This study provides Japanese normative measures for 359 line drawings, including 260 pictures (44 redrawn) taken from Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980). The pictures have been standardized on voice key naming times, name agreement, age of acquisition, and familiarity. The data were compared with American, Spanish, French, and Icelandic samples reported in previous studies. In general, the correlations between variables in the present study and those in the other studies were relatively high, except for name agreement. Naming times were predicted in multiple regression analyses by name agreement. The full set of the norms and the new pictures may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive/.JAPANESE NORMATIVE PICTURES 399 on naming time data. Following Snodgrass and Yuditsky (1996), four measures-NA, conceptual familiarity, naming time, and AoA-are to be standardized. NA, image agreement, conceptual FAM, and visual complexity, which constituted the principal norms in Snodgrass and Vanderwart, have been collected for the original 260 pictures in Nishimoto and Yasuda (1982). In the present study, we measured naming time and AoA, which had not been collected in Japanese standardization, in addition to FAM and NA.Second, we make a cross-cultural comparison with previous foreign picture standardization studies. Third, we also consider whether naming time could be predicted by one or more independent variable(s). For this purpose, we used FREQ data taken from Amano and Kondo (2000), which are discussed in more detail in the Method section. METHOD ParticipantsOne hundred twenty Waseda University students participated in the naming procedure, divided into three groups of 40 each. In the FAM rating procedure, 139 students were divided into three groups: 49 for Set 1, 40 for Set 2, and 50 for Set 3. In the AoA rating procedure, 149 students were divided into three groups: 54 for Set 1, 46 for Set 2, and 49 for Set 3. All participation was voluntary. The participants were randomly assigned to groups, and no participants took part in more than one procedure in the experimental session. Stimuli and ApparatusThe stimuli were 260 pictures from Snodgrass and Vanderwart's (1980) set (44 redrawn) and 99 pictures newly added for the Japanese population. Appendix A shows the dominant names and norms. Appendix B shows the redrawn and newly added pictures. The 359 pictures were numbered from 1 to 359 according to Japanese Kana order (syllabary). In accordance with Snodgrass and Yuditsky's (1996) procedure, we divided the pictures into three sets on the basis of the picture number: If the remainder was 1 when the picture number was divided by 3, the picture was assigned to Set 1; if the remainder was 2, the picture was assigned to Set 2; otherwise, the picture was assigned to Set 3. Thus, 120 pictures were in Set 1 and Set 2, and 119 were in Set 3 (see Appendix A). In the naming task, the participants wore a headset microphone connected to a voice key. An MS-DOS-based computer program automatically controlled the presentation of the ...

During the 5-year period from 1980 to 1984, the incidence of subarachnoid hemorrhage due only to rupture of aneurysms was investigated in Izumo City, a small city with a population of 79,026. Additionally, to ascertain the relation of incidence to the size of the geographic area and/or population, a similar analysis was made on a larger area of Shimane Prefecture, including Izumo City, with a total population of 789,712. During this 5-year period, a total of 83 patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage were hospitalized in Izumo City, 548 patients in Shimane Prefecture. Ruptured aneurysms were confirmed in 77 cases (93%) in Izumo City and 466 cases (85 %) in Shimane Prefecture. The crude annual incidences of aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage for Izumo City and Shimane Prefecture were 21.0 and 13.9 per 100,000 population for all ages, and the age-adjusted annual incidences (adjusted to the 1980 population of Japan) were 18.3 and 11.0 per 100,000 for all ages, respectively. For both Izumo City and Shimane Prefecture, the age-specific annual incidences peaked at the ages pf 50-69 years, and the highest incidence was 92.3 per 100,000 men from Izumo City in the eighth decade of life. The annual incidence of subarachnoid hemorrhage for Izumo City is the highest reported to date. If a wider area, such as Shimane Prefecture, were studied many patients in poor condition, particularly elderly patients, would be missed. To determine accurately the incidence of aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage, it thus might be better to conduct the study in a small city such as Izumo City. (Stroke 1988;19:170-175)

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The quantitative sensitivity and dynamic range of conventional immunohistochemistry (IHC) with 3,3′-diaminobenzidine (IHC-DAB) used in pathological diagnosis in hospitals are poor, because enzyme activity can affect the IHC-DAB chromogenic reaction. Although fluorescent IHC can effectively increase the quantitative sensitivity of conventional IHC, tissue autofluorescence interferes with the sensitivity. Here, we created new fluorescent nanoparticles called phosphor-integrated dots (PIDs). PIDs have 100-fold greater brightness and a more than 300-fold greater dynamic range than those of commercially available fluorescent nanoparticles, quantum dots, whose fluorescence intensity is comparable to tissue autofluorescence. Additionally, a newly developed image-processing method enabled the calculation of the PID particle number in the obtained image. To quantify the sensitivity of IHC using PIDs (IHC-PIDs), the IHC-PIDs method was compared with fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS), a method well suited for evaluating total protein amount, and the two values exhibited strong correlation (R = 0.94). We next applied IHC-PIDs to categorize the response to molecular target-based drug therapy in breast cancer patients. The results suggested that the PID particle number estimated by IHC-PIDs of breast cancer tissues obtained from biopsy before chemotherapy can provide a score for predicting the therapeutic effect of the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-targeted drug trastuzumab.

Cardiac volume overload increases LV collagen mRNA as does pressure overload. However, in contrast to pressure-overloaded hypertrophy, the upregulation of collagen transcriptional activity does not result in subsequent myocardial fibrosis in volume-overloaded hypertrophy due to AC shunting. Therefore, the upregulation of collagen gene expression and protein accumulation might be different in pressure-overloaded and volume overloaded hypertrophy.

.-In pressure-overload cardiac hypertrophy, microtubule network densification is one cause of contractile dysfunction. Cardiac transcriptional upregulation of ␤ 1-tubulin rather than the constitutive ␤ 4-tubulin and of microtubuleassociated protein (MAP)4 accompanies hypertrophy, with extensive microtubule decoration by MAP4. Because MAP4 stabilizes microtubules, and because the isoform-variable carboxy terminus of ␤-tubulin binds to MAP4, we wished to determine whether one or both of these proteins has etiologic significance for cardiac microtubule network densification. Recombinant adenoviruses encoding ␤ 1-tubulin, ␤4-tubulin, and MAP4 were used to infect isolated cardiocytes. Overexpressed MAP4 caused a shift of tubulin dimers to the polymerized fraction and formation of a dense, stable microtubule network. Overexpressed ␤ 1-or ␤4-tubulin had neither any independent effect on these variables nor any effect additive to that of simultaneously overexpressed MAP4. Results from transgenic mice with cardiac overexpression of ␤ 1-tubulin or MAP4 were confirmatory, but unlike the effects of brief adenovirus-mediated MAP4 overexpression in isolated cardiocytes, MAP4 transgenic hearts showed a marked increase in total ␣-and ␤-tubulin. Thus MAP4 overexpression caused increased tubulin expression, formation of stable microtubules, and altered microtubule network properties, such that MAP4 upregulation may be one cause for the dense, stable microtubule network characteristic of pressure-overloaded, hypertrophied cardiocytes. myocardium; hypertrophy; adenovirus ONE REASON for the contractile dysfunction characteristic of severe pressure-overload cardiac hypertrophy is increased density of the cellular microtubule network (41,42). This imposes a viscous load on active myofilaments, such that structural damping via intracellular frictional dissipation impedes sarcomere shortening (38). This is accompanied by persistent increases in ␣-and ␤-tubulin on both the mRNA and protein levels (37). Thus increased synthesis of ␣␤-tubulin heterodimers is one cause for the greater cardiac microtubule network density. However, given that the ␣␤-tubulin heterodimer-microtubule system is in dynamic equilibrium, enhanced microtubule stability is a potentially synergistic second mechanism for microtubule network densification. Indeed, we (34) found that the microtubules of pressure-hypertrophied cardiocytes demonstrate markedly enhanced stability, in which microtubule stabilization begins very shortly after cardiac pressure overloading and persists indefinitely thereafter.We then turned to two possible bases for this microtubule stabilization. The first of these was the role of microtubule-associated proteins (MAPs), which are known to regulate microtubule stability (11,23,26,28,44). Here, we focused on MAP4, the dominant structural MAP of the heart (29, 34), and found on both the mRNA and protein levels striking MAP4 upregulation in hypertrophied cardiocytes (34). This was associated with extensive microtubule decoration with MAP4, which wa...

The increased NO induction in failing myocytes does not alter baseline sarcomere mechanics but attenuates the positive inotropic response to isoproterenol. Thus, myocyte NO plays an important role in the autocrine regulation of the contractile function of myocytes in congestive heart failure.

The main purpose of the current research is to examine the applicability of the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI) in a Japanese juvenile offender population. Three hundred eighty-nine youths who were released from the five Juvenile Classification Homes were followed for approximately one and half years. Results show that the YLS/CMI total score significantly predict recidivism. Survival time analysis demonstrates that the YLS/CMI total score also significantly predicted faster time to recidivism. The overall findings support adequate predictive validity of the YLS/CMI total score, but subscales lacked content representativeness and predictive validity in this sample. Canadian and Japanese cultural differences in criminal history and substance abuse are contributors to the lack of content representativeness.