Color Photometric Stereo Using Multi-Band Camera Constrained by Median Filter and Occluding Boundary.

One of the main problems faced by the photometric stereo method is that several measurements are required, as this method needs illumination from light sources from different directions. A solution to this problem is the color photometric stereo method, which conducts one-shot measurements by simultaneously illuminating lights of different wavelengths. However, the classic color photometric stereo method only allows measurements of white objects, while a surface-normal estimation of a multicolored object using this method is theoretically impossible.

A model for epidemic dynamics in a community with visitor subpopulation.

With a five dimensional system of ordinary differential equations based on the SIR and SIS models, we consider the dynamics of epidemics in a community which consists of residents and short-stay visitors. Taking different viewpoints to consider public health policies to control the disease, we derive different basic reproduction numbers and clarify their common/different mathematical natures so as to understand their meanings in the dynamics of the epidemic. From our analyses, the short-stay visitor subpopulation could become significant in determining the fate of diseases in the community.

Spatial navigation ability and gaze switching in older drivers: A driving simulator study.

Objective: Driving ability in older people is affected by declining motor, cognitive and visual functions. We compared perceptual and cognitive skills and driving behaviour in a Japanese population.

Methods: We used a driving simulator to measure the effects of spatial navigation skills and eye movements on driving ability.

Hydrogen bond donors and acceptors are generally depolarized in α-helices as revealed by a molecular tailoring approach.

Hydrogen-bond (H-bond) interaction energies in α-helices of short alanine peptides were systematically examined by precise density functional theory calculations, followed by a molecular tailoring approach. The contribution of each H-bond interaction in α-helices was estimated in detail from the entire conformation energies, and the results were compared with those in the minimal H-bond models, in which only H-bond donors and acceptors exist with the capping methyl groups. The former interaction energies were always significantly weaker than the latter energies, when the same geometries of the H-bond donors and acceptors were applied.

Pyrophosphate amplification reaction for measuring amino acid concentrations with high sensitivity using aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase from .

To measure amino acid concentrations with high sensitivity, the pyrophosphate amplification reaction conditions of histidyl-tRNA synthetase (HisRS) and tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase (TyrRS) were examined. The amount of pyrophosphate produced by reactions involving HisRS and TyrRS was amplified compared with the amount of the initial substrate L-amino acid after the addition of excess adenosine-5'-triphosphate and magnesium ions, with incubation at 50°C in an alkaline pH. The amount of pyrophosphate produced in the HisRS and TyrRS reactions was approximately 24- and 16-fold higher than the initial amount of L-His and L-Tyr, respectively.

Dynamics of order parameters of nonstoquastic Hamiltonians in the adaptive quantum Monte Carlo method.

We derive macroscopically deterministic flow equations with regard to the order parameters of the ferromagnetic p-spin model with infinite-range interactions. The p-spin model has a first-order phase transition for p>2. In the case of p≥5, the p-spin model with antiferromagnetic XX interaction has a second-order phase transition in a certain region.

Measurement of the Electrical Properties of a Thundercloud Through Muon Imaging by the GRAPES-3 Experiment.

The GRAPES-3 muon telescope located in Ooty, India records rapid (∼10  min) variations in the muon intensity during major thunderstorms. Out of a total of 184 thunderstorms recorded during the interval of April 2011-December 2014, the one on December 1, 2014 produced a massive potential of 1.3 GV.

Direct mapping of hydrangea blue-complex in sepal tissues of Hydrangea macrophylla.

The original sepal color of Hydrangea macrophylla is blue, although it is well known that sepal color easily changes from blue through purple to red. All the colors are due to a unique anthocyanin, 3-O-glucosyldelphinidin, and both aluminum ion (Al) and copigments, 5-O-caffeoyl and/or 5-O-p-coumaroylquinic acid are essential for blue coloration. A mixture of 3-O-glucosyldelphinidin, 5-O-acylquinic acid, and Al in a buffer solution at pH 4 produces a stable blue solution with visible absorption and circular dichroism spectra identical to those of the sepals, then, we named this blue pigment as 'hydrangea blue-complex'.

Estimating carrier frequencies of newborn screening disorders using a whole-genome reference panel of 3552 Japanese individuals.

Incidence rates of Mendelian diseases vary among ethnic groups, and frequencies of variant types of causative genes also vary among human populations. In this study, we examined to what extent we can predict population frequencies of recessive disorders from genomic data, and explored better strategies for variant interpretation and classification. We used a whole-genome reference panel from 3552 general Japanese individuals constructed by the Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization (ToMMo).

Outlier detection for questionnaire data in biobanks.

Background: Biobanks increasingly collect, process and store omics with more conventional epidemiologic information necessitating considerable effort in data cleaning. An efficient outlier detection method that reduces manual labour is highly desirable.

Method: We develop an unsupervised machine-learning method for outlier detection, namely kurPCA, that uses principal component analysis combined with kurtosis to ascertain the existence of outliers.

Pathogenic mutations identified by a multimodality approach in 117 Japanese Fanconi anemia patients.

Fanconi anemia is a rare recessive disease characterized by multiple congenital abnormalities, progressive bone marrow failure, and a predisposition to malignancies. It results from mutations in one of the 22 known genes. The number of Japanese Fanconi anemia patients with a defined genetic diagnosis was relatively limited.

Correction to: Female-biased sexual dimorphism of corticotropin-releasing factor neurons in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis.

Following publication of the original article [1], we noticed a number of errors.

Improving solutions by embedding larger subproblems in a D-Wave quantum annealer.

Quantum annealing is a heuristic algorithm that solves combinatorial optimization problems, and D-Wave Systems Inc. has developed hardware implementation of this algorithm. However, in general, we cannot embed all the logical variables of a large-scale problem, since the number of available qubits is limited.

A 12-kb structural variation in progressive myoclonic epilepsy was newly identified by long-read whole-genome sequencing.

We report a family with progressive myoclonic epilepsy who underwent whole-exome sequencing but was negative for pathogenic variants. Similar clinical courses of a devastating neurodegenerative phenotype of two affected siblings were highly suggestive of a genetic etiology, which indicates that the survey of genetic variation by whole-exome sequencing was not comprehensive. To investigate the presence of a variant that remained unrecognized by standard genetic testing, PacBio long-read sequencing was performed.

Structure of two purple pigments, catechiopyranocyanidins A and B from the seed-coat of the small red bean, Vigna angularis.

The small red bean, Vigna angularis, is primarily used to produce the "an-paste" component of Japanese sweets. Through the manufacturing process, the red seed-coat pigment is transferred to the colorless "an-particles", imparting a purple color. However, the major pigment in the seed coat has not yet been identified, although it is historically presumed to be an anthocyanin.

Female-biased sexual dimorphism of corticotropin-releasing factor neurons in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis.

Background: The bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) contains the highest density of corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF)-producing neurons in the brain. CRF-immunoreactive neurons show a female-biased sexual dimorphism in the dorsolateral BNST in the rat. Since CRF neurons cannot be immunostained clearly with available CRF antibodies in the mouse, we used a mouse line, in which modified yellow fluorescent protein (Venus) was inserted to the CRF gene, and the Neo cassette was removed, to examine the morphological characteristics of CRF neurons in the dorsolateral BNST.

Separate multisensory integration processes for ownership and localization of body parts.

The experiences that body parts are owned and localized in space are two key aspects of body awareness. Although initial work assumed that the perceived location of one's body part can be used as a behavioral measure to assess the feeling of owning a body part, recent studies call into question the relationship between localization and ownership of body parts. Yet, little is known about the processes underlying these two aspects of body-part awareness.

Gender classification using mesh networks on multiresolution multitask fMRI data.

Brain connectivity networks have been shown to represent gender differences under a number of cognitive tasks. Recently, it has been conjectured that fMRI signals decomposed into different resolutions embed different types of cognitive information. In this paper, we combine multiresolution analysis and connectivity networks to study gender differences under a variety of cognitive tasks, and propose a machine learning framework to discriminate individuals according to their gender.

Hardness Perception Based on Dynamic Stiffness in Tapping.

A human can judge the hardness of an object based on the damped natural vibration caused by tapping the surface of the object using a fingertip. In this study, we investigated the influence of the dynamic characteristics of vibrations on the hardness perceived by tapping. Subjectively reported hardness values were related to the dynamic stiffness of several objects.

Earable ZEN: Development of an Earphone-Type Zazen Support Wearable System.

Meditation has been included in mental health care and the treatment of hypertension and pain. Zazen is a method of entering the meditative state. We have carried out R&D on a wearable system (earable ZEN) that casually and simply allows the subject to perform zazen without going to a temple or even having a zazen monitor present.

POGLUT1, the putative effector gene driven by rs2293370 in primary biliary cholangitis susceptibility locus chromosome 3q13.33.

Primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) is a chronic and cholestatic autoimmune liver disease caused by the destruction of intrahepatic small bile ducts. Our previous genome-wide association study (GWAS) identified six susceptibility loci for PBC. Here, in order to further elucidate the genetic architecture of PBC, a GWAS was performed on an additional independent sample set, then a genome-wide meta-analysis with our previous GWAS was performed based on a whole-genome single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) imputation analysis of a total of 4,045 Japanese individuals (2,060 cases and 1,985 healthy controls).

Quantifying heterogeneity of stochastic gene expression.

The heterogeneity of stochastic gene expression, which refers to the temporal fluctuation in a gene product and its cell-to-cell variation, has attracted considerable interest from biologists, physicists, and mathematicians. The dynamics of protein production and degradation have been modeled as random processes with transition probabilities. However, there is a gap between theory and phenomena, particularly in terms of analytical formulation and parameter estimation.

Integrated Performance Evaluation of the Smart Body Area Networks Physical Layer for Future Medical and Healthcare IoT.

This paper performs integrated performance evaluation, including preamble detection in the Smart Body Area Networks (SmartBAN) physical layer (PHY). The system specifications for a PHY and media access control layer (MAC) in SmartBAN, which is a standard for medical and health care advanced by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), were issued in April 2015. In the PHY, the packet structure has a two-octet preamble, which is used, e.

Quantitative Assessment of rPM6 for Fluorine- and Chlorine-Containing Metal Complexes: Comparison with Experimental, First-Principles, and Other Semiempirical Results.

We report a reparameterization of PM6 parameters for fluorine and chlorine using our training set containing transition metal complexes. Spin unrestricted calculations with the resulting rPM6 (UrPM6) were examined quantitatively using two test sets: (i) the description of magnetic interactions in 25 dinuclear metal complexes and (ii) the prediction of barrier heights and reaction energies for epoxidation and fluorination reactions catalyzed by high-valent manganese-oxo species. The conventional UPM6 and UPM7 methods were also evaluated for comparison on the basis of either experimental or computational (the UB3LYP/SVP level) outcomes.