Ohkagakuen University

BACKGROUND:Exercise-induced impairment of blood fluidity is considered to be associated with thrombosis development. However, the effects of L-arginine on blood fluidity after exercise remain unclear.OBJECTIVE:We investigated the mechanisms of impaired blood fluidity after high-intensity exercise, and examined whether L-arginine improves exercise-induced blood fluidity impairment in vitro.METHODS:Ten healthy male participants performed 15 minutes of ergometer exercise at 70% of their peak oxygen uptake levels. Blood samples were obtained before and after exercise. L-arginine and NG-monomethyl-L-arginine acetate (L-NMMA)—a nitric oxide (NO) synthase inhibitor—were added to the post-exercise blood samples. Using Kikuchi’s microchannel method, we measured the blood passage time, percentage of obstructed microchannels, and the number of adherent white blood cells (WBCs) on the microchannel terrace.RESULTS:Exercise increased the hematocrit levels. The blood passage times, percentage of obstructed microchannels, and the number of adherent WBCs on the microchannel terrace increased after exercise; however, they decreased in a dose-dependent manner after the addition of L-arginine. L-NMMA inhibited the L-arginine-induced decrease in blood passage time.CONCLUSIONS:High-intensity exercise impairs blood fluidity by inducing hemoconcentration along with increasing platelet aggregation and WBC adhesion. The L-arginine–NO pathway improves blood fluidity impairment after high-intensity exercise in vitro.

Abstract This is a case study of an early childhood education and care (ECEC) teacher from the perspective of her polyphonic time spent with young children. The purpose of the study was to reconstruct a teacher's understanding of play based on her own narrative. In particular, the E‐series time created through play between the ECEC teacher and the children is discussed. The study is based on an interview with the ECEC teacher, Haruka, who was involved in a “slide and mud play” activity while working with the children as a classroom teacher at Day Care Center A. The five narratives pertaining to slide and mud play were analyzed qualitatively from the perspective of a teacher's polyphonic sense of time. It can be perceived from the results that an ECEC teacher's narratives, which include aspects of polyphonic time, reveal not only their own professionalism, but also their experience of intersubjective relationships through play activities shared with children. This is what makes an ECEC teacher's narrative unique, and it is an indispensable point of view when telling the story of childcare.

There are many Karakuri Ningyo dolls in the Chubu district of Japan. Karakuri Ningyo dolls are, so to speak, wooden automata with exemplification of creative technology unique to Japan. But Karakuri Ningyo dolls have not been appreciated as a significant resource of industrial tourism. The Chubu district of Japan has conserved and cultivated its treasures of Karakuri Ningyo dolls and Karakuri culture in the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology and Toyota company culture. The Museum provides an opportunity to consider the areal power to build up inter-connectivity between several local industrial elements; cotton manufacture as endogenous industry, nearby wood production and the assembly of skilled craftsman of wood working. So the region is one of the representative industrial tourism destinations which the tourist gaze directs upon. However, the region has not been generally recognized as an attractive destination for industrial tourism. This paper explored the significance of Chubu's resources of industrial tourism by tracing the technological development of Karakuri Ningyo dolls and Toyoda looms. This paper also demonstrated the historical uniqueness of the process of the modernaization of Japan.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the regulation of brain protein synthesis is mediated through changes in the plasma concentration of growth hormone (GH) when dietary ornithine treatment is manipulated in the hypophysectomized or sham-operated aged rats. Experiments were done on four groups of hypophysectomized and sham-operated (24-wk-old) male rats given 0% or 0.7% ornithine-HCl added to a 20% casein diet. The concentrations of plasma GH and fractional rates of protein synthesis in the brains increased significantly with the 20% casein+0.7% ornithine compared with the 20% casein diet alone in the sham-operated rats. However ornithine supplementation to the basal diet did not affect the rates of protein synthesis in the hypophysectomized rats. In the cerebral cortex and cerebellum, the RNA activity [g protein synthesized/(g RNA•d)] significantly correlated with the fractional rate of protein synthesis. The RNA concentration (mg RNA/g protein) was also related to the fractional rate of protein synthesis in these organs. The results suggest that the treatment with ornithine is likely to increase the concentration of GH and the rate of brain protein synthesis in the sham-operated rats only, not in the hypophysectomized rats, and that the ornithine-induced increase in the concentration of GH may be primarily responsible for changes in the brain protein synthesis. The RNA activity is at least partly related to the fractional rate of brain protein synthesis.