System for Detecting Learner Stuck in Programming Learning.

Getting stuck is an inevitable part of learning programming. Long-term stuck decreases the learner's motivation and learning efficiency. The current approach to supporting learning in lectures involves teachers finding students who are getting stuck, reviewing their source code, and solving the problems. However, it is difficult for teachers to grasp every learner's stuck situation and to distinguish stuck or deep thinking only by their source code. Teachers should advise learners only when there is no progress and they are psychologically stuck. This paper proposes a method for detecting when learners get stuck during programming by using multi-modal data, considering both their source code and psychological state measured by a heart rate sensor. The evaluation results of the proposed method show that it can detect more stuck situations than the method that uses only a single indicator. Furthermore, we implemented a system that aggregates the stuck situation detected by the proposed method and presents them to a teacher. In evaluations during the actual programming lecture, participants rated the notification timing of application as suitable and commented that the application was useful. The questionnaire survey showed that the application can detect situations where learners cannot find solutions to exercise problems or express them in programming.

[Interstitial Lung Disease after OK-432 Pleurodesis for Malignant Pleural Effusion in Breast Cancer-A Case Report].

The patient was a 42-year-old woman. After 4 courses of capecitabine therapy for right chest wall recurrence of breast cancer, ER(+, 10-15%), PgR(-), HER2(-), she underwent pleurodesis using OK-432 for increased right pleural effusion. On the 12th day after pleurodesis diffuse infiltrative shadows in the right lung, and frosted shadows in both lungs, were observed, and she was diagnosed with drug-induced lung injury. About 3 weeks after administration of prednisolone 1 mg/ kg a tendency for improvement in lung injury was observed, but the patient died of breast cancer progression. Drug- induced lung injury by pleurodesis carries the risk of delaying resumption of chemotherapy. We report this case with a review of the literature.

Atezolizumab-Induced Sarcoidosis-Like Reaction in a Patient with Metastatic Breast Cancer.

Tumor-related sarcoidosis-like reactions (SLR) have been reported with the use of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). We report a case of 50-year-old woman who observed an enlarged lymph node in the right hilar region and the appearance of a subcutaneous mass in the extremities during chemotherapy with atezolizumab plus nab-paclitaxel for metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). Skin biopsy revealed the formation of epithelioid granulation species with the Langhans giant cell. After discontinuing atezolizumab in the treatment procedure, the hilar lymph nodes and the subcutaneous mass were reduced. A pathological examination was effective in differentiating tumor exacerbation from SLR. Owing to limited information on ICI-related SLR in breast cancer, future studies are recommended to properly manage immune-related adverse effects during cancer treatment.

Short-term outcomes of induction chemotherapy with docetaxel, cisplatin, and fluorouracil (TPF) in locally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

There is an unmet need for improving survival outcomes of locally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma, for example, T4/ N3 stage disease. To this end, we administered induction chemotherapy (IC) with TPF (docetaxel, cisplatin, and fluorouracil) because this stage of disease is associated with a high risk of recurrence and is difficult to control with standard treatments, such as chemoradiotherapy (CRT) alone or CRT followed by adjuvant chemotherapy. The aim of this retrospective single-center study was to clarify the short-term outcomes of locally far-advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients treated with IC-TPF, followed by CRT with cisplatin. Data from 11 patients were extracted from our database, indicating that the overall response rate to IC-TPF, clinical complete response rate after CRT, 1-year progression-free survival, and 1-year overall survival were 73%, 91%, 68%, and 89%, respectively. Hematological toxicity was the most common adverse event reported during IC-TPF with 64% of patients suffering grade 3 or 4 neutropenia, 55% grade 3 or 4 leucopenia and 9% febrile neutropenia. Despite the small number of patients, these data are important because there is a limited number of studies investigating IC-TPF followed by CRT in Japanese patients. This pilot study provides some indication of the short-term effectiveness and toxicity of this therapeutic approach, which may be superior to standard treatments. Long-term follow-up is warranted to assess the effectiveness of IC-TPF in terms of clinical outcome and late-phase toxicity.

Association of Fatigue and Stress With Gray Matter Volume.

Stress is associated with a greater risk for various health problems including reduced gray matter volume (GMV) and density in a number of brain regions. Previous studies show that neuroimaging could be a means to objectively evaluate stress. However, to date, no definite neuroimaging-derived measures are available to detect stress. In this research we used the gray-matter brain healthcare quotient (GM-BHQ), an MRI-based quotient for monitoring brain health based on GMV, as an objective scale to measure the association of stress with the whole brain. We recruited 63 healthy adults to acquire structural T1-weighted images and stress levels evaluated using three representative stress scales: the Profile of Mood States (POMS), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and Chalder Fatigue Scale (CFS). We found that the GM-BHQ was sensitive to fatigue and the interaction between fatigue and stress.

MRI-based Brain Healthcare Quotients: A bridge between neural and behavioral analyses for keeping the brain healthy.

Neurological and psychiatric disorders are a burden on social and economic resources. Therefore, maintaining brain health and preventing these disorders are important. While the physiological functions of the brain are well studied, few studies have focused on keeping the brain healthy from a neuroscientific viewpoint. We propose a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based quotient for monitoring brain health, the Brain Healthcare Quotient (BHQ), which is based on the volume of gray matter (GM) and the fractional anisotropy (FA) of white matter (WM). We recruited 144 healthy adults to acquire structural neuroimaging data, including T1-weighted images and diffusion tensor images, and data associated with both physical (BMI, blood pressure, and daily time use) and social (subjective socioeconomic status, subjective well-being, post-materialism and Epicureanism) factors. We confirmed that the BHQ was sensitive to an age-related decline in GM volume and WM integrity. Further analysis revealed that the BHQ was critically affected by both physical and social factors. We believe that our BHQ is a simple yet highly sensitive, valid measure for brain health research that will bridge the needs of the scientific community and society and help us lead better lives in which we stay healthy, active, and sharp.

A simple and sensitive method for the determination of hydroxylamine in fresh-water samples using hypochlorite followed by gas chromatography.

A new and simple method for the determination of hydroxylamine in environmental water, such as fresh rivers and lakes using hypochlorite, followed by its gas choromatographic detection, has been developed. A glass vial filled with sample water was sealed by a butyl-rubber stopper and aluminum cap without head-space, and then sodium hypochlorite solution was injected into the vial through a syringe to convert hydroxylamine to nitrous oxide. The head-space in the glass vial was prepared with 99.9% grade N2 using a gas-tight syringe. After the glass vial was shaken for a few minutes, nitrous oxide in the gas-phase was measured by a gas chromatograph with an electron-capture detector. The dissolved nitrous oxide in the liquid-phase was calculated according to the solubility formula. The proposed method was applied to the analysis of fresh-water samples taken from Iu river and Hii river, flowing into brackish Lakes Nakaumi and Shinji, respectively.