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The chemical characterization of the heaviest elements at the farthest reach of the periodic table (PT) and the classification of these elements in the PT are undoubtedly crucial and challenging subjects in chemical and physical sciences. The elucidation of the influence of relativistic effects on their outermost electronic configuration is also a critical and fascinating aspect. However, the heaviest elements with atomic numbers Z ≳ 100 must be produced at accelerators using nuclear reactions of heavy ions and target materials. Therefore, production rates for these elements are low, and their half-lives are as short as a few seconds to a few minutes; they are usually available in a quantity of only a few atoms at a time. Here, we review some highlighted studies on heavy actinide and light transactinide chemical characterization performed at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency tandem accelerator facility. We discuss briefly the prospects for future studies of the heaviest elements.

To study nonlinear dynamo properties, we performed extensive MHD simulations in a spherical shell system, focusing on a quadruple convection pattern with equal amounts of positive and negative flow helicities in the southern and northern hemispheres. Simulations using 50 different magnetic noise patterns indicate that the system settles into a nonlinear dipole-dominated equilibrium, with north or south polarity occurring at similar rates. This finding is consistent with the results from 50 additional simulations in which the direction of the convection is reversed. Both stable polarity states exhibit significant robustness, showing resistance to reversal under minor magnetic disturbances. This indicates that a bi-stable polarity equilibrium exists in the dipole-dominated magnetic field of a spherical shell dynamo system. The stable polarity state can be disrupted by introducing anomalous magnetic diffusivity or viscosity, or plasma instability, which are beyond the scope of this report.

With the recent surge of affordable, high-performance virtual reality (VR) headsets, there is unlimited potential for applications ranging from education, to training, to entertainment, to fitness and beyond. As these interfaces continue to evolve, passive user-state monitoring can play a key role in expanding the immersive VR experience, and tracking activity for user well-being. By recording physiological signals such as the electroencephalogram (EEG) during use of a VR device, the user's interactions in the virtual environment could be adapted in real-time based on the user's cognitive state. Current VR headsets provide a logical, convenient, and unobtrusive framework for mounting EEG sensors. The present study evaluates the feasibility of passively monitoring cognitive workload via EEG while performing a classical n-back task in an interactive VR environment. Data were collected from 15 participants and the spatio-spectral EEG features were analyzed with respect to task performance. The results indicate that scalp measurements of electrical activity can effectively discriminate three workload levels, even after suppression of a co-varying high-frequency activity.

Heterozygous Chd8 mutant mice display autistic-like behaviours and small but global changes in brain gene expression, which are associated with delays in neuronal development. Autistic-like behaviour in Chd8 mutant mice Mutations in CHD8 , a gene encoding a chromatin remodeller, are strongly linked to autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Keiichi Nakayama and colleagues show that mice heterozygous for Chd8 mutations display ASD-like behaviour and small but global changes in gene expression in the brain. Gene set enrichment analysis revealed that neurodevelopment was delayed in Chd8 mutant mouse embryos. Expression of RE-1 silencing transcription factor (REST) target genes was reduced in embryonic brains of Chd8 mutant mice as well as in the brains of humans with ASD, and CHD8 was found to physically interact with REST in mouse brain tissue. These data suggest that CHD8 haploinsufficiency may affect gene expression in the brain through abnormal REST activity. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) comprises a range of neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by deficits in social interaction and communication as well as by restricted and repetitive behaviours 1 . ASD has a strong genetic component with high heritability. Exome sequencing analysis has recently identified many de novo mutations in a variety of genes in individuals with ASD 2 , 3 , with CHD8 , a gene encoding a chromatin remodeller, being most frequently affected 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 . Whether CHD8 mutations are causative for ASD and how they might establish ASD traits have remained unknown. Here we show that mice heterozygous for Chd8 mutations manifest ASD-like behavioural characteristics including increased anxiety, repetitive behaviour, and altered social behaviour. CHD8 haploinsufficiency did not result in prominent changes in the expression of a few specific genes but instead gave rise to small but global changes in gene expression in the mouse brain, reminiscent of those in the brains of patients with ASD. Gene set enrichment analysis revealed that neurodevelopment was delayed in the mutant mouse embryos. Furthermore, reduced expression of CHD8 was associated with abnormal activation of RE-1 silencing transcription factor (REST), which suppresses the transcription of many neuronal genes. REST activation was also observed in the brains of humans with ASD, and CHD8 was found to interact physically with REST in the mouse brain. Our results are thus consistent with the notion that CHD8 haploinsufficiency is a highly penetrant risk factor for ASD, with disease pathogenesis probably resulting from a delay in neurodevelopment.

Real-world work environments require operators to perform multiple tasks with continual support from an automated system. Eye movement is often used as a surrogate measure of operator attention, yet conventional summary measures such as percent dwell time do not capture dynamic transitions of attention in complex visual workspace. This study analyzed eye movement data collected in a controlled a MATB-II task environment using gaze transition entropy analysis. In the study, human subjects performed a compensatory tracking task, a system monitoring task, and a communication task concurrently. The results indicate that both gaze transition entropy and stationary gaze entropy, measures of randomness in eye movements, decrease when the compensatory tracking task required more continuous monitoring. The findings imply that gaze transition entropy reflects attention allocation of operators performing dynamic operational tasks consistently.

Although neoadjuvant chemotherapy with docetaxel + cisplatin + 5-fluorouracil (CF) has been the standard treatment for stage II and III esophageal cancers, it is associated with severe adverse events caused by docetaxel. Consequently, this study aimed to construct a prognostic system for CF regimens, especially for locally advanced esophageal cancers. Biopsy specimens from 82 patients treated with the CF regimen plus radical surgery were analyzed. Variants in 56 autophagy- and esophageal cancer-related genes were identified using targeted enrichment sequencing. Overall, 13 single-nucleotide variants, including 8 non-synonymous single-nucleotide variants, were identified as significantly associated with esophageal cancer recurrence ( p  < 0.05). Particularly, variants of ATG2A p.R478C and ULK2 splice-site also showed significant differences in recurrence-free and overall survival. Subsequently, machine learning was used to construct a model for predicting esophageal cancer recurrence based on 21 features, including eight patient characteristics. A Naive Bayes machine-learning model was shown to be highly reliable for predicting esophageal cancer recurrence with an accuracy of 0.88 and an area under the curve of 0.9. We believe that our results provide useful guidance in the selection of neoadjuvant adjuvant chemotherapy, including avoidance of docetaxel.

Trust is a critical construct that influences human–automation interaction in multitasking workspaces involving imperfect automation. Karpinsky et al. (Appl Ergon, 70, 194–201, 2018) investigated whether trust affects operators’ attention allocation in high-load scenarios using the multi-attribute task battery II (MATB). Results suggested that task load reduces trust towards imperfect automation, then reducing visual attention allocation to the monitoring task aided by the automation. Participants also reported reduced levels of trust in high-load conditions. However, it is possible that the participants in high-load conditions did not trust the system because their poor task performance did not have expressly adverse consequences (i.e., risk). The current experiments aimed to replicate and extend Karpinsky et al. (2018) by asking forty participants to concurrently perform a tracking task and system monitoring task in the MATB II with or without risk. The reliability of the automated aid supporting the system monitoring task was 70%. The study employed a 2 × 2 split-plot design with task load (easy vs. difficult) via magnitude of errors in the tracking task as a within-participant factor and risk (high vs. low) as a between-participant factor. Participants in the high-risk group received an instruction that poor performance would result in a repeat of the experiment, whereas participants in the low-risk group did not receive this instruction. Results showed that trust was comparable between the high- and the low-load conditions, but the high risk elevated trust in the high-load condition. This implies that operators display greater levels of trust when a multitasking environment demands greater attention and they perceive risk of receiving expressly adverse consequence, regardless of the true reliability of automated systems.

In this study, a technique that uses a capacitance sensor with an asymmetric electrode to measure the void fraction of a refrigerant was developed. It is known that the void fraction and flow pattern affect the measured capacitance. Therefore, the relationship between the void fraction and capacitance is not linear; hence, a calibration method for obtaining accurate measurements is necessary. A calibration method was designed in this study based on repeated capacitance measurements and the bimodal temporal distribution to calibrate the atypical and repetitive flow patterns of slug flow and its transition to the intermittent flow regime. The calibration method also considers the weighted-average relation for the gradual transition of the intermittent to annular flow pattern according to the change from low to high quality. The proposed method was experimentally analyzed under the conditions of R32 refrigerant, a tube inner diameter of 7.1 mm, saturation temperature of 25 °C, mass flux of 100–400 kg m−2 s−1, and vapor quality of 0.025–0.900, and it was validated using a quick-closing valve (QCV) system under identical conditions. A relative error of 2.99% was obtained for the entire system, indicating good agreement between the proposed and QCV-based methods.

Safe flight operation requires visual scanning across multiple displays in a cockpit, which collectively represent the state of the aircraft and supporting automation. Trust is a crucial factor that drives human-automation interaction, and recent work has suggested a relationship between an operator’s visual attention and automation trust. One index that captures predictability of eye movements between different areas of interest is gaze transition entropy. The current work reanalyzed data from Sato et al., which examined eye movement patterns and trust in automation associated with the system monitoring task of the Multi-Attribute Task Battery. Results showed credible positive correlations between the entropy measures and performance-based trust, but not for process- nor purpose-based trust. Specifically, higher levels of performance-based trust were associated with more random eye movement. Gaze transition entropy may provide a new window into the relationship between visual attentional resource allocation and automation trust in a multitasking workspace.

Splicing can be epigenetically regulated and involved in cellular differentiation in somatic cells, but the interplay of epigenetic factors and the splicing machinery during spermatogenesis remains unclear. To study these interactions in vivo, we generated a germline deletion of MORF-related gene on chromosome 15 (MRG15), a multifunctional chromatin organizer that binds to methylated histone H3 lysine 36 (H3K36) in introns of transcriptionally active genes and has been implicated in regulation of histone acetylation, homology-directed DNA repair, and alternative splicing in somatic cells. Conditional KO (cKO) males lacking MRG15 in the germline are sterile secondary to spermatogenic arrest at the round spermatid stage. There were no significant alterations in meiotic division and histone acetylation. Specific mRNA sequences disappeared from 66 germ cell-expressed genes in the absence of MRG15, and specific intronic sequences were retained in mRNAs of 4 genes in the MRG15 cKO testes. In particular, introns were retained in mRNAs encoding the transition proteins that replace histones during sperm chromatin condensation. In round spermatids, MRG15 colocalizes with splicing factors PTBP1 and PTBP2 at H3K36me3 sites between the exons and single intron of transition nuclear protein 2 (Tnp2). Thus, our results reveal that MRG15 is essential for pre-mRNA splicing during spermatogenesis and that epigenetic regulation of pre-mRNA splicing by histone modification could be useful to understand not only spermatogenesis but also, epigenetic disorders underlying male infertile patients.