ALBERT

Description: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) causes many systemic disorders via mechanisms related to sympathetic nerve activation, systemic inflammation, and oxidative stress. OSA typically shows repeated sleep apnea followed by hyperventilation, which results in intermittent hypoxia (IH). IH is associated with an increase in sympathetic activity, which is a well-known pathophysiological mechanism in hypertension and insulin resistance. In this review, we show the basic and clinical significance of IH from the viewpoint of not only systemic regulatory mechanisms focusing on pulmonary circulation, but also cellular mechanisms causing lifestyle-related diseases. First, we demonstrate how IH influences pulmonary circulation to cause pulmonary hypertension during sleep in association with sleep state-specific change in OSA. We also clarify how nocturnal IH activates circulating monocytes to accelerate the infiltration ability to vascular wall in OSA. Finally, the effects of IH on insulin secretion and insulin resistance are elucidated by using an in vitro chamber system that can mimic and manipulate IH. The obtained data implies that glucose-induced insulin secretion (GIS) in pancreatic β cells is significantly attenuated by IH, and that IH increases selenoprotein P, which is one of the hepatokines, as well as TNF-α, CCL-2, and resistin, members of adipokines, to induce insulin resistance via direct cellular mechanisms. Clinical and experimental findings concerning IH give us productive new knowledge of how lifestyle-related diseases and pulmonary hypertension develop during sleep.

Description: The tank cascade system (TCS) has been used for over 2000 years for water management in Sri Lanka. Since surface water is limited in the dry zone of Sri Lanka, agricultural production, especially of upland crops, relies on groundwater for irrigation. We sampled 29 wells in the Ulagalla cascade, a prominent TCS near Anuradhapura city in the dry zone of Sri Lanka, in Yala (dry) and Maha (wet) seasons, the two main cropping seasons in Sri Lanka. We evaluated the suitability of groundwater for irrigation using the analytic hierarchy process and geographical information system. Water quality did not vary notably between seasons. However, it deteriorated with the onset of high intensity heavy rain, especially during the Maha season. A water quality zoning map indicated that groundwater in 4% and 96% of the study area is suitable and moderately suitable for irrigation, respectively. Irrigation water quality in tank cascade landscapes and similar environments can be assessed using this methodology and our results.

Description: Drought and heat-tolerant crops, such as Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum), are priority crops for fighting hunger in semi-arid regions. Assessing its performance under future climate scenarios is critical for determining its resilience and sustainability. Field experiments were conducted over two consecutive seasons (2015/2016 and 2016/2017) to determine the yield responses of the crop (pearl millet variety “Okoa”) to microdose fertilizer application in a semi-arid region of Tanzania. Data from the experiment were used to calibrate and validate the DSSAT model (CERES Millet). Subsequently, the model evaluated synthetic climate change scenarios for temperature increments and precipitation changes based on historic observations (2010–2018). Temperature increases of +0.5 to +3.0 °C (from baseline), under non-fertilized (NF) and fertilizer microdose (MD) conditions were used to evaluate nine planting dates of pearl millet from early (5 December) to late planting (25 February), based on increments of 10 days. The planting date with the highest yields was subjected to 49 synthetic scenarios of climate change for temperature increments and precipitation changes (of −30% up to +30% from baseline) to simulate yield responses. Results show that the model reproduced the phenology and yield, indicating a very good performance. Model simulations indicate that temperature increases negatively affected yields for all planting dates under NF and MD. Early and late planting windows were more negatively affected than the normal planting window, implying that temperature increases reduced the length of effective planting window for achieving high yields in both NF and MD. Farmers must adjust their planting timing, while the timely availability of seeds and fertilizer is critical. Precipitation increases had a positive effect on yields under all tested temperature increments, but Okoa cultivar only has steady yield increases up to a maximum of 1.5 °C, beyond which yields decline. This informs the need for further breeding or testing of other cultivars that are more heat tolerant. However, under MD, the temperature increments and precipitation change scenarios are higher than under NF, indicating a high potential of yield improvement under MD, especially with precipitation increases. Further investigation should focus on other cropping strategies such as the use of in-field rainwater harvesting and heat-tolerant cultivars to mitigate the effects of temperature increase and change in precipitation on pearl millet yield.

Description: We propose an extended scheme for selecting related stocks for themed mutual funds. This scheme was designed to support fund managers who are building themed mutual funds. In our preliminary experiments, building a themed mutual fund was found to be quite difficult. Our scheme is a type of natural language processing method and based on words extracted according to their similarity to a theme using word2vec and our unique similarity based on co-occurrence in company information. We used data including investor relations and official websites as company information data. We also conducted several other experiments, including hyperparameter tuning, in our scheme. The scheme achieved a 172% higher F1 score and 21% higher accuracy than a standard method. Our research also showed the possibility that official websites are not necessary for our scheme, contrary to our preliminary experiments for assessing data collaboration.

Description: Lower leg muscle activity contributes to body control; thus, monitoring lower leg muscle activity is beneficial to understand the body condition and prevent accidents such as falls. Amplitude features such as the mean absolute values of electromyography (EMG) are used widely for monitoring muscle activity. Garment-type EMG measurement systems use electrodes and they enable us to monitor muscle activity in daily life without any specific knowledge and the installation for electrode placement. However, garment-type measurement systems require a high compression area around the electrodes to prevent electrode displacement. This makes it difficult for users to wear such measurement systems. A less restraining wearable system, wherein the electrodes are placed around the ankle, is realized for target muscles widely distributed around the shank. The signals obtained from around the ankle are propagated biosignals from several muscles, and are referred to as distal EMG signals. Our objective is to develop a sock-type wearable sensor for estimating lower leg muscle activity using distal EMG signals. We propose a signal processing method based on multiple bandpass filters from the perspectives of noise separation and feature augmentation. We conducted an experiment for designing the hardware configuration, and three other experiments for evaluating the estimation accuracy and dependability of muscle activity analysis. Compared to the baseline based on a 20-500 Hz bandpass filter, the results indicated that the proposed system estimates muscle activity with higher accuracy. Experimental results suggest that lower leg muscle activity can be estimated using distal EMG signals.

Description: Establishing food security in sub-Saharan African countries requires a comprehensive and high resolution understanding of the driving factors of crop production. Poor soil and adverse climate conditions are among the major drivers of poor regional crop production. Drought and rainfall variability challenges are not fully being addressed by rainfed producers in semiarid areas. In this study, we analysed the spatiotemporal rainfall variability (STRV) and its effects on pearl millet yield using two seasons of data collected from 38 rain gauge stations scattered randomly in farm plots within a 1500 ha area of semiarid central Tanzania. The STRV effects on pearl millet yield under flat and tied ridge management were analysed. Our results show that seasonal rainfall can vary significantly for neighboring fields at distances of less than 200 m, which impacts yield. The STRV for daily rainfall was found to be more critical than for total seasonal rainfall amounts. Scattering fields can help farmers avoid total harvest loss by obtaining at least some yield from the areas that received adequate rain. The use of tied ridges is recommended to conserve soil moisture and improve yields more than flat cultivation in semiarid areas.

Description: Rainfed agriculture constitutes around 80% of the world’s agricultural land, achieving the lowest on-farm crop yields and greatest on-farm water losses. Much of this land is in developing countries, including sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where hunger is chronic. The primary constraint of rainfed agriculture—frequently experienced in SSA—is water scarcity, heightened by the unpredictability of season onset, erratic rainfall, as well as the inability of farmers to provide adequate soil and crop management. Farmers react differently to constraints, making a variety of choices—including the timing of planting, type of land cultivation, fertilization, and scattered fields, among many others. Limited information is available on the combined effects of these strategies for improving crop yield and water use efficiency (WUE). An experiment was co-conducted with farmers over four consecutive rainy seasons (2014–2018) in Tanzania, to evaluate these strategies for single and joint effects in improving yield and WUE on rainfed pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R.Br.). The treatments used were flat cultivation both without and with microdosing, as well as tied ridging without and with microdose interaction, with different planting dates depending on farmers’ decisions. Results show that farmers react differently to the early, normal, or late onset of the rainy season, and cumulative rainfall during its onset, which affects their decisions regarding planting dates, yield, and WUE. Microdose fertilization increases both the yield and WUE of pearl millet significantly, with greater effects obtained using tied ridging compared to flat cultivation. For low-income smallholder farmers in a semi-arid agroclimate, using tied ridging with microdosing during early planting is an effective response to spatiotemporal rainfall variability and poor soils.

Description: We sequenced the entire genomes of ten biphenyl/PCB degrading bacterial strains (KF strains) isolated from biphenyl-contaminated soil in Kitakyushu, Japan. All the strains were Gram-negative bacteria belonging to β- and γ-proteobacteria. Out of the ten strains, nine strains carried a biphenyl catabolic bph gene cluster as integrative conjugative elements (ICEs), and they were classified into four groups based on the structural features of the bph genes. Group I (five strains) possessed bph genes that were very similar to the ones in Pseudomonas furukawaii KF707 (formerly Pseudomonas pseudoalcaligenes KF707), which is one of the best characterized biphenyl-utilizing strains. This group of strains carried salicylate catabolic sal genes that were approximately 6-kb downstream of the bph genes. Group II (two strains) possessed bph and sal genes similar to the ones in KF707, but these strains lacked the bphX region between bphC and bphD, which is involved in the downstream catabolism of biphenyl. These bph-sal clusters in groups I and II were located on an integrative conjugative element that was larger than 110 kb, and they were named ICEbph-sal. Our previous study demonstrated that the ICEbph-sal of Pseudomonas putida KF715 in group II existed both in an integrated form in the chromosome (referred to as ICEbph-salKF715 (integrated)) and in a extrachromosomal circular form (referred to as ICEbph-sal (circular)) (previously called pKF715A, 483 kb) in the stationary culture. The ICEbph-sal was transferred from KF715 into P. putida AC30 and P. putida KT2440 with high frequency, and it was maintained stably as an extrachromosomal circular form. The ICEbph-salKF715 (circular) in these transconjugants was further transferred to P. putida F39/D and then integrated into the chromosome in one or two copies. Meanwhile, group III (one strain) possessed bph genes, but not sal genes. The nucleotide sequences of the bph genes in this group were less conserved compared to the genes of the strains belonging to groups I and II. Currently, there is no evidence to indicate that the bph genes in group III are carried by a mobile element. Group IV (two strains) carried bph genes as ICEs (59–61 kb) that were similar to the genes found in Tn4371 from Cupriavidus oxalacticus A5 and ICEKKS1024677 from the Acidovorax sp. strain KKS102. Our study found that bph gene islands have integrative functions, are transferred among soil bacteria, and are diversified through modification.

Description: Disinfected water is the major source of haloacetic acids (HAAs) in humans, but their inter- and intra-individual variability for exposure and risk assessment applications is under-researched. Thus, we measured HAAs in cross-sectional and longitudinal urine and water specimens from 17 individuals. Five regulated HAAs—mono-, di-, and trichloroacetic acid (MCAA, DCAA, and TCAA) and mono- and dibromoacetic acid (MBAA and DBAA)—and one unregulated HAA—bromochloroacetic acid (BCAA)—were measured. Urinary DCAA, MBAA, DBAA, and BCAA levels were always below the limits of detection (LOD). Measured levels and interindividual variability of urinary MCAA were higher than urinary TCAA. Longitudinal urinary specimens showed MCAA levels peaked in after-shower specimens, while TCAA levels remain unchanged. Correlation between urinary MCAA and TCAA was moderate but statistically significant. The prevalence of MCAA and TCAA in urine suggest they can be considered as biomarkers of HAA. Peak urinary MCAA in post-shower specimens suggest MCAA captures short-term exposure via dermal and/or inhalation, while urinary TCAA captures long-term exposure via ingestion. However, further research is warranted in a large pool of participants to test the reliability of MCAA as exposure biomarker.