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We report a new test of modified gravity theories using the large-scale structure of the Universe. This paper is the first attempt to (1) apply a joint analysis of the anisotropic components of galaxy two- and three-point correlation functions (2 and 3PCFs) to actual galaxy data and (2) constrain the nonlinear effects of degenerate higher-order scalar-tensor (DHOST) theories on cosmological scales. Applying this analysis to the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) data release 12, we obtain the lower bounds of $-1.655 < \xi_{\rm t}$ and $-0.504 < \xi_{\rm s}$ at the $95\%$ confidence level on the parameters characterising the time evolution of the tidal and shift terms of the second-order velocity field. These constraints are consistent with GR predictions of $\xi_{\rm t}=15/1144$ and $\xi_{\rm s}=0$. Moreover, they represent a $35$-fold and $20$-fold improvement, respectively, over the joint analysis with only the isotropic 3PCF. We ensure the validity of our results by investigating various quantities, including theoretical models of the 3PCF, window function corrections, cumulative ${\rm S/N}$, Fisher matrices, and statistical scattering effects of mock simulation data. We also find statistically significant discrepancies between the BOSS data and the Patchy mocks for the 3PCF measurement. Finally, we package all of our 3PCF analysis codes under the name \textsc{HITOMI} and make them publicly available so that readers can reproduce all the results of this paper and easily apply them to ongoing future galaxy surveys., Comment: 60 pages, 21 figures, 22 tables; a set of codes for data analysis is publicly available at https://github.com/naonori/hitomi.git

Bigravity is one of the natural extensions of general relativity and contains an additional massive spin-2 field which can be a good candidate for dark matter. To discuss the production of spin-2 dark matter, we study fixed point solutions of the background equations for axisymmetric Bianchi type-I Universes in two bigravity theories without Boulware-Deser ghost, i.e., Hassan-Rosen bigravity and Minimal Theory of Bigravity. We investigate the local and global stability of the fixed points and classify them. Based on the general analysis, we propose a new scenario where spin-2 dark matter is produced by the transition from an anisotropic fixed point solution to isotropic one. The produced spin-2 dark matter can account for all or a part of dark matter and can be directly detected by laser interferometers in the same way as gravitational waves., Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures

The surgical approach for anatomical lung resection includes open thoracotomy, video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery, and robot-assisted thoracoscopic surgery. We evaluated the short-term outcomes and the learning curve wherein a thoracic resident doctor consecutively performed video-assisted thoracoscopic anatomical lung resection for lung cancer.We retrospectively reviewed 91 cases of consecutive video-assisted thoracoscopic anatomical lung resections for lung cancer performed by a thoracic resident doctor between November 2017 and March 2020. The thoracic resident doctor had no previous experience performing video-assisted thoracoscopic or open anatomical lung resection.Lobectomy was performed in 80 cases. Simple segmentectomy was performed in 11 cases. No cases required intraoperative conversion to open thoracotomy. The median operative time and blood loss were 148 min and 10 ml, respectively. There were no serious postoperative complications or deaths 30 days after surgery. The learning curve was examined using the cumulative sum method with operative time as a factor, and it took 21 cases to attain experience.Our resident doctor safely performed video-assisted thoracoscopic anatomical lung resections and it took 21 cases to stabilize the surgical technique. The surgical technique was possibly stabilized earlier than previously reported, although this was a study of a single resident doctor.

Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) has changed the surgical approach to non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) dramatically. The current study compares the outcomes of older and younger patients who underwent VATS lobectomy for NSCLC.In total, 424 eligible patients with pathological stage I NSCLC underwent VATS lobectomy between 2007 and 2017. Patients were classified into two groups ( 75 and ≥ 75 years old), after which propensity score-matching was performed.After matching, 143 patients were identified. No significant difference in postoperative complication rates was observed; however, the ≥ 75-year-old group had a longer postoperative hospital stay (p = 0.001). The 5-year overall survival, relapse-free survival, and lung cancer-specific survival rates of the 75- and ≥ 75-year-old groups were 87.1% vs. 85.6% (p = 0.537), 82.1% vs. 79.0% (p = 0.531), and 93.5% vs. 92.7% (p = 0.832), respectively.Despite the longer postoperative recovery following VATS lobectomy, the short- and long-term outcomes of older patients did not differ from those of younger patients. Thus, for early-stage NSCLC, older age alone was not a negative factor for lobectomy performed via minimally invasive surgery. Naturally, the systemic condition of this population must be evaluated carefully before surgery.

Objective We evaluated biofilm production ability (BPA) of Streptococcus agalactiae isolates from companion animals/humans and clarified the relationship between BPA populations and other microbiological features. Methods Companion animal-/human-origin isolates were collected with host information. We measured BPA using crystal violet staining, via virulence-associated gene profiling (hylB-pavA-pilB-spb1-srtC1-brpA), capsular genotyping, multilocus sequence typing, and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) phenotyping/genotyping. Significant difference in BPA of isolates from different hosts was assessed. We analyzed the association between BPA populations and the virulence genotypes, capsular genotypes, sequence types/clonal complexes, and AMR phenotypes/genotypes. Inhibitory effect of berberine on BPA was evaluated. Results Five, twenty-six, and twenty-six isolates belonged to strong, moderate, and weak biofilm producers, whereas seventeen showed no biofilm production. We defined strong, moderate, or weak biofilm producers as the producer group (n = 57) to conduct a comparative analysis between the producer and non-producer populations. There was a significant correlation between the producer population and vaginal specimen. We found significant associations between the producer group and presence (57.9%) of pilB and between the non-producer population and presence (70.6%) of spb1. There was no association between the producer group and capsular genotypes, sequence types/clonal complexes, and AMR phenotypes/genotypes (except for a significant correlation between the producer group and AMR to minocycline). We confirmed inhibitory effect of berberine at sub-minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) against the type strain on BPA. Conclusion Our observations suggest that S. agalactiae harboring pilB is more capable of producing biofilms, with berberine inhibitory effect at sub-MICs on BPA.

We assessed biofilm production ability (BPA) of noninvasive Streptococcus dysgalactiae subsp. equisimilis (SDSE) from humans/companion animals and determined relationships between BPA populations and other host/microbiological features. Sixty-four companion animal-/human-origin isolates were collected with host information. We measured BPA using crystal violet staining, along with doing emm typing, multilocus sequence typing, and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) phenotyping/genotyping, and detection of virulence-associated genes (VAGs) (prtF1-prtF2-lmb-cbp-sicG-srtp1-srtp2-brpA). Significant difference in BPA of SDSE from different hosts/sources and with different Lancefield groups was assessed. We analyzed associations between BPA populations (strong/moderate/weak/no biofilm producers) and emm types, sequence types/clonal complexes (CCs), AMR phenotypes/genotypes, and VAG types. Seventeen, twenty-four, and twelve isolates belonged to strong, moderate, and weak biofilm producers: eleven showed no BPA. There was a difference in BPA distributions between human- and animal-origins and between groups G and C isolates. We found an association of BPA populations with eye/ear source (vs. pus/skin source). There was a relationship between BPA populations and CC127 (vs. CC17). We observed no associations of BPA populations with AMR phenotype/genotype. There was an association of BPA distributions with srtp1 detection. Our observations suggest potential associations of BPA with host, Lancefield group, source, CC, or VAG.

Recently, the cross-correlation between $E$- and $B$-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), which is well explained by cosmic birefringence with rotation angle $\beta\approx 0.3$ deg, has been found in CMB polarization data. We carefully investigate the possibility of explaining the observed $EB$ correlation by the primordial chiral gravitational waves (CGWs), which can be generated in the parity-violating theories in the primordial Universe. We found that the CGWs scenario does not work due to the overproduction of the $BB$ auto-correlation which far exceeds the observed one by SPTPol and POLARBEAR., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures

Antisymmetric tensor field (two-form field) is a ubiquitous component in string theory and generally couples to the scalar sector through its kinetic term. In this paper, we propose a cosmological scenario that the particle production of two-form field, which is triggered by the background motion of the coupled inflaton field, occurs at the intermediate stage of inflation and generates the sizable amount of primordial black holes as dark matter after inflation. We also compute the secondary gravitational waves sourced by the curvature perturbation and show that the resultant power spectra are testable with the future space-based laser interferometers., Comment: 26 pages, 8 figures, this work is an extension to our previous study arXiv:1912.09111

We develop the stochastic formalism for $\mathrm{U}(1)$ gauge fields that has the Chern-Simons coupling to a rolling pseudo-scalar field during inflation. The Langevin equations for the physical electromagnetic fields are derived and the analytic solutions are studied. Using numerical simulation we demonstrate that the electromagnetic fields averaged over the Hubble scale continuously change their direction and their amplitudes fluctuate around the analytically obtained expectation values. Though the isotropy is spontaneously broken by picking up a particular local Hubble patch, each Hubble patch is understood independent and the isotropy is conserved globally by averaging all the Hubble patches., 15pages, 4 figures, v2 matches the published version

This study assessed whether Streptococcus agalactiae isolates from companion animals differed from those of human origin. Beta-hemolytic S. agalactiae was collected from a veterinary laboratory center and a university hospital. Strains were identified using 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing and amplification of the species-specific dltS gene. We conducted virulence gene profiling, capsular genotyping, determination of clonal complex (CC), and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) phenotyping or genotyping. The 20 non-invasive isolates obtained from animals and 15 non-invasive isolates from adult humans were comparatively analyzed in this study. We found significant differences in the virulence gene profiles of bca-rib-lmb-cylE (40.0% vs. 93.3%) and the possession of bac (30.0% vs. 0%) between animal-origin and human-origin non-invasive strains. We observed a significant difference in the distribution of CC1 between the two non-invasive populations. There were significant differences in the prevalence of tetracycline resistance genotypes (60.0% vs. 20.0%) and absence of AMR genotypes (30.0% vs. 80.0%), and AMR rates of tetracycline (35.0% vs. 0%) and fluoroquinolone (20.0% vs. 66.7%) between the two non-invasive populations. These observations suggest that there were different features, in terms of virulence gene profile, CC, and AMR genotype/phenotype in the non-invasive isolates of animal origin compared to those of human origin.

Congenital pulmonary airway malformation diagnosed in adulthood is very rare. A 54-year-old woman was admitted to our hospital with complaints of abnormal chest shadow. Computed tomography( CT) demonstrated multiple cysts, mass lesions, and consolidation in left lower lobe. Bronchofiber scopy could not establish the diagnose. Left lower lobectomy was performed for diagnosis and treatment. Pathologically the lesion was diagnosed as congenital pulmonary airway malformation.

We study SU($N$) gauge fields that couple to the inflaton through the Chern-Simons term. We provide a general procedure to construct homogeneous, isotropic, and attractor solutions of the gauge fields during inflation. The gauge fields develop various VEVs corresponding to different spontaneous symmetry breaking patterns of SU($N$) where embedded SU($2$) subgroups are broken with the spatial rotation SO($3$) symmetry. As specific examples, we construct the stable solutions for $N = 3$ and $4$. We also numerically solve the gauge field dynamics and confirm that our analytic solutions are complete and attractor. It is straightforward to apply our procedure to the other simple Lie groups., Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures

Hypertrophic pulmonary osteoarthropathy( HPO) is a rare paraneoplastic manifestation of lung cancer that causes joint pain, joint swelling, and limited range of motion. Two surgical cases of lung cancer with HPO are presented. Case1:A 43-year-old female was referred to our department with a diagnosis of cStage ⅡB left hilar lung cancer. She had difficulty in walking due to arthralgia caused by HPO. Left pneumonectomy was performed and the arthralgia disappeared on the first postoperative day. The patient is being well after surgery without relapse of joint symptoms. Case2:The patient was a 65-year-old male with cStage ⅡA right lung cancer. The symptoms of HPO appeared after he was found to have lung cancer. After right upper lobectomy, the arthralgia disappeared on the first postoperative day. Currently, he is receiving adjuvant chemotherapy, without relapse of joint symptoms.

Chromo-natural inflation (CNI) is an inflationary model where an axion coupled with SU$(2)$ gauge fields acts as the inflaton. In CNI, the gauge fields have nonzero vacuum expectation values (VEVs), which results in the enhancement of gravitational waves (GWs). The original CNI is ruled out by the Planck observations due to the overproduction of GWs. In this work, we consider an inflationary model where the gauge fields acquire nonzero VEVs after the CMB modes exit the horizon. Moreover, we add to the model another field that dominates the universe and drives inflation after the axion starts to oscillate and the gauge field VEVs vanish. By performing numerical simulations, we find a parameter space where the enhanced GWs do not violate the CMB constraints and can be detected by the future GWs observations such as BBO and ET., 20pages, 8 figures