Publications by authors named "Anzai A"

The effective elimination of NO from automobile exhaust at low temperatures poses significant challenges. Compared to other materials, supported RhO catalysts exhibit high NO decomposition activities, even in the presence of O, CO, and HO. Metal additives can enhance the low-temperature NO decomposition activities over supported RhO catalysts; however, the enhancement mechanism and active sites require further investigation.

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Background: Alopecia areata is a highly frequent disease with great variability in clinical presentation, severity, and prognosis. It has a significant negative impact on quality of life, especially in the moderate and severe forms.

Objective: To disseminate guidelines, prepared by a group of Brazilian experts, for the treatment and follow-up of patients with alopecia areata.

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Background: The cause of chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) remains largely unknown. Recently, clonal hematopoiesis (CH) has been reported to be associated with cardiovascular and thromboembolic diseases. Here, we investigated the prevalence and clinical impact of CH in patients with CTEPH.

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Article Synopsis
  • * In an experiment, genetically similar mice on a high-fat diet were either isolated or housed together for 12 weeks to study the effects on heart health and metabolism, using various biological analyses to measure changes.
  • * Findings revealed that socially isolated mice developed more severe atherosclerosis due to disrupted lipid metabolism and reduced oxytocin levels, suggesting that social connections enhance lipid management and overall cardiovascular health through a brain-liver communication pathway.
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For the brain to compute object motion in the world during self-motion, it must discount the global patterns of image motion (optic flow) caused by self-motion. Optic flow parsing is a proposed visual mechanism for computing object motion in the world, and studies in both humans and monkeys have demonstrated perceptual biases consistent with the operation of a flow-parsing mechanism. However, the neural basis of flow parsing remains unknown.

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  • Japan's strict border control measures, including mandatory entry and exit screenings for incoming passengers, were assessed from October 2020 to April 2022 to evaluate their effectiveness in managing COVID-19.
  • A statistical model was created to compare the positivity rates of COVID-19 among arriving passengers with the prevalence data in the UK, revealing some discrepancies that indicated the impact of exit screenings.
  • The study found that exit screening reduced the percentage of positive cases among Japanese passengers from 0.67% to 0.49% in the first month of implementation, suggesting a 59.3% reduction in positivity, especially during the Delta and Omicron variant phases.
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Elucidating the neural basis of perceptual biases, such as those produced by visual illusions, can provide powerful insights into the neural mechanisms of perceptual inference. However, studying the subjective percepts of animals poses a fundamental challenge: unlike human participants, animals cannot be verbally instructed to report what they see, hear, or feel. Instead, they must be trained to perform a task for reward, and researchers must infer from their responses what the animal perceived.

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The intensive study of electrochemical CO reduction reaction (CORR) has resulted in numerous highly selective catalysts, however, most of these still exhibit uncontrollable selectivity. Here, it is reported for the first time the controllable CH/CH selectivity by modulating the electronic states of Cu incorporated in metal-organic frameworks with different functional ligands, achieving a Faradaic efficiency of 58% for CH on Cu-incorporated UiO-66-H (Ce) composite catalysts, Cu/UiO-66-H (Ce) and that of 44% for CH on Cu/UiO-66-F (Ce). In situ measurements of Raman and X-ray absorption spectra revealed that the electron-withdrawing ability of the ligand side group controls the product selectivity on MOFs through the modulation of the electronic states of Cu.

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Lichen planopilaris (LPP) and frontal fibrosing alopecia (FFA) are primary cicatricial alopecia that cause a major impact on quality of life due to irreversible hair loss and symptoms as itching, burning and pain. They are characterized by permanent loss of hair follicle stem cells (HFSCs) by pathomechanisms still poorly understood, resulting in poor efficacy of currently available treatments. Caveolae are flask-shaped lipid rafts invaginated within the plasma membrane of multiple cell types.

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Background: The Japanese government has instituted border control measures against COVID-19, including entry and exit screening of people arriving from overseas. We sought to evaluate the effectiveness of the exit screening policy in Japan in reducing the risk of importing COVID-19 cases among travelers from Asian and Pacific countries.

Methods: The study period was stratified based on the timing of exit screening: (i) the control period (the pre-exit screening period from 25 October 2020 to 16 January 2021), (ii) the time period with the Alpha variant from 17 January to 10 April 2021, and (iii) the time period with the Delta variant from 2 May to 2 October 2021.

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The phenomenon of sex chromosome loss from hematopoietic cells is an emerging indicator of biological aging. While many methods to detect this loss have been developed, enhancing the field, these existing methods often suffer from being labor-intensive, expensive, and not sufficiently sensitive. To bridge this gap, a novel and more efficient technique is developed, named the SinChro assay.

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A 24-year-old woman with chronic active Epstein-Barr virus (CAEBV) infection successfully underwent coronary artery bypass grafting for triple coronary arteries with chronic total occlusion and aneurysms. This case underscores the importance of accurate assessment and treatment of coronary artery lesions in patients with CAEBV infection.

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Acute kidney injury (AKI) after cardiac surgery is a common complication that can lead to death. We previously reported that the creatinine reduction ratio (CRR) serves as a useful prognostic factor for AKI. The primary objective of this study was to determine the predictors of AKI after surgery.

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Background: A major epidemic of COVID-19 caused by the Delta variant (B.1.617.

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Mobility restrictions were widely practiced to reduce contact with others and prevent the spatial spread of COVID-19 infection. Using inter-prefectural mobility and epidemiological data, a statistical model was devised to predict the number of imported cases in each Japanese prefecture. The number of imported cases crossing prefectural borders in 2020 was predicted using inter-prefectural mobility rates based on mobile phone data and prevalence estimates in the origin prefectures.

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Article Synopsis
  • Sensitive scalp (SSc) is a condition characterized by increased sensitivity in the scalp area, and while it's common in dermatology, it's not well-researched.
  • Symptoms include discomfort like itching, burning, and pain, which can sometimes accompany hair loss and often present with redness on the scalp.
  • Diagnosis involves taking a detailed patient history, as there are no specific visual signs, and treatment typically follows a three-step approach: scalp care, topical, and systemic therapies.
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Although the Japanese government removed mask-wearing requirements in 2023, relatively high rates of mask wearing have continued in Japan. We aimed to assess psychological reasons and the strength of habitual mask wearing in Japan. An Internet-based cross-sectional survey was conducted with non-random participant recruitment.

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Cardiomyocytes (CMs) have little regenerative capacity. After myocardial infarction (MI), scar formation and myocardial remodeling proceed in the infarct and non-infarct areas, respectively, leading to heart failure (HF). Prolonged activation of cardiac fibroblasts (CFs) and inflammatory cells may contribute to this process; however, therapies targeting these cell types remain lacking.

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  • The study explores how disruptions in the glutathione-based lipid redox system cause increased oxidized lipid production and cell death (ferroptosis) during ischemia-reperfusion (IR) events in cardiomyocytes.
  • Clinical methods such as microdialysis and high-resolution mass spectrometry were used to analyze metabolite fluctuations, revealing significant glutathione release into extracellular spaces and decreased intracellular levels during IR.
  • The research also showed that inhibiting the transporter MRP1 can reduce reactive oxygen species and lipid peroxidation, thus preventing ferroptosis and potential cell death following ischemic events.
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Electrochemical CO reduction (eCOR) by direct introduction of 60% air-containing CO mixed gas was demonstrated using a porous Cu network cathode formed on a hydrophobic gas diffusion layer (Cu/P-GDL). Cu/P-GDL exhibited eCOR using the mixed gas with a remarkable faradaic efficiency of 85% for the production of C chemicals, whereas a Cu cathode constructed on a conventional carbon gas diffusion layer (Cu/C-GDL) produced neither eCOR products nor H. Furthermore, the electrolyzer with Cu/P-GDL and optimized anode configuration achieved a partial current density of 132 mA cm for C chemicals even in the presence of 12% O.

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