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Emotion Analysis of Writers and Readers of Japanese Tweets on Vaccinations
No full textPublic opinion in social media is increasingly becoming a critical factor in pandemic control. Understanding the emotions of a population towards vaccinations and COVID-19 may be valuable in convincing members to become vaccinated. We investigated the emotions of Japanese Twitter users towards Tweets related to COVID-19 vaccination. Using the WRIME dataset, which provides emotion ratings for Japanese Tweets sourced from writers (Tweet posters) and readers, we fine-tuned a BERT model to predict levels of emotional intensity. This model achieved a training accuracy of MSE = 0.356. A separate dataset of 20,254 Japanese Tweets containing COVID-19 vaccine-related keywords was also collected, on which the fine-tuned BERT was used to perform emotion analysis. Afterwards, a correlation analysis between the extracted emotions and a set of vaccination measures in Japan was conducted. The results revealed that surprise and fear were the most intense emotions predicted by the model for writers and readers, respectively, on the vaccine-related Tweet dataset. The correlation analysis also showed that vaccinations were weakly positively correlated with predicted levels of writer joy, writer/reader anticipation, and writer/reader trust.conference pape
Unsupervised statistical concept drift detection for behaviour abnormality detection
No full textAbnormal behaviour can be an indicator for a medical condition in older adults. Our novel unsupervised statistical concept drift detection approach uses variational autoencoders for estimating the parameters for a statistical hypothesis test for abnormal days. As feature, the Kullback?Leibler divergence of activity probability maps derived from power and motion sensors were used. We showed the general feasibility (min. F1-Score of 91 %) on an artificial dataset of four concept drift types. Then we applied our new method to our real?world dataset collected from the homes of 20 (pre?)frail older adults (avg. age 84.75 y). Our method was able to find abnormal days when a participant suffered from severe medical condition.journal articl
Penaeus monodon Interferon Regulatory Factor (PmIRF) Activates IFNs and Antimicrobial Peptide Expression via a STING-Dependent DNA Sensing Pathway
No full textInterferon regulatory factors (IRFs) are transcription factors found in both vertebrates and invertebrates that were recently identified and found to play an important role in antiviral immunity in black tiger shrimp Penaeus monodon. In this study, we investigated the mechanism by which P. monodon IRF (PmIRF) regulates the immune-related genes downstream of the cytosolic DNA sensing pathway. Depletion of PmIRF by double-stranded RNA-mediated gene silencing significantly reduced the mRNA expression levels of the IFN-like factors PmVago1, PmVago4, and PmVago5 and antilipopolysaccharide factor 6 (ALFPm6) in shrimp. In human embryonic kidney (HEK293T) cells transfected with PmIRF or co-transfected with DEAD-box polypeptide (PmDDX41) and simulator of IFN genes (PmSTING) expression plasmids, the promoter activity of IFN-β, nuclear factor (NF-κB), and ALFPm6 was synergistically enhanced following stimulation with the nucleic acid mimics deoxyadenylic?deoxythymidylic acid sodium salt [poly(dA:dT)] and high molecular weight (HMW) polyinosinic?polycytidylic acid [poly(I:C)]. Both nucleic acid mimics also significantly induced PmSTING, PmIRF, and ALFPm6 gene expression. Co-immunoprecipitation experiments showed that PmIRF interacted with PmSTING in cells stimulated with poly(dA:dT). PmSTING, PmIRF, and PmDDX41 were localized in the cytoplasm of unstimulated HEK293T cells and PmIRF and PmDDX41 were translocated to the nucleus upon stimulation with the nucleic acid mimics while PmSTING remained in the cytoplasm. These results indicate that PmIRF transduces the pathogen signal via the PmDDX41?PmSTING DNA sensing pathway to induce downstream production of interferon-like molecules and antimicrobial peptides.journal articl
Suppression of Cortical Microtubule Reorientation and Stimulation of Cell Elongation in Arabidopsis Hypocotyls under Microgravity Conditions in Space
No full textHow microgravity in space influences plant cell growth is an important issue for plant cell biology as well as space biology. We investigated the role of cortical microtubules in the stimulation of elongation growth in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) hypocotyls under microgravity conditions with the Resist Tubule space experiment. The epidermal cells in the lower half of the hypocotyls of wild-type Columbia were longer in microgravity than at on-orbit 1 g, which precipitated an increase in the entire hypocotyl length. In the apical region, cortical microtubules adjacent to the outer tangential wall were predominantly transverse to the long axis of the cell, whereas longitudinal microtubules were predominant in the basal region. In the 9th to 12th epidermal cells (1 to 3 mm) from the tip, where the modification of microtubule orientation from transverse to longitudinal directions (reorientation) occurred, cells with transverse microtubules increased, whereas those with longitudinal microtubules decreased in microgravity, and the average angle with respect to the transverse cell axis decreased, indicating that the reorientation was suppressed in microgravity. The expression of tubulin genes was suppressed in microgravity. These results suggest that under microgravity conditions, the expression of genes related to microtubule formation was downregulated, which may cause the suppression of microtubule reorientation from transverse to longitudinal directions, thereby stimulating cell elongation in Arabidopsis hypocotyls.journal articl
A comparative transcriptomics and eQTL approach identifies SlWD40 as a tomato fruit ripening regulator
No full textAlthough multiple vital genes with strong effects on the tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) ripening process have been identified via the positional cloning of ripening mutants and cloning of ripening-related transcription factors (TFs), recent studies suggest that it is unlikely that we have fully characterized the gene regulatory networks underpinning this process. Here, combining comparative transcriptomics and expression QTLs, we identified 16 candidate genes involved in tomato fruit ripening and validated them through virus-induced gene silencing analysis. To further confirm the accuracy of the approach, one potential ripening regulator, SlWD40 (WD-40 repeats), was chosen for in-depth analysis. Co-expression network analysis indicated that master regulators such as RIN (ripening inhibitor) and NOR (nonripening) as well as vital TFs including FUL1 (FRUITFUL1), SlNAC4 (NAM, ATAF1,2, and CUC2 4), and AP2a (Activating enhancer binding Protein 2 alpha) strongly co-expressed with SlWD40. Furthermore, SlWD40 overexpression and RNAi lines exhibited substantially accelerated and delayed ripening phenotypes compared with the wild type, respectively. Moreover, transcriptome analysis of these transgenics revealed that expression patterns of ethylene biosynthesis genes, phytoene synthase, pectate lyase, and branched chain amino transferase 2, in SlWD40-RNAi lines were similar to those of rin and nor fruits, which further demonstrated that SlWD40 may act as an important ripening regulator in conjunction with RIN and NOR. These results are discussed in the context of current models of ripening and in terms of the use of comparative genomics and transcriptomics as an effective route for isolating causal genes underlying differences in genotypes.journal articl
Antigen Presentation in the Lung
No full textThe lungs are constantly exposed to environmental and infectious agents such as dust, viruses, fungi, and bacteria that invade the lungs upon breathing. The lungs are equipped with an immune defense mechanism that involves a wide variety of immunological cells to eliminate these agents. Various types of dendritic cells (DCs) and macrophages (MACs) function as professional antigen-presenting cells (APCs) that engulf pathogens through endocytosis or phagocytosis and degrade proteins derived from them into peptide fragments. During this process, DCs and MACs present the peptides on their major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC-I) or MHC-II protein complex to naive CD8+ or CD4+ T cells, respectively. In addition to these cells, recent evidence supports that antigen-specific effector and memory T cells are activated by other lung cells such as endothelial cells, epithelial cells, and monocytes through antigen presentation. In this review, we summarize the molecular mechanisms of antigen presentation by APCs in the lungs and their contribution to immune response.journal articl
PD-1 is required for the suppression of immune responses elicited by de novo genome mutations in mouse somatic cells
Get PDF奈良先端科学技術大学院大学博士(バイオサイエンス)doctoral thesi
Near-infrared Colorized Imaging Technologies and Their Fundus Camera Applications
No full textThis study proposes to adapt the fundus camera for use as a personal healthcare tool. The proposed system uses near-infrared light to avoid blinding the subject and three-wavelength near-infrared imaging to acquire colorized fundus images. First, the optical system with the fundus camera was tested using a three-plate near-infrared snapshot camera. Subsequently, image processing and denoising techniques, including tracking and image integration, were applied to reduce the blur caused by biological scattering. Furthermore, a singlechip three-wavelength near-infrared-compatible image sensor is required for device miniaturization, for which a dielectric multilayer Fabry-Perot bandpass filter was adopted as its transmission wavelength can be easily controlled. In this study, the optical design of the dielectric multilayer structure, the fabrication process of the mosaic filter, and the chip mounting technology are investigated. The demosaicing process and color space conversion corresponding to the spectral response characteristics of the fabricated image sensor are also discussed.journal articl
Hype Dlive: XR Live Performance System for Improving Passenger Comfort in Autonomous Driving
Get PDFOne of the stress factors for passengers in an autonomous vehicle is the stress from vehicle behavior caused by unpredictable acceleration, deceleration, and route changes. Although there are researches on stress reduction methods using behavior control and information presentation to realize a comfortable autonomous vehicle, there are still few methods for stress reduction and dissipation through application to XR entertainment. In this work, we propose "Hype Dlive", a system that utilizes vehicle behavior as XR live music performance, and aims to improve passenger comfort by utilizing vehicle behavior as tactile and vestibular stimuli to generate a sense of presence and excitement.conference pape
Study on Participatory Activity Tracking and Risk Assessment for Anonymous Elderly Monitoring
Get PDF奈良先端科学技術大学院大学博士(工学)doctoral thesi