Wearable High-Resolution Haptic Display Using Suction Stimuli to Represent Cutaneous Contact Information on Finger Pad.

A high-resolution haptic display that reproduces tactile distribution information on the contact surface between a finger and an object realizes the presentation of the softness of the object and the magnitude and direction of the applied force. In this article, we developed a 32-channel suction haptic display that can reproduce tactile distribution on fingertips with high resolution. The device is wearable, compact, and lightweight, thanks to the absence of actuators on the finger. A FE analysis of the skin deformation confirmed that the suction stimulus interfered less with adjacent stimuli in the skin than when pressing with positive pressure, thus allowing more precise control of local tactile stimuli. The optimal layout with the least error was selected from three configurations dividing 62 suction holes into 32 ports.The suction pressures were determined by calculating the pressure distribution by a real-time finite element simulation of the contact between the elastic object and the rigid finger. A discrimination experiment of softness with different Young's modulus and its JND investigation suggested that the higher resolution of the suction display improved the performance of the softness presentation compared to a 16-channel suction display previously developed by the authors.

Effect of linguistic factors on the occurrence of stuttering-like disfluency among Japanese-speaking preschool children who stutter.

This study aimed to investigate the linguistic factors involved in stuttering among Japanese-speaking preschool children. The participants included 10 Japanese children who stutter, with a mean age of 5 years and 9 months. Speech samples comprised spontaneous conversations of the participants with their parents for about 20 minutes. We compared the percentages of the occurrence of stuttering-like disfluencies (SLDs) at the word and sentence levels, using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. The results showed no significant differences in SLDs based on syllable structure when comparing light and heavy syllables and comparing consonants and vowels in the initial position of each content word. SLDs occurred more frequently in the initial than non-initial position of words and in longer rather than shorter words. Additionally, SLDs occurred more frequently in sentences that contained more 'bunsetsu' (a kind of linguistic unit in Japanese). Our study is the first to show that both word and sentence-level factors could contribute to SLDs in preschool children who stutter in agglutinating languages, such as Japanese. This aspect is rarely reported in psycholinguistic studies based on stuttering occurrence in inflecting languages, such as English.

Focal segmental glomerulosclerosis and concurrent glomerular microangiopathy after long-term imatinib administration.

A 79-year-old Japanese man was admitted to our hospital because of proteinuria and kidney dysfunction. He was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia 13 years before and was treated with imatinib. Deep molecular response was achieved but he developed 1+ proteinuria in the first year, which gradually worsened thereafter. Imatinib was discontinued 12 years later but proteinuria and kidney dysfunction were progressive. Percutaneous kidney biopsy revealed mild mesangial hyper-cellularity and matrix increase, swelling of endothelial cells, and partial double contours of glomerular tufts. Subendothelial edema in the interlobular artery was also noted. Immunofluorescence was not remarkable. Electron microscopy revealed endothelial injury with severe sub-endothelial edema. Since imatinib had already been discontinued, conservative therapy with maximal dose of azilsartan was administered. A second biopsy was performed 1 year later because of further deterioration of kidney function, which revealed markedly increased global glomerulosclerosis and severe interstitial fibrosis and tubular atrophy. Segmental glomerulosclerosis with podocyte hyperplasia was also observed. Electron microscopy revealed glomerulosclerotic changes and partially attenuated endothelial injury. Two and a half years later, proteinuria reduced, progression of kidney dysfunction slowed, and he was independent on dialysis therapy. Molecular response of chronic myeloid leukemia was also maintained. The clinical course suggested that endothelial and podocyte injuries were induced by imatinib, and that the nephrotoxic effects lasted for a few years after discontinuation.

Concurrent minimal change disease and retroperitoneal liposarcoma successfully treated by tumor resection and steroid therapy.

A 54-year-old Japanese woman developed simultaneous abdominal distension and bilateral leg edema. Her medical history and results of periodic medical check-up were unremarkable. Blood tests revealed severe hypoproteinemia and acute kidney injury, and urinalysis revealed 4+ proteinuria and 2+ hematuria. Abdominal computed tomography revealed a large intra-abdominal mass with fat tissue density. She underwent emergency tumor excision, splenectomy, and distal pancreatectomy. However, hypoproteinemia and acute kidney injury worsened. Therefore, she was transferred to the nephrology division for confirmation of diagnosis and for treatment of acute kidney injury and nephrotic syndrome. We conducted percutaneous kidney biopsy and diagnosed minimal change disease (MCD). Intravenous prednisolone was started, and heavy proteinuria and systemic edema were gradually alleviated. She achieved complete remission 2 months later, and oral prednisolone was tapered. Histopathological diagnosis of abdominal tumor was dedifferentiated liposarcoma of retroperitoneal origin. Immunohistochemical staining revealed strong expression of vascular endothelial growth factor in the tumor cells in the dedifferentiated component. Currently, her clinical course is stable without recurrence of liposarcoma and nephrotic syndrome. MCD develops in patients with Hodgkin's lymphoma, solid organ cancers, hematological malignancies, and thymoma, whereas concurrent MCD and liposarcoma are rare. Remission of nephrotic syndrome and normalized kidney function induced by steroid therapy are important for better management of patients with malignancy.

Cryopreservation of lar gibbon semen collected by manual stimulation.

We confirmed ejaculation as a result of manual stimulation in a lar gibbon, and attempted to cryopreserve the semen using TES-Tris-egg yolk-based (TTE) extender. After measuring the amount of semen (g), we first diluted the semen with TTE extender, and calculated sperm concentration (sperm/ml), total sperm count (sperm), and progressive sperm motility (%). Then, we cooled diluted semen slowly to 4 °C over 2 h, and added an equal volume of secondary extender containing glycerol over 30 min. Finally, we flash-froze the semen solution by plunging into liquid nitrogen. In addition, we freeze-thawed the solution to determine the recovery rate of the motile sperm. Collection of semen was successful on four of the five occasions. The median (min-max) quantity of ejaculate was 0.19 g (0.09-0.26 g), the median sperm concentration was 1.38 × 10(9) sperm/ml (1.20-1.53 × 10(9) sperm/ml), and the median total sperm count was 0.26 × 10(9) sperm (0.11-0.40 × 10(9) sperm). Moreover, the median sperm motility immediately after ejaculation was 65 % (60-75 %), the median sperm motility after freeze-thawing was 30 % (25-35 %), and the median recovery rate was 42.3 % (40.0-58.3 %). We were able to (1) collect semen from a lar gibbon by manual stimulation, (2) reveal andrological findings regarding semen characteristics, and (3) preserve the genetic resource using TTE cryopreservation.