations before the epoch of reionization~ we can obtain a constraint on the UCMH abundance. We calculate the 21-cm signal from UCMHs and show that UCMHs provide the enhancement of the 21-cm fluctuations. We also investigate the constraint on the UCMH abundance and small-scale curvature perturbations. Our results indicate that the upcoming 21-cm observation, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), provides the constraint on amplitude of primordial curvature power spectrum, ${\cal A}_{\zeta} \lesssim 10^{-6}$ on $100~{\rm Mpc}^{-1} \lesssim k \lesssim 1000~{\rm Mpc}^{-1}$. Although it is not stronger than the one from the non-detection of gamma rays induced by dark matter annihilation in UCMHs, the constraint by the SKA will be important because this constraint is independent of the dark matter particle model., Comment: 8pages, 6 figures, published in MNRAS

Development of external genitalia (ExG) has been a topic of long mystery in the field of organogenesis research. Early stage male and female of mouse embryos develop a common genital tubercle (GT) in the perineum whose outgrowth extends distally from the posterior cloacal regions. Concomitant with GT outgrowth, the cloaca is divided into urogenital sinus and anorectum by urorectal septum (URS) internally. The outgrowth of the GT is associated with the formation of endodermal epithelial urethral plate (UP) attached to the ventral epidermis of the GT. Such a common developmental phase is observed until around embryonic day 15.5 (E15.5) morphologically in mouse embryogenesis. Various growth factor genes, such as Fibroblast growth factor (Fgf) and Wnt genes are expressed and function during GT formation. Since the discovery of key growth factor signals and several regulatory molecules, elucidation of their functions has been achieved utilizing mouse developmental models, conditional gene knockout mouse and in vitro culture. Analyses on the phenotypes of such mouse models have revealed that several growth factor families play fundamental roles in ExG organogenesis based on the epithelial-mesenchymal interaction (EMI). More recently, EMI between developing urethral epithelia and its bilateral mesenchyme of later stages is also reported during subsequent stage of androgen-dependent male-type urethral formation in the mouse embryo. Mafb, belonging to AP-1 family and a key androgen-responsive mesenchymal gene, is identified and starts to be expressed around E14.5 when masculinization of the urethra is initiated. Mesenchymal cell condensation and migration, which are regulated by nonmuscle myosin, are shown to be essential process for masculinization. Hence, studies on EMI at various embryonic stages are important not only for early but also for subsequent masculinization of the urethra. In this review, a dynamic mode of EMI for both early and late phases of ExG development is discussed.

The purpose of this study was to extract the three-dimensional (3D) vector of the baseline drift baseline drift vector (BDV) of the specific points on the body surface and to demonstrate the importance of the 3D tracking of the body surface. Our system consisted of a near-infrared camera (NIC: Kinect V2) and software that recognized and tracked blue stickers as markers. We acquired 3D coordinates of 30 markers stuck on the body surface for 30 min for eight healthy volunteers and developed a simple technique to extract the BDV. The BDV on the sternum, rib, and abdomen was extracted from the measured data. BDV per min. was analyzed to estimate the frequency to exceed a given tolerance. Also, the correlation among BDVs for multiple body sites was analyzed. The longitudinal baseline drift was observed in the BDV of healthy volunteers. Among the eight volunteers, the maximum probability that the BDV per min. exceeded the tolerance of 1 mm and 2 mm was 30% and 15%, respectively. The correlation among BDVs of multiple body sites suggested a potential feasibility to distinguish the translational movement of the whole area and the respiratory movement. In conclusion, we constructed the 3D tracking system of multiple points on the body surface using a noninvasive NIC at a low cost and established the method to extract the BDV. The existence of the longitudinal baseline drift showed the importance of the 3D tracking in the body surface.

The thymus facilitates mature T cell production by providing a suitable stromal microenvironment. This microenvironment is impaired by radiation and aging which lead to immune system disturbances known as thymic involution. Young adult thymus shows thymic recovery after such involution. Although various genes have been reported for thymocytes and thymic epithelial cells in such processes, the roles of stromal transcription factors in these remain incompletely understood. MafB (v-maf musculoaponeurotic fibrosarcoma oncogene homolog B) is a transcription factor expressed in thymic stroma and its expression was induced a day after radiation exposure. Hence, the roles of mesenchymal MafB in the process of thymic regeneration offers an intriguing research topic also for radiation biology. The current study investigated whether MafB plays roles in the adult thymus. MafB/green fluorescent protein knock-in mutant (MafB+/GFP) mice showed impaired thymic regeneration after the sublethal irradiation, judged by reduced thymus size, total thymocyte number and medullary complexity. Furthermore, IL4 was induced after irradiation and such induction was reduced in mutant mice. The mutants also displayed signs of accelerated age-related thymic involution. Altogether, these results suggest possible functions of MafB in the processes of thymic recovery after irradiation, and maintenance during aging.

Negatively charged synthetic hydrogels have been known to facilitate various cellular responses including cell adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation; however, the molecular mechanism of hydrogel-dependent control of cell behavior remains unclear. Recently, we reported that negatively charged poly(2-acrylamido-2-methylpropanesulfonic acid) (PAMPS) gel induces chondrogenic differentiation of ATDC5 cells via novel protein reservoir function. In this study, we identified the cell adhesion molecules binding to PAMPS gels that act as mechanoreceptors. First, we performed a pull-down assay by particle gels using cell membrane proteins of ATDC5, and found that multiple membrane proteins bound to the PAMPS gel, whereas the uncharged poly(N,N'-dimethylacrylamide) gel as control did not bind to any membrane proteins. Western blot analysis indicated differential binding of integrin (ITG) isoforms to the PAMPS gel, in which the α4 isoform, but not α5 and αv, efficiently bound to the PAMPS gel. ITG α4 knockdown decreased cell spreading of ATDC5 on PAMPS gels, whereas the enhanced expression increased the behavior. Furthermore, ITG α4 depletion suppressed PAMPS gel-induced expression of bone morphogenic protein (BMP) 4 contributing to chondrogenic differentiation, in concordance with the reduction of ERK activation. These results demonstrated that membrane protein binding to PAMPS gels occurred in a charge-dependent manner, and that ITG α4 plays a crucial role in cell spreading on PAMPS gels and acts as a mechanoreceptor triggering cellular signaling leads to chondrogenic differentiation.

Searches for dark matter annihilation signals have been carried out in a number of target regions such as the Galactic Center and Milky Way dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs), among a few others. Here we propose low surface brightness galaxies (LSBGs) asnovel targets for the indirect detection of dark matter emission. In particular, LSBGs are known to have very large dark matter contents and be less contaminated by extragalactic gamma-ray sources (e.g., blazars) compared to star forming galaxies. We report on an analysis that uses eight LSBGs (detected by Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam survey data) with known redshifts to conduct a search for gamma-ray emission at the positions of these new objects in Fermi Large Area Telescope data. We found no excesses of gamma-ray emission and set constraints on the dark matter annihilation cross-section. We exclude (at the 95% C.L.) dark matter scenarios predicting a cross-section higher than 10^-23[cm^3/s] for dark matter particles of mass 10 GeV self-annihilating in the b_b channel. Although this constraint is weaker than the ones reported in recent studies using other targets, we note that in the near future, the number of detections of new LSBGs will increase by a few orders of magnitude. We forecast that with the use of the full catalog of soon-to-be-detected LSBGs the constraint will reach cross-section sensitivities of ~ 3*10^-25 [cm^3/s] for dark matter particles with masses less than 10 GeV., 19 pages, 6 figures, accepted to JCAP

Language is a system of message transmission, which conveys a variety of messages including both lexical messages and social messages. It has been demonstrated that lexical messages are realized with phonetically reduced signals, when they are contextually predictable. For example, a word may be produced with shorter duration, when it is more predictable given a context such as a preceding word and a following word. This message-oriented reduction can be encapsulated by positing that a speaker is required to balance two biases: a bias for maximizing the accuracy of message transmission and a bias for maximizing the efficiency of message transmission. This raises a question: Does a speaker balance the two biases in relation to social messages? The aim of this study is to address this question, and advance our understanding of the message-oriented probabilistic reduction. We will explore the social-message-predictability effects by examining the phonetic redundancy in a variant in New Zealand English loanword phonology, a tap sound [ɾ]. It is demonstrated that the duration of this rhotic variant is affected by the social message predictability given a loanword.

We are concerned with the boundedness of generalized fractional integral operators Iϱ,τ from Orlicz spaces LΦ(X) near L1(X) to Orlicz spaces LΨ(X) over metric measure spaces equipped with lower Ahlfors Q-regular measures, where Φ is a function of the form Φ(r) = rl(r) and l is of log-type. We give a generalization of paper by Mizuta et al. (2010), in the Euclidean setting. We deal with both generalized Riesz potentials and generalized logarithmic potentials.

This work developed a small-scale processing apparatus for ultra-high temperature and ultra-high-pressure cavitation (UTPC) incorporating a small diameter (0.1 mm) water jet nozzle. This instrumentation comprised a swirl flow nozzle (SFN) installed on the water jet nozzle so as to obtain UTPC from a multifunction cavitation (MFC) setup. Multi-bubble sonoluminescence (MBSL) assessments using two types of photon counting heads were employed to assess UTPC, MFC, ultrasonic cavitation (UC), water jet cavitation (WJC) and SFN-WJC. The SL intensity was found to increase in the order of SFN-WJC, WJC, UC, MFC to UTPC. Because UTPC produced the most intense emissions, this process evidently attained the highest processing temperature. Assuming a UC bubble temperature of 4000 K, the temperatures associated with UTPC, MFC and WJC were determined to be 5400–5900, 5300 and 3200–3300 K, respectively. The energy density of a single bubble during UTPC was calculated using the Rayleigh–Plesset and Planck equations for an initial bubble radius of 100 μm together with photon measurements from many bubbles and employing Planck's law. The highest SL intensity of UPTC is thought to exist due to the high energy density of UTPC. This research demonstrates that it is possible to increase the energy density of cavitation bubbles within a small reaction area., Multifunction cavitation; High-pressure high-temperature cavitation; Narrow water jet nozzle; Multi-bubble sonoluminescence.

A large number of studies have demonstrated that a linguistic unit with higher frequency and that with higher contextual predictability are realized with reduced speech signals. This effect is known in previous literature as probabilistic reduction. A few studies also demonstrate that these contextual effects may be memorized; that is, average predictability may also influence phonetic redundancy in speech signals. This study aims to investigate the extent to which probabilistic reduction effects extend to morpheme duration in Japanese. It is demonstrated that the production of a morpheme in Japanese is influenced by morpheme frequency, contextual morpheme predictability, and average morpheme predictability. These findings are interpreted to mean that speech signals are influenced by ease of lexical access or they are modified to maximize communicative ease, and the productions are accumulated in the mind of a speaker.

Self interacting massive particles created as a consequence of thermal production in the early Universe are one of the most theoretically motivated candidate of dark matter (DM). Those particles can emit gamma rays through annihilation processes and contribute to an observed cosmic gamma-ray flux, and thus measurements of extragalactic gamma-ray allow us to probe the nature of DM. In particular, annihilation cross-sections for DM has been constrained by comparing the observed gamma-ray flux with a model of gamma-ray flux induced by DM annihilation within nearby objects like Milky Way dwarf spheroidals (dSphs). In this work, we propose that low surface brightness galaxies (LSBGs) can be used as novel tracers of DM annihilation signals because those galaxies are more massive than Milky Way dSphs, which leads to production of more luminous gamma-ray flux by DM annihilation. Moreover, it is expected to be less contaminated by extragalactic gamma-ray sources (e.g., blazars) compared to star forming galaxies. We find that the upper limit with a joint analysis of the eight LSBGs detected by Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam survey data and exclude (at the 95% confidence level) the annihilation cross-section for the b_b channel higher than ~10^{-23} [cm^3/s] for DM mass of 10 GeV. However our constraint is weaker than the ones reported in recent studies using other targets, we note that in near future observations, the number of LSBGs should be a few orders of magnitude larger, and the constraint with LSBGs on the DM annihilation cross-section can become stronger than the ones from other probes.

The cross-correlation study of the unresolved $\gamma$-ray background (UGRB) with galaxy clusters has a potential to reveal the nature of the UGRB. In this paper, we perform a cross-correlation analysis between $\gamma$-ray data by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT) and a galaxy cluster catalogue from the Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) survey. The Subaru HSC cluster catalogue provides a wide and homogeneous large-scale structure distribution out to the high redshift at $z=1.1$, which has not been accessible in previous cross-correlation studies. We conduct the cross-correlation analysis not only for clusters in the all redshift range ($0.1 < z < 1.1$) of the survey, but also for subsamples of clusters divided into redshift bins, the low redshift bin ($0.1 < z < 0.6$) and the high redshift bin ($0.6 < z < 1.1$), to utilize the wide redshift coverage of the cluster catalogue. We find the evidence of the cross-correlation signals with the significance of 2.0-2.3$\sigma$ for all redshift and low-redshift cluster samples. On the other hand, for high-redshift clusters, we find the signal with weaker significance level (1.6-1.9$\sigma$). We also compare the observed cross-correlation functions with predictions of a theoretical model in which the UGRB originates from $\gamma$-ray emitters such as blazars, star-forming galaxies and radio galaxies. We find that the detected signal is consistent with the model prediction., Comment: 11 pages, 24 figures, accepted by MNRAS

Development of external genitalia and perineum is the subject of developmental biology as well as toxicology and teratology researches. Cloaca forms in the lower (caudal) end of endoderm. Such endodermal epithelia and surrounding mesenchyme interact with various signals to form the external genitalia. External genitalia (the anlage termed as genital tubercle: GT) formation shows prominent sexually dimorphic morphogenesis in late embryonic stages, which is an unexplored developmental research field because of many reasons. External genitalia develop adjacent to the cloaca which develops urethra and corporal bodies. Developmental regulators including growth factor signals are necessary for epithelia-mesenchyme interaction (EMI) in posterior embryos including the cloaca and urethra in the genitalia. In the case of male type urethra, formation of tubular urethra proceeds from the lower (ventral) side of external genitalia as a masculinization process in contrast to the case of female urethra. Mechanisms for its development are not elucidated yet due to the lack of suitable mutant mouse models. Because of the recent progresses of Cre (recombinase)-mediated conditional target gene modification analyses, many developmental regulatory genes become increasingly analyzed. Conditional gene knockout mouse approaches and tissue lineage approaches are expected to offer vital information for such sexually dimorphic developmental processes. This review aims to offer recent updates on the progresses of these emerging developmental processes for the research field of congenital anomalies.

We evaluated the association of hypospadias and 17 susceptibility loci previously identified by a European genome-wide association study in a cohort of Japanese patients. We also examined the expression of candidate genes in male mouse embryos to determine the possible underlying mechanisms of this disease.We enrolled 169 Japanese patients (mean age at surgery 3.7 years) who underwent repair of hypospadias. Genotyping of 17 single nucleotide polymorphisms was performed using a multiplex polymerase chain reaction invader assay. We also performed in situ hybridization to determine whether candidate genes were expressed in the male genital tubercle during embryonic development of the external genitalia in mice.Single nucleotide polymorphism rs3816183 of HAAO was significantly associated with susceptibility to hypospadias in general (p = 0.0019) and to anterior/middle hypospadias (p = 0.0283) and posterior hypospadias (p = 0.0226), while single nucleotide polymorphism rs6499755 of IRX6 showed an association with susceptibility to anterior/middle hypospadias (p = 0.0472). In mouse embryos there was no significant upregulation of Haao expression in the developing male external genitalia. Irx3 and Irx5, which are linked to Irx6 within the IrxB cluster, were expressed in the mesenchyme remote from the urethral plate epithelium during the critical embryonic period for masculinization. Irx6 was expressed in the ectodermal epithelium, demonstrating prominent dorsal ectodermal expression without expression in the ventral ectoderm adjacent to the urethral plate during the same period.Genetic variations of HAAO and IRX6 influence susceptibility to hypospadias in the Japanese population. Further research is needed to clarify the mechanism by which variations in these genes contribute to the pathogenesis of hypospadias.

Purpose A patient's respiratory monitoring is one of the key techniques in radiotherapy for a moving target. Generally, such monitoring systems are permanently set to a fixed geometry during the installation. This study aims to enable a temporary setup of such a monitoring system by developing a fast method to automatically calibrate the geometrical position by a quick measurement of calibration markers. Methods One calibration marker was placed on the isocenter and the other six markers were placed at positions 5-cm apart from the isocenter to the left, right, anterior, posterior, superior, and inferior directions. A near-infrared (NIR) camera (NIC) [Kinect v2 (Microsoft Corp.)] was arbitrarily set with ten different angles around the calibration phantom with a fixed tilting-down angle at approximately 45° in a linear accelerator treatment vault. The three-dimensional (3D) coordinates in the camera (Cam) coordinate system (CS; x and y are the horizontal and vertical coordinates of the image, respectively, and z is a coordinate along the NIR time-of-flight) were taken for 1 min with 30 frames per second. The data corresponding to the measurement times of 1, 3, 10, 30, and 60 s were created to mimic various measurement times. These data were used to calculate the initial matrix elements, which included six parameters of the pitching, yawing, and rolling angles; horizontal two-dimensional translation in the treatment room; and the source-to-axis distance of NIC, for a conversion from the Cam CS to the treatment room CS for which the origin was defined at the isocenter (Iso coordinate). The six parameters were then optimized to minimize the displacements of the calculated marker coordinates from the actual positions in the Iso CS. The 3D positional accuracy and angular accuracy of the conversion were evaluated. The random error of the Iso coordinates was analyzed through a relation with the angle of each measurement setup. Results Three angles of NIC and relative translation vectors were successfully calculated from the measurement data of the calibration markers. The achieved spatial and angular accuracies were 0.02 mm and 1.6°, respectively, after the optimization. Among the mimicked measurement times investigated in this study, both spatial and angular accuracies had no dependence on the measurement time. The average random error of a static marker was 0.46 mm after the optimization. Conclusion We developed an automatic method to calibrate the 3D patient surface monitoring system. The procedure developed in this study enabled a quick calibration of NIC, which can be easily repeated multiple times for a frequent and quick setup of the monitoring system.

The aim of this study is to clarify the two properties of Malay hypocoristic word formation: length determination and segmental alternations. We collected 211 Malay hypocoristic words from one female Malay speaker, and descriptively generalized and theoretically analyzed these two properties. As for the length determination, it turns out that Malay hypocoristics are either monosyllabic or disyllabic. For example, Azrin is truncated to a monosyllabic form Rin , whereas Marniyati is shortened to a disyllabic form Yati . Default length is disyllabic, but monosyllabicity occurs in restricted environments. As for the segmental alternation, some segments in base names are altered to other segments in their hypocoristic forms. For example, [f] is changed to [p], such that Saiful is truncated to Pul and Suffian is truncated to Pian . Segmental structure usually becomes less marked in hypocoristic forms, but it becomes more marked in restricted environments. From the perspective of Optimality Theory, it will be claimed that both the length determination and the segmental alternation can be captured as The Emergence of The Unmarked (TETU) phenomenon, basically as in other languages, but that they involve anti-faithfulness effects in restricted environments.

We address networked control systems (NCSs) with data dropout. The data dropout is assumed to obey a Markovian process model. For the data dropout, a controller synthesis is reviewed. When the network traffic varies, it is necessary to select an adequate controller to guarantee the control performance. Since the controller is designed according to the Markovian process model of the data dropout, it is necessary to obtain the network traffic status for the selection. For the purpose, we propose an estimation of the network traffic status. The network traffic status is modeled as several Markovian process models. It is estimated by comparing the probability matrices of the Markovian process models with the matrix that is obtained the data-dropout history in the network. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified through simulations and experiments.

This paper addresses truss topology optimization taking into account robustness to uncertainty in the truss geometry. Specifically, the locations of nodes are assumed not to be known precisely and the compliance in the worst case is attempted to be minimized. We formulate a semidefinite programming problem that serves as a safe approximation of this robust optimization problem. That is, any feasible solution of the presented semidefinite programming problem satisfies the constraints of the original robust optimization problem. Since a semidefinite programming problem can be solved efficiently with a primal-dual interior-point method, we can find a robust truss design efficiently with the proposed semidefinite programming approach. A notable property of the proposed approach is that the obtained truss is guaranteed to be stable. Numerical experiments are performed to illustrate that the optimal truss topology depends on the magnitude of uncertainty.

Due to heavy maritime traffic, wireless systems play an important role to maintain the traffic safety. In this paper, we try to analyse the radio propagation of wireless systems in maritime environments. Although, there are many wireless systems should be covered, we picked up a radar system focusing a line-of-sight radio propagation in this paper. In general, radar antennas are set in the highest location to get a line-of-sight view for a wide area. However, there are cases when high islands hamper the line-of-sight. In this case, the system is not able to see the area through the radio waves, which will cause serious problems for navigation safety. We will try to assess the area using a ray-tracing method. The procedure of using the geospatial information authority of Japan (GSI)'s topographical data is given, to assess the area where the radio waves are unable to reach, through simulation.