Waseda University

Ueda H., Yamashita A., Inoue R., Kim S., Noguchi S., Watanabe T., Fukuda M., Ishiyama A.

Hiura T., Nakamura T., Ishiyama A., Noguchi S., Ueda H.

Yoshifuji M., Shimada A., Ishiyama A., Noguchi S., Ueda H.

Shimada A., Ishiyama A., Chong T.H., Fukuda M., Noguchi S., Ueda H.

Yamashita A., Inoue R., Kim S., Noguchi S., Watanabe T., Fukuda M., Ishiyama A., Ueda H.

Kamezaki M., Kokudo Y., Uehara Y., Itano S., Iida T., Sugano S.

Eda N., Tabata H., Sone R., Fukuchi M., Kawai R., Harakuma K., Hirose N., Akama T.

AbstractPurposeThis study aimed to determine the effects of yoga on the recovery of the cardiac autonomic nervous system and immunosuppression after intense exercise.MethodsSeven healthy adult men were enrolled in two trials: rest for 30 min in a seated position (CON) and yoga for 30 min (YOG) after a treadmill running for 60 min at 75% O2max in a randomized crossover design. Natural killer (NK) cell activity, salivary secretory immunoglobulin A (SIgA), cortisol, testosterone, and indicators related to heart rate variability, mood states, and muscle soreness were measured before exercise (Pre), immediately (P0) and 60 min (P1) after rest or yoga, and the following morning (P2).ResultsNK cell activity was significantly decreased in the CON trial (P < 0.05) but not in the YOG trial. The decrease in NK cell activity from Pre at P0, P1, and P2 in the CON trial was significantly larger than that in the YOG trial (P < 0.05). Testosterone secretion rate tended to be higher after yoga than at rest (P = 0.052). The square root of the mean squared difference of successive normal-to-normal intervals (RMSSD) at P0 in the YOG trial was significantly higher than that in the CON trial (P < 0.05). Changes in NK cell activity correlated with changes in RMSSD (r = 0.445, P < 0.05).ConclusionThis study showed that yoga can alleviate the decline of NK cell activity after intense exercise by enhancing parasympathetic nerve activity, thus suggesting that yoga may be an effective recovery method for athlete conditioning.

Saito Y., Sakamoto K., Washizaki H., Fukazawa Y.

Resource-constrained environments, such as embedded devices, have limited amounts of memory and storage. Practical programming languages such as C++ and Rust tend to output multiple similar functions by monomorphizing polymorphic functions. An optimization technique called Function Merging, which merges similar functions into a single function, has been studied. However, in the state-of-the-art approach, the number of functions that can be merged at once is limited to two; thus, efficiently merging three or more functions, which are often generated from polymorphic functions, has been impossible. In this study, we propose Multiple Function Merging optimization, which targets merging three or more similar functions into a single function using a multiple sequence alignment algorithm. With multiple aligned information, Multiple Function Merging can increase merge opportunities and reduce extra branching overheads at the code generation stage. We evaluated it using the SPEC CPU benchmark suite and some large-scale C/C++ programs, and the results show that it reduces code size by as much as 7.61% compared with the state-of-the-art approach.

Goto K., Amano R., Ichinose A., Michishita A., Hamada M., Nakamura Y., Takahashi M.

ABSTRACT Nucleic acid aptamers are a promising drug modality, whereas the generation of virus-neutralizing aptamers has remained difficult due to the lack of a robust system for targeting the viral particles of interest. Here, we took advantage of our latest platform technology of Systematic Evolution of Ligands by EXponential enrichment (SELEX) with virus-like particles (VLPs) and targeted chikungunya virus (CHIKV) as a model, the pathogenic reemerging virus with an unmet need for control. The identified aptamer against CHIKV-VLPs, Apt#1, and its truncated derivatives showed neutralizing activity with nanomolar IC50 values in a cell-based assay system using a pseudoviral particle of CHIKV (CHIKVpp). An antiviral-based chemical genetics approach revealed significant competition of Apt#1 with suramin, a reported interactant with domain A of the E2 envelope protein (E2DA), in both CHIKVpp and surface plasmon resonance (SPR) analyses, predicting E2DA to be the Apt#1 interface. In addition, Apt#1 interfered with the attachment of CHIKVpp, collectively suggesting its property as an attachment inhibitor via E2DA of CHIKV. Thus, the generation of the VLP-targeted aptamers proved to contribute to anti-CHIKV strategies and confirmed the utility of the platform as a novel and viable option for the development of neutralizing agents against viral particles of interest. IMPORTANCE Our latest SELEX technology using VLPs has generated aptamers that bind the native conformation of the incorporated envelope protein and achieve the virus binding and neutralizing effects. Indeed, the aptamer-probed target E2DA is a representative neutralization site on the surface of the viral particle, validating the utility of the VLP-driven procedure. Simultaneously, the enhanced antiviral effects of the aptamer in combination with approved drugs using the CHIKVpp assay with human cells indicated potential therapeutic strategies that are expected to help address unmet needs in CHIKV control. The robust affinity of the aptamer to viral particles demonstrated by SPR analysis can also lead to conjugates with antivirals as guiding molecules and aptasensors for diagnostic tools. Overall, our VLP-based method provided anti-CHIKV as well as a versatile platform applicable to other emerging and reemerging viruses, in preparation for outbreaks with the need for rapid development of antiviral strategies as next-generation theranostics.

Moriguchi Y., Watanabe R., Sakata C., Zeleznikow-Johnston A., Wang J., Saji N., Tsuchiya N.

Examination of the subjective qualitative aspects of an experience, or “qualia” in short, is a fundamental and core aspect of consciousness research. How can we characterize the particular quality of redness, i.e. a red quale? Based on a recent proposal of the structural characterization of qualia, which did not rely on verbal descriptions, we developed a task that obtained pairwise similarity judgments at four graded levels, with easy and intuitive visual interfaces designed to engage young children. We examined color qualia structures in children (3 to 12-y-old in Japan and 6 to 8-y-old in China) and compared these with those of Japanese adults. Approximately half of the assessed 3-y-old children completed the experiment via our touch panel device version of the task and had reliable responses. Despite known developmental and/or cultural effects of color term usage, we found that color qualia structures were quite similar across the age groups and cultures. Our finding supports the view that color qualia structures emerge early. We also observed age-related differences in the evaluations of some color pairs, which implied subtle changes in the structures behind color experience.

Shi W., Rumokoy F.S., Frank B.

ITAKURA A.N., TAKAYAMA A., SEINO K.

Sasabe K., Nishiumi D., Takeuchi D., Kamada K., Hirose N.

Tortora L., Seshita A., Hacisalihoglu M.Y., Yamashita A., Tomassucci G., Minati F., Skorynina A., Simonelli L., Mizokawa T., Mizuguchi Y., Saini N.L.

Kikura S., Asaoka R., Koashi M., Tokunaga Y.

We propose a scheme for generating a high-purity single photon on the basis of cavity QED. This scheme employs an atom as a four-level system and the structure allows the suppression of the reexcitation process due to the atomic decay, which is known to significantly degrade the single-photon purity in state-of-the-art photon sources using a three-level system. Our analysis shows that the reexcitation probability arbitrarily approaches zero without sacrificing the photon generation probability when increasing the power of a driving laser between two excited states. This advantage is achievable by using current cavity-QED technologies. Our scheme can contribute to developing distributed quantum computation or quantum communication with high accuracy. Published by the American Physical Society 2025