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Cementitious materials have potential for infrastructure development in low-temperature marine environments, including in seawater at high latitudes and in deep-sea environments (water depths of >1000 m). Although the marine deterioration of cementitious materials has been widely investigated, the influence of seawater temperature has not been elucidated. In this study, to determine the effects of low-temperature seawater on the durability of cementitious materials, cement paste specimens were immersed in a seawater tank at room temperature and 2 °C for 433 days. The specimen immersed in low-temperature seawater exhibited significant deterioration with a partially collapsed surface, whereas the specimen immersed in room-temperature seawater maintained its original shape. Following low-temperature immersion, Ca dissolution was more pronounced and dissolved portlandite, decalcified calcium (alumino)silicate hydrate (C–(A-)S–H), magnesium (alumino)silicate hydrate (M–(A-)S–H), and thaumasite were observed on the collapsed surface. Such significant deterioration can be attributed to the increased solubility of portlandite under low-temperature conditions, which could promote Ca dissolution and subsequently lead to C–(A-)S–H decalcification and the formation of M–(A-)S–H and thaumasite. These insights are expected to contribute to the successful construction and maintenance of cementitious structures in low-temperature seawater.

A cycling campaign was assessed that used three different nudging conditions to progress people’s stage of motivation to make travel behavioral changes. The results of three waves of survey data showed that this cycling campaign generally strengthened their stage of motivation to reduce car use and that this stage-change, in turn, reduced actual car use while increasing bike use. It was observed that an improvement of cognitive psychological mechanisms was positively related to people’s motivation to change. Although the effect of the campaign was stronger just after it had ended (Wave 2), a reduction in car use, an increase in bike use, and an increase in the stage of motivation were still found three months after the campaign had ended. This is important as it shows that effects favoring sustainable travel last beyond the timeframe of the intervention. We conclude that travel interventions should aim to integrate processes that emphasize cognitive psychological mechanisms and people’s motivation to change as these drive a sustainable behavioral change.

In assessing the quality of urban policies, it is becoming more important to pay attention to the subjective satisfaction and happiness of residents living in a city. Encouraging leisure activities is one of the effective policies for urban policymakers to improve the life satisfaction of residents. Leisure is often not a complete activity on its own. After attending a concert, watching a play, or enjoying a sporting event, people often discuss those activities with other participants over a meal at a restaurant or a drink at a bar. It has been argued that the quality of the overall leisure experience can be improved by the conversation accompanying the primary activity. However, there has not been much research on the engagement in accompanying activities, their effects on the overall satisfaction with leisure experience, and the factors that stimulate them, and empirical findings are very limited. This study uses data from a survey in three global cities (Tokyo, New York, and London; N = 500 for each city) to provide basic information on the ancillary activities accompanying primary leisure activities. As a result, it was found that about half of the participants in leisure activities engage in some kind of accompanying activity and that eating and drinking are particularly popular. Through exploratory regression analyses, it was shown that, depending on the cities and activities, the engagement in accompanying activities may lead to an increase in well-being, that the presence of companions and improvements in perceived transport accessibility might stimulate accompanying activities. Finally, considering the result and the limitations of this study, we make suggestions for future research.

We propose an experimental method for evaluating the adiabatic condition during quantum annealing (QA), which will be essential for solving practical problems. The adiabatic condition consists of the transition matrix element and the energy gap, and our method simultaneously provides information about these components without diagonalizing the Hamiltonian. The key idea is to measure the power spectrum of a time domain signal by adding an oscillating field during QA, and we can estimate the values of the transition matrix element and energy gap from the measurement output. Our results provides a powerful experimental basis for analyzing the performance of QA.

Pumped at approximately twice the natural frequency, a Josephson parametric oscillator called parametron or Kerr parametric oscillator shows self-oscillation. Quantum annealing and universal quantum computation using self-oscillating parametrons as qubits were proposed. However, controls of parametrons under the pump field are degraded by unwanted rapidly oscillating terms in the Hamiltonian, which we call non-resonant rapidly oscillating terms (NROTs) coming from the violation of the rotating wave approximation. Therefore, the pump field can be an intrinsic origin of the imperfection of controls of parametrons. Here, we theoretically study the influence of the NROTs on the accuracy of controls of a parametron: a cat-state creation and a single-qubit gate. It is shown that there is a trade-off relationship between the suppression of the nonadiabatic transitions and the validity of the rotating wave approximation in a conventional approach. We also show that the tailored time dependence of the detuning of the pump field can suppress both of the nonadiabatic transitions and the disturbance of the state of the parametron due to the NROTs.

Background Predictive factors of nivolumab treatment response in patients with gastric cancer (GC) remain unclear. Methods In this retrospective cohort study, tissue specimens of patients with unresectable or recurrent GC and prior or scheduled treatment with nivolumab as third-line or higher therapy between September 2017 and February 2019 were collected from 23 institutions. The tumour-positive score (TPS) and combined positive score (CPS) of PD-L1 expression and mismatch repair (MMR) were analysed by immunohistochemistry. Associations between clinicopathological factors and tumour-response rate, hyperprogressive disease (HPD) rate and survival were assessed. Results Of 200 eligible patients, 143 had measurable lesions. The response and HPD rates were 17.5% and 22.1%, respectively. The response rate was significantly higher in patients with performance status (PS) 0–1 ( P  = 0.026), non-peritoneal metastasis ( P  = 0.021), PD-L1 TPS ≥ 1 ( P  = 0.012), CPS ≥ 5 ( P  = 0.007) or ≥ 10 ( P  < 0.001) or MMR deficiency ( P  < 0.001). The HPD rate was significantly higher in patients with PS 2–3 ( P  = 0.026), liver metastasis ( P  < 0.001) and CPS < 10 ( P  = 0.048). Multivariate analysis revealed that CPS ( P  = 0.001) and MMR ( P  = 0.002) were independent prognostic factors of progression-free survival, as well as liver metastasis ( P  < 0.001), peritoneal metastasis ( P  = 0.004) and CRP ( P  < 0.001). Conclusions PD-L1 CPS and MMR could be useful biomarkers for nivolumab treatment efficacy in GC. Clinical trial registration UMIN000032164.

Quantum annealing (QA) is a promising method for solving combinational optimization problems and performing quantum chemical calculations. The main sources of errors in QA are the effects of decoherence and non-adiabatic transition. We propose a method for suppressing both these effects using inhomogeneous twist operators corresponding to the twist angles of transverse fields applied to qubits. Furthermore, we adopt variational methods to determine the optimal inhomogeneous twist operator for minimizing the energy of the state after QA. Our approach is useful for increasing the energy gap and/or making the quantum states robust against decoherence during QA. In summary, our results can pave the way to a new approach for realizing practical QA.

BackgroundThe optimal treatment for liver metastasis from gastric cancer (LMGC) remains uncertain. The relevance of surgical resection is controversial. We conducted a prospective multicenter interventional study of surgical resection for LMGC.Patients and MethodsPatients with synchronous or metachronous LMGC who were surgically fit were registered. The primary endpoint was 3-year overall survival (OS) of patients who underwent R0 resection. Secondary endpoints were R0 resection rate, operative morbidity and mortality, 3-year recurrence-free survival (RFS) of R0 patients, and OS in all registered patients.ResultsSeventy patients were registered from 24 institutions between December 2011 and November 2019 and received preoperative chemotherapy. Three patients were ineligible, and 19 patients discontinued treatment, with disease progression in 12, adverse events in 4, and consent withdrawal in 3 before surgery. Of the 48 patients eventually undergoing surgery, R0 resection of the primary and/or metastatic GC was accomplished in 43 patients, while 1 patient discontinued treatment for positive peritoneal lavage cytology and 4 patients were considered ineligible based on postoperative pathological findings other than GC. The R0 resection rate of all eligible patients was 68.3% [95% confidence interval (CI) 55.3–79.4%, 43/63 patients], while that of all resected patients was 89.6% (95% CI 77.3–96.5%, 43/48 patients). Postoperative complications were identified in 12 out of 43 patients (27.9%), and Clavien–Dindo grade III or higher complications occurred in seven patients (16.3%). No hospital mortality was observed.ConclusionsR0 resection for LMGC could be performed in approximately two-thirds of all eligible patients, with acceptable surgical morbidity and mortality.

Lipolysis-stimulated lipoprotein receptor (LSR), a lipid receptor, is associated with cancer progression. However, detailed effects on intracellular metabolism are unclear. We aimed to elucidate the mechanism of LSR-mediated lipid metabolism in gastric cancer. We investigated lipid metabolic changes induced by lipoprotein administration in gastric cancer cells and evaluated the significance of LSR expression and lipid droplets formation in gastric cancer patients. The efficacy of inhibiting β-oxidation in gastric cancer cells was also examined in vitro and vivo. In gastric cancer cells, LSR promoted cellular uptake of lipoprotein and cell proliferation. Furthermore, the inhibition of LSR in gastric cancer cells expressing high levels of LSR counteracted both effects. Immunohistochemical analysis of human gastric cancer tissues showed that the increase in lipid droplets via LSR is a factor that influences prognosis. Lipidomics analysis of LSR-high-expressing gastric cancer cells revealed an increase in β-oxidation. Based on these results, we used etomoxir, a β-oxidation inhibitor, and found that it inhibited cell proliferation as well as the suppression of LSR. Similarly, in a mouse xenograft model of LSR-highly expressing gastric cancer cells, the tumor growth effect of high-fat diet feeding was counteracted by etomoxir, consistent with the Ki-67 labeling index. We demonstrated that lipids are taken up into gastric cancer cells via LSR and cause an increase in β-oxidation, resulting in the promotion of cancer progression. Controlling LSR-mediated lipid metabolism may be a novel therapeutic strategy for gastric cancer.