Suchergebnisse

Cover -- Contents -- List of Table and Figures -- List of Plates -- List of Contributors and their Affiliations -- Foreword -- Preface: International History - From Diplomacy to Culture -- Acknowledgements -- Note on Japanese Names -- Part I: Introduction -- 1 Elites, Governments and Citizens: Some British Perceptions of Japan, 1850-2000 -- 2 The Changing Image of Britain among Japanese Intellectuals -- Early images of Britain as a mighty colonial power -- The Anglo-Satsuma War: from a Britain to be defied to Britain as an ally -- Liberal Britain and Meiji intellectuals -- Britain and social democracy: Katayama Sen -- Keir Hardie in Japan -- The Webbs and Japan -- Taisho democracy and Britain -- Japanese Fabians -- Nationalists and Britain: Kuga Katsunan and Kita Ikki -- Kawai Eijiro and T. H. Green -- The Pacific War and the post-war era -- The Britain of the Labour Party -- Japanese Fabians for Japan's Economic Autonomy -- The movement for nuclear disarmament -- The 'London Renaissance' -- Britain in the 1980s and 1990s -- Part II: The Nineteenth Century and After -- 3 Early Japanese Visitors to Victorian Britain -- Early travels in the Edo period -- The voyage to Europe -- The Japanese in Britain -- Return to Japan -- Japanese images of Victorian Britain -- 4 The Rituals of Anglo-Japanese Diplomacy: Imperial Audiences in Early Meiji Japan -- A historic audience -- The problem -- The emperor -- The ritual structuring of international relations -- Imperial audiences and internal relations of power -- Conclusion -- 5 For the Triumph of the Cross: A Survey of the British Missionary Movement in Japan, 1869-1945 -- British missionaries in Meiji Japan -- Growing unease -- War and reconciliation -- Conclusion -- 6 Theatre Cultures in Contact: Britain and Japan in the Meiji Period -- 7 'To Adapt, or Not to Adapt': Hamlet in Meiji Japan.

Rice is a staple cereal of India cultivated in about 43.5 Mha area but with relatively low average productivity. Abiotic factors like drought, flood and salinity affect rice production adversely in more than 50% of this area. Breeding rice varieties with inbuilt tolerance to these stresses offers an economically viable and sustainable option to improve rice productivity. Availability of high quality reference genome sequence of rice, knowledge of exact position of genes/QTLs governing tolerance to abiotic stresses andavailability of DNA markers linked to these traits has opened up opportunities for breeders to transfer the favorable alleles into widely grown rice varieties through marker-assisted back cross breeding (MABB). Alarge multi-institutional project, "From QTL to variety: marker-assisted breeding of abiotic stress tolerant rice varieties with major QTLs for drought, submergence and salt tolerance" was initiated in 2010 with funding support from Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, in collaboration with Interna-tional Rice Research Institute, Philippines. The main focus of this project is to improve rice productivity inthe fragile ecosystems of eastern, northeastern and southern part of the country, which bear the brunt ofone or the other abiotic stresses frequently. Seven consistent QTLs for grain yield under drought, namely,qDTY1.1, qDTY2.1, qDTY2.2, qDTY3.1, qDTY3.2, qDTY9.1and qDTY12.1are being transferred into submergence IR64-Sub1. To address the problem of complete submergence due to flash floods in the major river basins,the Sub1 gene is being transferred into ten highly popular locally adapted rice varieties namely, ADT 39,ADT 46, Bahadur, HUR 105, MTU 1075, Pooja, Pratikshya, Rajendra Mahsuri, Ranjit, and Sarjoo 52. Further,to address the problem of soil salinity, Saltol, a major QTL for salt tolerance is being transferred into sevenpopular locally adapted rice varieties, namely, ADT 45, CR 1009, Gayatri, MTU 1010, PR 114, Pusa 44 andSarjoo 52. Genotypic background selection is being done after BC2F2stage using an in-house designed50K SNP chip on a set of twenty lines for each combination, identified with phenotypic similarity in the field to the recipient parent. Near-isogenic lines with more than 90% similarity to the recipient parentare now in advanced generation field trials. These climate smart varieties are expected to improve rice productivity in the adverse ecologies and contribute to the farmer's livelihood.

The Balanced Budget Act (BBA) of 1997 contained the most sweeping changes in payment policy for Medicare post-acute care (PAC) services ever enacted in a single piece of legislation. Research on the early impacts of these changes is now beginning to appear, and this issue of the Health Care Financing Review includes six articles covering a range of timely PAC issues. There are two articles on skilled nursing facility (SNF) care—the first by Chapin White, Steven D. Pizer, and Alan J. White and the second by Kathleen Dalton and Hilda A. Howard. These are followed by two articles on home health care by Harriet Komisar and Nelda McCall, Jodi Korb, Andrew Petersons, and Stanley Moore. The next article in this issue by Susan E. Bronskill, Sharon-Lise T. Normand, and Barbara J. McNeil examines PAC use for Medicare patients following acute myocardial infarction. The last article by Jerry Cromwell, Suzanne Donoghue, and Boyd H. Gilman considers methodological issues in expanding Medicare's definition of transfers from acute hospitals to include transfers to PAC settings. To help the reader understand the impacts of the BBA changes in payment policy, we present data on Medicare utilization trends from 1994-2000 for short-stay inpatient hospital care and each of the major PAC services—SNF, home health, inpatient rehabilitation, and long-term care hospital (Figures 1 and 2). Utilization is measured as the volume of services (days of care for the institutional settings and visits for home health) per 1,000 Medicare beneficiaries. Medicare managed care enrollees and their service utilization are excluded.

Abstract

Objectives
Cognitive training (CT) has been investigated as a means of delaying age-related cognitive decline in older adults. However, its impact on biomarkers of age-related structural brain atrophy has rarely been investigated, leading to a gap in our understanding of the linkage between improvements in cognition and brain plasticity. This study aimed to explore the impact of CT on cognitive performance and brain structure in older adults.


Methods
One hundred twenty-four cognitively normal older adults recruited from 2 study sites were randomly assigned to either an adaptive CT (n = 60) or a casual game training (active control, AC, n = 64).


Results
After 10 weeks of training, CT participants showed greater improvements in the overall cognitive composite score (Cohen's d = 0.66, p < .01) with nonsignificant benefits after 6 months from the completion of training (Cohen's d = 0.36, p = .094). The CT group showed significant maintenance of the caudate volume as well as significant maintained fractional anisotropy in the left internal capsule and in left superior longitudinal fasciculus compared to the AC group. The AC group displayed an age-related decrease in these metrics of brain structure.


Discussion
Results from this multisite clinical trial demonstrate that the CT intervention improves cognitive performance and helps maintain caudate volume and integrity of white matter regions that are associated with cognitive control, adding to our understanding of the changes in brain structure contributing to changes in cognitive performance from adaptive CT.


Clinical Trial Registration
NCT03197454

Post-traumatic heterotopic ossification (HO) is the formation of ectopic bone in non-osseous structures following injury. The precise mechanism for bone development following trauma is unknown; however, early onset of HO may involve the production of pro-osteogenic serum factors. Here we evaluated serum from a cohort of civilian and military patients post trauma to determine early induction gene signatures in orthopaedic trauma induced HO. To test this, human adipose derived stromal/stem cells (hASCs) were stimulated with human serum from patients who developed HO following trauma and evaluated for a gene panel with qPCR. Pathway gene analysis ontology revealed that hASCs stimulated with serum from patients who developed HO had altered gene expression in the activator protein 1 (AP1) and AP1 transcriptional targets pathways. Notably, there was a significant repression in FOS gene expression in hASCs treated with serum from individuals with HO. Furthermore, the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway was activated in hASCs following serum exposure from individuals with HO. Serum from both military and civilian patients with trauma induced HO had elevated downstream genes associated with the MAPK pathways. Stimulation of hASCs with known regulators of osteogenesis (BMP2, IL6, Forskolin, and WNT3A) failed to recapitulate the gene signature observed in hASCs following serum stimulation, suggesting non-canonical mechanisms for gene regulation in trauma induced HO. These findings provide new insight for the development of HO and support ongoing work linking the systemic response to injury with wound specific outcomes.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between the walkability/bikeability of college campuses and students' body mass index (BMI) with student physical activity (PA) attitudes and behaviors as potential mediators. Design: Cross-sectional. Setting: Thirteen university campuses. Participants: A total of 1384 student participants. Measures: Walkability/bikeability environmental score (ES): 12-item audit assessed an average of 44 path segments per campus. Students were measured for height and weight and completed online surveys. Physical activity stage of change/behavior intentions were assessed using the transtheoretical model. The Cognitive Behavioral Physical Activity Questionnaire assessed outcome expectations, self-regulation, and personal barriers. International Physical Activity Questionnaire assessed walking-, moderate-, and vigorous-intensity PA. Analysis: Descriptive statistics, zero-order correlations, and path analysis with maximum likelihood estimation. Results: The overall model fit was good with χ2 of 171.388 ( df = 18), P < .001, comparative fit index value of .95, and a root mean square of approximation of .079. After controlling for gender, there was a direct negative association between walkability/bikeability ES and BMI (β = −.085) and positive association between personal barriers and BMI (β = .134). Walkability/bikeability ES was positively associated with walking-intensity PA (β = .010). Self-regulation was positively associated with moderate-intensity PA (β = .213), which, in turn, was negatively associated with BMI (β = −.057). Conclusions: The ease of walking and biking on a campus was related to college students' walking behavior and their BMI. Students' PA behavioral intentions were associated with moderate PA and lower BMI. These results provide evidence to focus on policies and structural supports for walkable/bikeable environments to supplement and enhance interventions encouraging individual behavior change for PA and weight management.

Background: The association between herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and the development of HSV vaccines have increased interest in the study of HSV epidemiology.Objectives: To estimate the age and sex specific seroprevalence of HSV-1 and HSV-2 infections in selected populations in Brazil, Estonia, India, Morocco, and Sri Lanka.Methods: Serum samples were collected from various populations including children, antenatal clinic attenders, blood donors, hospital inpatients, and HIV sentinel surveillance groups. STD clinic attenders were enrolled in Sri Lanka, male military personnel in Morocco. Sera were tested using a common algorithm by type specific HSV-1 and HSV-2 antibody assay.Results: 13 986 samples were tested, 45.0% from adult females, 32.7% from adult males, and 22.3% from children. The prevalence of HSV-1 varied by site ranging from 78.5%-93.6% in adult males and from 75.5%-97.8% in adult females. In all countries HSV-1 seroprevalence increased significantly with age (p<0.001) in both men and women. The prevalence of HSV-2 infection varied between sites. Brazil had the highest age specific rates of infection for both men and women, followed by Sri Lanka for men and Estonia for women, the lowest rates being found in Estonia for men and India for women. In all countries, HSV-2 seroprevalence increased significantly with age (p<0.01) and adult females had higher rates of infection than adult males by age of infection.Conclusions: HSV-1 and HSV-2 seroprevalence was consistently higher in women than men, particularly for HSV-2. Population based data on HSV-1 and HSV-2 will be useful for designing potential HSV-2 vaccination strategies and for focusing prevention efforts for HSV-1 and HSV-2 infection.

AbstractThis work presents a combined optical and magneto‐optical spectroscopic study of thulium iron garnet (Tm3Fe5O12, TmIG) films on substituted gadolinium gallium garnet (Gd2.6Ca0.4Ga4.1Mg0.25Zr0.65O12, sGGG) substrates. Spectroscopic ellipsometry, transmission spectroscopy, magneto‐optical Kerr effect spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy results are presented for TmIG films with a thickness in the range from 20 to 300 nm grown on sGGG by pulsed laser deposition. The complex dielectric functions of TmIG and sGGG are determined and compared with previously published results for bulk yttrium iron garnet and GGG, respectively. The magneto‐optical spectroscopy corroborated with Raman spectroscopy sheds light on strain‐induced changes as a function of TmIG film thickness.

This is the author accepted manuscript. ; Uncertainty quantification is a formal paradigm of statistical estimation that aims to account for all uncertainties inherent in the modelling process of real-world complex systems. The methods are directly applicable to stochastic models in epidemiology, however they have thus far not been widely used in this context. In this paper, we provide a tutorial on uncertainty quantification of stochastic epidemic models, aiming to facilitate the use of the uncertainty quantification paradigm for practitioners with other complex stochastic simulators of applied systems. We provide a formal workflow including the important decisions and considerations that need to be taken, and illustrate the methods over a simple stochastic epidemic model of UK SARS-CoV-2 transmission and patient outcome. We also present new approaches to visualisation of outputs from sensitivity analyses and uncertainty quantification more generally in high input and/or output dimensions. ; Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) ; Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) ; Scottish Government Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division ; French National Research Agency ; Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health France

Abstract Background: In general, nature relatedness is positively associated with physical activity, health, and subjective well-being. However, increased residence in urban areas, and the decrease in natural spaces, may affect the younger generation most adversely. The associated environmental changes can increase youths' risk of spending most of their time indoors, and weaken their nature relatedness, making them less likely to enjoy nature's health benefits. This is a serious public health issue, since inadequate physical activity, combined with minimum time spent in green space, can affect health across the whole lifespan. Thus, to develop effective interventions for physical activation and promote health and well-being among young men, further knowledge of the determinants of their nature relatedness is necessary. Aims: To explore factors related to nature relatedness, including physical activity, physical activity with parents, and residential environment. Methods: The study population consisted of all 914 young men (mean—17.8 years; SD—0.5) who participated in mandatory call-ups for military service and completed the study questionnaire in 2013. The questionnaire inquired about their nature relatedness, demographic characteristics, socioeconomic status, physical activity, health, and subjective well-being. A geographic information system (GIS) was used to assess the features of their residential environments. Multivariable linear regression was used to analyze the data. Results: Physical activity (p = 0.021) and physical activity with parents at primary school age (p = 0.007), and currently (p = 0.001) as well as good self-rated health (p = 0.001), and father's higher socioeconomic status (p = 0.041), were positively connected to nature relatedness. Conclusions: Physical activity in general, physical activity with parents, and nature relatedness were positively related. This knowledge can be utilized in promoting physical activity and health among young men.