Lactobacillus casei I-5 isolated from an alcohol fermentation broth enhanced immunity and prevented pathogenic infection as a probiotic. Mice fed with I-5 cells for 11 days prior to an intraperitoneal challenge with pathogenic Escherichia coli Juhl exhibited a high survival rate compared with the control group. Rats fed with I-5 cells for 10 days significantly increased the phagocytosis of peritoneal macrophages. In a cell culture system employing peritoneal macrophages from rats, the I-5 administration activated NF-B stimulated by LPS. It also enhanced LPS-stimulated IL-12 and TNF-production, but not IL-6 production. These results show that L. casei I-5 effectively prevented infection by pathogenic E. coli possibly through the activation of peritoneal macrophages. The strain would be useful to prevent pathogenic microbial infections in humans and farm animals.
Real-time monitoring of heart rate is useful for monitoring workers. Wearable heart rate monitors worn on the upper body are less susceptible to artefacts caused by arm and wrist movements than popular wristband-type sensors using the photoplethysmography method. Therefore, they are considered suitable for stable and accurate measurement for various movements. In this study, we conducted an experiment to verify the accuracy of our developed and commercially available wearable heart rate monitor consisting of a smart shirt with bioelectrodes and a transmitter, assuming a real-world work environment with physical loads. An exercise protocol was designed to light to moderate intensity according to international standards because no standard exercise protocol for the validation simulating these works has been reported. This protocol includes worker-specific movements such as applying external vibration and lifting and lowering loads. In the experiment, we simultaneously measured the instantaneous heart rate with the above wearable device and a Holter monitor as a reference to evaluate mean absolute percentage error (MAPE). The MAPE was 0.92% or less for all exercise protocols conducted. This value indicates that the accuracy of the wearable device is high enough for use in real-world cases of physical load in light to moderate intensity tasks such as those in our experimental protocol. In addition, the experimental protocol and measurement data devised in this study can be used as a benchmark for other wearable heart rate monitors for use for similar purposes.
We evaluated distribution of soil thickness and soil chemistry in the western part of Tanzawa Mountains. This area is located about km west of Yokohama and has been receiving atmospheric pollution and related strong acid deposition. The soil core samples to cm length were collected from sites within the Oomuroyama watershed km elevation m. The bedrock of this watershed is mainly composed of Miocene tonalitic rock. Soil derived from tonalitic parent material tonalitic soil covers over of the study area and a rest of area is blanketed by loam soil derived from the Kanto loam ejected form Mt. Fuji. The tonalitic soils show a wide range of chemical variation from bottom to topsoil layer. From C-to Alayer, SiO , Al O , CaO, K O and Na O systematically decrease, while higher TiO and P O were noted at the topsoil layer. The elemental abundances of soil normalized by Ti suggest that up to wt. of SiO and wt. of Al O of the parental material has leached out by chemical weathering. The GIS analysis was conducted to evaluate spatial variation of topsoil composition in the study area. The GIS data indicate that the soil developed at lower elevation has experienced higher degree of elemental leaching into surface water. This may be due to climate effect.
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