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Fragmentation of forest habitat has negative effects on arboreal mammals, compromising their natural dispersal and foraging movements. This paper describes an evolving series of mitigation measures aimed at creating cost-effective continuity pathways for arboreal mammals in Japan. The projects have focused on the endemic Japanese dormouse (Glirulus japonicus) a scarce, but popular and iconic species which provides an effective vehicle for environmental education and public engagement.

Background Developmental disorders associated with Becker muscular dystrophy (BMD), possibly resulting from a lack of dystrophin in the brain, have been reported, but their importance is not fully understood. We report a case of a BMD patient who had been socially withdrawn due to mental retardation and autism spectrum disorder and could not receive appropriate medical services, resulting in delayed detection of severe cardiomyopathy and embolic strokes which developed as complications of BMD. Case report: The case is a 41-year-old male. In elementary school, he was the slowest runner in his class and had poor grades. He started missing school due to bullying in junior high school and had been socially withdrawn for 24 years. He developed difficulty walking due to progressive muscle weakness in the extremities and lost ambulation at age 36. At age 41, he was referred to our hospital by public health support services to address his social withdrawal. Muscle biopsy led to the diagnosis of BMD. Psychological examination revealed mild mental retardation and autism spectrum disorder, which may have resulted in social isolation. He had severe cardiomyopathy and asymptomatic cerebral infarction due to heart failure. Conclusion In BMD patients, developmental disorders can potentially hinder access to appropriate medical treatment. BMD is an important differential diagnosis for physically disabled children with developmental disorders. Early intellectual and psychological interventions and evaluation of complications are important for improving patient prognosis and quality of life.

Purpose: Although hypnotic drug use is a known risk factor for falls, few reports have analyzed fall risk associated with individual hypnotic drugs after adjusting for confounding factors. Therefore, it remains unclear whether clinically prescribed benzodiazepine receptor agonist, melatonin receptor agonist, and/or orexin receptor antagonist use is safe in older patients. Here, we aim to assess the influence of various hypnotic drugs on fall risk in older patients admitted to acute care hospitals. Methods: We investigated the relationship between nocturnal falls and sleeping pill use among 8,044 hospitalized patients aged > 65 years. We used a propensity score matching method to homogenize characteristics of patients with and without nocturnal falls (n = 145 patients in each group) using 24 extracted factors (excluding hypnotic drugs) as covariates. Results: Our analysis of fall risk for each hypnotic drug revealed that benzodiazepine receptor agonists were the only drugs significantly associated with falls, suggesting that use of the drugs is a risk factor for falls in older adults (p = 0.003). In addition, a multivariate analysis of 24 selected factors, excluding hypnotic drugs, revealed that patients with advanced recurrent malignancies were at greatest risk of experiencing falls (OR: 2.62; 95% CI: 1.23–5.60; p = 0.013). Conclusion: Benzodiazepine receptor agonists should be avoided in older hospitalized patients since they increase fall risk, with melatonin and orexin receptor antagonists used instead. Particularly, fall risk associated with hypnotic drugs should be considered in patients with advanced recurrent malignancies.

Intravascular large B-cell lymphoma is an extranodal large B-cell lymphoma characterized by the selective growth of tumor cells in small vessels. It is often difficult to diagnose because of its various and non-specific manifestations. A key to diagnosis is an understanding of how to suspect this disease and performing tissue diagnoses including random skin biopsy. Due to advances in treatment, the importance of early diagnosis is increasing. However, as the pathogenesis and manifestations of the disease are still unclear, additional knowledge is needed.

A 64-year-old female developed Parkinson's disease at the age of 52 years. She experienced muscle weakness in the upper right extremities and dropped head at 62 and 63 years, respectively; both symptoms were considered to be associated with Parkinson's disease (PD). The dosage of L-DOPA was increased from 200 mg/day to 900 mg/day; however, her neurological symptoms did not improve. Eventually, she was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) at 64 years. She was placed under palliative care, and died of respiratory failure and malnutrition. Neuropathologic findings were consistent with the coexistence of PD and ALS. In fact, there were α-synuclein immunoreactive Lewy bodies (Braak stage 4) as well as TDP-43 immunoreactive deposits in the motor nuclei at the level of brainstem and spinal cord. Therefore, coexisting pathologies must be taken into account in a patient showing multi-system symptoms.

This article describes the improvement of a pneumatic nutation motor. Pneumatic nutation motors that are driven by diaphragm are expected to have bigger torque. In this report, refined design of the diaphragm is discussed. First, several different shapes of diaphragms are proposed and analyzed with nonlinear FEM. Second, a “bellows type” diaphragm is fabricated and built in the motor. Holding fixture for the diaphragm is also refined to improve its performance. Finally, torques of the new model and conventional model are compared, resulting in that the new model generates the torque 20 percent higher than that of the conventional model at any air pressure.

2,2′-Dihydroxy-1,1′-binaphthalene-4,4′- and 6,6′-dicarboxylic acid were resolved efficiently by complexation with cinchonidine and brucine, respectively. The absolute configurations of these compounds were determined by X-ray crystallographic analyses.

It is widely accepted that gas-insulated switchgear (GIS) has proven to be reliable, compact and has high availability. However, metallic particles forced to fly and kept in motion in a high electric field can cause partial discharges which lead to a flashover of GIS. For a metallic wire particle less than 3 mm long, its revolving flight and horizontal migration behavior become remarkable. This has been confirmed using a high-speed framing video camera. For the revolving particle, we also found that the viscous drag which acts on it controls its flying behavior predominantly. We have formulated a time motion equation for a revolving metallic particle on the basis of statistical analysis of the time-resolved and digitized motion data obtained by a high-speed framing video camera and taking the drag as one of the major force terms. Numerical solution of the time-motion equation gives the maximum flight height-time curves, incidence, departure velocity, and migration velocity of the revolving particle against the grounded electrode with or without slope. Fairly good agreement has been confirmed between the measured and simulated dynamic behavior of the revolving particles. Other major parameters such as allowable maximum flight height, the climbing or descending speed and distance along the slope of the grounded electrode and the trapping factors of a particle trap have been revealed deductively through the simulation. This enables it to optimize the configuration and the operational performance of the particle trap. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 153(2): 28–38, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/eej.20122

It has been widely accepted that Gas Insulated Switchgear (GIS) has proven to be reliable, compact and has high availability. However, metallic particles forced to fly and kept in motion in high electric field, can cause partial discharges which lead to a flashover of GIS. For the metallic wire particle with the length less than 3mm, its revolving flight and horizontal migration behavior become remarkable. This has been confirmed by the high speed framing video camera. For the revolving particle, we also found that the viscous drag which acts on it controls its flying behavior predominantly. Authors have formulated time motion equation for a revolving metallic particle on the basis of the statistical analysis of the time-resolved and digitized motion data obtained by a high speed framing video camera and taking the drag as one of the major force term. Numerical solution of the time-motion equation gives the maximum flight height-time curves, incidence, departure velocity and migration velocity of the revolving particle against the grounded electrode with or without slope. Fairly well-agreements have been confirmed between the measured and simulated dynamic behavior of the revolving particles. The other major parameters such as allowable maximum flight height, the climbing or descending speed and distance along the slope of the grounded electrode and the trapping factors of a particle trap has been revealed deductively through the simulation. This enables it to optimize the configuration and the operational performance of the particle trap.

A novel chiral metal-organic framework, [Cu(2)(5,5'-BDA)(2)] was synthesized by treating chiral 2,2'-dihydroxy-1,1'-binaphthalene-5,5'-dicarboxylic acid (5,5'-H(2)BDA) with a Cu(II) ion, in which the asymmetric ring opening reaction of an epoxide with amine proceeds efficiently under solvent-free conditions.

A novel chiral metal–organic framework, [Cu2(5,5′-BDA)2] was synthesized by treating chiral 2,2′-dihydroxy-1,1′-binaphthalene-5,5′-dicarboxylic acid (5,5′-H2BDA) with a Cu(II) ion, in which the asymmetric ring opening reaction of an epoxide with amine proceeds efficiently under solvent-free conditions.

As end-users' demands of integrating plant information with enterprise information increase, more Industrial Automation and Control System (IA&CS) networks are required to be connected to corporate network. According to this trend, "IA&CS Security" is becoming much more important than ever. However, there are many cases where normal IT security method can not be applied without modification because of the characteristics of IA&CS network, such as different data management priority and variation of equipments. To solve this problem there are many activities going on. This paper introduces a couple of standardization activities together with vendor activities to solve this problem.

Crystal growth is investigated in CoCr films sputtered with applying negative substrate bias voltage VB. Saturation magnetization and perpendicular magnetic anisotropy decrease with increasing VB which comes from more uniform mixing of Co and Cr. Crystal growth is enhanced by applying about -75V bias accompanying an increment of c-axis orientation. Different shape in magnetic hysteresis loop between zero bias films in which Cr segregates around columns and -75 V bias films including grownup crystals suggests different mode in the magnetization process. Magnetic domain structure is observed by Bitter technique in the two types of CoCr films in which magnetization process is thought to be a rotational mode and a wall displacement mode. However, Bitter pattern is the same and composed of dotted contrast in the both films suggesting that the magnetization localizes in the columns.

The method described is based on the fact that the measurement of particles in the gaseous phase is generally easier than that in the liquid phase for fine particles smaller than 1 μm in diameter. The system consists of a liquid nebulizing unit, evaporator, condenser, mixing diluter and two different aerosol sizing instruments. It has been found that this method can continuously detect particulate impurities in ultrapure water in situ and can measure the size distribution of fine powders in the submicron particle size range down to about 0.05 μm.