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Climate change poses various challenges for agriculture and water management practices in Central Asia (CA). Central to these challenges are cryosphere dynamics, fragile mountain ecosystems, and ongoing natural hazards that highlight the need for robust projections of regional climate change. For the first time, dynamic downscaling was conducted in Central Asia at a spatial resolution of 5 km. This produced a regional dataset that incorporated periods between 1980 and 2000 and 2076 to 2096. Results show that dynamic downscaling significantly improves the simulation of temperature and precipitation across CA compared to General Circulation Models (GCMs) and other Regional Climate Models (RCMs) due to better representation of topography and related meteorological fields. Our analysis shows that there will be a significant warming trend in Central Asia with a projected increase of 6°C under the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) scenario SSP5-8.5 from 2076 to 2096. Pronounced warming is detected over mountainous areas of CA from autumn to spring, which can be explained by the snow-albedo feedback. Precipitation increases are projected from winter to spring and decreases are projected from summer to autumn.

Abstract We investigate historical regional climate changes in Japan from 1959 to 2020, analyzing a high-resolution dynamical downscaling forced by the Japanese 55-year Reanalysis (JRA-55). One-year continuous simulations are conducted by the non-hydrostatic regional climate model with a land surface model that includes the snow accumulation process, which enables us to evaluate the seasonal variation of snow cover in all of Japan. Our simulation reproduces interannual variations of the annual mean surface air temperature and annual total precipitation, and it shows rapid warming since around 1980. The annual maximum snow depth and annual maximum daily snowfall show significant decreasing trends at lower elevations on the Japan Sea sides of eastern and western Japan. Areas at higher elevations in eastern Japan show no trend in the maximum snow depth and a significant increasing trend in the maximum daily snowfall. In northern Japan, altitudinal dependencies in snow depth and snowfall changes are smaller on the Japan Sea side than on the Pacific Ocean side: the Japan Sea side shows insignificant changes in snow depth at all elevations, while the Pacific Ocean side shows decreasing and significant increasing trends at lower and higher elevations, respectively. The total number of snow-covered days is decreasing at most elevations in all regions, while the rate of decrease is smaller at higher elevations and latitudes. Composite analyses of annual maximum daily snowfall events at one prefectural city facing the Japan Sea in central Japan indicate that heavy daily snowfall occurs when the Japan Polar air mass Convergence Zone appears over the Japan Sea and the snowfall amounts show increasing and decreasing trends over the mountainous and coastal areas, respectively, due to historical warming and moistening. Our results are basically consistent with previous studies that have focused on future changes in snow depth and snowfall.

The population dynamics of mosquitoes in temperate regions are not as well understood as those in tropical and subtropical regions, despite concerns that vector-borne diseases may be prevalent in future climates. Aedes albopictus, a vector mosquito in temperate regions, undergoes egg diapause while overwintering. To assess the prevalence of mosquito-borne diseases in the future, this study aimed to simulate and predict mosquito population dynamics under estimated future climatic conditions. In this study, we tailored the physiology-based climate-driven mosquito population (PCMP) model for temperate mosquitoes to incorporate egg diapauses for overwintering. We also investigated how the incorporation of the effect of rainfall on larval carrying capacity (into a model) changes the population dynamics of this species under future climate conditions. The PCMP model was constructed to simulate mosquito population dynamics, and the parameters of egg diapause and rainfall effects were estimated for each model to fit the observed data in Tokyo. We applied the global climate model data to the PCMP model and observed an increase in the mosquito population under future climate conditions. By applying the PCMP models (with or without the rainfall effect on the carrying capacity of the A. albopictus), our projections indicated that mosquito population dynamics in the future could experience changes in the patterns of their active season and population abundance. According to our results, the peak population number simulated using the highest CO2 emission scenario, while incorporating the rainfall effect on the carrying capacity, was approximately 1.35 times larger than that predicted using the model that did not consider the rainfall effect. This implies that the inclusion of rainfall effects on mosquito population dynamics has a major impact on the risk assessments of mosquito-borne diseases in the future.

The evolutionary origins and advantages of clonal reproduction relative to sexual reproduction have been discussed for several taxonomic groups. In particular, organisms with a sessile lifestyle are often exposed to spatial and temporal environmental fluctuations. Thus, clonal propagation may be advantageous in such fluctuating environments, for sessile species that can reproduce both sexually and clonally. Here we introduce the concept of niche to a lattice space that changes spatially and temporally, by incorporating the compatibility between the characteristics of a sessile clonal plant with its habitat into a spatially explicit individual-based model. We evaluate the impact of spatially and temporally heterogeneous environments on the evolution of reproductive strategies: the optimal balance between seed and clonal reproduction of a clonal plant. The spatial niche case with local habitats led to avoidance of specialization in reproductive strategy, whereas stable environments or intensive environmental change tended to result in specialization in either clonal or seed reproduction under neutral conditions. Furthermore, an increase in spatial niches made clonal reproduction advantageous, as a consequence of competition among several genets under disturbed conditions, because a ramet reached a favorable habitat through a rare long-distance dispersal event via seed production. Thus, the existence of spatial niches could explain the advantages of clonal propagation.

Intracellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1)-mediated cell-cell adhesion is thought to play an important role at sites of inflammation. Recent evidence suggests that ICAM-1 surface expression on alveolar macrophages is increased in pulmonary sarcoidosis and that inflammatory granuloma formation is characterized by the aggregation of macrophages. The present study shows that ICAM-1 expression is significantly elevated on alveolar macrophages from patients with sarcoidosis in response to tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interferon- γ (INF-γ) compared with healthy controls. Aggregation and adhesion were significantly increased in alveolar macrophages treated with TNF-α and INF-γ, and significantly inhibited in those pretreated with a monoclonal antibody to ICAM-1. Similarly, aggregation and adhesion were inhibited in macrophages treated with heparin, which then exhibited a wide range of biological activities relevant to inflammation. These results suggested that the surface expression of ICAM-1 on alveolar macrophages in response to TNF-α and INF-γ is important in mediating aggregation and adhesion. Additionally, heparin may be useful for developing novel therapeutic agents for fibrotic lung disease.

Heparanase activity is correlated with the metastatic potential of several cancer cells and is a key enzyme in the breakdown of tissue barriers. It is also involved in the regulation of growth factor and cytokine activity. However, little is known about the factors that induce heparanase in cancer cells. We investigated the effect of three growth factors, plateletderived growth factor (PDGF), hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), on heparanase mRNA induction in lung cancer cells in vitro. In addition, we examined the effect of erythromycin (EM) and clarithromycin (CAM), which are 14-membered ring macrolide antibiotics that act as biological response modifiers, on the expression of heparanase mRNA induced by growth factors.

Climate change poses various challenges for agriculture and water management practices in Central Asia (CA). Central to these challenges are cryosphere dynamics, fragile mountain ecosystems, and ongoing natural hazards that highlight the need for robust projections of regional climate change. For the first time, dynamic downscaling was conducted in Central Asia at a spatial resolution of 5 km. This produced a regional dataset that incorporated periods between 1980 and 2000 and 2076 to 2096. Results show that dynamic downscaling significantly improves the simulation of temperature and precipitation across CA compared to General Circulation Models (GCMs) and other Regional Climate Models (RCMs) due to better representation of topography and related meteorological fields. Our analysis shows that there will be a significant warming trend in Central Asia with a projected increase of 6°C under the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) scenario SSP5-8.5 from 2076 to 2096. Pronounced warming is detected over mountainous areas of CA from autumn to spring, which can be explained by the snow-albedo feedback. Precipitation increases are projected from winter to spring and decreases are projected from summer to autumn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Spinal metastasis is considered to have a worse prognosis in lung cancer than in other cancers, but recent clinical studies report improved overall survival of lung cancer. We compared the postoperative prognoses of vertebral metastatic tumors from lung with other types of cancer.Methods: From 2011 to 2015, 31 Japanese patients (mean age 73 years, range 55-88 years; 19 males, 12 females) underwent surgery for spinal metastasis at our center. We observed patients retrospectively in March 2016, dividing them into groups by cancer type: lung (LK group, n = 10); prostate, breast, or thyroid (PB group, n = 12); and other (OT group, n = 9). We compared survival and revised Tokuhashi score, which provides a basis for choosing a treatment course. Neurologic status was graded before and after surgery using the Frankel system.Results: Mean follow-up was 16.5 months (range 1-62 months). Only seven of 31 patients (22.6%) were alive at final follow-up. Frankel grade significantly improved postoperatively only in the LK (P = 0.01) and PB (P = 0.048) groups. Revised Tokuhashi score differed across groups (P < 0.0001), and was significantly lower in the LK group than in the PB group (P = 0.00) and OT group (P = 0.02). Postoperative survival was significantly shorter in the LK group than in the PB group (P = 0.01) but did not differ between the LK and OT groups.Conclusions: The revised Tokuhashi score may underestimate the survival of lung cancer patients, who may derive the same benefit from surgical intervention as those with vertebral metastasis from other cancer types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theory and empirical evidence suggest that plant-soil feedback (PSF) determines the structure of a plant community and nutrient cycling in terrestrial ecosystems. The plant community alters the nutrient pool size in soil by affecting litter decomposition processes, which in turn shapes the plant community, forming a PSF system. However, the role of microbial decomposers in PSF function is often overlooked, and it remains unclear whether decomposers reinforce or weaken litter- mediated plant control over nutrient cycling. Here, we present a theoretical model incorporating the functional diversity of both plants and microbial decomposers. Two fundamental microbial processes are included that control nutrient mineralization from plant litter: (I) assimilation of mineralized nutrient into the microbial biomass (microbial immobilization), and (ii) release of the microbial nutrients into the inorganic nutrient pool (net mineralization). With this model, we show that microbial diversity may act as a buffer that weakens plant control over the soil nutrient pool, reversing the sign of PSF from positive to negative and facilitating plant coexistence. This is explained by the decoupling of litter decomposability and nutrient pool size arising from a flexible change in the microbial community composition and decomposition processes in response to variations in plant litter decomposability. Our results suggest that the microbial community plays a central role in PSF function and the plant community structure. Furthermore, the results strongly imply that the plant-centered view of nutrient cycling should be changed to a plant-microbe-soil feedback system, by incorporating the community ecology of microbial decomposers and their functional diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]