Recent discoveries of various nucleation processes make understanding the initial processes of crystallization, where atoms and molecules come together to form a crystal nucleus, difficult. Herein, ...transmission electron microscopy is used to directly visualize the moment of nucleation from a solution and to show that the singular phenomena of nanoparticles are critical to understanding nucleation. Our work revealed that nanoparticles undergo precipitation and dissolution even in undersaturated and equilibrium conditions, that crystal polymorphs formed at different frequencies compete, that molecules follow various nucleation pathways in the same solution, and that the hydration layer plays a critical role in crystallization. The observations visually support the common belief that dehydration is the greatest barrier to crystallization in an aqueous solution. These results are expected to contribute to the development of a unified nucleation model.
In this paper, I examine changes in how women’s earnings potential affects marriage formation and mate selection among the 1960s–1980s birth cohorts. The aim of this paper is to determine whether the ...decline in men’s economic status or the increase in women’s ability to balance work and family responsibilities is the key driver of change in the relationship between women’s earnings potential and their marital behavior. Analysis using multiple indicators of earnings potential shows that the effect of women’s earnings potential on marriage formation changed from negative to positive for women in the 1960s and 1970s cohorts; there was almost no change for women in the 1970s and 1980s cohorts. The effect on mate selection was generally positive for all cohorts, but the effect increased only for the 1960s and 1970s cohorts. I conclude that the decline in men’s economic status plays a key role in changing the relationship between women’s earnings potential and their marital behavior.
Isolated spontaneous dissection of the superior mesenteric artery (SMA) without aortic dissection is being increasingly recognized. This study aimed to evaluate the latest clinical characteristics ...and optimal treatment.
We searched the Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, and Clinical Trial.gov databases through December 31, 2016, using the following words: "superior mesenteric artery" and "dissection." We retrieved articles presenting the treatment and outcomes of isolated SMA dissection published in English. We investigated the patient characteristics, treatments, follow-up, and prognoses. Additionally, we compared mortality rates and assessed the need for additional interventions between treatment strategies in symptomatic patients without accompanying proof of bowel ischemia or aneurysm, which require immediate endovascular treatment or surgery.
We identified 51 articles with 721 patients. The initial treatments in symptomatic patients without accompanying proof of bowel ischemia or aneurysm were conservative treatment (82.1%), endovascular treatment (14.3%), catheter-directed infusion of medication (2.1%), and surgery (1.5%). Additional treatment was needed in 18.1% of patients receiving conservative treatment and 2.4% of patients receiving endovascular treatment (P = 0.0003). Mortality was not significantly different between each treatment strategy (P = 0.92).
There was no significant difference in mortality of symptomatic SMA dissection patients without accompanying proof of bowel ischemia or aneurysm between interventional treatment and conservative treatment. An additional treatment is needed in a minority of patients receiving conservative treatment, however, more frequently than in those receiving endovascular treatment.
Although preoperative chemoradiation therapy can down-stage locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC), it has little effect on distant metastases. Metformin exerts an anti-cancer effect partly through ...the activation of host immunity. LuM1, a highly lung metastatic subclone of colon 26, was injected subcutaneously (sc) in BALB/c mice and treated with metformin and/or local radiation (RT). Lung metastases and the primary tumors were evaluated and the phenotypes of immune cells in the spleen and lung metastases were examined with flow cytometry and immunohistochemistry. Local RT, but not metformin, partially delayed the growth of sc tumor which was augmented with metformin. Lung metastases were unchanged in metformin or RT alone, but significantly reduced in the combined therapy. The ratios of splenic T cells tended to be low in the RT group, which were increased by the addition of metformin. IFN-γ production of the splenic CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells was enhanced and CD49b (+) CD335(+) activated NK cells was increased after combined treatment group. Density of NK cells infiltrating in lung metastases was increased after combination treatment. Metformin effectively enhances local and abscopal effects of RT though the activation of cell-mediated immunity and might be clinically useful for LARC.
Keratins are intermediate filament proteins that are important for epidermal strength and protection from desiccation. Keratin genes are highly duplicated and have diversified by forming two major ...clusters in the genomes of terrestrial vertebrates. The keratin genes of lungfishes, the closest fish to tetrapods, have not been studied at the genomic level, despite the importance of lungfishes in terrestrial adaptation. Here, we identified keratin genes in the genomes of two lungfish species and performed syntenic and phylogenetic analyses. Additionally, we identified keratin genes from two gobies and two mudskippers, inhabiting underwater and terrestrial environments. We found that in lungfishes, keratin genes were duplicated and diversified within two major clusters, similar to but independent of terrestrial vertebrates. By contrast, keratin genes were not notably duplicated in mudskippers. The results indicate that keratin gene duplication occurred repeatedly in lineages close to tetrapods, but not in teleost fish, even in species adapted to terrestrial environments.
Flooding is a major natural hazard in many parts of the world, and its frequency and magnitude are projected to increase with global warming. With increased concern over ongoing climate change, more ...detailed and precise information about climate-change risks is required for formulating local-scale countermeasures. However, the impacts of biases in climate-model outputs on river-flood simulation have not been fully evaluated, and thus evaluation of future flood risks using hazard maps (high-resolution spatial-distribution maps of inundation depths) has not been achieved. Therefore, this study examined methods for constructing future-flood-hazard maps and discussed their validity. Specifically, we compared the runoff-correction method that corrects for bias in general-circulation-model (GCM) runoff using the monthly climatology of reanalysis runoff with the lookup method, which uses the GCM simulation results without bias correction to calculate changes in the return period and depends on the reanalysis simulation to determine absolute flood depths. The results imply that the runoff-correction method may produce significantly different hazard maps compared to those based on reanalysis of runoff data. We found that, in some cases, bias correction did not perform as expected for extreme values associated with the hazard map, even under the historical climate, as the bias of extreme values differed from that of the mean value. We found that the change direction of a future hazard (increase or decrease) obtained using the runoff-correction method relative to the reference reanalysis-based hazard map may be inconsistent with changes projected by Catchment-based Macro-scale Floodplain Model (CaMa-Flood) simulations based on GCM runoff input in some cases. On the other hand, the lookup method produced future-hazard maps that are consistent with flood-hazard changes projected by CaMa-Flood simulations obtained using GCM runoff input, indicating the possibility of obtaining a reasonable inundated-area distribution. These results suggest that the lookup method is more suitable for future-flood hazard-map construction than the runoff-correction method. The lookup method also has the advantage of facilitating research on efficient construction of future-climate hazard maps, as it allows for improvement of the reanalysis hazard map through upgrading of the model and separate estimation of changes due to climate change. We discuss future changes at the global scale in inundation areas and the affected population within the inundation area. Using the lookup method, the total population living in modeled inundation areas with flood magnitudes exceeding the 100-year return period under a future climate would be approximately 1.86 billion. In the assessment of future-climate risks, we found that an affected population of approximately 0.2 billion may be missed if the historical-hazard map is used as an alternative to constructing future-hazard maps, and only frequency changes are considered. These results suggest that, in global flood-risk studies, future-hazard maps are important for proper estimation of climate-change risks rather than assessing solely changes in the frequency of occurrence of a given flood intensity.
We study variability of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) by using the deep optical multiband photometry data obtained from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC SSP) survey in the COSMOS ...field. The images analyzed here were taken with 8, 10, 13, and 15 epochs over three years in the g, r, i, and z bands, respectively. We identified 491 robust variable AGN candidates, down to i = 25 mag and with redshift up to 4.26. Ninety percent of the variability-selected AGNs are individually identified with the X-ray sources detected in the Chandra COSMOS Legacy survey. We investigate their properties in variability by using structure function analysis and find that the structure function for low-luminosity AGNs (Lbol 1045 erg s−1) shows a positive correlation with luminosity, which is the opposite trend for the luminous quasars. This trend is likely to be caused by a larger contribution of the host galaxy light for lower-luminosity AGNs. Using the model templates of galaxy spectra, we evaluate the amount of host galaxy contribution to the structure function analysis and find that dominance of the young stellar population is needed to explain the observed luminosity dependence. This suggests that low-luminosity AGNs at 0.8 z 1.8 are predominantly hosted in star-forming galaxies. The X-ray stacking analysis reveals the significant emission from the individually X-ray undetected AGNs in our variability-selected sample. The stacked samples show very large hardness ratios in their stacked X-ray spectrum, which suggests that these optically variable sources have large soft X-ray absorption by dust-free gas.
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