Understanding of central nervous system mechanisms underlying age-related infertility remains limited. Fibril α-synuclein, distinct from its monomeric form, is implicated in age-related diseases. Notably, fibril α-synuclein spreads among neurons, similar to prions, from damaged old neurons in cortex and hippocampus to healthy neurons. However, less is known whether α-synuclein propagates into oxytocin neurons, which play crucial roles in reproduction. We compared α-synuclein expression in the oxytocin neurons in suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), supraoptic nucleus (SON), paraventricular hypothalamic nucleus (PVN), and posterior pituitary (PP) gland of healthy heifers and aged cows to determine its role in age-related infertility. We analyzed mRNA and protein expression, along with Congo red histochemistry and fluorescent immunohistochemistry for oxytocin and α-synuclein, followed by confocal microscopy with Congo red staining. Both mRNA and protein expressions of α-synuclein were confirmed in the bovine cortex, hippocampus, SCN, SON, PVN, and PP tissues. Significant differences in α-synuclein mRNA expressions were observed in the cortex and hippocampus between young heifers and old cows. Western blots showed five bands of α-synuclein, probably reflecting monomers, dimers, and oligomers, in the cortex, hippocampus, SCN, SON, PVN, and PP tissues, and there were significant differences in some bands between the young heifers and old cows. Bright-field and polarized light microscopy did not detect obvious amyloid deposition in the aged hypothalami; however, higher-sensitive confocal microscopy unveiled strong positive signals for Congo red and α-synuclein in oxytocin neurons in the aged hypothalami. α-synuclein was expressed in oxytocin neurons, and some differences were observed between young and old hypothalami.

本稿では、まず人工知能の根幹に係る一般パターン認識の問題を明らかにするとともに、その解決に有用な統計的パターン認識とそれを発展させた離散Bayes識別則を概説する。次に離散Bayes識別則の個別化医療への応用としての診断・予測問題と創薬における治験問題に言及する。

Context: Ethanolamine plasmalogens (EPls) and choline plasmalogens (CPls) are classes of ethanolamine ether phospholipids (ePE) or choline ether phospholipids (ePC), respectively. EPls play crucial roles in maternal and breastfed infant bodies and stimulate gonadotropin secretion by gonadotrophs. Aims: To estimate changes in and importance of plasma concentrations of EPls and CPls, utilizing newly developed enzymatic fluorometric assays for ePE and ePC in postpartum Holstein cows. Methods: Plasma samples were collected 3 weeks before expected parturition until approximately 8 weeks after parturition (16 primiparous and 38 multiparous cows) for analysis. Key results: Plasma concentrations of ePE and ePC, most of which are plasmalogens, declined before and increased after parturition and stabilised near the day of the first postpartum ovulation (1stOV). From weeks 2 to 3 after parturition, third-parity cows exhibited ePE concentrations that were higher than those of other parity cows. The days from parturition to 1stOV correlated with days from parturition to conception. On the day of 1stOV, milk yield correlated with plasma concentration of both ePE and ePC, while ePC concentration correlated negatively with milk fat percentage. At the early luteal phase after 1stOV, plasma ePE concentration correlated with plasma anti-Müllerian hormone concentration (r = 0.39, P < 0.01), and plasma ePC concentration correlated with plasma follicle-stimulating hormone concentration (r = 0.43, P < 0.01). Conclusion: The concentrations of ePE and ePC changed dramatically around parturition and 1stOV, and then the concentrations correlated with the important parameters. Implications: The blood plasmalogen may play important roles in postpartum dairy cows.

McTaggart’s paradox and his A-theory and B-theory are basic notions in the contemporary philosophy of time. It is well known that the paradox was introduced by McTaggart’s paper called “The Unreality of Time” published in 1908, so that it has a one-hundred-year history. As for A-theory and B-theory, in contrast, McTaggart himself didn’t consider both of them at all. The notions of A-theory and B-theory came much later, 60 years after the paradox. Moreover, they had not been as popularized as they are today until quite recently, at least after the 1990s. This paper aims to trace the origin of the notions of A-theory and B-theory and show how the debates behind them, especially objections to “spatialising time,” form the notions.

Since its inception, analytic philosophy has failed to attain dominance in Japan. However, the 21st century has seen analytic philosophy gain traction among Japanese philosophers. This paper, which examines the status quo of analytic philosophy in Japan since 2000, consists of two parts. The first part deals primarily with organizations—specifically, relevant associations, journals, conferences, universities, and publishers are illustrated. The second part explores key works in each area—namely, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, philosophy of logic and mathematics, philosophy of mind, and metaphysics. Key works in other areas are also briefly addressed.

China has been struggling with waste classification for decades, even after the mandatory implementation of relevant policy in 2017. However, the causes of the failing performance of waste classification in developing countries attract little scholarly attention. A recent literature review also identified a failure to classify waste in developing countries, noting that its causes have attracted little scholarly interest. In this paper, we would like to examine the current situation and issues of policies for classifying household waste in China's urban sector. In this paper, we conducted a questionnaire survey of residents in Changsha City, Hunan Province, examined their awareness of waste classification, classifying behavior, and their awareness of paying for waste reduction, elucidated the factors that affect them, and estimated the amount of willing to pay (WTP) for waste reduction. In this paper, endogenous factors are more significant influencing behaviors than exogenous factors.

Imitation is simple behavior which uses successful actions of others in order to deal with one’s own problems. Because success of imitation generally depends on whether profit of an imitating agent coincides with those of other agents or not, game theory is suitable for specifying situations where imitation can be successful. One of the concepts describing successfulness of imitation in repeated two-player symmetric games is unbeatability. For infinitely repeated two-player symmetric games, a necessary and sufficient condition for some imitation strategy to be unbeatable was specified. However, situations where imitation can be unbeatable in multi-player games are still not clear. In order to analyze successfulness of imitation in multi-player situations, here we introduce a class of totally symmetric games called unexploitable games, which is a natural extension of two-player symmetric games without exploitation cycles. We then prove that, for infinitely repeated unexploitable games, there exist unbeatable imitation strategies. Furthermore, we also prove that, for infinitely repeated non-trivial unexploitable games, there exist unbeatable zero-determinant strategies, which unilaterally enforce some relationships on payoffs of players. These claims are demonstrated in the public goods game, which is the simplest unexploitable game. These results show that there are situations where imitation is unbeatable even in multi-player games.

We investigate symmetric equilibria of mutual reinforcement learning when both players alternately learn the optimal memory-two strategies against the oppo-nent in the repeated prisoners' dilemma game. We provide a necessary condi-tion for memory-two deterministic strategies to form symmetric equilibria. We then provide three examples of memory-two deterministic strategies which form symmetric mutual reinforcement learning equilibria. We also prove that mu-tual reinforcement learning equilibria formed by memory-two strategies are also mutual reinforcement learning equilibria when both players use reinforcement learning of memory-n strategies with n > 2.