Effect of combining motivational interviewing with cognitive remediation on personal recovery in patients with schizophrenia.

Background/objective: We have been practising the Neuropsychological and Educational Approach to Remediation (NEAR) as cognitive remediation (CR) in a psychiatric hospital and have implemented it in combination with regular interviews based on Motivational Interviewing (MI) approximately 2 years after launching NEAR. In this study, we investigated whether combining MI with CR affected completion of the programme, cognitive functions, global functioning, and personal recovery of patients with schizophrenia by analysing medical records.

Methods: In this retrospective observational study, 14 participants were assigned to the NEAR group and 12 participants were assigned to the NEAR + MI group.

Acute hypercapnic respiratory failure in patients with obesity hypoventilation syndrome during the COVID-19 pandemic: Four case reports.

Obesity hypoventilation syndrome (OHS) can cause acute hypercapnic respiratory failure (AHRF). The onset of AHRF in four patients with OHS during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is reported in this study. Two men (23 and 45 years old) and two women (both 77 years old) presented to our hospital with AHRF.

IgG4-related disease: diagnostic methods and therapeutic strategies in Japan.

This review describes methods utilized in Japan to diagnose and treat patients with IgG4-related disease. A diagnosis of IgG4-related disease is based on elevated serum IgG4 concentration and an increased number of IgG4(+) plasma cells. Differentiating IgG4-related disease from other disorders, especially malignancy, is quite important.

Molecular characterization of monovalent and multivalent hapten-protein conjugates for analysis of the antigen--antibody interaction.

We prepared a hapten-protein conjugate using (4-hydroxy-3-nitrophenyl)acetyl (NP) hapten and hen egg lysozyme (HEL) or bovine serum albumin (BSA) and defined hapten modification sites on the former protein based on results of reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and mass spectrometric analyses performed after enzymatic digestion. The most reactive residue for aminoacetylation in HEL was found to be Lys33, and the second was Lys96 or Lys97. The homogeneous NP-HEL conjugates were purified by HPLC and used for examining the effect of hapten valence on the antigen-antibody interaction.

N-terminal domain of eotaxin-3 is important for activation of CC chemokine receptor 3.

Eotaxin-3 belongs to the CC chemokine family, and specifically recognizes CC chemokine receptor (CCR) 3 that is expressed on eosinophils, basophils and helper T type 2 cells. The three-dimensional structure of eotaxin-3 determined by nuclear magnetic resonance has revealed that the N-terminal nine residues preceding the first cysteine comprise an unstructured domain, which is also observed in other chemokine molecules. In order to determine the function of the N-terminal domain of eotaxin-3, we constructed various N-terminal-deletion mutants, and then examined their binding and chemotactic activities toward eosinophils in vitro.