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Background: The prognosis of cancer survivors has dramatically improved, but effective strategies for cancer treatment-related cardiovascular disorders (CTRCD) remain to be elucidated in the emerging field of cardio-oncology. In this study, we investigated risk factors for CTRCD in breast cancer patients treated with trastuzumab. Methods and Results: We performed a retrospective analysis of 141 consecutive women who received adjuvant trastuzumab, and underwent baseline (BL) and follow-up (FU) echocardiography at Juntendo University between April 2010 and December 2016. The major concomitant treatment was anthracyclines in 94% and radiotherapy in 53%. During the median treatment period of 11 months, there were 22 (15.6%) cardiology consultations, 3 (2.1%) treatment interruptions with irreversible CTRCD, and no deaths. Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) was decreased from a median 67.5% (BL) to 63.4% (FU; P

This study evaluated stages of health behavior change and the prevalence of physical inactivity, unhealthy eating, poor stress management, alcohol consumption, and smoking in Inner Mongolia...

Smoking negatively affects physical and psychological well-being. Smoking cessation is a pressing health concern in the Republic of China. This study aimed to examine differences among the effects ...

Aims Unhealthy eating behavior is a serious health concern among secondary school students in Inner Mongolia. To predict their healthy food choices and devise methods of correcting unhealthy choices, we sought to confirm the cross-cultural validity of the theory of planned behavior among Inner Mongolian students. Materials and methods A cross-sectional study, conducted between November and December 2014. Overall, 3047 students were enrolled. We devised a questionnaire based on the theory of planned behavior to measure its components (intentions, attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control) in relation to healthy food choices; we also assessed their current engagement in healthy food choices. Results A principal component analysis revealed high contribution rates for the components (69.32%–88.77%). A confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the components of the questionnaire had adequate model fit (goodness of fit index = 0.997, adjusted goodness of fit index = 0.984, comparative fit index = 0.998, and root mean square error of approximation = 0.049). Notably, data from participants within the suburbs did not support the theory of planned behavior construction. Several paths did not predict the hypothesis variables. However, attitudes toward healthy food choices strongly predicted behavioral intention (path coefficients 0.49–0.77, p Conclusion Our results support that the theory of planned behavior can apply to secondary school students in urban areas. Furthermore, attitudes towards healthy food choices were the best predictor of behavioral intentions to engage in such choices in Inner Mongolian students.

Clusters of holes, such as those in a lotus seedpod, induce trypophobic discomfort. Previous research has demonstrated that high-contrast energy at midrange spatial frequencies in images causes trypophobic discomfort. The present study examined the effects on discomfort of eliminating various spatial frequency components from the images to reveal how each spatial frequency contributes to the discomfort. Experiment 1 showed that eliminating midrange spatial frequencies did not affect trypophobic discomfort, while Experiment 2 revealed that images of holes that consisted of only high-spatial frequencies evoked less discomfort than other images and that images containing only low or midrange spatial frequencies induced as much trypophobic discomfort as did the original images. Finally, Experiment 3 found that participants with a high level of the trypophobic trait experienced stronger discomfort from the original images and the images containing only low or midrange spatial frequencies than participants with a low level of the trypophobic trait. Our findings thus suggest that trypophobic discomfort can be induced by middle and low spatial frequencies.

The use of antibodies against programmed cell death 1 (PD-1), which block inhibitory T cell checkpoints, is a promising new therapy for advanced malignant melanoma and NSCLC. However, patients with autoimmune diseases were excluded at the clinical trial using such immune checkpoint inhibitor, because of the possibilities to worsen an adverse event of the autoimmune disease. Thus, the efficacy and toxicity of nivolumab using such cases have not been reported yet. A 70-year-old woman with bone and duodenal metastasis of primary mucosal melanoma with complications of the rheumatoid arthritis was treated with nivolumab. After 4 weeks injection of nivolumab, bone metastasis was diminished. After receiving six courses of nivolumab therapy, she maintained a complete response for 9 months, without rheumatic exacerbation or drug-related adverse events. Establishment of the biomarker of the effect prediction of the PD-1 antibody, the adverse event prediction will be important in future.

Categorization bias in social cognition is widely observed, as it is more beneficial to commit low-risk biases in order to reduce high-risk biases. Here, we hypothesized that a low capacity of self-protection leads to a biased social categorization of others as “harmful”. To examine this, silhouettes of human body, which had a sexually dimorphic cue (waist-to-hip ratio), were presented, and participants categorized the stimuli as being either “female” or “male”. Participants’ basic physical fitness was measured, and we manipulated exogenous physical load by either a heavy or a light backpack. Physical load did not significantly influence sex categorization. In contrast, only female participants tended to categorize the stimuli as “male” more, as basic physical fitness increased, suggesting that basic physical fitness, not physical load, affects sex categorization for females. Our findings shed new light on the role of fitness factors in social cognition.

The miniature faking effect is a perceptual phenomenon where life-sized objects and landscape in tilt-shift photographs are perceived to be miniature. Previous studies have contributed to the generation of miniature faking; these include blur (bokeh), camera angle, vantage point, and perceived distance. Although color has also been considered to be a crucial factor in inducing the miniature faking effect, research based on systematical manipulations of color attributes has not been conducted. In the present study, we conducted two experiments, namely, paper-based and display-based to control the color lightness and saturation of two bird'seye view photographs. The results showed that the rated miniature faking effect is dependent on alterations of color lightness and saturation. Higher saturation, whereas lower lightness was found to enhance the miniature faking effect. These results demonstrated the crucial role of color in inducing the perception of miniature faking and further provided new materials to explore the general cognitive mechanism involved in miniature faking.

Background: Cigarette smoking remains a significant public health problem. However, current treatment programs have not yet succeeded in sufficiently reducing smoking rates. The study aimed to examine whether patients’ recognition of “spirometric-lung-age (SLA)” estimated from spirometry data prompts smoking cessation. Methods: From December 2010 to September 2011, participating smokers were prospectively enrolled into the standardized smoking cessation program (Visits 1–5 for 12 weeks) and assigned single-blindly to either SLA assessment or control groups. The SLA group was informed of the estimated age of their lungs from spirometry analysis and given an opportunity to recognize the difference from their actual chronological age, whereas the control group was not. The primary calculation of outcome was the smoking quit rate on Visit 5, whereas the secondary end-point was the proportion of patients who remained abstinent 1 year later. Results: One hundred and twenty-six Japanese smokers (88 males) participated and were randomly assigned to the SLA group (n=52) or the control group (n=74). The smoking quit rate on Visit 5 was similar in the SLA assessment group and control group (59.6% vs . 41.9%; P=0.0700). However, the proportion of patients who remained abstinent 1 year later was similar in both groups (78.6% vs . 69.0%; P=0.5497). Multivariate logistic regression analysis after adjusting baseline characteristics demonstrated that telling patients their SLA, the use of varenicline, and age were significantly associated with smoking quit rate on Visit 5 whereas only age was associated with remaining abstinent 1 year later. Conclusions: Telling patients their SLA can become a useful tool prompting smoking cessation among Japanese smokers although other factors such as pharmacotherapy and age also influence the cessation of smoking.

Perceived duration of a moving stimulus increases with the speed of the motion. However, a recent study found that the perceived duration of a decelerating stimulus was longer than that of an accelerating one, even though their averaged speed was identical (Matthews 2011 Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance37 1617–1627). We conducted three experiments to discover how this speed-change-induced time distortion occurs. We found that the perceived duration of a decelerating motion was longer than that of an accelerating one both in sub-second and supra-second presentation duration conditions, when speed changed linearly over time (experiment 1). The differences could not be explained by the differences in average perceived speed between them (experiment 2). Moreover, the perceived duration of a decelerating motion was also longer than that of an accelerating one, even when speed changed once during the presentation duration (experiment 3). These results suggest that average speed differences in the early and late parts of the presentation duration are important for the occurrence of the speed-change-induced time distortion.

The present study investigated whether aurally presented mimetic words affect the judgment of the final position of a moving object. In Experiment 1, horizontal apparent motion of a visual target was presented, and an auditory mimetic word of “byun” (representing rapid forward motion), “pitari” (representing stop of motion), or “nisahi” (nonsense syllable) was presented via headphones. Observers were asked to judge which of two test stimuli was horizontally aligned with the target. The results showed that forward displacement in the “pitari” condition was significantly smaller than in the “byun” and “nisahi” conditions. However, when non-mimetic but meaningful words were presented (Experiment 2), this effect did not occur. Our findings suggest that the mimetic words, especially that meaning stop of motion, affect spatial localization by means of mental imagery regarding “stop” established by the phonological information of the word.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors have been getting increasing attention in the field of cancer treatment, resulting in the investigation of numerous drugs and target cancers. Clinical trials of immune checkpoint inhibitors have focused on malignant melanomas and non-small cell lung cancer;however, recently, clinical trials have been carried out for other cancers. To date, 31 phase III clinical trials have been conducted for 13 types of cancer. Recently, the results of the CheckMate025 kidney cancer and CheckMate141 head and neck cancer trials have been reported. These reports showed that nivolumab significantly enhanced overall survival in comparison to that associated with an existing second-line treatment drug. Based on these results, the approval of nivolumab for use in renal cell cancer and head and neck cancer is expected in the near future. Furthermore, the results of 20 phase III clinical trials will be submitted from 2017 to 2019, expanding the approval of immune checkpoint inhibitors. However, many issues such as biomarker searches, the evaluation of antitumor effects, and the impact on medical economy remain to be resolved. In this report, we outline clinical trial trends and the future prospects for immune checkpoint inhibitors.

It has been well known that habitual smoking accelerates premature skin ageing recognized as 'smoker's face'. However, the effect of smoking cessation on the appearance of skin has not been elucidated. The aim of this study was to evaluate objectively the effect of smoking cessation on the skin's appearance. The stratum corneum carbonyl protein level and skin colour of the cheek and the hand were measured. The change before and during the smoking cessation treatment (0, 2, 4, 8 and 12 weeks), and the success or failure in smoking cessation, was compared and examined. Eighty-four cases who had smoking cessation treatment were examined. The level of the stratum corneum carbonyl protein did not show any difference comparing before and after treatment for the smoking cessation success group and the failure group. The lightness of skin colour showed an upward tendency 4-12 weeks after starting the treatment in the success group and increased significantly compared with the failure group. The redness showed a significant decrease in comparison with before the treatment, and it also showed a significant decrease compared with the failure group. The yellowness did not show any clear tendency. Also, the haemoglobin showed a decreased tendency. Furthermore, multivariate statistical analysis showed a possibility that the lightness and haemoglobin could be changed by smoking cessation treatment. In conclusion, our study showed that an upward tendency of skin lightness was seen to correspond with a haemoglobin decrease accompanied by smoking cessation. If we can easily measure skin improvement as an effect of smoking cessation, it is thought to be a useful aid for smoking cessation support.

The present study examined whether implicit motion information from static images influences perceived duration of image presentation. In Experiments 1 and 2, we presented observers with images of a human and an animal character in running and standing postures. The results revealed that the perceived presentation duration of running images was longer than that of standing images. In Experiments 3 and 4, we used abstract block-like images that imitated the human figures used in Experiment 1, presented with different instructions to change the observers' interpretations of the stimuli. We found that the perceived duration of the block image presented as a man running was longer than that of the image presented as a man standing still. However, this effect diminished when the participants were told the images were green onions (objects with no implied motion), suggesting that the effect of implied motion cannot be attributed to low-level visual differences. These results suggest that implied motion increases the perceived duration of image presentation. The potential involvement of higher-order motion processing and the mirror neuron system is discussed.

In the scintillating grid illusion, illusory dark spots are perceived on white patches at the intersections of gray bars. Previous studies have suggested that processing related to the orientation of the bars plays a role in this illusion, but the specific underlying mechanisms are unclear. In the present study, we investigated the role of orientation processing across the intersection in generating the scintillating grid illusion. The results revealed that the illusion was attenuated when the patch was located at the intersection of short bars (Experiment 1), irrespective of the spatial distance between patches (Experiment 2). The local cruciform patterns determined the strength of the illusion, even when lateral offset of the patches was employed (Experiment 3). The illusion was observed even when a small spatial gap was introduced around the patches. A larger gap produced a weaker illusion (Experiment 4). Spatial offsets of the bars across the gapped intersection greatly reduced the illusion (Experiment 5). We discuss these findings with regard to the activity of S1-type simple cells that respond to the luminance along an oriented edge across the intersection.

In this study, we examined pattern goodness in natural scenes using stone arrangements in a Japanese rock garden. The results showed that the stone arrangement simulating the rock garden at the Ryoan-ji Temple and arrangements with a single stone deleted from that simulation were evaluated highly. These arrangements had a self-similar spatial structure, namely, covert regularity, or had simple structures in medial axis transformation. These arrangements also produced impressions of greater width and depth than other arrangements. In contrast, sector arrangements, which gave the most regular impression, were evaluated the lowest for goodness. This suggests that the pattern goodness of natural scenes or the artistic evaluation does not always correspond to overt regularity, often considered to determine pattern goodness. The most important finding is that two types of sector arrangement and two types of random arrangement were classified in their respective groups by integrated multiple impressions, although they did not have similar perceptual appearances. An intuitive judgment based on integrated impressions may allow us to notice the hidden order in spatial structures and obtain substantial understanding of the structure.

Aims and background Although zoledronic acid (ZOL) has been reported to inhibit bone metastasis from lung cancer, the optimum chemotherapy regimen in combination with ZOL has not yet been determined. Methods and study design Eighteen patients having non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with bone metastasis who received carboplatin/nedaplatin plus paclitaxel combined with ZOL (4 mg every 28 days) were enrolled to investigate the feasibility of this treatment. The efficacy was evaluated by the percentage of patients at 9 months who were receiving radiation therapy, the time to first radiation treatment, and quality of life. Adverse effects were also evaluated. Results Only 3 among 18 patients received radiation therapy for bone metastases during the 9 months of the study. ZOL seems to prolong the median time to the first radiation treatment and maintain the quality of life regarding pain and activity status. No patients discontinued the treatment, although grade 3 or 4 treatment-related adverse effects occurred in 8 patients. Conclusions ZOL combined with carboplatin/nedaplatin plus paclitaxel is an effective and tolerable treatment for NSCLC with bone metastases.

Background: The lung is one of the sites of granulomatous responses, which are characterized by the recruitment and organization of activated macrophages and lymphocytes. There have been several reports that have shown that some pulmonary granulomatous diseases, such as sarcoidosis and nontuberculous mycobacterial disease, are likely to be characterized by a preponderance in postmenopausal females. Although sex hormones have been shown to play an important role in the regulation of the immune system, the influence of sex hormones on pulmonary granuloma formation is still unclear. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to assess whether sex hormones are involved in granulomatous inflammation and to evaluate how sex hormones modulate this response in the lung. Methods: Ovariectomized rats were used as an experimental postmenopausal model in which chronic pulmonary granulomatous inflammation was induced by intravenous injection of complete Freund’s adjuvant. Results: Histological analysis of lung tissues demonstrated enhancement of granuloma formation in the ovariectomized group. Such enhanced granuloma formation was significantly associated with generalized Th1-biased cytokine production in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. Conclusion: These results indicate that sex hormones play an important role in pulmonary granuloma formation by altering the Th1 responses.

The present study examined the relation between the manner of perceptual organization and pattern goodness. We presented regularly arranged dot patterns (Experiment 1) and randomly arranged dot patterns (Experiment 2). In both experiments, the participants were asked to evaluate the goodness of the patterns using a 7-point scale and to encircle the dots in the manner that the participants had organized them. The results for both experiments showed that patterns organized with fewer groups were rated as better than patterns organized with more groups, despite having the same structure. These results indicate that the variation in pattern goodness which is not explained by the physical structure of the pattern is explained by the manner of perceptual organization used by the observer.

The patient was 54-year-old woman diagnosed as recurrent invasive thymoma (type B3; WHO classification). Although partial response was obtained by systemic chemotherapy (PAC: cisplatin, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide), the tumor started to become enlarged after cessation of chemotherapy. Combined treatment of octreotide and prednisolone was administrated because various chemotherapies, including PAC, were not effective. After seven months, the tumor size was markedly decreased. The combination of octreotide and prednisolone should be considered as one of the choices of treatment in patients with recurrent thymoma.

The scintillating grid illusion refers to the illusory perception of black spots on luminance patches at the intersections of a grey grid on a black background. We examined how spatial parameters of luminance patches modulated the strength of the illusion. In experiment 1, we controlled the size and shape of the luminance patches. For the largest-size conditions tested, we found a significant reduction in the strength of the illusion with squares when compared to circles or diamonds. In experiment 2, we controlled the orientation of quadrangle patches and confirmed a significantly larger reduction in the strength of the illusion when the edge orientations of quadrangle patches were vertical and horizontal (square) than when they were oblique (diamond). To explore the relationship between orientation processing and scintillating grid illusion, we controlled, in experiment 3, the global orientation of the display; the strength of the illusion with diamonds was significantly weaker when it was rotated by 45° than when it was not rotated. These results indicate that it is not only the difference of edge orientation of luminance patches, but also the orientation with respect to the grid that determines the strength of the illusion.

Visual attention automatically shifts in the direction of another person's gaze shift. However, this gaze cueing effect has been tested only in static situations. In the present study, we examined whether dynamic gaze cueing, triggered by the dynamic gaze shift of another person, could alter the perceived direction of apparent motion. In Experiment 1, we presented a drifting or counterphased flickering sinusoidal grating in the upper visual field and a pictorial face stimulus with its eyes smoothly moved towards the left or right side of the grating in the lower visual field. Observers were asked to report the perceived motion direction in the grating; consequently, it was biased in the direction of the gaze shift. In Experiment 2, we ruled out the possibility of motion capture due to the motion signals in the eyes as a source of bias in the previous experiment. From these results, we concluded that dynamic gaze cueing altered perceived motion direction, and we proposed the usefulness of our approach in exploring gaze perception in dynamic environments.

Motion lines (MLs) are a pictorial technique used to represent object movement in a still picture. This study explored how MLs contribute to motion perception. In Experiment 1, we reported the creation of a motion illusion caused by MLs: random displacements of objects with MLs on each frame were perceived as unidirectional global motion along the pictorial motion direction implied by MLs. In Experiment 2, we showed that the illusory global motion in the peripheral visual field captured the perceived motion direction of random displacement of objects without MLs in the central visual field, and confirmed that the results in Experiment 1 did not stem simply from response bias, but resulted from perceptual processing. In Experiment 3, we showed that the spatial arrangement of orientation information rather than ML length is important for the illusory global motion. Our results indicate that the ML effect is based on perceptual processing rather than response bias, and that comparison of neighboring orientation components may underlie the determination of pictorial motion direction with MLs.

In motion-induced blindness (MIB), a target within rotating random dots is occasionally hidden from observers' consciousness during observation. In the present study, a red ring-like cue was centered on a target and presented immediately after observers reported subjective disappearance of the target in MIB (Experiment 1). The radius of the cue was systematically modulated. Observers quickly regained awareness of the disappeared object only after they were provided with a pinpoint cue of its location. We also found that a flickering cue at 1Hz hindered MIB when the radius of the cue was critically small (Experiment 2). Furthermore, abrupt onset of a small square was enough to regain awareness of the target (Experiment 3). Successful revival of the target with a small cue indicates that critical spatial distribution of visual attention determines what in the visual scene is included in visual awareness.

This study explored how motion lines (ML) can contribute to the memory displacement of an object. Three experiments were conducted to examine the memorized position of a target with ML using manual localization tasks, revealing that the reproduced position was biased in the direction implied by the ML. Two further experiments successfully ruled out the possibility that the memory displacement stemmed from a repulsive manual localization tendency, an attention repulsion-like effect, or perceptual illusory displacement of the object. These results indicated that ML trigger anticipation of the future position of the object, resulting in memory displacement.

This study examined the subjective disappearance of a visual object induced by a neighboring flickering ring (Experiments 1 and 2), a set of four flickering dots (Experiment 3), and apparent motion (Experiment 4) as flickering flankers. Observers were asked to report whether a target disappeared during 10 s of stimulus presentation. We used the proportion of disappearance as a measure of performance. Interestingly, subjective disappearance was rarely observed when flickering flankers were presented with a separation of less than 0.5 degrees from the target. However, disappearance was observed when dynamic random-dot patterns were presented with a separation of less than 0.5 degrees from the target border (Experiment 5). Our results indicate that the flicker of flankers near the target disturbs target adaptation or attentional inhibition, causing persistent target representation in higher-order object selection, and resulting in non-disappearance of the target.