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Introduction: The rising number of cats as pets and the growing interest in animal welfare have led to an increased need for the latest treatments in feline veterinary medicine. Among these, veterinary regenerative medicine using pluripotent stem cells is gaining significant attention. However, there have been no reports on establishing feline embryonic stem cell (ESC) lines that possess the pluripotent potential and the ability to differentiate into three germ layers. Methods: In this study, we isolated three inner cell masses from feline in vitro-derived blastocysts and subcultured them in a chemically defined medium (StemFit AK02N). We assessed the expression of undifferentiated markers, the ability to differentiate into the three germ layers, and the karyotype structure. Results: We established three feline ESC lines. Feline ESCs exhibited positive staining for alkaline phosphatase. RT-qPCR analysis revealed that these cells express undifferentiated marker genes in vitro. Immunostaining and flow cytometry analysis demonstrated that feline ESCs express undifferentiated marker proteins in vitro. In the KSR/FBS medium with or without Activin A, feline ESCs differentiated into all three germ layers (ectoderm, endoderm, and mesoderm), expressing specific marker genes and proteins for each germ layer, as evidenced by RT-qPCR, immunostaining, and flow cytometry. Furthermore, we confirmed that feline ESCs formed teratomas comprising all three germ layers in mouse testes, demonstrating de novo pluripotency in vivo. We also verified that the feline ESCs maintained a normal karyotype. Conclusions: We successfully established three feline ESC lines, each possessing pluripotent potential and capable of differentiating into all three germ layers, derived from the inner cell masses of blastocysts produced in vitro.

Shape-memory polyester films having functional groups were prepared and further grafted onto poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm) via atom-transfer radical polymerization. The grafting point of PNIPAAm was controlled by changing the composition of good and poor solvents. In the case of graft polymerization using only good solvents, the film swells, and polymerization proceeds not only from the surface but also from the internal polymerization initiation points. By increasing the proportion of poor solvents, PNIPAAm was grafted onto the surface of the film without swelling. The samples grafted to the interior regions of the film exhibited a decrease in the shape-memory recovery rate and recovery speed, whereas the samples grafted only to the surface of the film exhibited high shape-memory properties. Furthermore, contact-angle measurements revealed that the surface-grafted polymer exhibited changes in surface properties in response to film deformation. Because the deformation of the film is a large change, on the order of several millimeters, the deformation of the manually stretched film was shown to control molecular-level changes on the surface.

Introduction: Endoderm-derived organs support indispensable functions in the body. Pluripotent stem cells can generate endoderm-derived cells or tissues and have excellent therapeutic potential to replace the functions of endodermal tissues. However, there is no viable method to induce endodermal precursor cells, definitive endoderm (DE), from canine induced pluripotent stem cells (ciPSCs). Methods: A ciPSC line was used in this study. In order to induce DE, ciPSCs were cultured with high dose activin A and fetal bovine serum. We considered the optimal differentiation period and starting cell density. Next, to reduce the remaining undifferentiated cells and improve the DE induction efficiency, DE was induced from 3D cell aggregates with knockout serum replacement instead of fetal bovine serum. Finally, hepatic and pancreatic induction were performed to investigate whether DE could differentiate into downstream lineages. Results: After differentiation, some cells expressed the DE markers FOXA2 and SOX17. DE induction period and starting cell density were found to be important for efficient DE induction. However, some cells remained undifferentiated even after optimization of cell density and culture period. Cell differentiation under 3D culture conditions reduced undifferentiated cells and the replacement of fetal bovine serum with knockout serum replacement improved the DE induction efficiency. After hepatic and pancreatic induction, cells expressed some early hepatic and pancreatic markers. Conclusions: A ciPSC line was successfully differentiated to DE efficiently using a high dose of activin A with knockout serum replacement under 3D cell culture conditions. We believe that this study will be fundamental to achieving the generation of canine endodermal tissues from ciPSCs.

Abstract To elucidate the relevance of gut dysbiosis in Parkinson’s disease (PD) in disease progression, we made random forest models to predict the progression of PD in two years by gut microbiota in 165 PD patients. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUROCs) of gut microbiota-based models for Hoehn & Yahr (HY) stages 1 and 2 were 0.799 and 0.705, respectively. Similarly, gut microbiota predicted the progression of Movement Disorder Society-Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS) III scores in an early stage of PD with AUROC = 0.728. Decreases of short-chain fatty acid-producing genera, Fusicatenibacter, Faecalibacterium, and Blautia, as well as an increase of mucin-degrading genus Akkermansia, predicted accelerated disease progression. The four genera remained unchanged in two years in PD, indicating that the taxonomic changes were not the consequences of disease progression. PD patients with marked gut dysbiosis may thus be destined to progress faster than those without gut dysbiosis.

We examined the effectiveness of saline, Euro-Collins solution (EC), and ET-Kyoto solution (ET-K) as preservation media for the cold storage of feline ovaries. Ovaries were maintained in these media at 4°C for 24, 48, or 72 h until oocyte retrieval. The ET-K group exhibited a higher oocyte maturation rate than the saline group after 72 h of storage. Moreover, ET-K could sustain the competence of the feline oocytes to cleave after 48 h, and the morula formation rate of the ET-K group was higher than that of the other groups after 24 and 48 h. Furthermore, the ET-K group exhibited a higher blastocyst formation rate than the other groups after storage for 24 h, and only ET-K retained the developmental competence in blastocysts after 48 h of storage. In addition, regarding the cell numbers of the blastocysts, there was no significant difference among the tested groups. In conclusion, our results indicate that ET-K is a suitable preservation medium for feline ovaries.

Applicability of wave-based acoustics simulation methods in the time domain has increased markedly for performing room-acoustics simulation. They can incorporate sound absorber effects appropriately with a local-reaction frequency-dependent impedance boundary condition and an extended-reaction model. However, their accuracy, efficiency and practicality against a standard frequency-domain solver in 3D room acoustics simulation are still not known well. This paper describes a performance examination of a recently developed time-domain FEM (TD-FEM) for small-room acoustics simulation. This report first describes the significantly higher efficiency of TD-FEM against a frequency-domain FEM (FD-FEM) via acoustics simulation in a small cubic room and a small meeting room, including two porous-type sound absorbers and a resonant-type sound absorber. Those sound absorbers are modeled with local-reaction frequency-dependent impedance boundary conditions and an extended-reaction model. Then, the practicality of time-domain FEM is demonstrated further by simulating the room impulse response of the meeting room under various sound absorber configurations, including the frequency component up to 6 kHz. Results demonstrated the high potential and computational benefit of time-domain FEM as a 3D small room acoustics prediction tool.

The low patency of synthetic vascular grafts hinders their practical applicability. Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) is a non-toxic, highly hydrophilic polymer; thus, we created a PVA-coated polycaprolactone (PCL) nanofiber vascular graft (PVA–PCL graft). In this study, we examine whether PVA could improve the hydrophilicity of PCL grafts and evaluate its in vivo performance using a rat aorta implantation model. A PCL graft with an inner diameter of 1 mm is created using electrospinning (control). The PCL nanofibers are coated with PVA, resulting in a PVA–PCL graft. Mechanical property tests demonstrate that the PVA coating significantly increases the stiffness and resilience of the PCL graft. The PVA–PCL surface exhibits a much smaller sessile drop contact angle when compared with that of the control, indicating that the PVA coating has hydrophilic properties. Additionally, the PVA–PCL graft shows significantly less platelet adsorption than the control. The proposed PVA–PCL graft is implanted into the rat’s abdominal aorta, and its in vivo performance is tested at 8 weeks. The patency rate is 83.3% (10/12). The histological analysis demonstrates autologous cell engraftment on and inside the scaffold, as well as CD31/α-smooth muscle positive neointima regeneration on the graft lumen. Thus, the PVA–PCL grafts exhibit biocompatibility in the rat model, which suggests that the PVA coating is a promising approach for functionalizing PCL.

This paper presents a proposal of an efficient binaural room-acoustics auralization method, an essential goal of room-acoustics modeling. The method uses a massively parallel wave-based room-acoustics solver based on a dispersion-optimized explicit time-domain finite element method (TD-FEM). The binaural room-acoustics auralization uses a hybrid technique of first-order Ambisonics (FOA) and head-related transfer functions. Ambisonics encoding uses room impulse responses computed by a parallel wave-based room-acoustics solver that can model sound absorbers with complex-valued surface impedance. Details are given of the novel procedure for computing expansion coefficients of spherical harmonics composing the FOA signal. This report is the first presenting a parallel wave-based solver able to simulate room impulse responses with practical computational times using an HPC cloud environment. A meeting room problem and a classroom problem are used, respectively, having 35 million degrees of freedom (DOF) and 100 million DOF, to test the parallel performance of up to 6144 CPU cores. Then, the potential of the proposed binaural room-acoustics auralization method is demonstrated via an auditorium acoustics simulation of up to 5 kHz having 750,000,000 DOFs. Room-acoustics auralization is performed with two acoustics treatment scenarios and room-acoustics evaluations that use an FOA signal, binaural room impulse response, and four room acoustical parameters. The auditorium acoustics simulation showed that the proposed method enables binaural room-acoustics auralization within 13,000 s using 6144 cores.

The asymmetric unit of the title anhydrate compound, (NH4)2[VO(C3H2O4)2(H2O)], consists of two independent complex anions and four ammonium cations. In the complex anions, the VIV atoms are each coordinated by two malonate ligands, one water molecule and one oxide O atom in a distorted octahedral geometry. The equatorial plane is formed by the malonate O atoms, while the axial positions are occupied by water and oxide O atoms. The difference between the two independent complexes is the relative conformation of the malonate ligands. The two ligands in one complex anion are in a syn conformation, while in the other they adopt an anti conformation. In the crystal, the complex anions interact with the counter-cations and adjacent anions through O—H...O, N—H...O and C—H...O hydrogen bonds. Stacks of alternating layers consisting of either anti or syn isomers, formed with the aid of the hydrogen bonding, are observed. DFT calculations for the anti and syn isomers show a similar thermodynamic stability to each other. The crystal used for this analysis was an inversion twin with the ratio of the twin components being 0.270 (13):0.730 (13).

Wave-based acoustics simulation methods such as finite element method (FEM) are reliable computer simulation tools for predicting acoustics in architectural spaces. Nevertheless, their application to practical room acoustics design is difficult because of their high computational costs. Therefore, we propose herein a parallel wave-based acoustics simulation method using dissipation-free and dispersion-optimized explicit time-domain FEM (TD-FEM) for simulating room acoustics at large-scale scenes. It can model sound absorbers with locally reacting frequency-dependent impedance boundary conditions (BCs). The method can use domain decomposition method (DDM)-based parallel computing to compute acoustics in large rooms at kilohertz frequencies. After validation studies of the proposed method via impedance tube and small cubic room problems including frequency-dependent impedance BCs of two porous type sound absorbers and a Helmholtz type sound absorber, the efficiency of the method against two implicit TD-FEMs was assessed. Faster computations and equivalent accuracy were achieved. Finally, acoustics simulation of an auditorium of 2271 m3 presenting a problem size of about 150,000,000 degrees of freedom demonstrated the practicality of the DDM-based parallel solver. Using 512 CPU cores on a parallel computer system, the proposed parallel solver can compute impulse responses with 3 s time length, including frequency components up to 3 kHz within 9000 s.

IoT-based measurement systems for manufacturing have been widely implemented. As components that can be implemented at low cost, BLE beacons have been used in several systems developed in previous research. In this work, we focus on the Kanban system, which is a measure used in manufacturing strategy. The Kanban system emphasizes inventory management and is used to produce only required amounts. In the Kanban system, the Kanban cards are rotated through the factory along with the products, and when the products change to a different process route, the Kanban card is removed from the products and the products are assigned to another Kanban. For this reason, a single Kanban cannot trace products from plan to completion. In this work, we propose a system that uses a Bluetooth low energy (BLE) beacon to connect Kanbans in different routes but assigned to the same products. The proposed method estimates the beacon status of whether the Kanban is inside or outside a postbox, which can then be computed by a micro controller at low computational cost. In addition, the system connects the Kanbans using the beacons as paired connection targets. In an experiment, we confirmed that the system connected 70% of the beacons accurately. We also confirmed that the system could connect the Kanbans at a small implementation cost.

This paper presents a crossed rib diffuser (CRD) as an effective tool for room acoustic control. We performed an experimental investigation of its effectiveness using a specimen manufactured for this trial. The CRD is constructed by overlapping two one-dimensional (1D) periodic rib diffusers with different specifications so that they are crossed at non-right angles. The CRD achieves a higher scattering coefficient than 1D periodic rib diffusers in a wide band while maintaining the simple and friendly design of 1D periodic rib diffusers applicable to various architectural spaces. Moreover, inserting an absorbing layer between upper and lower ribs of the CRD, (CRD-A) yields a high broadband absorption coefficient. We first evaluated the random-incidence scattering coefficient of CRD using a 1/5 scaled model in comparison with those of 1D periodic diffusers assessed with a numerical method. Then, absorption coefficients for the CRD and the CRD-A were measured using a reverberation room. Subsequently, an experiment on a small meeting room with a 1D periodic rib diffuser, the CRD and the CRD-A was conducted to present performance of the CRD in room acoustic control. Impulse response measurements and evaluations of reverberation parameters (T20 and EDT) and speech clarity (D50) were conducted. Additionally, we present differences in structure of reflected sounds found for the flat wall, the CRD and the CRD-A visually using a four-channel sound field microphone.

This paper presents a proposal of a time domain room acoustic solver using novel fourth-order accurate explicit time domain finite element method (TD-FEM), with demonstration of its applicability for practical room acoustic problems. Although time domain wave acoustic methods have been extremely attractive in recent years as room acoustic design tools, a computationally efficient solver is demanded to reduce their overly large computational costs for practical applications. Earlier, the authors proposed an efficient room acoustic solver using explicit TD-FEM having fourth-order accuracy in both space and time using low-order discretization techniques. Nevertheless, this conventional method only achieves fourth-order accuracy in time when using only square or cubic elements. That achievement markedly impairs the benefits of FEM with geometrical flexibility. As described herein, that difficulty is solved by construction of a specially designed time-integration method for time discretization. The proposed method can use irregularly shaped elements while maintaining fourth-order accuracy in time without additional computational complexity compared to the conventional method. The dispersion and dissipation characteristics of the proposed method are examined respectively both theoretically and numerically. Moreover, the practicality of the method for solving room acoustic problems at kilohertz frequencies is presented via two numerical examples of acoustic simulations in a rectangular sound field including complex sound diffusers and in a complexly shaped concert hall.

Lithium alkoxide activates a monoorganosilane to generate a transient LiH/alkoxysilane complex, which quickly reacts with aryl and alkenyl halides at 25 °C to deliver a diorganosilane product. Experimental and theoretical studies suggest that the reaction includes nucleophilic attack of LiH on the halogen atom of the organic halide to generate a transient organolithium/alkoxysilane intermediate, which undergoes quick carbon-silicon bond formation within the complex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a numerically stable explicit time-domain finite element method (TD-FEM) for room acoustic simulation using an equivalent impedance model. Performance over a conventional explicit TD-FEM is demonstrated using numerical experiments. Both explicit TD-FEMs were based on simultaneous first-order ordinary differential equations. The conventional method has a stability problem derived from backward difference approximation of time derivative of sound pressure related to a dissipation term for treating absorption at a boundary. The numerically stable explicit TD-FEM avoids the stability problem through the combined use of first-order forward and backward difference approximation. A completely explicit algorithm is obtainable using a lumped dissipation matrix. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed explicit TD-FEM is stable for changing impedance values at boundary surfaces. In addition, numerical dissipation and dispersion error analyses revealed that both explicit TD-FEMs have small dissipation error. Moreover, the proposed method has slightly lower accuracy than the conventional explicit TD- FEM. However, the proposed method is computationally more efficient than the conventional method for acoustics simulation of rooms with smaller impedance values at boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report here a manganese-catalyzed C--H methylation reaction of considerable substrate scope, using MeMgBr, a catalytic amount of MnCl2 x 2LiCl, and an organic dihalide oxidant. The reaction features ambient temperature, low catalyst loading, typically 1%, high catalytic turnover reaching 5.9 x 10³, and no need for an extraneous ligand and illustrates a unique catalytic use of simple manganese salts for C--H activation, which so far has relied on catalysis by manganese carbonyls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Caregivers who provide nursing-care visits to the elderly learn to notice changes in the physical and mental functions of residents by looking for signs of disorder in living spaces and changes in the orderliness of living spaces. In this research, to understand what draws caregiver attention and how they evaluate them, 15 caregivers are interviewed and asked to evaluate images of 33 living spaces. The results show variances in evaluations concerning the degree of clutter of living spaces even among experienced caregivers, but that it is possible to classify the degree of clutter using a two-axis scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The kinetics of caffeine uptake into the interlayer nanospace of silicate nanosheets modified with benzylammonium (BA) was evaluated by in situ monitoring the basal spacing in aqueous media using transmission X-ray diffraction. An interlayer spacing of 0.58 nm in water before caffeine uptake indicates a monomolecular layer of BA and a few water layers in each interlayer. The interlayer space expanded by 0.10 nm upon caffeine uptake (intercalation) and saturated even in the presence of excess caffeine. Time-course profiles of the interlayer spacing and the uptake amount after injection of caffeine into the water slurry were obtained. At the initial period, the plot for the basal spacing was located above that for the adsorbed amount, suggesting that the rate of the interlayer spacing change was faster than that to attain the adsorption equilibrium. A first-order kinetic simulation fitted to the profile also indicates that the basal spacing included a rapid expansion of 0.08 nm within a few minutes and a slow expansion of 0.02 nm over several hours. Regarding the slow component, the rate constant for the basal spacing was lower than that for the amount of caffeine adsorbed, meaning that a steady-state basal spacing is reached after the adsorption equilibrium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Symmetrical and unsymmetrical conjugated diynes are chemo-, regio-, and stereoselectively carbomagnesiated with a Grignard reagent at room temperature in the presence of a catalytic amount of FeCl2 without the need for an external ligand. The resulting magnesium intermediate can be further functionalized to give polysubstituted 1,3-enyne derivatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cutting-edge technologies such as genome editing and synthetic biology allow us to produce novel foods and functional proteins. However, their toxicity and allergenicity must be accurately evaluated. It is known that specific amino acid sequences in proteins make some proteins allergic, but many of these sequences remain uncharacterized. In this study, we introduce a data-driven approach and a machine-learning method to find undiscovered allergen-specific patterns (ASPs) among amino acid sequences. The proposed method enables an exhaustive search for amino acid subsequences whose frequencies are statistically significantly higher in allergenic proteins. As a proof-of-concept, we created a database containing 21,154 proteins of which the presence or absence of allergic reactions are already known and applied the proposed method to the database. The detected ASPs in this proof-of-concept study were consistent with known biological findings, and the allergenicity prediction performance using the detected ASPs was higher than extant approaches, indicating this method may be useful in evaluating the utility of synthetic foods and proteins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renal expression of the klotho gene is markedly suppressed in chronic kidney disease (CKD). Since renal fibrosis is the final common pathology of CKD, we tested whether decreased Klotho expression is a cause and/or a result of renal fibrosis in mice and cultured renal cell lines. We induced renal fibrosis by unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO) in mice with reduced Klotho expression (kl/+ mice) and compared them with wild-type mice. The UUO kidneys from kl/+ mice expressed significantly higher levels of fibrosis markers such as α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA), fibronectin, and transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) than those from wild-type mice. In addition, in cultured renal fibroblast cells (NRK49F), the levels of α-SMA and PAI1 expression were significantly suppressed by addition of recombinant Klotho protein to the medium. The similar effects were observed by a TGF-β1 receptor inhibitor (ALK5 inhibitor). These observations suggest that low renal Klotho expression enhances TGF-β1 activity and is a cause of renal fibrosis. On the other hand, TGF-β1 reduced Klotho expression in renal cultured epithelial cells (inner medullary collecting duct and human renal proximal tubular epithelium), suggesting that low renal Klotho expression is a result of renal fibrosis. Taken together, renal fibrosis can trigger a deterioration spiral of Klotho expression, which may be involved in the pathophysiology of CKD progression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Klotho is associated with the suppression of several ageing phenotypes. Because high klotho gene expression was detected in the kidney and several studies have found altered expression in animal models, we explored the physiological relevance of klotho expression in the kidney under renal ischemia reperfusion injury (IRI).Methods. Male Wistar rats were subjected to bilateral renal ischemia or sham operation, followed by reperfusion for 6, 12 or 24 h, or 2 to 10 days. Renal expression of klotho was assessed by real-time PCR or Western blotting. Creatinine levels were determined. Immunohistochemical studies and TUNEL staining were performed. An adenovirus harbouring the mouse klotho gene (ad-kl) was intravenously administered to one group of rats before renal IRI.Results. Renal klotho mRNA and protein expressions were significantly reduced in IRI rats the first day after ischemia. Pre-treatment with ad-kl resulted in a robust induction of klotho mRNA and protein in the liver but not in the kidney. Ad-kl gene transfer improved serum creatinine and the histological changes. Apoptosis induced by IRI was attenuated following ad-kl administration.Conclusion. The data suggest klotho to be involved in the pathophysiology of IRI. Downregulation of renal klotho exacerbates ischaemic acute renal failure, and klotho gene induction has therapeutic potential in managing ischaemic renal damage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the aim of increasing the current gain of a 1.3-µm-wavelength npn-AlGaInAs/InP transistor laser, we realized devices with a thin base layer to suppress unnecessary recombination between electrons and holes in the base layer. Consequently, we obtained a current gain of 0.18 with a base-layer thickness of 50 nm, which was 9 times higher than that previously reported with a base-layer thickness of 100 nm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]