The transcriptomes of endodormant and ecodormant Japanese pear (Pyrus pyrifolia Nakai 'Kosui') flower buds were analyzed using RNA-seq technology and compared. Among de novo assembly of 114,191 unigenes, 76,995 unigenes were successfully annotated by BLAST searches against various databases. Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment analysis revealed that oxidoreductases were enriched in the molecular function category, a result consistent with previous observations of notable changes in hydrogen peroxide concentration during endodormancy release. In the GO categories related to biological process, the abundance of DNA methylation-related gene transcripts also significantly changed during endodormancy release, indicating the involvement of epigenetic regulation. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis also showed the changes in transcript abundance of genes involved in the metabolism of various phytohormones. Genes for both ABA and gibberellin biosynthesis were down-regulated, whereas the genes encoding their degradation enzymes were up-regulated during endodormancy release. In the ethylene pathway, 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate synthase (ACS), a gene encoding the rate-limiting enzyme for ethylene biosynthesis, was induced towards endodormancy release. All of these results indicated the involvement of phytohormones in endodormancy release. Furthermore, the expression of dormancy-associated MADS-box (DAM) genes was down-regulated concomitant with endodormancy release, although changes in the abundance of these gene transcripts were not as significant as those identified by transcriptome analysis. Consequently, characterization of the Japanese pear transcriptome during the transition from endormancy to ecodormancy will provide researchers with useful information for data mining and will facilitate further experiments on endodormancy especially in rosaceae fruit trees.

We isolated three dormancy-associated MADS-box (DAM) genes (MADS13-1, MADS13-2 and MADS13-3) and showed regulated expression concomitant with endodormancy establishment and release in the leaf buds of Japanese pear 'Kosui'. Comparative analysis between 'Kosui' and Taiwanese pear TP-85-119 ('Hengshanli'), a less dormant pear cultivar, showed reduction of MADS13-1 expression level in 'Hengshanli' earlier than in 'Kosui' towards endodormancy release, suggesting the possible relationship between chilling requirement and MADS13-1 expression. Application of hydrogen cyanamide accelerated endodormancy release with a reduction in MADS13 expression, whereas heat treatment in autumn inhibited endodormancy establishment without induction of MADS13 expression, indicating a close relationship between the MADS13 expression pattern and endodormancy phase transitions. Moreover, both the cis-acting regulatory elements and the methylation status in the 5' upstream region of the MADS13-1 gene were not largely different between 'Kosui' and 'Hengshanli'. Genomic structures of MADS13-1 from 'Kosui' and 'Hengshanli' revealed a 3218 bp insertion in the first intron of 'Hengshanli' that might be ascribed to the lower expression of MADS13-1tw; however, this insertion was also found in pear genotypes with a high chilling requirement. These results indicated that the low expression of MADS13-1 in 'Hengshanli' towards endodormancy release could not be explained by the identified cis-acting regulatory elements, the methylation status of the putative promoter or by intron insertion.

BackgroundRecent years have seen an increase in the use of internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy in the area of mental health. Although lower effectiveness and higher dropout rates of unguided than those of guided internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy remain critical issues, not incurring ongoing human clinical resources makes it highly advantageous.ObjectiveCurrent research in psychotherapy, which acknowledges the importance of therapeutic alliance, aims to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability, in terms of mental health, of an application that is embodied with a conversational agent. This application was enabled for use as an internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy preventative mental health measure.MethodsAnalysis of the data from the 191 participants of the experimental group with a mean age of 38.07 (SD 10.75) years and the 263 participants of the control group with a mean age of 38.05 (SD 13.45) years using a 2-way factorial analysis of variance (group × time) was performed.ResultsThere was a significant main effect (P=.02) and interaction for time on the variable of positive mental health (P=.02), and for the treatment group, a significant simple main effect was also found (P=.002). In addition, there was a significant main effect (P=.02) and interaction for time on the variable of negative mental health (P=.005), and for the treatment group, a significant simple main effect was also found (P=.001).ConclusionsThis research can be seen to represent a certain level of evidence for the mental health application developed herein, indicating empirically that internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy with the embodied conversational agent can be used in mental health care. In the pilot trial, given the issues related to feasibility and acceptability, it is necessary to pursue higher quality evidence while continuing to further improve the application, based on the findings of the current research.

In this research, we realize human telepresence by developing a remote-controlled android system called Geminoid HI-1. Experimental results confirm that participants felt stronger presence of the operator when he talked through the android than when he appeared on a video monitor in a video conference system. In addition, participants talked with the robot naturally and evaluated its human likeness as equal to a man on a video monitor. At this paper's conclusion, we will discuss a remote-control system for telepresence that uses a human-like android robot as a new telecommunication medium.

Parameter tweaking is a common task in various design scenarios. For example, in color enhancement of photographs, designers tweak multiple parameters such as "brightness" and "contrast" to obtain the best visual impression. Adjusting one parameter is easy; however, if there are multiple correlated parameters, the task becomes much more complex, requiring many trials and a large cognitive load. To address this problem, we present a novel extension of Bayesian optimization techniques, where the system decomposes the entire parameter tweaking task into a sequence of one-dimensional line search queries that are easy for human to perform by manipulating a single slider. In addition, we present a novel concept called crowd-powered visual design optimizer , which queries crowd workers, and provide a working implementation of this concept. Our single-slider manipulation microtask design for crowdsourcing accelerates the convergence of the optimization relative to existing comparison-based microtask designs. We applied our framework to two different design domains: photo color enhancement and material BRDF design, and thereby showed its applicability to various design domains.

To understand the role of the MIKC-type dormancy-associated MADS-box (DAM) genes in the regulation of endodormancy in japanese pear (Pyrus pyrifolia), we isolated two DAM genes from ‘Kosui’ and characterized their expression throughout the seasonal endodormancy phases in ‘Kosui’, as well as in TP-85–119 taiwanese pear (P. pyrifolia), which is a less dormant type. Several copies of the corresponding DAM genes are present in the P. pyrifolia genome. Rapid amplification of cDNA ends enabled the isolation of two full-length cDNAs, designated as PpMADS13–1 and PpMADS13–2, with complete open reading frames encoding 227 and 234 amino acids, respectively. Multialignment of the two ‘Kosui’ and the database DAM genes (based on the deduced amino acid sequences) showed that PpMADS13–1 and PpMADS13–2 were highly identical to the Rosaceae DAM genes and encoded the conserved domains characteristic of other MIKC-type MADS-box genes. The phylogenetic relationships showed that PpMADS13–1 and PpMADS13–2 were more closely related to the Prunus DAM, though they formed a unique subclade. The specific expression analysis of PpMADS13–1 and PpMADS13–2 by real-time polymerase chain reaction showed that both DAM genes are gradually down-regulated concomitant with endodormancy breaking. PpMADS13–1 and PpMADS13–2 showed similar fluctuations in expression patterns, although PpMADS13–2 was more highly expressed relative to PpMADS13–1. The expression of PpMADS13–1 and PpMADS13–2 in the less dormant taiwanese pear, TP-85–119, was quite low (nearly zero level), which is consistent with a down-regulated pattern of expression of the DAM genes in japanese pear, peach (Prunus persica), and japanese apricot (Prunus mume). Differential genomic DNA methylation patterns detected in PpMADS13–1 and PpMADS13–2 were not concomitant with seasonal endodormancy transition phases, suggesting that DNA methylation in these loci under investigation may not be linked to endodormancy progression in ‘Kosui’.

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The diagnosis and prognostication of glioblastoma (GBM) remain to be solely dependent on histopathological findings and few molecular markers, despite the clinical heterogeneity in this entity. To address this issue, we investigated the prognostic impact of copy number alterations (CNAs) using two population-based IDH -wild-type GBM cohorts: an original Japanese cohort and a dataset from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). The molecular disproportions between these cohorts were dissected in light of cohort differences in GBM. The Japanese cohort was collected from cases registered in Kansai Molecular Diagnosis Network for CNS tumors (KNBTG). The somatic landscape around CNAs was analyzed for 212 KNBTG cases and 359 TCGA cases. Next, the clinical impacts of CNA profiles were investigated for 140 KNBTG cases and 152 TCGA cases treated by standard adjuvant therapy using temozolomide-based chemoradiation. The comparative profiling indicated unequal distribution of specific CNAs such as EGFR , CDKN2A , and PTEN among the two cohorts. Especially, the triple overlap CNAs in these loci (triple CNA) were much higher in frequency in TCGA (70.5%) than KNBTG (24.3%), and its prognostic impact was independently validated in both cohorts. The KNBTG cohort significantly showed better prognosis than the TCGA cohort (median overall survival 19.3 vs 15.6 months). This survival difference between the two cohorts completely resolved after subclassifying all cases according to the triple CNA status. The prognostic significance of triple CNA was identified in IDH -wild-type GBM. Distribution difference in prognostic CNA profiles potentially could cause survival differences across cohorts in clinical studies. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s40478-019-0749-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.