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This paper is based on my ongoing research that was inspired by Japan's recent catastrophes. Now that the 2011 disasters have added another dimension to Japanese society, it is essential to rethink Japan as an earthquake nation and to pay close attention to the effect of earthquakes on various aspects of Japanese culture and society. I explore modern Japanese culture in terms of its relation to earthquakes and discuss the formation of earthquake nationalism through an examination of the history of earthquakes, myths, and legends, as well as media and literary representations of earthquakes. I also discuss nuclear issues in relation to the Fukushima nuclear meltdown accident. Postwar Japan's nuclear development involves not only its international politics but also center-periphery power dynamics between Tokyo and the local host towns of nuclear power plants in which I see the friction (or literally, the "power" struggle) between Japan's earthquake nationalism and the formation of a nuclear empire. The purpose of this paper is to offer a new aspect of modern Japan's cultural formation and to introduce a new dimension of Japanese cultural studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Murakami Haruki persistently depicts modern Japan as a distorted space with a hole inside through symbolic use of a well and doughnuts. The protagonist, who realizes the strangeness of his life, engages in a search for himself by going down to the bottom of the old well in the middle of Tokyo. This novel shares the same theme with Murakami's earlier works that involve the character the Sheep Man. This essay explores a new approach to the complexity of The Wind- Up Bird Chronicle through examination of shared theme, characters, and symbolism found in Murakami's early works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Raphanus sativus (2n = 2x = 18) is a widely cultivated member of the family Brassicaceae, for which genomic resources are available only to a limited extent in comparison to many other members of the family. To promote more genetic and genomic studies and to enhance breeding programmes of R. sativus, we have prepared genetic resources such as complementary DNA libraries, expressed sequences tags (ESTs), simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers and a genetic linkage map. A total of 26 606 ESTs have been collected from seedlings, roots, leaves, and flowers, and clustered into 10 381 unigenes. Similarities were observed between the expression patterns of transcripts from R. sativus and those from representative members of the genera Arabidopsis and Brassica, indicating their functional relatedness. The EST sequence data were used to design 3800 SSR markers and consequently 630 polymorphic SSR loci and 213 reported marker loci have been mapped onto nine linkage groups, covering 1129.2 cM with an average distance of 1.3 cM between loci. Comparison of the mapped EST-SSR marker positions in R. sativus with the genome sequence of A. thaliana indicated that the Brassicaceae members have evolved from a common ancestor. It appears that genomic fragments corresponding to those of A. thaliana have been doubled and tripled in R. sativus. The genetic map developed here is expected to provide a standard map for the genetics, genomics, and molecular breeding of R. sativus as well as of related species. The resources are available at http://marker.kazusa.or.jp/Daikon. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Chiaki Takagi examines modern Japan's cultural formation from a new theoretical perspective by applying postcolonial theories to modern Japan. The author's goal is to rethink Japan's modernity, including its long-lasting "sengo" (postwar) period, by examining the works of Murakami Haruki. His works suggest that postwar Japanese society has been informed by a peculiar version of colonization. Takagi calls the application of postcolonial theories to Japanese society the "Japanization" of the postcolonial as well as of the postmodern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The present study aimed to retrospectively analyze the long-term efficacy and toxicity of concurrent chemoradiotherapy with nedaplatin and S-1 for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.Methods: The study enrolled 53 patients (23 with stage II disease, 13 with stage III disease, and 17 with stage IV disease). S-1 was administered orally twice a day for 14 days, followed by a two-week rest period. Nedaplatin was intravenously administered on day 4. Where possible, two courses of chemotherapy were performed. Radiotherapy was started with the administration of S-1. We analyzed the clinical response, survival rate, acute adverse events, and late swallowing toxicity.Results: The complete response rates for the primary tumor and neck lymph node metastases were 94.3% and 79.3%, respectively. The five-year overall survival rate was 79.5%, the five-year disease-specific survival rate was 84.8%, and the five-year relapse-free survival rate was 73.7%. The main acute adverse events were leukopenia, neutropenia, mucositis, and dermatitis. No patient had severe nephrotoxicity. Late swallowing toxicity was observed in 13 patients.Conclusions: The low toxicity, and low nephrotoxicity of chemoradiotherapy with nedaplatin and S-1 have a positive impact on long-term survival. The combination of nedaplatin and S-1 can be used instead of cisplatin and 5-fluorouracil as a safer regimen, especially in patients with some complications and those requiring treatment in an outpatient setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many lines of evidence demonstrate that transcription factor nuclear factor-E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) plays essential roles in cancer cell proliferation and resistance to chemotherapy, thereby indicating that suppression of abnormal Nrf2 activation is needed for a new therapeutic approach. Our previous studies reported that procyanidins prepared from Cinnamomi Cortex extract (CCE) have an ability to suppress cytoprotective enzymes and cell proliferation in human cancer cells with activated Nrf2. In the present study, we investigated the mechanism of CCE procyanidin-mediated antagonization of Nrf2. CCE procyanidin treatment rapidly reduced nuclear Nrf2 expression and phosphorylated insulin-like growth factor-1 receptor (IGF-1R) in A549 cells. Nrf2 protein expression in A549 cells with reduced IGF-1R expression and function was not affected by treatment with CCE procyanidins, which suggested that CCE procyanidins decreased Nrf2 through IGF-1R. Nrf2 suppression by CCE procyanidins was mitigated in the presence of protease inhibitors, not proteasome inhibitors. In addition, CCE procyanidin treatment led to enhancement of nuclear cysteine protease activity in A549 cells. Our findings suggest a novel mechanism by which CCE procyanidins can promote proteasome-independent degradation of nuclear Nrf2 through IGF-1R phosphorylation and cysteine protease activation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]