The aim of the present study was to investigate the association among lunar cycle, menstrual cycle onset, and subjective sleep quality. Menstrual cycle onset data from the six most recent menstrual ...cycles were obtained for 529 women (aged 25-39 years) using the smartphone app Luna Luna. We also collected questionnaire survey data on sleep quality from each participant. Overall, there was no association between the onset of menstrual cycle and lunar phase. Interestingly, the proportion of good sleepers with menstrual cycle beginning during the light period was significantly higher than that during the dark period, while the proportion of poor sleepers with menstrual cycle beginning during the dark period was significantly higher than that during the light period. When participants were categorized by the combination of lunar phases (light, dark, neutral periods) in the two most recent menstrual cycle onsets, the "both dark period" group and the "other (light and dark) period" group showed the lowest proportion of good sleepers. Menstrual cycle onset in the dark period was associated with a deterioration in subsequent subjective sleep quality, which was more apparent with consecutive onsets in the dark period or at a rapidly changing lunar phase.
While Delta non-autonomously activates Notch in neighboring cells, it autonomously inactivates Notch through cis-inhibition, the molecular mechanism and biological roles of which remain elusive. The ...wave of differentiation in the Drosophila brain, the 'proneural wave', is an excellent model for studying Notch signaling in vivo. Here, we show that strong nonlinearity in cis-inhibition reproduces the second peak of Notch activity behind the proneural wave in silico. Based on this, we demonstrate that Delta expression induces a quick degradation of Notch in late endosomes and the formation of the twin peaks of Notch activity in vivo. Indeed, the amount of Notch is upregulated and the twin peaks are fused forming a single peak when the function of Delta or late endosomes is compromised. Additionally, we show that the second Notch peak behind the wavefront controls neurogenesis. Thus, intracellular trafficking of Notch orchestrates the temporal dynamics of Notch activity and the temporal patterning of neurogenesis.
Objectives
To assess the impact of patients’ interest in sex on the satisfaction after robot‐assisted radical prostatectomy, longitudinal changes of urinary and sexual functions and bothers were ...evaluated.
Methods
A total of 101 patients underwent robot‐assisted radical prostatectomy in our institution. Based on sexual interest, they were divided into the high‐interest and low‐interest groups. Overall satisfaction, urinary function, urinary bother, sexual function, and sexual bother were evaluated using the expanded prostate cancer index composite questionnaire preoperatively and at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after robot‐assisted radical prostatectomy. We investigated the associations between the overall satisfaction and urinary function/urinary bother/sexual function/sexual bother scores (with higher score indicating better function and less impairment).
Results
In the high‐interest group (n = 45), satisfaction correlated with high urinary function and urinary bother scores early after robot‐assisted radical prostatectomy (urinary function: 1 and 3 months, urinary bother: 3 months postoperatively; P < 0.05) and then with high sexual bother score thereafter (sexual bother at 6 and 12 months after surgery; P < 0.05). Sexual function score did not correlate with satisfaction. In the low‐interest group (n = 56), satisfaction correlated with high urinary function and urinary bother scores over time (urinary function: 3 and 6 months, urinary bother: at 3, 6 and 12 months postoperatively; P < 0.05). Neither sexual function nor sexual bother correlated with satisfaction postoperatively in the low‐interest group.
Conclusions
The impact of urinary and sexual functions and bothers on patients’ overall satisfaction differed between patients with high‐ and low‐interest in sex. The patient’s interest in sex should be considered when assessing satisfaction after robot‐assisted radical prostatectomy.
Columns are structural and functional units of the brain. However, the mechanism of column formation remains unclear. The medulla of the fly visual center shares features with the mammalian cerebral ...cortex, such as columnar and layered structures, and provides a good opportunity to study the mechanisms of column formation. Column formation is initiated by three core neurons in the medulla, namely, Mi1, R8, and R7. The proper orientation of neurons is required for the orientation and arrangement of multiple columns. Their orientations may be under the control of planar cell polarity (PCP) signaling, because it is known to regulate the orientation of cells in two-dimensional tissue structures. In this study, we demonstrate that the ligands DWnt4 and DWnt10 expressed specifically in the ventral medulla and dorsal medulla, respectively, globally regulate the columnar arrangement and orientation of Mi1 and R8 terminals through Fz2/PCP signaling in a three-dimensional space.
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•Neurons assemble to establish a column•Planar cell polarity regulates the orientation of neurons and columns•Wnt ligands globally regulate neuronal orientation and column arrangement
It is not known how neurons gather to form a column. Han et al. show that Wnt ligands globally regulate neuronal orientation and column arrangement through Fz2/planar cell polarity signaling in a three-dimensional space in the brain.
Large-eddy simulations of the flows over an NACA0015 airfoil were conducted to investigate a flow control authority of a dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuator at pre-stall angles of attack. ...The Reynolds number was set to 63,000, and angles of attack were set to 4, 6, 8, and 10 degrees. The plasma actuator was installed at 5% chord length from the airfoil’s leading edge. Good flow control authority was confirmed in terms of lift-to-drag ratio increase and drag reduction. These improvements mainly result from the reduction of the pressure drug, which is due to the change in pressure distribution accompanying the movement and shrink of the laminar separation bubble on the airfoil surface. Additionally, although flow control using a burst drive with a nondimensional burst frequency of six improves the lift-to-drag ratio at all angles of attack, the phenomena leading to the improvement differ between near-stall angles (10 and 12 degrees) and the other lower angles. At near-stall angles, the turbulent transition is rapidly promoted by PA, and the flow is reattached. Whereas, at the lower angles, the transport of two-dimensional vortex structures, which maintain their structures up to downstream and suppress the turbulent transition, makes the flow reattachment.
Coordination of skilled movements and motor planning relies on the formation of regionally restricted brain circuits that connect cortex with subcortical areas during embryonic development. Layer 5 ...neurons that are distributed across most cortical areas innervate the pontine nuclei (basilar pons) by protrusion and extension of collateral branches interstitially along their corticospinal extending axons. Pons-derived chemotropic cues are known to attract extending axons, but molecules that regulate collateral extension to create regionally segregated targeting patterns have not been identified. Here, we discovered that
and
are expressed in the cortex and the basilar pons in a region-specific and mutually exclusive manner, and that their repulsive activities are essential for segregating collateral extensions from corticospinal axonal tracts in mice. Specifically,
and
forward and reverse inhibitory signals direct collateral extension such that
-positive frontal and occipital cortical areas extend their axon collaterals into the
-negative rostral part of the basilar pons, whereas
-positive parietal cortical areas extend their collaterals into the
-negative caudal part of the basilar pons. Together, our results provide a molecular basis that explains how the corticopontine projection connects multimodal cortical outputs to their subcortical targets.
Our findings put forward a model in which region-to-region connections between cortex and subcortical areas are shaped by mutually exclusive molecules to ensure the fidelity of regionally restricted circuitry. This model is distinct from earlier work showing that neuronal circuits within individual cortical modalities form in a topographical manner controlled by a gradient of axon guidance molecules. The principle that a shared molecular program of mutually repulsive signaling instructs regional organization-both within each brain region and between connected brain regions-may well be applicable to other contexts in which information is sorted by converging and diverging neuronal circuits.
The flow control over the blades of a small horizontal-axis wind turbine (HAWT) model using a dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuator (DBD-PA) was studied based on large-eddy simulations. The ...numerical simulations were performed with a high-resolution computational method, and the effects of the DBD-PA on the flow fields around the blades were modeled as a spatial body force distribution. The DBD-PA was installed at the leading edge of the blades, and its impacts on the flow fields and axial torque generation were discussed. The increase in the ratios of the computed, cycle-averaged axial torque reasonably agreed with that of the available experimental data. In addition, the computed results presented a maximum of 19% increase in the cycle-averaged axial torque generation by modulating the operating parameters of the DBD-PA because of the suppression of the leading edge separation when the blade’s effective angles of attack were relatively high. Thus, the suppression of the leading edge separation by flow control can lead to a delay in the breakdown of the tip vortex as a secondary effect.
Metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is not sufficiently responsive to anticancer drugs, and thus, developing new drugs for advanced RCC remains vital. We previously reported that the treatment of ...globotriaosylceramide (Gb3)-expressing cells with catfish (Silurus asotus) egg lectin (SAL) increased the intracellular uptake of propidium iodide (PI) and sunitinib (SU). Herein, we investigated whether SAL pretreatment affects the intracellular uptake and cytotoxic effects of molecular-targeted drugs in RCC cells. We analyzed Gb3 expression in TOS1, TOS3, TOS3LN, and ACHN human RCC cells. Surface Gb3 expression was higher in TOS1 and TOS3 cells than in TOS3LN and ACHN cells. In the PI uptake assay, 41.5% of TOS1 cells and 21.1% of TOS3 cells treated with SAL were positive for PI. TOS1 cell viability decreased to 70% after treatment with 25 µM SU alone and to 48% after pretreatment with SAL (50 µg/mL). Time-series measurements of the intracellular fluorescence of SU revealed significantly enhanced SU uptake in SAL-treated TOS1 cells compared to control cells. SAL treatment did not increase PI uptake in normal renal cells. Our findings suggest that adequate cytotoxic activity may be achieved even when SU is administered at a sufficiently low dose not to cause side effects in combination with SAL.
For the management of muscle-invasive bladder cancer or upper tract urothelial carcinoma, the set guidelines recommend regular surveillance after radical cystectomy or radical nephroureterectomy. ...However, the prognostic benefit of regular oncological surveillance remains controversial in the absence of prospective studies although several retrospective studies with relatively large sample sizes have demonstrated the association between asymptomatic recurrence and better oncological outcomes. Seven out of eight studies reported that patients diagnosed with symptomatic recurrence showed significantly poorer prognosis in comparison to those diagnosed with asymptomatic recurrence. However, potential lead-time and length-time biases prevent the determination of any benefit of regular surveillance. In addition, an optimal surveillance protocol has yet to be established because conventional pathology-based protocols cannot identify the heterogenetic tumor biology of urothelial carcinoma, such as rapid- or slow-growing form of the disease. Several studies suggest that conventional pathology-based surveillance resulted in reduced cost-effectiveness. Recurrence risk-score stratified surveillance protocol including clinical and pathological factors may improve cost-effectiveness. The establishment of optimal risk stratification and surveillance strategies are required to improve the efficacy of regular oncological surveillance. Well-planned prospective studies are necessary to address the prognostic benefit of regular oncological surveillance and shared decision making.
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