Relationship of occupation to blood pressure among middle-aged Japanese men--the significance of the differences in body mass index and alcohol consumption

To clarify how and why blood pressure differs between occupations, the proportions of hypertensives, and the measures of blood pressure, body mass index (BMI) and alcohol consumption among the individuals not taking antihypertensive drugs were compared between the eight occupational categories using the data from a health check-up for 589 middle-aged Japanese males, mostly randomly selected from five areas in Japan. After adjusting for age, the relationships of occupation to the proportion of hypertensives and the mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure substantially differed among the five areas. However, after further adjustment for residence, these blood pressure levels (the proportion of hypertensives, and the mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure) were found to be higher for the "Personnel in transport and communications", the "Clerical personnel", the "Managerial and civil personnel" and the "Professional and technical personnel", whereas these values were consistently lowest in the "Service personnel". Age and residence-adjusted mean BMI was also higher for the four occupational categories with the increased blood pressure levels. According to a weighted multiple regression analysis across the eight occupations, the age and residence-adjusted mean BMI was a significant predictor of the age and residence-adjusted mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure (p = 0.068 and 0.018, respectively). These results suggest that the occupation-related changes in BMI may largely contribute to the occupation-related changes in blood pressure.     

Reverse direction-based surrounder queries for mobile recommendations

This paper proposes a new spatial query called a reverse direction-based surrounder (RDBS) query, which retrieves a user who is seeing a point of interest (POI) as one of their direction-based surrounders (DBSs). According to a user, one POI can be dominated by a second POI if the POIs are directionally close and the first POI is farther from the user than the second is. Two POIs are directionally close if their included angle with respect to the user is smaller than an angular threshold ??. If a POI cannot be dominated by another POI, it is a DBS of the user. We also propose an extended query called competitor RDBS query. POIs that share the same RDBSs with another POI are defined as competitors of that POI. We design algorithms to answer the RDBS queries and competitor queries. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithms can answer the queries efficiently.     

Japanese/English Cross-Language Information Retrieval: Exploration of Query Translation and Transliteration

Cross-language information retrieval (CLIR), where queriesand documents are in different languages, has of late become one ofthe major topics within the information retrieval community. Thispaper proposes a Japanese/English CLIR system, where we combine aquery translation and retrieval modules. We currently target theretrieval of technical documents, and therefore the performance of oursystem is highly dependent on the quality of the translation oftechnical terms. However, the technical term translation is stillproblematic in that technical terms are often compound words, and thusnew terms are progressively created by combining existing basewords. In addition, Japanese often represents loanwords based on itsspecial phonogram. Consequently, existing dictionaries find itdifficult to achieve sufficient coverage. To counter the firstproblem, we produce a Japanese/English dictionary for base words, andtranslate compound words on a word-by-word basis. We also use aprobabilistic method to resolve translation ambiguity. For the secondproblem, we use a transliteration method, which corresponds wordsunlisted in the base word dictionary to their phonetic equivalents inthe target language. We evaluate our system using a test collectionfor CLIR, and show that both the compound word translation andtransliteration methods improve the system performance.     

The influence of carboxylate ions on the growth of β-FeOOH particles

Colloidal -FeOOH particles were produced by hydrolysis of FeCl₃ solutions doped with varied amounts of formate, lactate, oxalate, tartarate, pyromellitate and EDTA ions at 100 °C. The resulting particles were characterized by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, thermogravimetric-differential thermal analysis, Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy, elemental analysis, and the adsorption of nitrogen and water. With increasing concentration of added carboxylate ions, the mean modal size of the particles formed increased at low concentrations and decreased after passing the maximum. The crystallite sizes also revealed a maximum on adding EDTA, oxalate and lactate ions, while they monotonically decreased with the addition of other ions. Doping with tartarate and pyromellitate ions by more than 7 and 10 mol%, respectively, produced amorphous particles containing a large amount of these ions. The particles formed with 20 mol% tartarate ions adsorbed water selectively.     

Contributions of distinct prefrontal neuron classes in reward processing

The prefrontal cortex(PFC)is thought to be involved in higher order cognitive functions,such as in working memory,abstract categorization,and reward processing.It has been reported that two distinct neuron classes(putative pyramidal cells and interneurons)in the PFC played different functional roles in neural circuits involved in forming working memory and abstract categories.However,it remains elusive how the two types of neurons process reward information in the PFC.To investigate this issue,the activity of single neurons was extracellularly recorded in the PFC of the monkey performing a reward predicting task.PFC neurons were classified into putative pyramidal cells and interneurons,respectively,based on the waveforms of action potentials.Both the two types of neurons encoded reward information and discriminated two reward conditions(the preferred reward condition vs.the nonpreferred reward condition).However,the putative pyramidal neurons had better and more reliable discriminability than the putative interneurons.Also,the pyramidal cells represented reward information in the preferred reward condition,but not in the nonpreferred reward condition by raising their firing rates relative to the baseline rates.In contrast,the interneurons encoded reward information in the nonpreferred reward condition,but not in the preferred reward condition by inhibiting their discharge rates relative to the baseline rates.These results suggested that the putative pyramidal cells and interneurons had complementary functions in reward processing.These findings may help to clarify individual functions of each type of neurons in PFC neuronal circuits involved in reward processing.     

Helium gas permeability of montmorillonite/epoxy nanocomposites

Helium gas permeability of silicate clay (montmorillonite) particles/epoxy nanocomposites was examined. The incorporation of increasing amounts of montmorillonite particles reduced the helium gas permeability. Based on Fick’s law, gas permeation behavior of the nanocomposite was evaluated. With the increase of montmorillonite loading, gas diffusivity decreased, while gas solubility increased. Helium diffusion behavior is in agreement to the numerical results based on the Hatta–Taya–Eshelby theory. It has been revealed that dispersion of nanoscale platelets in polymer is effective in improving gas barrier property.     

Ion-velocity dependence of high-density electronic excitation effects in oxide superconductors

Thin films of EuBa₂Cu₃O_y oxide superconductor have been irradiated with high energy heavy ions (80 MeV I, 125 MeV Br, 1.1 GeV Mo and 3.5 GeV Xe) having same electronic stopping power, S_e, in order to investigate the ion-velocity dependence of the electronic excitation effects under the constant electronic energy deposition. Although S_e is constant, a strong reduction in the irradiation effect on lattice parameter with increasing ion-velocity is observed in the low ion-velocity region around E  1 MeV/nucleon, while the ion-velocity dependence is hardly observed in the high ion-velocity region of E > 10 MeV/nucleon. If the observed velocity-dependence is assumed to be due to the change in the fraction of S_e contributing to defect creation, the fraction in the low velocity region (E  0.6 MeV/nucleon) is estimated to be about two times larger than that in the high velocity region (E > 10 MeV/nucleon).     

Narrow-beam divergence 1.3-μm multiple-quantum-well laser diodeswith monolithically integrated tapered thickness waveguide

This paper describes the optimum design, fabrication, and performance of a 1.3-μm multiple-quantum-well (MQW) laser diode monolithically integrated with a tapered thickness spot-size transformer. The dependence of the lasing characteristics on the thickness distribution of the core layer and on the current injection profile of the device were analyzed. This integrated laser with its optimized structure performed at a low threshold current of 22.2 mA, even at 85°C. The integrated spot-size transformer effectively reduced the lateral and vertical far-field FWHM's to 8° and 9°, respectively. A very long lifetime of over 1×10⁵ h was estimated at 85°C and 8 mW under CW operation     

Hydraulic Study of the Onset of Hypoxia in the Tone River Estuary

Field measurements were conducted to investigate the onset and growth of hypoxia in the Tone River Estuary. Vertical profiles of dissolved oxygen (DO), salinity, and temperature were measured along the deepest line of the estuary. Rates of oxygen consumption by water and sediment in a salt wedge were obtained using laboratory tests. The measurements showed that hypoxia frequently occurred in the front part of the salt wedge and expanded its area toward the river mouth during the summer when the river flow rate was small. The data also suggested that the onset of hypoxia was delayed by the estuarine circulation which supplied oxygen-rich seawater to the salt wedge. To simulate this phenomenon, a two-dimensional flow model in the vertical-longitudinal plane was constructed by transversely integrating the k–ε model equations. The results of model simulation for three months in the summer of 1997 closely matched the field data. The model simulation proved that DO degradation is highly correlated with the residence time of salt water in the estuary.     

Different Involvement of Vimentin during Invasion by Listeria monocytogenes at the Blood–Brain and the Blood–Cerebrospinal Fluid Barriers In Vitro

The human central nervous system (CNS) is separated from the blood by distinct cellular barriers, including the blood–brain barrier (BBB) and the blood–cerebrospinal fluid (CFS) barrier (BCSFB). Whereas at the center of the BBB are the endothelial cells of the brain capillaries, the BCSFB is formed by the epithelium of the choroid plexus. Invasion of cells of either the BBB or the BCSFB is a potential first step during CNS entry by the Gram-positive bacterium Listeria monocytogenes (Lm). Lm possesses several virulence factors mediating host cell entry, such as the internalin protein family—including internalin (InlA), which binds E-cadherin (Ecad) on the surface of target cells, and internalin B (InlB)—interacting with the host cell receptor tyrosine kinase Met. A further family member is internalin (InlF), which targets the intermediate filament protein vimentin. Whereas InlF has been shown to play a role during brain invasion at the BBB, its function during infection at the BCSFB is not known. We use human brain microvascular endothelial cells (HBMEC) and human choroid plexus epithelial papilloma (HIBCPP) cells to investigate the roles of InlF and vimentin during CNS invasion by Lm. Whereas HBMEC present intracellular and surface vimentin (besides Met), HIBCPP cells do not express vimentin (except Met and Ecad). Treatment with the surface vimentin modulator withaferin A (WitA) inhibited invasion of Lm into HBMEC, but not HIBCPP cells. Invasion of Lm into HBMEC and HIBCPP cells is, however, independent of InlF, since a deletion mutant of Lm lacking InlF did not display reduced invasion rates.