Studies on amphibian autumn migrations to hibernation sites are few, and those investigating the conditions controlling the timing of migrations are even fewer. I investigated an explosive‐breeding ...frog, Rana sakuraii, in Japanese mountain headwaters in 6 different years, focusing on the start and end of autumn migrations. Autumn migrations began in late October. Initially, frogs moved into the streams from terrestrial sites around the stream sources, and thereafter moved downstream entirely underwater. Start days were always the first rainy days after the minimum air temperature had dropped to about 6°C or lower (minor start days) or about 4°C or lower (major start days) regardless of the air temperature on the start days. In early or mid‐December, in‐stream migratory movements ended when the maximum water temperature dropped below the 5°C threshold (the same threshold temperature initiating the winter breeding migration). I hypothesize that, in many temperate‐zone amphibians, the timing of autumn migration to hibernation sites is basically dependent on three common conditions: (1) the experience of a prerequisite minimum air temperature (PMAT) before the start day; (2) the decrease in day length to a threshold value; (3) the first rainy (or high humidity) day after (1). Further, I hypothesize that the threshold ambient temperature inducing the end of the autumn migration is almost the same as that inducing emergence from hibernation, that is, the start of the winter breeding migration for explosive breeders, and that this is the daily maximum, and not the daily minimum.
I investigated the autumn migration (to hibernation sites) of an explosive breeding frog, Rana sakuraii, in Japanese mountain headwaters for 6 years, focusing on the start and end of migrations. Major start days (from terrestrial sites into the streams) were always the first rainy days after the minimum air temperature dropped to approximately 4°C or lower, regardless of the air temperature. Thereafter, instream migratory movements ended when the maximum water temperature dropped below the 5°C threshold, which is the same as the threshold for initiating winter breeding migration. Based on these findings, I propose three common conditions determining the timing of autumn migration in amphibians of the temperate zone.
Background
Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) can be classified into CRS with nasal polyps (CRSwNP) and CRS without nasal polyps (CRSsNP). CRSwNP displays more intense eosinophilic infiltration and the ...presence of Th2 cytokines. Mucosal eosinophilia is associated with more severe symptoms and often requires multiple surgeries because of recurrence; however, even in eosinophilic CRS (ECRS), clinical course is variable. In this study, we wanted to set objective clinical criteria for the diagnosis of refractory CRS.
Methods
This was a retrospective study conducted by 15 institutions participating in the Japanese Epidemiological Survey of Refractory Eosinophilic Chronic Rhinosinusitis (JESREC). We evaluated patients with CRS treated with endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS), and risk of recurrence was estimated using Cox proportional hazard models. Multiple logistic regression models and receiver operating characteristics curves were constructed to create the diagnostic criterion for ECRS.
Results
We analyzed 1716 patients treated with ESS. To diagnose ECRS, the JESREC scoring system assessed unilateral or bilateral disease, the presence of nasal polyps, blood eosinophilia, and dominant shadow of ethmoid sinuses in computed tomography (CT) scans. The cutoff value of the score was 11 points (sensitivity: 83%, specificity: 66%). Blood eosinophilia (>5%), ethmoid sinus disease detected by CT scan, bronchial asthma, aspirin, and nonsteroidal anti‐inflammatory drugs intolerance were associated significantly with recurrence.
Conclusion
We subdivided CRSwNP in non‐ECRS, mild, moderate, and severe ECRS according to our algorithm. This classification was significantly correlated with prognosis. It is notable that this algorithm may give useful information to clinicians in the refractoriness of CRS before ESS or biopsy.
Using the fermionic basis, we obtain the expectation values of all
sl
2
-invariant and
C
-invariant local operators on 10 sites for the anisotropic six-vertex model on a cylinder with generic ...Matsubara data. This is equivalent to the generalised Gibbs ensemble for the XXX spin chain. In the case when the
sl
2
and
C
symmetries are not broken this computation is equivalent to finding the entire density matrix up to 10 sites. As application, we compute the entanglement entropy without and with temperature, and compare the results with CFT predictions.
We address the problem of computing temperature correlation functions of the XXZ chain, within the approach developed in our previous works. In this paper we calculate the expected values of a ...fermionic basis of quasi-local operators, in the infinite volume limit while keeping the Matsubara (or Trotter) direction finite. The result is expressed in terms of two basic quantities: a ratio rho(zeta) of transfer matrix eigenvalues and a nearest neighbour correlator omega(zeta, xi). We explain that the latter is interpreted as the canonical second kind differential in the theory of deformed Abelian integrals.
Bioactivation through drug metabolism is frequently suspected as an initiating event in many drug toxicities. The CYP450 and peroxidase enzyme systems are generally considered the most important ...groups of enzymes involved in bioactivation, producing either electrophilic or radical metabolites. Drug design efforts routinely consider these factors, and a number of structural alerts for bioactivation have been identified. Among the most frequently encountered structural alerts are aromatic systems with electron-donating substituents and some five-membered heterocycles. Metabolism of these groups can lead to chemically reactive electrophiles. Strategies that have been used to minimize the associated risk involve replacing the structural-alert moiety, blocking or making metabolism less favorable, and incorporating metabolic soft spots to facilitate metabolism away from the structural-alert substituent. The metabolism of drugs to radicals usually leads to cellular oxidative stress. The formation of radical metabolites can be minimized through the use of similar approaches but remains an area less frequently considered in drug design.
To prepare high dielectric thin films of polymer-based materials, nanometre sized BaTiO3 particles, which should have high dielectric coefficients and low energy dissipation factors due to nano-size ...effects, were dispersed in polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) or siloxane-modified polyamideimide (SPAI). BaTiO3 particles with crystal sizes of 10.5-34.6 nm were synthesised with a complex alkoxide method. Polymer/N-methyl-2-pyrrodinone solution suspending the BaTiO3 particles was spin-coated on ITO glass substrates to prepare polymer-based composite films with submicron thickness. The BaTiO3 particles were dispersed more homogeneously in the PVDF film than in the SPAI film. The good dispersion of the particles in the PVDF film brought about a smooth film surface that had a root mean square roughness < 20 nm at a particle volume fraction of 30%. The roughness was less than one-tenth of the roughness of the SPAI composite film. An increase in the BaTiO3 crystal size from 10.5 to 34.6 nm in the PVDF film at a particle volume fraction of 30% increased the dielectric constant of the film from 20.1 to 31.8. The BaTiO3-PVDF composite film attained a high dielectric constant with more than twice the dielectric constant of the BaTiO3-SPAI composite film. The dissipation factor of the PVDF composite film was as low as 0.05 at 10000 Hz. 16 refs.
COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy/fatigue is increasing as the pandemic enters the endemic phase. The present study aimed to explore current perceptions about COVID-19 booster vaccination among the Japanese ...public.
This was a cross-sectional study.
This cross-sectional study used data from the Japan COVID-19 and Society Internet Survey conducted in September 2021 and September 2022. The public's perceptions of COVID-19 vaccination and factors associated with COVID-19 booster vaccine hesitancy were analyzed.
In total, 56,735 respondents were included. In the Japan COVID-19 and Society Internet Survey 2021, 75.1% of the participants (21,126/28,118) had completed the primary vaccination series. In the 2022 survey, 74.1% of the respondents (21,216/28,617) completed the primary series of vaccination with booster doses. The proportion of fear toward COVID-19 and obtaining information about COVID-19 has decreased from 2021 to 2022. Factors independently associated with booster vaccine hesitancy were young age (range: 18–29 years; adjusted odds ratio aOR: 6.56), history of COVID-19 (aOR: 1.82), distrust of the Japanese government's COVID-19 prevention measures (aOR: 1.55), lack of confidence in COVID-19 vaccine efficacy (aOR: 1.30), lack of confidence in COVID-19 vaccine safety (aOR: 1.62), low reliance on the COVID-19 vaccine (aOR: 1.92), and belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories (aOR: 1.77).
Providing clear and trustworthy information is critically important, especially targeted and tailored messages for the young generation, to promoting COVID-19 booster vaccination. Policymakers should therefore develop consistent and transparent communication strategies and the ability to respond promptly and flexibly to mitigate the negative impact of COVID-19 on the public while preparing for the next pandemic.
Environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis is emerging as an innovative tool to assess the distribution and biomass of species in aquatic environments that enables quick and non-invasive surveys compared to ...conventional sampling methods such as fishing, hydroacoustics, and diving observations. We applied eDNA analysis to spawning ecology research of the Japanese eel Anguilla japonica in the western North Pacific for the first time. A preliminary laboratory experiment using tank water containing eels confirmed that our specific primers and probe could identify the Japanese eel from a small amount of eDNA (about 0.5 ng per PCR reaction). During a 19–20 May 2015 ocean survey at the southern West Mariana Ridge, seawater samples were collected at 12 water depths at 9 stations in the spawning area of A. japonica. Out of 108 seawater samples, DNA was successfully amplified from 3 samples, which were collected at 250 and 400 m. According to published research on Japanese eel spawning ecology and eDNA dynamics, the eDNA positive signals obtained from the oceanic survey could have been from adult Japanese eels or from larvae from the last spawning events. Thus onboard eDNA analysis proved to be a viable approach for detecting Japanese eels in their spawning area along the southern West Mariana Ridge.
In this article we unveil a new structure in the space of operators of the XXZ chain. For each
α
we consider the space
of all quasi-local operators, which are products of the disorder field
with ...arbitrary local operators. In analogy with CFT the disorder operator itself is considered as primary field. In our previous paper, we have introduced the annhilation operators
b
(
ζ
),
c
(
ζ
) which mutually anti-commute and kill the “primary field”. Here we construct the creation counterpart
b
*(
ζ
),
c
*(
ζ
) and prove the canonical anti-commutation relations with the annihilation operators. We conjecture that the creation operators mutually anti-commute, thereby upgrading the Grassmann structure to the fermionic structure. The bosonic operator
t
*(
ζ
) is the generating function of the adjoint action by local integrals of motion, and commutes entirely with the fermionic creation and annihilation operators. Operators
b
*(
ζ
),
c
*(
ζ
),
t
*(
ζ
) create quasi-local operators starting from the primary field. We show that the ground state averages of quasi-local operators created in this way are given by determinants.
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