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This study aimed to evaluate the impact of the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic on outpatient antibiotic prescriptions for pediatric respiratory infections at an acute care hospital in Japan in order to direct future pediatric outpatient antibiotic stewardship.The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and FilmArray Respiratory Panel (RP) on outpatient antibiotic prescriptions was assessed from January 2019 to December 2021 using an interrupted time series analysis of children The COVID-19 pandemic was not significantly related to the antibiotic prescription rate, suggesting that it did not impact physicians’ behavior toward antibiotic prescriptions. Replacing rapid antigen tests with the FilmArray RP introduced on December 1, 2020, did not affect the magnitude of the reduction in antibiotic prescription rate for pediatric respiratory infections.

Casein kinase 2 (CK2) is a vital protein kinase that consists of two catalytic subunits (CK2α1 and/or CK2α2) and two regulatory subunits (CK2β). CK2α1 is a drug target for nephritis and cancers, while CK2α2 is a serious off-target because its inhibition causes testicular toxicity. High similarity between the isozymes CK2α1 and CK2α2 make it difficult to design CK2α1-specific inhibitors. Herein, the crystal structures of CK2α1 and CK2α2 complexed with a 3-amino-pyrazole inhibitor revealed the remarkable differences in the protein-inhibitor interaction modes. This inhibitor bound to the ATP binding sites of both isozymes in apparently distinct orientations. In addition, another molecule of this inhibitor bound to CK2α1, but not to CK2α2, at the CK2β protein-protein interface. Binding energy calculations and biochemical experiments suggested that this inhibitor possesses the conventional ATP-competitive characteristics with moderate allosteric function in a molecular glue mechanism. These results will assist the potential design of potent and selective CK2α1 inhibitors.

Bordetella trematum and Kerstersia gyiorum are rare gram-negative bacilli that are not frequently detected in human infections. In this report, we describe a case of a 48-year-old man who presented to our hospital with an infected wound on his leg. Discharges from the cracks of the granulation were collected and evaluated in our microbiology laboratory. Gram staining of the specimen showed polymorphonuclear leukocytes and abundant gram-negative bacilli. Three types of colonies were isolated on blood agar and were identified as B. trematum and Alcaligenes faecalis using VITEK MS. Moreover, K. gyiorum and B. trematum were identified and confirmed via 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene sequencing. The patient successfully recovered following application of meropenem antibacterial therapy and surgical debridement. This is the first reported case of complex wound infection caused by both B. trematum and K. gyiorum. Identification of B. trematum has recently been made possible by routine bacterial identification using matrix-assisted laser desorption-ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). However, K. gyiorum isolation is still rare, and species identification requires 16S rRNA sequencing. Thus, this case highlighted the importance of using multiple methods, such as MALDI-TOF MS and 16S rRNA gene sequencing, for identification of rarely isolated species from clinical specimens.

Introduction Cytomegalovirus is the most frequently acquired congenital infectious agent that causes malformation in newborns in developed countries. Although there are many discussions worldwide about neonatal screening and treatment, there is scarce information relating to the lifetime economic burden of this disease, which is essential for calculating the cost-effectiveness of any screening and treatment programs. Materials and methods Economic and lifetime health burdens of congenital cytomegalovirus infection in the Japanese annual birth cohort in 2019 were calculated, using demographic, epidemiologic, health value, and economic indicators. The economic burden was divided into medical and social costs. Sensitivity analysis was performed, using high and low values for some indicators. Results Our model estimated that the overall cost due to congenital cytomegalovirus infection in 2019 was 27.6 billion JPY. Acute care costs comprised a small portion of the medical costs. Social costs were much higher than medical costs. Conclusion Our study revealed the economic burden of congenital cytomegalovirus infection in Japan, which highlighted the significance of this disease. Our study will be helpful for guiding national strategies in Japan, including neonatal screening and early treatment.

Respiratory tract infections (RTIs) are the most common diseases globally among children. This study aimed to assess the epidemiology of admission-requiring pediatric RTI cases and evaluate the effect of the pathogen type on the length of hospital stay (LOS) using the FilmArray® respiratory panel, a multiplex PCR test. The age-specific distribution and seasonality of viruses were investigated between March 26, 2018 and April 12, 2019. Multivariable linear regression analyses were performed to evaluate the effect of pathogen type and coinfection on LOS. Among 153 hospitalized RTI patients, respiratory syncytial virus was the leading cause of hospitalization in infants < 12 months of age (27.7%). Human metapneumovirus and parainfluenza virus were also major causes of hospitalization in patients aged 2-3 years (22.6% and 22.6%, respectively). In the multivariable linear regression model excluding rhinovirus/enterovirus, there was a significant association between viral coinfection and longer LOS (p = 0.012), while single viral infection of any type was not positively correlated with LOS. This study revealed the epidemiology of admission-requiring pediatric RTIs.

Background Rapid molecular diagnosis of infections has contributed to timely treatments and antimicrobial stewardship. However, the benefit and cost-effectiveness vary in each country or community because they have different standard practices and health care systems. In Japan, rapid antigen tests (RATs) have been frequently used for pediatric respiratory infections. We investigated the impact and cost-effectiveness of a multiplex PCR (mPCR) respiratory panel for pediatric respiratory infections in a Japanese community hospital. Methods We replaced RATs with an mPCR respiratory panel (FilmArray®) for admitted pediatric respiratory infections on March 26, 2018. We compared the days of antimicrobial therapy (DOT) and length of stay (LOS) during the mPCR period (March 2018 to April 2019) with those of the RAT period (March 2012 to March 2018). Results During the RAT and mPCR periods, 1132 and 149 patients were analyzed. The DOT/case was 12.82 vs 8.56 (p

Although tertiary hospitals have successfully introduced ASPs by antimicrobial stewardship teams, lots of community hospitals without pediatric infectious disease specialists have difficulty implementing ASP. We present a successful implementation of simple and feasible NICU antimicrobial stewardship program in a Japanese community hospital.We developed a protocol of antimicrobial treatment in our NICU department and have implemented the protocol from September 2017. The protocol consists of start and stop of criteria antimicrobial treatment, weekend report of blood culture result from microbiology department and stopping ordering antimicrobials beforehand for the next day. We compared days of therapy (DOT) during the post-implementation period (September 2017 to August 2018) with that of pre-implementation period (March 2013 to August 2017).In pre- and post-ASP implementation periods, 913 and 194 patients were analyzed. DOT was 175.1 and 41.6/1000 patient-days, respectively (p 0.001) with 76.2% reduction. The percentage of neonates who had any antimicrobials and the percentage of prolonged antimicrobial treatments among neonates who had any antimicrobials decreased significantly (55.3% vs 20.6%, p 0.001 and 65.0% vs 32.5%, p 0.001). The protocol compliance rates were also significantly different (55.4% vs 95.4%; p 0.001). The methicillin-resistant rate of S.aureus rates were significantly reduced in post-ASP period (31.1% vs 12.9%; p = 0.002).This ASP program was easily implemented in a NICU department of a community hospital and significantly reduced antimicrobial prescription. This kind of simple protocol may be successfully scaled-up in resource limited community hospitals without no pediatric infectious disease specialists or antimicrobial stewardship team.

Active surveillance culture (ASC) in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) has been implemented to monitor horizontal transmission and choose appropriate antimicrobials when neonates experience late-onset infections (LOIs). To perform a cost analysis of ASC in the NICU, we evaluated data from a NICU ward in a Japanese community hospital. This was a retrospective study of neonates admitted to the NICU of Nara Prefecture General Medical Center, Nara City, Japan, from April 2012 to May 2017. We implemented biweekly ASC (nasal, stool and umbilical cultures) during this period. We assessed the detection rate for methicillin-sensitive and -resistant S. aureus (MSSA and MRSA) in each culture and reviewed the cases of LOI. Among the 785 cases, MSSA and MRSA were detected in 158 and 75 cases, respectively. Nasal culture was the most sensitive method for detecting MSSA and MRSA. Three cases benefitted from changing the empiric treatment based on previous ASC results, with an annual cost of ¥808,331 (£5773.80 or $7282.30) for ASC. The total cost per one benefited case during the study period was calculated as ¥1,392,126 (£9943.80 or $12,541.70). The total cost per benefited case in risk factor targeted ASC, nasal culture targeted ASC and MRSA-targeted ASC was ¥1,332,264 (£9516.20 or $12,002.30), ¥692,222 (£4944.40 or $6236.20) and ¥858,547 (£6132.50 or $7734.70), respectively. Considering the frequency of S. aureus detection and the cost of each culture, our ASC was modified to use only nasal cultures. This study suggests that the cost performance of ASC should be evaluated with consideration of the characteristics of each NICU.

Introduction Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) is a rare bacterium in Japan, but an outbreak due to nosocomial transmission in medical facilities has been reported in recent years. Here, we report the outbreak of vanA vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VREfm) in multiple wards of Nara Prefectural General Medical Center in 2019 and results of the molecular epidemiology analysis. Methods An aggressive screening program was conducted after the first VREfm was detected in a patient in the A ward. During the outbreak, 6000 rectal swab samples were screened for VRE by culture. Isolates from 60 patients with VREfm detected were clustered using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and multilocus sequence typing (MLST). Results PFGE revealed a cluster consisting of three major clusters and four multi-strains. The first major cluster consisted of 26 isolates, the second consisted of 10 isolates, the third consisted of 6 isolates, and the remaining 4 clusters consisted of 2 isolates. MLST identified an allele profile (ST80) in most clusters of clone types P01–P06 but an allele profile (ST992) in cluster P07. Conclusion Based on the PFGE pattern, this case was considered to be a nosocomial infection due to multiple clones. Later, in addition to screening, sharing of hospital information, cohorting of patients and staff, and strengthening of environmental cleanup were carried out, and horizontal infection was suppressed.

p38α mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) plays important roles in multiple cellular functions by phosphorylating a wide variety of substrates, and therefore, p38α MAPK has been considered as an important drug target. In this study, we designed peptide-based inhibitors for p38α MAPK, which can only inhibit the Smad3 phosphorylation specifically, by targeting the KIM binding site of p38α MAPK. Peptide 6 showed a significant inhibitory potency for the Smad3 phosphorylation by p38α MAPK. Peptide 6 showed no ATP dependency, and did not inhibit the phosphorylation of other substrates by p38α MAPK. The discovery of peptide 6 by targeting the KIM binding site likely provide an opportunity for the discovery of a novel class of allosteric and substrate-specific p38α MAPK inhibitors.

This paper proposes a new torque sharing function for a multi-stage switched reluctance motor using a step-skewed rotor. The operational point to decide the sharing torque of each stack is moved on the inscribed circle of the triangle at constant speed. The reference torque of each stack can be calculated from the coordinates of the operational point. The reference current profiles have no overlapped period. The more effective torque ripple reduction can be realized.

To investigate the clinical use of multiplex polymerase chain reaction (mPCR) in Japan, epidemiological and clinical data for central nervous infections are needed. Here, we report on the epidemiology and economic burden of central nervous system infections and a simulation of the cost-benefit analysis of the Filmarray® Meningitis/Encephalitis (FAME) test for possible clinical use in Japan. We performed FAME tests on samples from 27 patients with pleocytosis aged between 0 and 20 years seen in six community hospitals in Nara and Osaka prefectures. All clinical management procedures were performed without knowledge of the mPCR test results. We analyzed the clinical data and calculated the required reduction in average length of stay for the FAME test to be cost-beneficial. Among the 27 cases, the FAME test revealed causal pathogens in 13 cases (48.1%). The average medical and social costs per case were ¥299,118 ($2,719.2) and ¥171,768 ($1,561.5), respectively. The minimal needed reduction in average length of stay for the FAME test to be cost-beneficial was 0.32- 0.86 days per meningitis case. The result can be informative for evaluating the cost-effectiveness of the clinical use of the FAME test in Japan.

Background Routine catheter tip cultures are not recommended because some cases of colonization, such as with Staphylococcus aureus, can lead to subsequent bacteremia. To evaluate the safety of colonization without antimicrobial treatment, as well as the effectiveness of routine catheter tip cultures in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), we performed a retrospective data analysis in a Japanese community hospital. Methods We reviewed all peripherally inserted central venous catheter tip culture results from the NICU ward between April 2012 and June 2017 and noted outcome (i.e. antimicrobial treatment or subsequent infection). We then performed a cost analysis for routine catheter tip culturing on patients who were symptom free during the study period. Results Of the 93 positive cases in 80 patients from 1,051 catheter tip cultures, seven patients had suspected infection and were treated with antimicrobials. The other 73 symptom-free, positive patients had no subsequent or exacerbated symptoms indicative of an infection, and did not have antimicrobial treatment. The total cost for catheter tip culturing during the study period was ¥548 731. After excluding patients with symptoms of infection at the time of culture, the efficacy of routine catheter tip cultures on symptom-free patients was estimated to be zero. Conclusion Symptom-free colonization did not affect clinician management in this study, and all colonized patients without suspected infection were safely managed without antimicrobials. Furthermore, routine catheter tip culturing was not cost-effective; therefore, this practice may be no longer recommended in the NICU.

Introduction. Vibrio vulnificus (V. vulnificus) causes a severe infection that develops in the compromised host. Its pathophysiology is classified into three types: (1) primary septicaemia, (2) gastrointestinal illness pattern and (3) wound infection pattern. Of these, primary septicaemia is critical. V. vulnificus can be classified into three biotypes and two genotypes and its pathogenicity is type-dependent. Case presentation. A 47-year-old man presented to a local hospital with chief complaints of fever, bilateral lower limb pain and diarrhoea. He had no history of foreign travel or known medical problems. He was in septic shock and developed fulminant purpura within 24 h of the onset. High-dose vasopressor and antibiotic administration failed to alter his status and he died 3 days after the onset of symptoms. V. vulnificus was isolated from blood, skin and nasal discharge cultures. Biotype and gene analysis of the microbe isolated identified it as Biotype 3, mainly reported in Israel in wound infections, and Genotype E, implicating an environmental isolate. These typing analyses indicated that the microbe isolated could be classified as a type with low pathogenicity. Conclusion. This case highlighted that Biotype 3 and Genotype E can also cause primary septicaemia. Although the majority of reports on Biotype 3 have been from the Middle East, this experience with the present case provided evidence that the habitat of Biotype 3 V. vulnificus has been extending to East Asia as well.

In evaluating kinase inhibitors, kinetic parameters such as association/dissociation rate constants are valuable information, as are equilibrium parameters K D and IC 50 values. Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) is a powerful technique to investigate these parameters. However, results are often complicated because of impaired conformations by inappropriate conditions required for protein immobilization and/or heterogeneity of the orientation of immobilization. In addition, conventional SPR experiments are generally time-consuming. Here we introduce the use of single-site specifically biotinylated kinases combined with a multichannel SPR device to improve such problems. Kinetic parameters of four compounds—staurosporine, dasatinib, sunitinib, and lapatinib—against six kinases were determined by the ProteOn XPR36 system. The very slow off-rate of lapatinib from the epidermal growth factor receptor and dasatinib from Bruton’s tyrosine kinase and colony stimulating factor 1 receptor (CSF1R) were confirmed. Furthermore, IC 50 values were determined by an activity-based assay. Evaluating both physicochemical and biochemical properties would help to understand the detailed character of the compound.

Background Antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASP) have been implemented in many hospitals, including NICU departments. Although tertiary hospitals have successfully introduced ASPs by antimicrobial stewardship teams, lots of community hospitals without pediatric infectious disease specialists have difficulty implementing ASP. We present a successful implementation of simple and feasible NICU antimicrobial stewardship program in a Japanese community hospital. Methods We developed a protocol of antimicrobial treatment in the NICU department of Nara Prefecture General Medical Center, Nara, Japan and have implemented it from September 2017. The protocol consists of antimicrobial treatment criteria (criteria for starting antimicrobials for neonates with suspected early-onset infection, criteria of prolonged antimicrobial treatment for more than 48 hours and duration of treatment), weekend report of blood culture result from microbiology department and stopping ordering antimicrobials beforehand for the next day. We compared days of therapy (DOT) during the post-implementation period (September 2017 to March 2018) with that of the pre-implementation period (March 2013 to August 2017). Results During the pre- and post-ASP implementations, 913 and 92 patients were admitted to NICU. Mean DOT/1,000 patient-days were 217.9 and 56.6 in pre- and post-ASP implementations (P < 0.001) with 74.0% reduction of antimicrobial prescriptions. Mortality rates were 0.4% and 0.0% (P = 0.54), and 4.6% and 5.3% of patients had sepsis (P = 0.76), respectively. Weekend reports of blood culture result were performed in six patients and shortened their length of antimicrobial treatment during the post-ASP implementation period. Conclusion This ASP program was easily implemented in a NICU department of a community hospital and significantly reduced antimicrobial prescription. This kind of simple protocol may be successfully scaled-up in resource limited community hospitals without any pediatric infectious disease specialists or antimicrobial stewardship teams. Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures.

Background: Neural crest cells (NC cells) are highly migratory multipotent cells. Their multipotency is transient at the early stage of their generation; soon after emerging from the neural tube, these cells turn into lineage-restricted precursors. However, recent studies have disputed this conventionally believed paradigm. In this study, we analyzed the differentiation potency of NC-derived cells after their arrival at target tissues. Results: Using Sox10-IRES-Venus mice, we found that the NC-derived cells in the skin, DRG, and inner ear could be divided into two populations: Sox10-positive/Kit-negative cells (Sox10+/Kit- cells) and Sox10- and Kit-positive cells (Sox10+/Kit+ cells). Only the Sox10+/Kit- cells were detected in the intestines. Unexpectedly, the Sox10+/Kit+ cells differentiated into neurons, glial cells, and melanocytes, showing that they had maintained their multipotency even after having entered the target tissues. The Sox10+/Kit+ cells in the DRG maintained their multipotency for a restricted period during the earlier embryonic stages, whereas those in the skin and inner ear were multipotent yet even in later embryonic stages. Conclusions: We showed that NC-derived Sox10+/Kit+ cells maintained their multipotency even after entry into the target tissues. This unexpected differentiation potency of these cells in tissues seems to have been strictly restricted by the tissue microenvironment. Developmental Dynamics 243:368–380, 2014. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The specificities of nine approved tyrosine kinase inhibitors (imatinib, dasatinib, nilotinib, gefitinib, erlotinib, lapatinib, sorafenib, sunitinib, and pazopanib) were determined by activity-based kinase profiling using a large panel of human recombinant active kinases. This panel consisted of 79 tyrosine kinases, 199 serine/threonine kinases, three lipid kinases, and 29 disease-relevant mutant kinases. Many potential targets of each inhibitor were identified by kinase profiling at the K(m) for ATP. In addition, profiling at a physiological ATP concentration (1 mm) was carried out, and the IC(50) values of the inhibitors against each kinase were compared with the estimated plasma-free concentration (calculated from published pharmacokinetic parameters of plasma C(trough) and C(max) values). This analysis revealed that the approved kinase inhibitors were well optimized for their target kinases. This profiling also implicates activity at particular off-target kinases in drug side effects. Thus, large-scale kinase profiling at both K(m) and physiological ATP concentrations could be useful in characterizing the targets and off-targets of kinase inhibitors.

It is known that some kinase inhibitors are sensitive to the phosphorylation state of the kinase, and therefore those compounds can discriminate between a phosphorylated and unphosphorylated protein. In this study, we prepared two colony stimulating factor-1 receptor (CSF-1R) tyrosine kinase proteins: one highly phosphorylated by autophosphorylation and the other dephosphorylated by phosphatase treatment. These kinases were subjected to an activity-based assay to investigate the effect of their phosphorylation state on the potency of several kinase inhibitors. Dasatinib, sorafenib, PD173074 and staurosporine showed similar inhibition against different phosphorylation states of CSF-1R, but pazopanib, sunitinib, GW2580 and imatinib showed more potent inhibition against dephosphorylated CSF-1R. Binding analysis of the inhibitors to the two different phosphorylation forms of CSF-1R, using surface plasmon resonance spectrometry, revealed that staurosporine bound to both forms with similar affinity, but sunitinib bound to the dephosphorylated form with higher affinity. Thus, these observations suggest that sunitinib binds preferentially to the inactive form, preventing the activation of CSF-1R. Screening against different activation states of kinases should be an important approach for prioritizing compounds and should facilitate inhibitor design.

Poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE) fiber with a superior mechanical property was prepared directly from its emulsion by the novel manufacturing process. The PTFE emulsion turned into a paste when a high shear flow was applied and the paste was extruded through a nozzle into a strand consisting of fine PTFE particles. The diameter of the strand was reduced stepwise by applying the die-drawing process through a conical die at a low temperature. The strand was further die-drawn down at elevated temperatures into fine PTFE fibers with a highly oriented crystalline structure. The crystalline orientation factor of the PTFE fiber reached very close to unity. Although the fibers obtained have a very high tensile modulus, the tensile strength was not as high as that expected from the crystalline orientation, suggesting that the presence of some defects in the PTFE fiber formed in the instantaneous deformation.

By spreading an alcohol suspension of hydrophobic mono-disperse silica particles on the surface of water, an ordered mono-particulate film might be self-assembled on it. In this investigation, the formation mechanism of an ordered mono-particulate film on the water's surface was elucidated. During the initial stage of the suspension spreading, the floating hydrophobic particles that appeared on the surface of water formed many small particle film fragments. These fragmented films fastly move through the water's surface by two-dimensional Marangoni convection. As the particle film coverage of the water's surface increased, the two-dimensional motion of the fragmented films on the surface of water gradually became weak. These aggregated and then formed a large two-dimensional particle film. The particle film was compressed by the two-dimensional pressure induced by the Marangoni convection. This compression would drive the two-dimensional ordering. The formation of ordered two-dimensional particle arrays on the surface of water would be a kind of Kirkwood-Alder phase transition phenomenon. The prepared particle films are easily transferred to a substrate by withdrawing the immersed substrate. The SEM observations of the transferred particulate films reveal that the particle film formed on the surface of water was transferred to the substrate without any significant deterioration of the ordering regularity. Furthermore, it can be concluded that both the optimum hydrohobicity of the particles and Marangoni surface convection are required to form a highly ordered arrangement of the particles. Especially, the Marangoni convection plays an important role in the particle ordering process. The continuous fabrication of the particulate film on a substrate will become possible by transcribing it on the substrate at the same time while forming the particle film on the surface of water.

The small genome of fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe contains 4824 predicted genes and gene disruption suggests that approximately 850 are essential for viability. To obtain information on interactions among genes required for chromosome segregation, an approach called Strategy B was taken using mass transformation of the 1015 temperature-sensitive (ts) mutants that were made by random mutagenesis and transformed by plasmids carrying the genes for securin, separase, condensin, cohesin, kinetochore microtubule-binding proteins Dis1/Mtc1 or histones. Mutant strains whose phenotypes were either suppressed or inhibited by plasmids were selected. Each plasmid interacted positively or negatively with the average 14 strains. Identification of the mutant gene products by cloning revealed many hitherto unknown interactions. The interactive networks of segregation therefore may consist of genes with a variety of functions. For example, separase/Cut1 interacts with Cdc48/p97/VCP, which stabilizes securin and separase. Surprisingly, S. pombe cdc48 mutants displayed the mitotic phenotype highly similar to separase/cut1 mutants. This approach also provides a novel way of mutant isolation, resulting in two histone H2B strains and a cohesion mutant with a new phenotype.

We discuss here the complementarity effect of rewriting services in a language-translation Web service work-flow. The communication mediated by the machine translation service includes mistranslations and changed meanings, which are caused by the quality of the machine translation. To reduce these problems, we propose service reallocation and assemblage of the rewriting service by humans at each stage of the workflow. We set up two rewriting service allocation patterns: 1) a reallocation pattern as a previous rewriting process, and 2) a reallocation pattern as a follow-on rewriting process, for workflows consisting only of machine translations. A team of human judges provide multiple assessments of adequacy and fluency of sample sentences that are translated from English to Japanese using each pattern. Results indicated that the Japanese rewriting task as a follow-on rewriting service provided greater fluency than an English rewriting task as a previous rewriting service, with nearly equal adequacy.

Neural crest cells (NC cells) are highly migratory multipotent cells. Their multipotency is transient at the early stage of their generation; soon after emerging from the neural tube, these cells turn into lineage-restricted precursors. However, recent studies have disputed this conventionally believed paradigm. In this study, we analyzed the differentiation potency of NC-derived cells after their arrival at target tissues.Using Sox10-IRES-Venus mice, we found that the NC-derived cells in the skin, DRG, and inner ear could be divided into two populations: Sox10-positive/Kit-negative cells (Sox10+/Kit- cells) and Sox10- and Kit-positive cells (Sox10+/Kit+ cells). Only the Sox10+/Kit- cells were detected in the intestines. Unexpectedly, the Sox10+/Kit+ cells differentiated into neurons, glial cells, and melanocytes, showing that they had maintained their multipotency even after having entered the target tissues. The Sox10+/Kit+ cells in the DRG maintained their multipotency for a restricted period during the earlier embryonic stages, whereas those in the skin and inner ear were multipotent yet even in later embryonic stages.We showed that NC-derived Sox10+/Kit+ cells maintained their multipotency even after entry into the target tissues. This unexpected differentiation potency of these cells in tissues seems to have been strictly restricted by the tissue microenvironment.

SEMG (surface EMG) has many benefits, for example measuring SEMG is easy and a characteristic pattern of SEMG is obtained for each different movement. Therefore, SEMG that is generated by body movement is able to use as a control signal for some electric powered equipments. Our objective is the perfect control of the computer by using SEMG that is generated from forearms. In this paper, we will talk about our developed interface system that works as a keyboard of the computer.

In this work, hierarchical motion compensated three-dimensional (3-D) filter banks for spatio-temporal multi-resoution analysis are presented as new tools for scalable video format control. For recent developments in scalable video coding, most of them are based on 3-D wavelet transform with motion compensation. To achieve the function of frame-rate and spatial resolution scalabilities, motion compensated temporal filtering (MCTF) through lifting wavelet transform currently attracts many researchers as an effective temporal decomposition tool. As previous works, we proposed single stage deinterlacer banks as novel 3-D filter banks. Unlike other filter banks, our proposed system is constructed in a way unique to multi-dimensional systems by using invertible deinterlacers, which we have proposed before. The single stage deinterlacer banks decompose a progressive video into two subband sequences of a half frame-rate in the progressive scanning manner. Even though the system handles interlaced videos as intermediate data, introducing a multistage decomposition is simply achieved because the output sequences have also the progressive format as like the input. Our proposed hierarchical deinterlacer banks are accompanied by 2-D discrete wavelet transforms (DWT) as spatial transforms. The multistage technique provides interlaced sequences as well as several reduced-rate progressive sequences while maintaining the reconstruction of the original full-resolution full-rate video sequence. We show that fine granular control of spatio-temporal resolution can be acchieved through the hierarchical process. Some experimental results show novel functions and the significance of the proposed filter banks.

1 Excerpt from concluding chapter of forthcoming book on race relations and Christian mission, to be published by Friendship Press