The key considerations for advanced life cycle assessment (LCA) of automobiles leading to a low carbon economy are globalization in automobile life cycle, social expansion in new automobile ...technology, country diversity in automobile usage, and country factor in battery degradation of electric vehicle. This study was aimed at comprehensively reviewing automobile LCA studies using a meta-analysis-based approach. This approach was applied to 332 peer-reviewed papers from the comprehensive and specific perspectives. The specific perspective focuses on the above-mentioned globalization, social expansion, and country diversity aspects. The study findings revealed the progress and the limitations in automobile LCA studies. These progresses and limitations highlighted the urgency to expand the automobile LCA studies from technology assessment to system design, including policy making and decision-making related to governments and drivers. In addition, this review identified the upcoming challenges for advancing automobile LCA from the aspects of globalization, social expansion, country diversity, and battery degradation. These challenges could be overcome by considering global reuse across countries, the balance of in-use automobile demand and the infrastructure supply, and the International Vehicle Emission (IVE) model within a fleet-based LCA as the core of the LCA methodology.
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•Automobile LCA studies were reviewed using a meta-analysis-based approach.•Scope - globalization, social expansion, country diversity, battery degradation.•Automobile LCA should shift focus from technology assessment to system design.•Balance of automobile demand and the infrastructure is important.•Fleet-based LCA would be the core of the upcoming challenge in automobile LCA.
Vulnerability assessment studies addressing the critical node problem for railway networks do not recognize the importance of turn-back operations as a typical reaction to disruption. The aim of this ...study is to explore the significance of turn-back operations during the process of identifying critical stations. This significance was quantified by comparing the results of critical stations (both with and without turn-back operations) in the Nagoya metro, Japan. The results indicate a large difference between critical stations identified with turn-back operations and those without. In addition, the criticality of stations without turn-backs tends to be underestimated. Our findings suggest that analysts and decision makers should rethink the critical node problem for railway networks from the perspective of turn-back operations.
•The significance of the turn-back operations in critical station identification for railway network is explored.•The case study of Nagoya metro, Japan is conducted.•The criticality of station without turn-back operation tends to be underestimated compared to that with turn-back operation.
Constantly advancing media information is a key data source to characterize the social cascading damage processes following natural hazards. However, media information tends to include a large sample ...size but low information density. In consideration of these properties, the aim of this study is to develop a new method for media-based information characterizing social cascading damage processes. In developing the method, a network theory framework was constructed to systematically integrate media information and its characterization. The method has two analytical components: a disaster damage network systematically inputting media information and network analysis using the concept of degree centrality. The developed method was applied to the record-breaking 2018 heavy rain disaster in western Japan, employing newspaper articles as media information sources. The study identified the critical disaster events and their relationships. This case study demonstrates that our method will benefit policymakers by providing them with potential fundamental information to support disaster management.
A method of risk identification is developed by comparing existing and advanced technologies from the viewpoint of comprehensive social risk. First, to analyze these values from a multifaceted ...perspective, we constructed a questionnaire based on 24 individual values and 26 infrastructural values determined in a previous study. Seven engineering experts and six social science experts were then asked to complete the questionnaire to compare and analyze a hydrogen energy system (HES) and a gasoline energy system (GES). Finally, the responses were weighted using the analytic hierarchy process. Three important points were identified and focused upon: the distinct disadvantages of the HES compared to the GES, judgments that were divided between experts in the engineering and social sciences fields, and judgments that were divided among experts in the same field. These are important risks that should be evaluated when making decisions related to the implementation of advanced science and technology.
•New technology priority risks were identified by comparison with current technology.•A hydrogen energy system was evaluated against a gasoline energy system.•Individual and infrastructural values were obtained from a survey of experts.•Hydrogen disadvantages and differences within/among expert fields were observed.•Analysis from multiple viewpoints is required to implement new technology smoothly.
A sound understanding of transport energy efficiency is of paramount importance. It has been widely accepted that a higher level of urban density is associated with a more significant amount of ...energy consumption in long-distance travel, including international trips. Meanwhile, its negative correlation with domestic long-distance travel was reported in only a few studies. In addition, the analysis of domestic long-distance travel and its transport energy efficiency has yet to be thoroughly conducted. Therefore, this study first assesses the transport energy efficiency of various transportation modes (roadways, railways, aviation, and waterways) in the form of energy intensity, and then obtains the overall transport energy intensity (OTEI) in the domestic long-distance travel in Japan by considering the social modal choice. Finally, its association with distance, income per capita, and population density in Japan is evaluated, and the results are compared with the case in the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. It was found that higher income per capita is associated with lower energy intensity for domestic long-distance travel in Japan. The relationship in Japan between OETI for domestic long-distance travel and traveled distance is observed as a U-shaped form.
Unraveling the mechanism of action and molecular target of small molecules remains a major challenge in drug discovery. While many cancer drugs target genetic vulnerabilities, loss-of-function ...screens fail to identify essential genes in drug mechanism of action. Here, we report CRISPRres, a CRISPR-Cas-based genetic screening approach to rapidly derive and identify drug resistance mutations in essential genes. It exploits the local genetic variation created by CRISPR-Cas-induced non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) repair to generate a wide variety of functional in-frame mutations. Using large sgRNA tiling libraries and known drug-target pairs, we validate it as a target identification approach. We apply CRISPRres to the anticancer agent KPT-9274 and identify nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase (NAMPT) as its main target. These results present a powerful and simple genetic approach to create many protein variants that, in combination with positive selection, can be applied to reveal the cellular target of small-molecule inhibitors.
The modular structure of many protein families, such as β-propeller proteins, strongly implies that duplication played an important role in their evolution, leading to highly symmetrical intermediate ...forms. Previous attempts to create perfectly symmetrical propeller proteins have failed, however. We have therefore developed a new and rapid computational approach to design such proteins. As a test case, we have created a sixfold symmetrical β-propeller protein and experimentally validated the structure using X-ray crystallography. Each blade consists of 42 residues. Proteins carrying 2–10 identical blades were also expressed and purified. Two or three tandem blades assemble to recreate the highly stable sixfold symmetrical architecture, consistent with the duplication and fusion theory. The other proteins produce different monodisperse complexes, up to 42 blades (180 kDa) in size, which self-assemble according to simple symmetry rules. Our procedure is suitable for creating nano-building blocks from different protein templates of desired symmetry.
Significance In this study, we have designed and experimentally validated, to our knowledge, the first perfectly symmetrical β-propeller protein. Our results provide insight not only into protein evolution through duplication events, but also into methods for creating designer proteins that self-assemble according to simple arithmetical rules. Such proteins may have very wide uses in bionanotechnology. Furthermore our design approach is both rapid and applicable to many different protein templates. Our novel propeller protein consists of six identical domains known as “blades.” Using a variety of biophysical techniques, we show it to be highly stable and report several high-resolution crystal structures of different forms of the protein. Domain swapping allows us to generate related oligomeric forms with fixed numbers of blades per complex.
Activin A promotes the development of endometriotic lesions in a murine model of endometriosis, and the immunohistochemical localization of phosphorylated suppressor of mothers against ...decapentaplegic homolog 2/3 (pSMAD2/3) complex in endometriotic lesions has been reported. Activin may therefore be involved in the development and proliferation of endometriotic cells via the SMAD signaling pathway. However, few detailed reports exist on SMAD7 expression in endometriosis. The purpose of this study was to investigate the expression of pSMAD2/3 or pSMAD3 and SMAD7 in the orthotopic human endometrium, ovarian endometriosis, and endometriotic lesions in a murine model and the effect of activin A on pSMAD2/3 and SMAD7 expression. We established an endometriosis murine model via the intraperitoneal administration of endometrial tissue and blood from donor mice. Activin A was intraperitoneally administered to the activin group. We immunohistochemically evaluated orthotopic endometria, ovarian endometriotic tissues, and endometriotic lesions in the murine model followed by western blotting. We found that pSMAD3 and SMAD7 were expressed in ovarian endometriosis and orthotopic endometria from patients with and without endometriosis. In the murine model, endometriotic lesions expressed pSMAD2/3 and SMAD7 in the activin and control groups, and higher SMAD7 expression was found in the activin group. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to show that SMAD7 expression is upregulated in endometriosis. In conclusion, these results suggest that activin A activates the SMAD signaling pathway and promotes the development of endometriotic lesions, thus identifying SMAD7 as a potential therapeutic target for endometriosis.
Objectives : It has been suggested that the clinical outcomes of frozen-thawed embryo transfer (ET) are superior to those of fresh embryo transfer. We examined whether a freeze-all strategy is ...necessary for all embryo transfers, and, if not, to evaluate the conditions in which the pregnancy rates of fresh embryo transfer and frozen-thawed ET did not differ. Methods : Patients who underwent blastocyst transfer at Tokushima University Hospital between 2008 and 2019 were enrolled. The clinical outcomes and clinical characteristics of 1,022 patients that underwent fresh embryo transfer and 1,728 patients that underwent frozen-thawed ET were examined retrospectively. We considered the factors that influenced the pregnancy outcomes of fresh embryo transfer. Results : The frozen-thawed ET group exhibited significantly higher pregnancy, live-birth, and miscarriage rates than the fresh embryo transfer group. In the fresh embryo transfer group, a high progesterone level on the day of the human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) trigger and lower grade embryos were risk factors for a low pregnancy rate. However, in the cases in which the progesterone level was < 1.0 ng / mL the pregnancy rate was equal to that of frozen-thawed ET. Conclusions : A freeze-all strategy is not necessary for embryo transfers, but should be employed in cases involving pre-ovulatory progesterone elevation. J. Med. Invest. 69 : 224-229, August, 2022
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