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The circulation of avian influenza A viruses in poultry is a public health concern due to the potential transmissibility and severity of these viral infections. Monitoring the susceptibility of these viruses to antivirals is important for developing measures to strengthen the level of preparedness against influenza pandemics. However, drug susceptibility information on these viruses is limited. Here, we determined the susceptibilities of avian influenza A(H5N1), A(H5N2), A(H5N8), A(H7N7), A(H7N9), A(H9N1), and A(H9N2) viruses isolated in Japan to the antivirals approved for use there: an M2 inhibitor (amantadine), neuraminidase inhibitors (oseltamivir, peramivir, zanamivir, and laninamivir) and RNA polymerase inhibitors (baloxavir and favipiravir). Genotypic methods that detect amino acid substitutions associated with antiviral resistance and phenotypic methods that assess phenotypic viral susceptibility to drugs have revealed that these avian influenza A viruses are susceptible to neuraminidase and RNA polymerase inhibitors. These results suggest that neuraminidase and RNA polymerase inhibitors currently approved in Japan could be a treatment option against influenza A virus infections in humans.

Microgroove processing of glass is important in many fields, however, it is difficult to achieve the processing with a high speed. In this study, we developed a novel method for the high-speed microgroove processing of glass using two types of lasers, namely a femtosecond laser and a near-infrared continuous-wave (CW) laser. A single femtosecond laser pulse was initially focused on the surface of the material, enabling the area to absorb the CW laser, which is otherwise not absorbed by the glass. The CW laser was then scanned along the material surface, expanding the machined hole to form a groove. The resulting grooves, with a width of approximately 10 µm and depths of up to 350 µm, can be machined with a scanning speed of up to 200 mm/s, 25 times faster than conventional methods. This method exhibits the potential to improve the industrial application of fast laser microprocessing of glass.

This paper describes coolability evaluations of a debris bed with a variety of decay heat removal system (DHRS) operating conditions with a whole vessel model assuming fuel accumulation on the core catcher in a short term. The DHRS consists of two circuits of direct reactor auxiliary cooling system and one circuit of reactor vessel auxiliary cooling system. The evaluation tool is a one-dimensional plant dynamics code, Super-COPD, with a debris bed module. The coolability evaluations have indicated that the current core catcher design secures sufficient natural circulation flows around the core catcher to ensure the debris bed cooling when at least one circuit of DHRS was activated. Sensitivity analyses under a pessimistic condition have shown that the debris bed is coolable with at least one circuit of improved DHRS even if most fuel accumulates on the core catcher in a short term.

For an in-vessel retention strategy, severe accident analysis needs to be input the condition of loading on a core catcher based on physically compatible assumptions. This study has conducted event tree analyses emphasizing key phenomena in the lower plenum based on available experimental knowledge as well as design measure effectiveness. Criticality assessment has also been performed for the event tree analysis. In this paper, the approach to event tree development and the scope of the event tree analysis are described with key points on the loading conditions on the core catcher. For the analytical conditions, two loading conditions on core catcher were given as bounding and conservative cases. For the important heading of the event tree, key important phenomena were included: strong back design, fuel-coolant interaction and quench in the sodium plenum design, jet attack, criticality and coolability of molten core materials on the core catcher. In this study, preliminary trial quantification was attempted using a probability ranking table which is based on engineering judgement. This event tree analysis has identified the dominant sequence, and clarified the effect of the loading condition on the core catcher and effectiveness of design measures. This study suggests that the criticality measure is very important for the core catcher study.

Avian influenza viruses (AIV) are negative sense RNA viruses posing a major threat to the poultry industry worldwide, with the potential to spread to mammals, including humans; hence, an accurate and rapid AIV diagnosis is essential. To date AIV detection relies on molecular methods, mainly RT-qPCR directed against AIV M gene segment. The evolution of AIV represents a relevant issue in diagnostic RT-qPCR due to possible mispriming and/or probe-binding failures resulting in false negative results. Consequently, RT-qPCR for AIV detection should be periodically re-assessed both in silico and in vitro. To this end, a specific workflow was developed to evaluate in silico the complementarity of primers and probes of four published RT-qPCR protocols to their target regions. The four assays and one commercially available kit for AIV detection were evaluated both for their analytical sensitivity using eight different viral dilution panels and for their diagnostic performances against clinical specimens of known infectious status. Differences were observed among the tests under evaluation, both in terms of analytical sensitivity and of diagnostic performances. This finding confirms the importance of continuously monitoring the primers and probes complementarity to their binding regions.

Avian influenza H7N9 viruses have caused five epidemic waves of human infections since the first human cases were reported in 2013. In 2016, the initial low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) H7N9 viruses became highly pathogenic, acquiring multi-basic amino acids at the haemagglutinin cleavage site. These highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H7N9 viruses have been detected in poultry and humans in China, causing concerns of a serious threat to global public health. In Japan, both HPAI and LPAI H7N9 viruses were isolated from duck meat products carried illegally and relinquished voluntarily at the border by passengers on flights from China to Japan between 2016 and 2017. Some of the LPAI and HPAI H7N9 viruses detected at the border in Japan were characterized previously in chickens and ducks; however, their pathogenicity and replicative ability in mammals remain unknown. In this study, we assessed the biological features of two HPAI H7N9 virus isolates [A/duck/Japan/AQ-HE29-22/2017 (HE29-22) and A/duck/Japan/AQ-HE29-52/2017 (HE29-52); both of these viruses were isolated from duck meat at the border)] and an LPAI H7N9 virus isolate [A/duck/Japan/AQ-HE28-3/2016 (HE28-3)] in mice and ferrets. In mice, HE29-52 was more pathogenic than HE29-22 and HE28-3. In ferrets, the two HPAI virus isolates replicated more efficiently in the lower respiratory tract of the animals than did the LPAI virus isolate. Our results indicate that HPAI H7N9 viruses with the potential to cause severe diseases in mammals have been illegally introduced to Japan.

The first human case of zoonotic H7N9 avian influenza virus (AIV) infection was reported in March 2013 in China. This virus continues to circulate in poultry in China while mutating to highly pathogenic AIVs (HPAIVs). Through monitoring at airports in Japan, a novel H7N3 reassortant of the zoonotic H7N9 HPAIVs, A/duck/Japan/AQ-HE30-1/2018 (HE30-1), was detected in a poultry meat product illegally brought by a passenger from China into Japan. We analysed the genetic, pathogenic and antigenic characteristics of HE30-1 by comparing it with previous zoonotic H7N9 AIVs and their reassortants. Phylogenetic analysis of the entire HE30-1 genomic sequence revealed that it comprised at least three different sources; the HA (H7), PB1, PA, NP, M and NS segments of HE30-1 were directly derived from H7N9 AIVs, whereas the NA (N3) and PB2 segments of HE30-1 were unrelated to zoonotic H7N9. Experimental infection revealed that HE30-1 was lethal in chickens but not in domestic or mallard ducks. HE30-1 was shed from and replicated in domestic and mallard ducks and chickens, whereas previous zoonotic H7N9 AIVs have not adapted well to ducks. This finding suggests the possibility that HE30-1 may disseminate to remote area by wild bird migration once it establishes in wild bird population. A haemagglutination-inhibition assay indicated that antigenic drift has occurred among the reassortants of zoonotic H7N9 AIVs; HE30-1 showed similar antigenicity to some of those H7N9 AIVs, suggesting it might be prevented by the H5/H7 inactivated vaccine that was introduced in China in 2017. Our study reports the emergence of a new reassortant of zoonotic H7N9 AIVs with novel viral characteristics and warns of the challenge we still face to control the zoonotic H7N9 AIVs and their reassortants.

This paper deals with a problem of map-based localization. When a robot has a pre-constructed map of an environment and explores there with sensing, the localization problem boils down to the problem of finding the closest data pattern to the sensing data from the map. Although, the map quality as well as the sensing data quality greatly affects to the localization performance, however it has been rarely discussed up to this point. To study the influence of the map quality to the localization performance, we propose a simulational experiment using an architectural 3D CAD models. We prepared a precisive 3D CAD model imitating a corridor of elementary school and generated a 3D wireframe map and virtual sensing images from the CAD model. The precisive 3D CAD model is regarded as the ground-truth data through the whole experiments. Then, we prepared several levels of broken maps with randomly shifted joinery parts such as, doors and windows. For localization process, our previously developed image-retrieval based localization method is used. Totally 3,500 number of localization experiments are conducted with various broken map setting. We show the influence of map-environment disparity to the localization performance by comparing these experimental results and discuss the requirements of map quality.

A new reassortant H7N3 avian influenza virus (AIV) was isolated from a duck meat product that was illegally taken on board a passenger flight from China to Japan in March 2018. Sequencing analysis revealed that the H7N3 isolate, A/duck/Japan/AQ-HE30-1/2018 (Dk/HE30-1) (H7N3), was a reassortant highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV) that contained the haemagglutinin (HA) gene of Chinese H7N9 HPAIV. Dk/HE30-1 (H7N3) possessed a novel polybasic sequence motif PEVPKRRRTAR/GLF at the HA cleavage site that has never previously been reported in H7 HPAIVs. The HA antigenicity of Dk/HE30-1 (H7N3) slightly differed from that of H7N9 HPAIVs previously reported. These findings will help further our knowledge of the circulation and genetic evolution of emerging AIVs in endemic areas.

In recent years, nanostructures have been required for industry and medical services, to perform functions such as reduction in friction, control of wettability, and enhancement in biological affinity. Ultrashort pulsed lasers have been applied to meet these demands, and have been actively studied both experimentally and theoretically in terms of phenomena and principles. In this study, to clarify the phenomenon of the fabrication of laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS), and its application to industry, experiments were conducted on SUS304, titanium, and nickel-phosphorus by a short pulsed laser that has a longer pulse duration, higher cost-effectiveness, and higher stability than ultrashort pulsed lasers. The results confirmed that while LIPSS were fabricated on Ti and Ni-P workpieces, a uniform fine periodic structure was not fabricated on the whole irradiated surface of SUS304, and crystal grain boundaries appeared with low energy density and irradiation number because SUS304 is an alloy composed of Fe, Cr, and Ni. Further, the short pulsed laser has a low power and long pulse duration, inducing the thermal effect. We clarified the effect of crystal structure on fabricating fine periodic surface structures with short pulsed laser.

Glass-to-glass welding using ultrashort pulse laser is attracting attention. However, the low processing speed and the requirement of the small air gap between glass substrates have impeded its use in industry. In our study, we achieved rapid welding of glass substrates by coaxially focusing a single femtosecond laser pulse and a continuous-wave (CW) laser with a wavelength that transmits through glass. The selective absorption of the CW laser into the excited electrons increased the processing speed by a factor of 500 compared to the conventional method, while the allowable gap increased by a factor of 4.

H7N9 highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV) infection in a human was first reported in 2017. A/duck/Japan/AQ-HE29-22/2017 (H7N9) (Dk/HE29-22), found in imported duck meat at an airport in Japan, possesses a hemagglutinin with a multibasic cleavage site, indicating high pathogenicity in chickens, as in the case of other H7 HPAIVs. In the present study, we examined the pathogenicity of Dk/HE29-22 and the effectiveness of a cap-dependent endonuclease inhibitor (baloxavir) and neuraminidase inhibitors (oseltamivir and zanamivir) against infection with this strain in a macaque model (n = 3 for each group). All of the macaques infected with Dk/HE29-22 showed severe signs of disease and pneumonia even after the virus had disappeared from lung samples. Virus titers in macaques treated with baloxavir were significantly lower than those in the other treated groups. After infection, levels of interferon alpha and beta (IFN-α and IFN-β) in the blood of macaques in the baloxavir group were the highest among the groups, whereas levels of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and interleukin 13 (IL-13) were slightly increased in the untreated group. In addition, immune checkpoint proteins, including programmed death 1 (PD-1) and T cell immunoreceptor with Ig and ITIM domains (TIGIT), were expressed at high levels in the untreated group, especially in one macaque that showed severe signs of disease, indicating that negative feedback responses against vigorous inflammation may contribute to disease progression. In the group treated with baloxavir, the percentages of PD-1-, CTLA-4-, and TIGIT-positive T lymphocytes were lower than those in the untreated group, indicating that reduction in virus titers may prevent expression of immune checkpoint molecules from downregulation of T cell responses.

In the original publication of the article, Fig. 5 was incorrect. The correct Fig. 5 appears as below.

We study double-winding Wilson loops in $SU(N)$ lattice Yang-Mills gauge theory by using both strong coupling expansions and numerical simulations. First, we examine how the area law falloff of a ``coplanar'' double-winding Wilson loop average depends on the number of color $N$. Indeed, we find that a coplanar double-winding Wilson loop average obeys a novel ``max-of-areas law'' for $N=3$ and the sum-of-areas law for $N\ensuremath{\ge}4$, although we reconfirm the difference-of-areas law for $N=2$. Second, we examine a ``shifted'' double-winding Wilson loop, where the two constituent loops are displaced from one another in a transverse direction. We evaluate its average by changing the distance of a transverse direction and we find that the long distance behavior does not depend on the number of color $N$, while the short distance behavior depends strongly on $N$.

Glass with high-aspect-ratio micro holes is used in system-in-package technologies and microfluidic devices. In this study, to investigate the feasibility of the process, we used a continuous-wave (CW) fiber laser to drill a hole in glass without an absorbent layer. To understand the process of removal, we conducted observations over a wide range of time scales from 1 kfps to 1 Mfps. A CW laser beam with a wavelength of 1070 nm was focused on the front surface of an aluminosilicate glass sample. The real-time observations revealed that the initiation of the material removal occurred tens or hundreds of milliseconds after the exposure of the laser beam. Once the removal of the material started, the depth of the hole rapidly increased at a rate of 3–4 $$\mu $$ m/ $$\mu $$ s. Although the time required for the initiation of the material removal varied with the laser power, the rate at which the depth of the hole increased was approximately constant. The model of the transient absorption and thermal diffusion showed that the abrupt material removal was caused by the dependence of absorption coefficient on temperature. The threshold temperature was calculated as 900–1200 $$^\circ $$ C. In this study, we demonstrated that a CW fiber laser can process high-aspect-ratio micro holes in glass without using an absorbent layer through precisely controlled exposure time.

The extreme intensity of femtosecond laser pulses can enable microfabrication in glass. However, conventional femtosecond laser based glass processing has two severe limitations, viz., a low processing speed and the generation of damage during processing. To create a hole with a diameter of 10 m and a depth of over 100 μm using the conventional method, hundreds of pulses must be focused on a single spot because the volume removed by a single femtosecond laser pulse is too small. Furthermore, whenever a laser pulse is focused on the target surface, a strong stress wave is generated, thereby hindering precision. We have resolved these issues by coaxially focusing a single femtosecond laser pulse and a fiber laser pulse having a wavelength that is transparent to glass. A hole with a diameter of 10 μm and a depth of 133 μm was created in 40 μs, which indicates that the processing speed was over 5000 times faster than that of a conventional femtosecond laser. Moreover, the damage generated was considerably eliminated in comparison with the conventional method, and precision processing was achieved. The results of this study will help expand the industrial applications of femtosecond laser processing.

Transient and selective laser (TSL) processing is a method used for the rapid fabrication of transparent materials. In this method, electrons in glass are excited by an ultrashort-pulse laser. This electron-excited region selectively absorbs a long-pulse laser with low intensity, resulting in microfabrication. However, the mechanism of material removal during TSL processing is not completely understood. In this study, we measured the threshold of TSL processing in synthetic fused silica to investigate the details of the processing mechanism. The measurement revealed that the processing threshold was represented by the relationship between the intensity of the long-pulse laser and the electron density excited by the femtosecond laser. The calculations indicated that the absorption in synthetic fused silica was mainly due to linear absorption of the long-pulse laser into the excited electrons and that a simple threshold model can be used to explain the material removal volume. The revealed controlling factor from the identified threshold function will allow the shapes to be controlled during TSL processing.

The transportation of poultry and related products for international trade contributes to transboundary pathogen spread and disease outbreaks worldwide. To prevent pathogen incursion through poultry products, many countries have regulations about animal health and poultry product quarantine. However, in Japan, animal products have been illegally introduced into the country in baggage and confiscated at the airport. Lately, the number of illegally imported poultry and the incursion risk of transboundary pathogens through poultry products have been increasing. In this study, we isolated avian influenza viruses (AIVs) from raw poultry products illegally imported to Japan by international passengers. Highly (H5N1 and H5N6) and low (H9N2 and H1N2) pathogenic AIVs were isolated from raw chicken and duck products carried by flight passengers. H5 and H9 isolates were phylogenetically closely related to viruses isolated from poultry in China, and haemagglutinin genes of H5N1 and H5N6 isolates belonged to clades 2.3.2.1c and 2.3.4.4, respectively. Experimental infections of H5 and H9 isolates in chickens and ducks demonstrated pathogenicity and tissue tropism to skeletal muscles. To prevent virus incursion by poultry products, it is important to encourage the phased cleaning based on the disease control and eradication and promote the reduction in contamination risk in animal products.

In previous works, we have proposed a new formulation of Yang-Mills theory on the lattice so that the so-called restricted field obtained from the gauge-covariant decomposition plays the dominant role in quark confinement. This framework improves the Abelian projection in the gauge-independent manner. For quarks in the fundamental representation, we have demonstrated some numerical evidences for the restricted field dominance in the string tension, which means that the string tension extracted from the restricted part of the Wilson loop reproduces the string tension extracted from the original Wilson loop. However, it is known that the restricted field dominance is not observed for the Wilson loop in higher representations if the restricted part of the Wilson loop is extracted by adopting the Abelian projection or the field decomposition naively in the same way as in the fundamental representation. In this paper, therefore, we focus on confinement of quarks in higher representations. By virtue of the non-Abelian Stokes theorem for the Wilson loop operator, we propose suitable gauge-invariant operators constructed from the restricted field to reproduce the correct behavior of the original Wilson loop averages for higher representations. Moreover, we perform lattice simulations to measure the static potential for quarks in higher representations using the proposed operators. We find that the proposed operators well reproduce the behavior of the original Wilson loop average, namely, the linear part of the static potential with the correct value of the string tension, which overcomes the problem that occurs in naively applying Abelian-projection to the Wilson loop operator for higher representations., Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures

This paper deals with map-based localization problem. Generally, errors between an environment and a prior-map affects to the localization result. We prepare several types of map with different detailed level. Then we investigate the localization accuracy of virtual sensing image in each map type. We confirmed that the map with lower detailed level is, the worse the localization result is.