Yamasa Corporation (Japan)

This study examined whether or not the coexistence of smoking and metabolic syndrome synergistically increases the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) beyond their individual effects. This prospective cohort study included 68,743 workers from the Japan Epidemiology Collaboration on Occupational Health Study. The participants were categorized into four groups based on their smoking status and metabolic syndrome. Biological interactions were evaluated using relative excess risk due to interaction (RERI), attributable proportion (AP), and synergy index (S). During a mean follow-up of 7.2 (range: 0.1-10.9) years, 346 participants developed CVD. Current smokers with metabolic syndrome had the highest CVD risk (hazard ratio: 6.45, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 4.73-8.80). Approximately 35% of CVD cases among individuals exposed to both factors were attributed to their biological interactions (RERI: 2.27, 95% CI: 0.56-3.98; AP: 0.35, 95% CI: 0.15-0.55; S: 1.71, 95% CI: 1.16-2.52). An analysis of CVD subtypes revealed a significant biological interaction for myocardial infarction (RERI: 5.14, 95% CI: 0.65-9.62; AP: 0.52, 95% CI: 0.26-0.78; S: 2.38, 95% CI: 1.22-4.62) but not for stroke (RERI: 1.34, 95% CI: -0.46-3.13; AP: 0.25, 95% CI: -0.03-0.53; S: 1.44, 95% CI: 0.89-2.34). Smoking and metabolic syndrome interact synergistically to elevate CVD risk, particularly for myocardial infarction. Targeting both factors is essential for CVD prevention.

イカ網膜の感光性色素レチノクロームの最大吸収波長（λmax）はロドプシンより約10 nm長く，深海性の種に豊富である。アオリイカ3種間で両色素のλmax差を比較すると，本州に多いシロイカで17 nmであるのに，南方系のアカイカとクアイカでは2 nm以下であった。また，両色素の網膜内遺伝子発現強度は深場に出現するアカイカより内湾性のシロイカで高かった。シロイカの生息域は他2種に比べて濁度変動が大きく，λmaxが異なる2つの感光性色素を活発に利用することで複雑な光環境に視覚適応していると推察された。

Real-time performance tracking is the core component of automatic accompaniment systems. Previous methods typically require full information on the performance score (the human part) and also assume very limited improvisations off the score, otherwise, the tracker will get lost. In this paper, we aim to track a fully improvised performance for automatic accompaniment, in which the only reference is the accompaniment score (the machine part). The key idea is to incorporate semantic-level alignment to model the correspondence between the user performance and the accompaniment. Our system contains two real-time components: The first component is an accompaniment-conditioned quantization model using a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) layer. For each performance note onset, we first compute its rough projected score position using previously estimated performance-to-score mapping and then refine the mapping using the quantization results. The second component is a playback control system, which updates the performance-to-score mapping via the performance-quantized time pair (similar to the performance-score alignment pair in traditional automatic accompaniment systems). Experiments show the system achieves better tracking results on expressive piano performance than baselines, allowing score-free tracking on both texture and tempo variations. Video demos are accessible on our demo page<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1</sup>.

Asialo-GM1 (ASGM1) has been identified as a cell surface marker of murine NK cells. Although polyclonal anti-asialo-GM1 antibodies (anti-ASGM1 pAb) have been widely used for studying natural killer (NK) cell functions in vivo, the technical challenges have existed in their specificity for NK cell depletion. Furthermore, the exact expression of ASGM1 on the NK cell lineage and other immune cells has not been characterized due to the lack of appropriate reagents. In this context, we have recently established several clones of monoclonal antibodies against ASGM1 with different specificity to other structurally related gangliosides. In this study, we characterized the rabbit anti-ASGM1 mAb clone GA134 with both higher specificity to ASGM1 and efficacy in depleting NK cells, and the in vivo GA134 treatment significantly impaired NK cell-dependent anti-tumor effector function. We further determined the expression of ASGM1 on the NK cell lineage at distinct differentiation stages using fluorescent-labeled GA134 and found that both CD122+ NK1.1- NKP and immature NK1.1+ CD11blo CD27lo NK subsets were the earliest NK cell lineages acquiring ASGM1 expression on their cell surface. In addition to NK cells, we characterized the expression of ASGM1 on a subpopulation of T cells, mostly NK1.1+ T cells, and basophils.

鮮度保持機能を搭載した醤油容器が登場してから十数年が経過し，この容器を使用した商品が小売店の醤油の棚で存在感を高めている。鮮度を保持する2重構造の容器は，食用油やマヨネーズなどにも採用され，鮮度という潜在的であったニーズは，今や顕在化した価値として消費者に広く認知されている。今回は鮮度保持容器を世界に先駆けて投入したヤマサ醤油の開発担当者に，醤油容器の変遷と鮮度保持容器の開発経緯をまとめて頂いた。食品の包材開発に役立つ価値ある記事であり，関係者にはご一読をお勧めする。

近年開発された酸化防止容器は開封後の醤油の鮮度を保持できることから，急速に市場に普及している．一方で，醤油の風味形成に重要な香気成分に対し，酸化防止容器がどのような影響を与えているかについてはこれまで明らかになっていなかった．本研究では，PID，デラミ容器，PETボトルそれぞれの容器製品に充填した醤油について，開封後の香気成分変化を評価することで，酸化防止容器の各製品の香気成分維持効果の解明を試みた．酸化防止容器は鮮度維持機能が高く，香気成分の経時的な変化量は小さいことから，分析方法の工夫が必要とされた．具体的には，バイアル内を窒素置換したSPME-GC/MS，グローブボックス内で香気抽出したSBSE-GC/MSを併用して分析中の成分変化を低減させ，またSPME-GC/Oおよび多変量解析を活用して風味形成および風味変化への寄与度の高い成分を絞り込んだ．その結果，PETボトルではピラジン類（2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine等），短鎖脂肪酸（isovaleric acid等），アルデヒド類（nonanal等），含硫化合物（dimethyl trisulfide）の増加，およびエステル類（ethyl 2-methylbutanoate等）の減少が確認され，これら成分のデラミ容器，PIDにおける変化量はPETボトルより少なかった．また，2,3,5-trimethylpyrazineの経時的増加は，デラミ容器よりもPIDの方が小さく，醤油の黒色化の進行と同じ変化傾向を示していた．さらに，PETボトルで変化量の大きかった上位3成分は，nonanal（8.1倍），dimethyl trisulfide（7.5倍），2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine（4.5倍）であった．これら成分は醤油の品質変化への影響が大きいと考えられ，また清酒の老香の成分として知られるdimethyl trisulfideは醤油においても品質劣化に寄与していることが示唆された．

Non-destructive testing for bolt loosening which can evaluate fastening force quantitatively is needed to prevent accidents due to the bolt loosening. This study proposes an evaluation method for the fastening force of bolt-nut fasteners quantitatively using ultrasonic pulses. In this method, attaching two ultrasonic transducers on the nut, we observe the ultrasonic pulses which passes through the screw thread of the bolt. The projected ultrasonic pulse from one transducer splits into a transmitted pulse and a reflected pulse on a flank of the screw thread. The transmittance and the reflectance depend on contact stiffness on the flank between the bolt and the nut. The contact stiffness on the flanks is positively correlated with contact pressure on the flanks and fastening force of the bolt. If the contact stiffness on a flank becomes larger, transmittance of ultrasound on the same flank becomes higher. We thus can calculate the contact stiffness on the flank of the bolt-nut fastener from amplitude of the transmitted pulses which passes through the bolt. And the proposed method estimates the contact pressure of the flank and the fastening force of the target bolt-nut fastener using the calculated contact stiffness. In this paper, we demonstrate the proposed method for a sample bolt-nut fastener which consists of an M24 bolt and a nut. The proposed method provides valid results about the contact pressure and the fastening force as compared to the applied fastening torque.

ABSTRAK&#x0D; Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui tingkat pelayanan yang di harapkan pelanggan dari PT Yamasa Tour&amp;Travel Umroh dan Haji Surabaya dan tingkat kenyataan pelayanan pelanggan dari PT Yamasa Tour &amp; Travel Umroh dan Haji Surabaya. Sampel dalam penelitian berjumlah 100 orang Jamaah PT Yamasa Tour &amp; Travel umroh dan haji surabaya. Analisis Data pada penelitian ini menggunakan Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) dan pengujian dengan menggunakan metode Importance Performance Analysist (IPA). Berdasarkan hasil penelitian dapat diketahui bahwa 1) Melalui perhitungan Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI), didapatkan nilai CSI PT Yamasa Tour&amp;Travel Umroh &amp; Haji Surabaya sebesar 80,8%. yang menunjukkan bahwa indek kepuasan pelanggan PT Yamasa Tour&amp;Travel Umroh &amp; Haji Surabaya pada kriteria Sangat Puas, 2) Hasil dari perhitungan Importance Peformance Analysis menunjukkan bahwa atribut yang menjadi agenda prioritas utama untuk ditingkatkan kinerjanya adalah pada dimensi Empati yaitu karyawan menjalin hubungan yang baik dengan jamaah dan pada dimensi Daya Tanggap yaitu memberikan informasi cepat dan tepat.&#x0D; &#x0D; Kata kunci: kepuasan pelanggan, pelayanan prima, customer satisfaction index (csi), importance performance analysist (IPA).

To clarify the effects of jet angle on the radiated sound from the flute, the radiated sound and jet fluctuations were experimentally investigated. An artificial blowing device with an artificial oral cavity was used to change the jet angle and the geometric edge offset (the relative height of edge from the jet oscillation center) independently. The actual jet offset was estimated based on the velocity profile measured by a hot-wire anemometer. Although the geometric edge offset was set to zero, the actual edge offset increased with the jet angle since the jet deflects toward inside the resonator. The radiated sound pressure of the first mode remained almost at the same level, while the sound of the second mode radiated more intensely with the increase of the jet angle in the range of 15 degrees from the measured angle for a human player. With the increase of the jet angle beyond this range, the sound of the third mode radiated less intensely. These results indicate that jet deflects toward inside the resonator influenced by the acoustic resonance and that the variation of the jet angle affects the actual jet offset, which affects the harmonic structure.

BackgroundWe estimated the cumulative risk of type 2 diabetes from age 30 to 65 years in a large working population in Japan.MethodsWe used data from the Japan Epidemiology Collaboration on Occupational Health Study. Participants (46,065 men and 7,763 women) were aged 30–59 years, free of diabetes at baseline, and followed up for a maximum of 7 years. Incident type 2 diabetes was defined based on fasting and casual glucose, glycated hemoglobin, and current medical treatment for type 2 diabetes. We calculated the sex-specific cumulative risk of type 2 diabetes using the Practical Incidence Estimator macro, which was created to produce several estimates of disease incidence for prospective cohort studies based on a modified Kaplan-Meier method.ResultsDuring 274,349 person-years of follow-up, 3,587 individuals (3,339 men and 248 women) developed type 2 diabetes. The cumulative risk was 34.7% (95% confidence interval, 33.1–36.3%) for men and 18.6% (95% confidence interval, 15.5–21.7%) for women. In BMI-stratified analysis, obese (BMI ≥30 kg/m2) and overweight (BMI 25–29.9 kg/m2) men and women had a much higher cumulative risk of type 2 diabetes (obese: 77.3% for men and 64.8% for women; overweight: 49.1% and 35.7%, respectively) than those with BMI <25 kg/m2 (26.2% and 13.4% for men and women, respectively).ConclusionsThe present data highlight the public health burden of type 2 diabetes in the working population. There is a need for effective programs for weight management and type 2 diabetes screening, especially for young obese employees, to prevent or delay the development of type 2 diabetes.