Shin'ichi Sakamoto's storied manga has at last begun coming stateside, with English releases of Innocent and #DRCL midnight children now several volumes in, and The Climber announced to be coming soon. #DRCL, a dramatic reimagining of Bram Stoker's Dracula was nominated for an Eisner Award earlier this year and won Best New Manga Series at the first annual American Manga Awards We spoke with Sakamoto about his history in the manga medium and his feelings on the challenge of depicting the world's most famous monster You have been creating manga since the mid-1990s, coming into your current style with The Climber (Kokou no Hito) and your approach to the kinds of stories you seek to tell with your manga Shin'ichi Sakamoto: When I was drawing for boys' magazines my works were based on the dreams and hopes within me as I met my partner and experienced the birth of my daughter and son the venue for my works shifted from youth magazines to general magazines my works changed to express my thoughts on society and my unique outlook on life and #DRCL are all manga that are based around pre-existing stories or real-world or historical figures What is your reason for basing your works on these as opposed to writing entirely original characters and stories Sakamoto: With The Climber, an unexpected direction was created by using a novel as the original [source material]. The original novel's prestigious text by Mr. Jirō Nitta inspired me to try to illustrate its precise metaphorical expressions and descriptions that do not rely on onomatopoeia as a manga I believe that using non-manga content and history as a subject matter helps to expand the potentialities of manga How familiar were you with the original text of Bram Stoker's Dracula prior to beginning work on #DRCL What led you to decide to adapt such a famous Sakamoto: Like almost everyone else in the world, I was familiar with Dracula through movies and manga, but I had never read the novel. After finishing the serialization of Innocent, I was invited by Usamaru Furuya to create a doujinshi at a time when I had more time on my hands and I completed it alone in a one-shot entitled "Dorachu." While searching for the next serialization to begin with I re-read the original story and was impressed by how the image of Dracula and the characters were different from the general image and how the message of 120 years ago is still relevant today and I felt that it had to be made into a manga There have been a multitude of other adaptations of Dracula throughout history Are there any that are particular favorites of yours and were there any versions of the story that influenced your take in #DRCL Sakamoto: During my childhood in the 1970s, Japan was in the midst of a horror manga boom. Shinichi Koga's Fearful Wolf Girl [恐怖のオオカミ少女/Kyōfu no Ōkami Shōjo] and Shinji Hama's Vampire Girl Karen [吸血少女カレン/Kyūketsu Shōjo Karen] were particularly my favorites 1:1 adaptation of the events told in the Dracula novel How did you decide what to keep and change from the source material What did you feel was most important in adapting the novel was also the time when capitalism developed and emerged and calls for the expansion of rights for workers and women began giving birth to values still relevant today Mina also reflects on the "new woman." Lucy the "most beautiful woman;" courted by men who continues to keep records with her own ability and will continues to fight in cooperation with everyone until the end while the men who protect and fight for Mina are also suffering and vulnerable I feel it is my mission to revive this message from Bram Stoker in our time features some queer imagery and themes—the character of Luke/Lucy crosses over many lines of gender and attraction What is your interest in exploring these ideas and themes Sakamoto: What I always keep in mind when creating my work is to discard preconceived notions and assumptions and to portray things as honestly as they are It is easy to assume that love is born when there is a man and a woman There are many different types of people on Earth I want to continue to hold the belief that there is no such thing as a "queer" person Your approach to art and visual storytelling is different compared to many other manga What is your philosophy when it comes to visual storytelling in manga and is there anything that has influenced your style of work Sakamoto: As for not including sound effects I draw trusting that readers will replay the sound effects in their brains such as the sound of breaking glass or knocking on a door What I have decided to do with the visuals is to avoid depicting grotesque scenes as they are after hearing from an Italian manga artist that he studied anatomy in order to draw manga I tried to draw with an awareness of muscles and skeletal structure you mentioned that part of your artistic process involves taking reference photos of your assistants modeling clothing and costumes Had sewing previously been an interest and hobby of yours or did you learn it specifically to supplement the creation of your manga Sakamoto: I am not good at sewing at all (laughs) a fashion designer handcrafted an 18th-century robe à la française The dress Mina wears in #DRCL is a late 19th-century English antique dress provided by the former editor-in-chief of a fashion magazine I asked a mountaineering manufacturer to provide us with real equipment to actually climb an 8000M peak I am grateful for the cooperation of various people in the realism of the drawings The complexity of your process in creating your manga shows in how impressively detailed your art turns out Do you feel your artistic process of creating these ornate illustrations has sped up as you've continued your craft or has the amount of time you spend on it only increased and intensified Sakamoto: While digitalization continues to advance #DRCL particularly emphasizes the warmth and shimmer of 19th-century handwork The process of adjusting digitally drawn pictures by intentionally blurring and shifting them has increased the work process which in turn has increased the production time Digital technology is now indispensable in manga production But I do not want to be dominated by digital technology It is only relatively recently that your works have begun to be translated and released for English-speaking fans in the West even as manga like Innocent and #DRCL were based on events and works that would be familiar to Western audiences Do you have any thoughts or feelings on your manga at last gaining an audience and recognition in this part of the world including #DRCL being nominated for an Eisner Award this year Sakamoto: As my work continues to be set overseas I am particularly interested in the reaction of Western readers it would have been unthinkable that Japanese manga could be translated and published so easily I am also thrilled that a work being serialized in a Japanese magazine was nominated for an Eisner Award We live in an age where messages from fans can be received directly from all over the world I can communicate with a boy in Brazil on the other side of the world I think it is a wonderful thing that the Internet has brought to us #DRCL has been running since the beginning of 2021 having been collected into four volumes so far as of this writing What are your hopes for the series as it continues and for the readers to get out of it as they keep following it Sakamoto: I consider it a challenge to express Dracula his image has already been formed and established in people's minds I believe it is my mission to destroy this strongest preconceived image and update it to the modern era while taking into account the intent of the original work Yoshioka serves as Co-Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Renesas Electronics Corporation He has held his current role since January 2025 he held the position of Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Renesas He was appointed to this role in August 2019 from his experience and technological expertise of the products and the market following the years he has dedicated towards Renesas After the joint venture of Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric was established he served different posts at Renesas Technology Corporation later becoming Vice President and Head of System Solution Business Unit 2 followed by Vice President and Head of Mobile Multimedia SoC Business Division he served as the Senior Executive Vice President and COO of the Renesas Mobile Corporation Following the absorption type merger into Renesas Electronics Corporation he has held many key roles such as Vice President and Head of Automotive Control and Analog & Power Systems Business Division in 2013 Vice President and Deputy General Manager of 1st Solution Business Unit and Head of Automotive Control and Analog & Power Systems Business Division in 2014 and Vice President and Deputy General Manager of 1st Solution Business Unit and Head of Safety Solution Business Division in 2016 and Senior Vice President and Deputy General Manager of the Automotive Solutions Business Unit in 2017 Yoshioka was also the Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Automotive Solution Business Unit in 2018 contributing to the growth of the Automotive Business for Renesas Electronics Yoshioka has a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Applied Physics from the University of Tokyo and graduated from Stanford University with a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering download Download Shinichi Yoshioka’s photo and solutions delivered straight to your inbox “SA DUB 5,” just sounds like an acid house track with the drums snipped out Atobe’s been posting a lot of Smiths videos on Twitter lately and his keyboard sounds reveal his romantic tendencies “SA DUB 8” is embellished by rosy Yamaha DX-7 arpeggios seemingly ripped from an ’80s adult-contemporary ballad while the gorgeous echoing piano that’s become something like Atobe’s signature works overtime on “SA DUB 7.” “SA DUB 5” might not be as woozy or mysterious as some of Atobe’s earlier beatless tracks but each individual chord blossoms like a time-lapse of a budding flower as a ticklish TB-303 floats deep in the mix Little staticky rustles and hisses find their way into the spaces between the drums and every now and then we hear brief samples of female voices that sound like they were recorded through a phone speaker held up to a mic These idiosyncratic touches bring variety and a splash of sentimentality to a record that might otherwise come off as a formal experiment Yoshida will lead the Canon’s regional business from March 1 Canon has announced the appointment of Shinichi ‘Sam’ Yoshida as its new president and CEO for Europe Previously based in the USA, Yoshida steps into the role having most recently served as executive vice president and general manager of Canon’s marketing strategy unit as well as chairman and CEO of Canon Solutions America and Canon Financial Services The company veteran was also part of the original team that established Canon Virginia the firm’s major manufacturing site in the Americas Yoshida will take the reins of the regional sales organization which has operations across 120 countries and contributes roughly a quarter of Canon’s global revenues annually “Canon is the market leader in imaging and print technologies with millions of customers throughout EMEA; this diverse and exciting region is full of opportunity and I am honored to be leading the business through the next phase of innovation and growth." Yoshida said in an announcement who retires after seven years as EMEA chief and a 44-year career at the company Stay up to date with the latest Channel industry news and analysis with our twice-weekly newsletter Ishizuka held various senior leadership positions around the world and is credited with pioneering the launch of the firm’s world-renowned Cinema EOS line in the US Improve the effectiveness of your security team “We will miss his leadership A journalism graduate from Leeds Beckett University, he combines a passion for the written word with a keen interest in the latest technology and its influence in an increasingly connected world. He started writing for ChannelPro back in 2016, focusing on a mixture of news and technology guides, before becoming a regular contributor to ITPro. Elsewhere, he has previously written news and features across a range of other topics, including sport, music, and general news. A powerful follow-up to last year's FCKNJP EP "COPY ME" delivers an exhilarating underground J-Pop experience with a signature Dirtybird twist this track showcases high-octane energy and relentless rhythms highlighting Dirtybird's influential role in global dance music for nearly two decades Shinichi Osawa is a renowned Japanese musician known for his work with the critically acclaimed Mondo Grosso and orchestral Thousand Tears Orchestra His production and remix credits include collaborations with iconic artists like Boys Noize Osawa's diverse portfolio spans music for advertisements and his own analog record-focused music bar After reviving his MONDO GROSSO project in 2017 with the album Reborn Again and Always Starting New Osawa made his Dirtybird debut last year with the FCKNJP EP marking his first original release under his name in nearly 15 years Get It On Beatport Now and Linkage Unveil New Single "Hihi" on Dirtybird RecordsArticle Dirtybird"COPY ME" Is Out NowShort DirtybirdAMPRS&ND and BLK&WHT Collaborate with Dances on New EP 'Out Past 2'Article Unleash New Single “Brain Chatter” on Dirtybird RecordsArticle DirtybirdOmicasa Drop New Single "Ultimate" on Dirtybird RecordsArticle Debuts Earth Your Mind EP on Dirtybird Records DirtybirdBeatport Exclusive: Sacha Robotti Teams Up With Pershard Owens For New Single ‘Roll With Me’Article DirtybirdIdris Elba Drops New EP 'No Long Talk'Article King Street SoundsKing Street Sounds: 20 Tracks That Defined House MusicPlaylist DirtybirdBlack V Neck Releases New Dance Floor Hit "Check My Brain"Article DirtybirdDon't Miss Dirtybird's New Release "I Don't Want A Lot"Article Barclay Crenshaw is Writing A New Book on Being an Independent ArtistArticle DirtybirdGene Farris Is Collaborating With Sage Armstrong And Basura BoyzArticle DirtybirdSage Armstrong Is Back On Dirtybird!Article This Ain't BristolBlack V Neck Returns to This Ain't Bristol with 'Tell Me'Article deadmau5 Sells Solo and mau5trap Catalogs to Create Music Group for $55 MillionArticle Get Physical MusicSoma Soul & Mondo Man Deliver Dreamy New Single ‘All I Want’ on Get Physical MusicArticle Drumcode RecordsBart Skils Teams Up with SUDO and Drunken Kong for Dynamic ‘Sakura’ EPArticle Ultra RecordsTakis Unveils Genre-Blending Anthem ‘Often’ on Ultra RecordsArticle Teoxane Production"Hope" by Aaron Decay: A Sonic Journey of Optimism and ConnectionArticle Patrick Topping Commemorates TRICK’s 100th Release with “Baby Daddy (Sperm Donor)”Article 5 Tips for Getting Your Music Signed to Films and TV with SaycetArticle on Saturday; Closed on Sundays and Mondays Shinichi Kaneko explores the theme of “interconnectedness” by symbolically using the intertwined hands and feet depicted in Shunga as visual metaphors the artist investigates moments where dream and reality merge ambiguously The exhibition encourages viewers to reflect on how we perceive the world and how we interpret the relationships that shape it There will be a reception party from 7 – 9 p.m The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons has donated a sculpture of a little boy’s tricycle that was found the day Hiroshima was attacked with an atomic bomb to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum and the City of Geneva. The sculpture Future Memory- Tricycle was inaugurated at the Museum on 19 September 2024 and will now remain on permanent display stands as a tribute to the victims of the atomic bombings of 1945 and the work of civil society and the other members of the international community particularly states that have joined the TPNW towards the elimination of nuclear weapons Three-year-old Shinichi Tetsutani was riding his tricycle when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 Shinichi was found by his mother near his beloved tricycle suffering from severe burns and other injuries When donating the tricycle to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum Please work to create a peaceful world where children can play to their heart’s content.” “Future Memory - Tricycle” was made possible by the Tetsutani family’s support They wish for a peaceful world without nuclear weapons together with all Hibakusha as the survivors of the atomic bombings are known Shinichi’s actual tricycle has been on display at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum since 1991 leaving a lasting impression on visitors from around the world and symbolising hope and resilience The sculpture was donated to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum and the City of Geneva by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) in partnership with the artists from 1Future / Future Memory Project Learn more  “It is a great honour to be able to donate this sculpture to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum The Red Cross was one of the first international organisations to reach Hiroshima after the atomic bombing and the ICRC has always been clear that the inhumane impact of nuclear weapons means they should never be used again and Shinichi’s tricycle is a reminder of those terrible events and serves to motivate us to make sure we never let such a thing happen again.” the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum’s Director welcomed the sculpture and highlighted its significance: “Behind every conflict there are always personal and unique stories that remind us of our shared humanity The Hiroshima Tricycle is above all the story of a little boy We are deeply grateful and honoured to be able to perpetuate his memory now permanently installed in the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum at the heart of Geneva the world centre of humanitarian action and multilateral diplomacy.” it was donated in honour of the efforts by governments and civil society leading to the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) Learn more about the sculpture’s creation and the Future Memory project at tricycle-geneva.ch and futurememory.jp The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is a coalition of non-governmental organisations in one hundred countries promoting adherence to and implementation of the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.This website was made possible thanks to the generous support of New Zealand and Swiss Loterie Romande Shinichi Yasui (he/him) is Executive Vice President of Toyota Motor Europe Yasui is responsible for all vehicle research and development Yasui joined Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) in 1988 as an engineer he was transferred to Concept and Product Planning for the initial Yaris series he took on the role of concept planner for the tenth-generation Corolla he was appointed Chief Engineer for the tenth-generation Corolla Yasui was named Chief Engineer for the eleventh-generation Corolla Yasui had become Chief Engineer for all Corolla models Yasui was appointed Product Planning Executive Chief Engineer and TMC Executive Director in 2015 he was named Executive General Manager at TMC Mid-Size Vehicle Company Yasui was promoted to TMC Managing Officer Yasui served as Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Toyota Motor North America as President of Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America He holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Meiji University in Tokyo (1988) and an Executive MBA from University of Michigan (2020) Yasui’s personal motto is: Act with conviction He will assume his new responsibilities as President and CEO of Canon EMEA from March 1 Canon EMEA has announced the appointment of Shinichi ‘Sam’ Yoshida as its new President and CEO for Europe who is retiring after a 44-year career with Canon including seven years leading the EMEA region where he served as Executive Vice President & General Manager of the Marketing Strategy Unit as well as Chairman and CEO of Canon Solutions America Yoshida will oversee Canon EMEA’s vast regional sales organisation employs around 12,300 people and contributes approximately a quarter of Canon’s global revenue His leadership will focus on strengthening the company’s core business while leveraging Canon’s expertise in imaging and printing technology to expand into emerging sectors such as B2B Imaging Yoshida was part of the original team that helped establish Canon Virginia Yoshida said: “Canon is the market leader in imaging and print technologies with millions of customers throughout EMEA this diverse and exciting region is full of opportunity and I am honoured to be leading the business through the next phase of innovation and growth.” the outgoing President and CEO of Canon EMEA held several key leadership roles globally Among his notable achievements was the launch of the Cinema EOS range in the US Please enter your username or email address to reset your password the game itself is an incredible experience How did the team manage to bring this classic title so successfully into the modern era A big thanks to Shinichi Tatsuke for taking time out of his business schedule to grant us this interview (Scott Adams): When remaking an older game from the Romancing SaGa series what is the design philosophy you held for the game to not lose the original’s splendor Shinichi Tatsuke: Early on we defined what parts of the game were important to the identity of Romancing SaGa 2 and made the decision not to make major changes to those parts and systems such as the Inheritance system we made a series of modifications to the parts of the game that felt challenging to play as a modern RPG The battle system and growth system both underwent major overhauls and we also added dialogue to cutscenes to make them feel more natural I believe this has become a game suited for the current era while still building on the great qualities of the original title (Scott Adams): What is the hardest part of creating a Romancing SaGa title in the modern video game industry landscape Shinichi Tatsuke: Romancing SaGa 2 is a very unique game so it was hard to think of how best to convey it to today’s players in a way that can be easily understood being unique means it has many qualities that no other game has the Inheritance mechanic was unique for the original game back then While a standard RPG allows players to experience a portion of one protagonist’s life this game is about succeeding the throne to the next Emperor over several thousand years to defeat their sworn enemies so we made sure to emphasize this point in Revenge of the Seven and make it one of the game’s most defining features (Scott Adams): What is your favorite part of balancing the difficulty in a SaGa game Shinichi Tatsuke: I think adjusting the difficulties of the bosses so that the players can just barely beat them is the most fun and challenging part (Writer’s Note: Some of these bosses are tough and get your party ready for the next encounter.) (Scott Adams): Which of the Seven Heroes is your favorite character Shinichi Tatsuke: My favorite is Wagnas because I think how he served as the leader of the Seven Heroes in the past is very cool and admirable (Scott Adams): Which Romancing SaGa game is your favorite in the series and why Shinichi Tatsuke: Romancing SaGa 2 is my favorite the extremely unique Inheritance mechanic is the number one reason why I also love that one is able to freely play as various compelling characters and how the Seven Heroes are appealing despite them being enemy characters Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is available for Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, and PC via Steam. Scott Adams has been a strong lover of video games, mainly RPGS, for 20 years. He typically writes about the video games he loves, also reviews many of them, and he is a regular on the Nintendo Entertainment Podcast. Volume 4 - 2023 | https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2023.1302720 This article is part of the Research TopicVirtual Agents in Virtual Reality: Design and Implications for VR UsersView all 5 articles Stress-inducing virtual reality (VR) systems have various applications in research ranging from training to therapy to the observation of biological stress responses Stress in VR can be evoked through environmental Although various VR tasks can induce an autonomic nervous system (ANS) stress response hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis stress responses have only been confirmed in VR for the virtual Trier social stress test (V-TSST) Understanding the impact of a wider variety of tasks on HPA-axis stress response could lead to the development of more effective stress relief measures and treatments This study aims to clarify whether a virtual communication simulation using a static procedure with a predetermined dialog Employing a virtual customer service system we varied the intensity of the presented stress by changing the tone and gestures of the virtual customer The findings confirm that HPA-axis stress responses can be elicited by such static virtual customer service training systems and the stress responses can be adjusted by altering the avatar’s attitude These findings suggest potential applications in research for observing human physiological responses to stress and development of stress reduction strategies thereby affirming the effectiveness of VR in communication training To evaluate whether VR stress tasks induce stress in users both subjective evaluations using questionnaires such as the State-trait anxiety inventory (STAI) and physiological stress biomarkers that include heart rate variability (HRV) These biomarkers reflect the significant responses from the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and the autonomic nervous system (ANS) The ANS stress response is a rapid reaction that can occur within seconds to minutes of exposure to a stressor and is mediated primarily by the sympathetic nervous system resulting in physiological changes like increased heart rate and blood pressure The HPA axis stress response is slower than that of ANS which has widespread effects in the body including suppressing inflammation these responses have only been evidenced in a specific task called V-TSST If these VR training systems can be proven to induce HPA axis stress responses they could be used as an indicator of training effectiveness leading to the development of more effective social skill training systems this study also aims to elucidate how the simulated communication load alters the stress response Adjusting the intensity of stress load according to objectives and target individuals is crucial when inducing stress responses through a VR system In the context of training or mental therapy excessive stress could potentially cause severe damage to the trainee or patient when applying stress for research purposes the level of the stress applied to the participants of the experiment should be commensurate with the purpose To realize the research objectives, a specific VR experiment involving a CST was designed using the framework provided by Tanikawa et al. (2021) thereby adjusting it for the specific research needs participants are in the position of handling a complaint from a customer who is upset about a delayed flight due to airport mishaps The dialog between the participant and the virtual customer is predetermined making this a scripted dialog virtual communication We modified this training system by changing only the tone of voice and gestures of the virtual customer while keeping the dialog content the same to manipulate the intensity of the presented stress This experiment allowed us to examine how differences in the presented stress intensity affect the HPA-axis stress response specifically cortisol concentration in the saliva Three primary stressor elements have been identified by researchers to help distinguish the differences in stressor effects on individuals These include the elements of social evaluative threat defined as the fear of being negatively judged by others; uncontrollability defined as the inability to change or alter the course of events; and unpredictability of future events Stress responses can be broadly categorized into as originating from the ANS and HPA-axis responses (Thayer and Lane, 2000; Kudielka et al., 2009) The ANS stress response occurs within seconds to minutes of stressor exposure causing physiological changes such as an increase in heart rate The ANS stress response is primarily mediated by the sympathetic nervous system and its activation triggers the release of adrenaline and noradrenaline occurring within tens of minutes after exposure to stress The activation of the HPA axis begins with the hypothalamus releasing corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) promoting the release of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) ACTH reaches the adrenal cortex through the bloodstream where it stimulates the production and release of the stress hormone cortisol Cortisol has widespread effects throughout the body The response of the HPA axis provides a longer-term strategy for dealing with more persistent stress reports on stressors that cause an HPA-axis response are limited compared to those causing ANS stress responses Experimental methods that have been reported to elicit HPA axis stress responses include the socially evaluated cold pressor test referred to as SECPT and the Trier social stress test referred to as TSST The SECPT stressor involves immersing the hand of a participant in ice water for a certain period while capturing on film their suffering. In previous studies, cortisol levels in saliva have been shown to increase before and after SECPT (Schwabe et al., 2008) SECPT is feasible to implement and does not require specially trained experimenters Another advantage of SECPT is that the intensity of the stressor can be adjusted by modifying the temperature of the ice water or the duration of hand immersion the situation of this task differs greatly from the stressful situations experienced in real-life society Although TSST does not carry the risk of physical harm adjusting the intensity of the stressor is difficult because the timing of adjusting the intensity is restricted primarily to the period the participants receive instructions from the experimenters The interventions provided by the experimenters during TSST are limited to speech-related instructions and for highlighting mistakes during the calculation task if the participants finish before the allotted time there is still room for more research on stressors that trigger HPA-axis stress responses as the number of reported stressors is limited Virtual reality stress tasks have attracted attention as a new methodology for stress presentation because they can reproduce stressful environments that are impossible or difficult to realize in the real world VR stresses can be classified into those that cause anxiety or fear (high-altitude or tragedy) In this study, we selected CST as a stressor using VR for the reasons stated in the Introduction section and examined whether it would cause an HPA stress response through a between-subject experimental design. Specifically, we used a modified version of the customer-service VR system developed by Tanikawa et al. (2021). In this experimental system, the trainer interacted with the customer’s avatar at a virtual airport service counter (Figure 1) the conversation route can branch depending on the response of the trainer and the training difficulty can be adjusted based on the emotional state of the trainer To ensure that the participants perform the training task under the same conditions and experience the same conversation we omitted the conversation-branching function of Tanikawa’s system in this experiment The conversation involved customers complaining about missing their connecting flight because of a delay in scheduled departure resulting in a long wait at the airport for the next flight participants in the experiment wore a head mounted display (HMD) and were stranded at the airport within a virtual environment The flow of the conversation was predetermined; the participant read the words displayed on the screen and the timing of the customer avatar’s speech was controlled by the experimenter according to the participant’s speech A virtual customer stands in front of a virtual airport customer counter Participants listen to the customer and read the lines at the center to respond which involved the performance of a professional actor using a motion-capture system Figure 2 shows the experimental procedure. The stressor protocol was based on the guidelines of TSST, which has been commonly used in previous studies as a stressor to induce HPA-axis stress responses (Birkett, 2011) As salivary cortisol concentration has been reported to increase after a short period under stress we observed that salivary cortisol concentration changed immediately after the participants experienced VR training and within a short period compared to the state immediately before they experienced VR training As part of the pre-experiment instructions for participants they were instructed to avoid eating for 2 hours before the start of the experiment and to refrain from consuming caffeine or other stimulants They were also advised to avoid intense exercise during this period These instructions were provided to the participants at the time of recruitment and adherence to these instructions was confirmed through a questionnaire before the start of the experiment It was verified that all participants complied with these instructions prior to participation Of the two rooms prepared for the experiment one was for the VR CST and the other served as a relaxation room for waiting These two rooms were provided to separate the stress and relaxation states The participants were informed of the false experimental purpose and methodology similar to the TSST protocol This process is called “deception” in psychological experiments The participants were informed that the experiment was intended to evaluate customer service attitudes and that their customer service behaviors during the experiment would be recorded and evaluated later the aim was to increase participants’ perception of the seriousness of the VR CST and provide them with a level of tension equivalent to that of actual VR training we obtained their consent to participate and attached an electrocardiogram (ECG) to measure their biological information (PLUX biosignals) The data were recorded at 1,000 Hz the participants were guided to a relaxation room and instructed to wait for 45 min participants were informed that they could leave the relaxation room to use the restroom and read a magazine They were also instructed to avoid vigorous exercise and remain calm and relaxed while waiting the experimenter entered the relaxation room to collect saliva samples and measure cortisol levels before the VR CST Saliva was collected using swabs (SAL-5001.02-50; SAL) Participants were instructed to insert the swab into the back of their tongue for 1 minute after which the swab was collected in a storage tube (SAL-5001.05-50; SAL) The collected swabs were frozen at −80°C within 1 hour the participants’ electrocardiogram data were measured during this time as “Pre-stress” data Participant gazing at the cross point during the Calm period Participant waiting in the virtual environment preparing the lines the participants were again provided with an overview of the customer service content prior to initiating the customer service response VR experience The participants were informed that although the dialog was predetermined and body language would be evaluated as part of the assessment virtual customer with high-intensity stressor the virtual customer glares tightly at the participants the customer does not glare at the participants instead speaking softly with small gestures Comparison of voice and gesture characteristics between high-intensity and low-intensity groups saliva was collected immediately and labeled as “Post-stress.” The method of saliva collection was the same as that described above measurements were conducted at two time points immediately after the task The experimenters did not enter the relaxation room except during saliva collection the participants were informed that the experiment was over They were then asked whether they had experienced any stress during the experiment or noticed deception regarding the purpose of the experiment participants were informed that they would not be screened for customer service attitudes “Post-stress,” “Recovery1,” and “Recovery2” cortisol levels were normalized by “Pre-stress” levels for each participant Statistical analysis was conducted to examine saliva measurement timing and VR training intensity with saliva measurement timing as a within-participant factor and VR training intensity as a between-participant factor at a significance level of p = 0.05 the normality of the data was first confirmed using the Shapiro-Wilk test a mixed-design two-way ANOVA was conducted to analyze the data Dunnett’s test was used within each VR training intensity group to examine whether the “Post-stress,” “Recovery1,” and “Recovery2” salivary cortisol levels significantly differed from those at “Pre-stress.” Additionally, the effect sizes (d and ESsg) were calculated to compare the results of previous studies on TSST and V-TSST with ours. ESsg has been used in meta-analyses of multiple studies related to V-TSST (Helminen et al., 2019) Please refer to Supplemental Material for details on the ESsg calculation formula clarifying these aspects was not within the scope of this study A survey and ECG measurements were conducted to confirm that the experiment was conducted without any issues The study recruited participants who were between 20 and 30 years old without any prior knowledge of the experiment and capable of using Japanese at a conversational level or higher participants were subjected to restrictions regarding eating and exercising before the experiment and it was planned not to conduct the experiment with participants who did not meet these criteria The sample size estimation was conducted using the statsmodels package in Python The primary effect we wanted to confirm in this experiment was whether cortisol levels in the High intensity condition significantly increased at the Recover1 timing compared to the pre-stress period we recruited four participants for a preliminary validation and calculated an effect size of 0.96 with a significance level of 0.05 and a power of 0.7 the estimated sample size for a one-sided test was 11 we gathered 11 participants for each condition for the experiment we identified samples from which cortisol levels and biometric data were not obtained To ensure that there was no significant difference in communication skills between the high- and low-intensity groups participants were initially asked to rate their subjective communication abilities on a 7-point Likert scale (1: very poor participants were then assigned to one of the two condition groups so that the average scores of subjective communication abilities would be equivalent in both groups nine participants (eight males and one female) were placed in the high-intensity group while 10 participants (nine males and one female) were placed in the low-intensity group we considered that the magnitude of the stress response to the system may be dependent on the customer service experience Considering that a difference in the number of participants with customer service experience between the high and low intensity groups could affect the results recruitment was limited to include participants with no prior customer service experience The experimental plan was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Tokyo (No.22-72) and written informed consent was obtained from all participants the normalized values for each participant’s data are separately plotted for the high- and low-intensity groups for avatars with severe and relatively moderate attitudes participants who exhibited little to no HPA-axis stress response to the stressor were two out of nine in the high difficulty and six out of ten in the low difficulty group with the non-responders determined by the number of participants whose cortisol levels did not exceed 1.1 times their pre-stress levels Time course of normalized salivary cortisol levels for high- and low-intensity VR training groups Cortisol concentrations were normalized to pre-stress levels Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals the normality for each condition was checked using the Shapiro-Wilk test Because no significant difference from the normal distribution was detected a mixed-design two-way ANOVA was conducted The results demonstrated the main effects of saliva measurement timing (F3,51 = 3.72 p < 0.05) and VR training intensity (F1,17 = 5.03 p < 0.05) and found a significant interaction between saliva measurement timing and VR training intensity (F3,51 = 3.71 As a post hoc test, Dunnett’s test revealed that the “Post-stress” and “Recovery1” values in the high-intensity group were significantly higher than that of “Pre-stress,” with p < 0.05 (Table 2a) no significant difference was observed between “Recovery2” and “Pre-stress,” and in the low-intensity group no significant differences were found between any of the conditions (p > 0.05) Results of Dunnett’s test and unpaired t-test as post hoc tests indicated by p values and effect sizes (cohen’s d and ESsg) These values suggest that the results with significant differences in the simple main effect of saliva measurement timing have a large effect size and the results with significant differences in the simple main effect of VR training intensity have a moderate effect size The ANS stress response during the VR training task was analyzed to determine whether stress was induced. Figure 7 shows the LF/HF value during the stress task for each participant normalized by the LF/HF value of “Pre-stress.” Values larger than the baseline value of 1.0 (dashed line) indicate that the LF/HF increases during the task compared to the resting state before the task suggesting that a stronger ANS stress response is induced by the task statistical analyses were conducted to determine whether the normalized LF/HF value was greater than the baseline value The Shapiro-Wilk test was conducted to check the normality of the data and the results confirmed that the data did not follow a normal distribution revealing that the normalized LF/HF value in the high-intensity group was significantly higher than the baseline value of 1.0 (p < 0.01) no significant difference was found between the normalized LF/HF value and the baseline criterion in the low-intensity group (p = 0.39) Box plots of LF/HF values during the stress task normalized by the “Pre-stress” values for high- and low-intensity VR training groups The box represents the interquartile range (IQR) with the median indicated by the horizontal line inside the box The mean is represented by an ‘X’ marker A dashed line at 1.0 indicates the baseline level representing each participant’s normalized pre-stress value In the post-experiment questionnaire, participants rated the stress they felt on a scale of 1–5 (1: no stress, 5: high stress). The distribution of responses for each condition is shown in Figure 8 six out of nine participants reported feeling stressed (score of 4 or higher) during the task three out of 10 participants reported feeling stressed The Wilcoxon rank-sum test revealed a significant difference between the high- and low-intensity groups (p = 0.031) and a large effect size was observed (d = 0.91) Box plots of participants’ subjective stress level (5-point Likert scale) In the open-ended response section conducted at the end of the experiment the participants indicated the reasons for being stressed or not stressed by the task five people felt stressed because they felt scolded by the avatar’s actions and four people felt stressed by the tone of the avatar’s voice two people felt stressed by the avatar’s attitude and one person felt stressed by the tone of the voice Among the reasons for not feeling stressed three people indicated not receiving any complaints and one person in each condition mentioned the low realism of the VR as the reason for not feeling stressed This result suggests that VR communication simulations may elicit HPA-axis stress responses equivalent to or greater than those of V-TSST We believe the reason for the results obtained in this study lies in the differences between our experimental system and the interaction between avatars and participants in V-TSST avatars mostly react to participants’ speeches avatars actively complain to the participants incorporating exaggerated gestures such as raising their voices Responses from open-ended questions also indicated that the attitude and tone of the avatars were stressful This aspect likely enhanced the effectiveness of our system as a stressor This interpretation was supported by the open-ended responses after the experimental task indicating that both the tone and gestures of the avatar were stressful to the participants In addition to the comparison with V-TSST results, we also compared with the traditional TSST results. A recent meta-analysis evaluated 186 studies to determine the effectiveness of the traditional TSST and indicated that this stress task was effective in eliciting a cortisol response with a large effect size (d = 0.925 (Goodman et al., 2017)) existing meta-reviews suggest that although V-TSST is effective as a stressor it may not achieve the same effectiveness as traditional TSST in terms of eliciting cortisol responses the VR training task in the high-intensity group was effective in eliciting a cortisol response with a large effect size (d = 0.94 This suggests that the aggressive attitude of the interactive avatar in the communication simulation may potentially elicit stress-load effects equivalent to those of TSST Previous studies measuring HPA-axis stress responses in VR tasks that induce social stress have only been confirmed for the V-TSST task where participants generate their own responses in speech Such responses have not been confirmed in static communication simulations where the conversation content is predefined or scripted The results obtained in this study suggest new possibilities for designing HPA-axis stressors using VR Additionally, the difference in the results between the high- and low-intensity groups suggests that the degree of HPA-axis stress can be changed by the behavior of the avatar. Previous studies confirmed that the level of ANS stress, judging from heart rate information, changes depending on the dialog feedback response (positive or negative) between humans and virtual characters (Hartanto et al., 2014) this study suggests that the HPA-axis stress response can be elicited by VR communication simulation and that the response level varies depending on the tone and attitude of the conversational avatar in the communication training environment used in this study the LF/HF significantly increased in the high-intensity group compared to that in the pre-task resting state confirming the occurrence of ANS stress responses This trend was also evident in subjective stress evaluations with the high-intensity group indicating significantly higher stress assessment values on a 5-point Likert scale than the low-intensity group These results are consistent with previous findings and show that the avatar’s behavior can indeed modulate not only HPA-axis stress responses but also autonomic nervous system stress responses and subjective stress levels we confirmed that HPA-axis stress responses can be induced by the attitude of the avatar in a VR communication simulation with scripted dialog it is unclear which factors of the avatars’ behavior have a greater influence on the HPA-axis stress response The participants’ open-ended responses suggest that both tone of voice and gestures contribute to stress separating and clarifying the effects of each element as well as understanding the impact of other factors such as the expressions of avatars would be beneficial in constructing effective VR communication simulation systems for use as training systems and stressors Moreover, this experiment was conducted using a between-subjects design, with approximately 10 participants in each condition. This number is small compared to previous studies of V-TSST (Helminen et al., 2019) although the difference between the high- and low-intensity groups was significant in terms of effect size in terms of the generalizability of the results Additionally, there was an imbalance in the gender ratio of participants, with only one female in each group. This imbalance could have influenced the results. For example, it has been reported that women have quicker and stronger HPA-axis stress responses to stressors compared to men (Goel et al., 2011). However, no significant gender difference has been reported in the cortisol response induced by V-TSST (Santl et al., 2019) Future studies should address this imbalance in participants and examine the generalizability of HPA-axis stress responses in fixed dialog VR communication simulations the quality of the avatar could influence the intensity of stress in VR communication simulations which needs to be clarified in future experiments Identifying the factors that trigger HPA-axis stress responses in VR is important for VR utilization as a stressor in the research and development of VR communication training systems which should be addressed in future research The factors causing such stress are likely to differ based on individual user characteristics underscoring the need for future investigations into personalized VR communication simulations the extent to which the intensity of the load can be adjusted should be determined by changing the attitude of the avatar In the low-intensity training group of this study salivary cortisol levels did not significantly increase from pre-stress levels at any time point methods should be developed to adjust the attitude of the avatar for more precise load adjustment reduction in stress load may be avoided by changing the appearance or voice of the avatar even if the conversation scenario remains the same a user study was conducted to investigate whether a virtual communication simulation with scripted dialog can elicit HPA-axis stress response The experiment employed a virtual customer service system in which participants addressed a complaining customer in a scenario involving a flight delay due to airport mishandling By changing only the tone and gestures of the virtual customer while keeping the content of the conversation the same we examined how varying the intensity of the presented stress affects HPA-axis stress response specifically the cortisol levels in saliva The results of the experiment confirmed that HPA-axis stress responses can be elicited by a static virtual CST system and the stress responses can be adjusted by differences in the attitude of a virtual customer Because the only established VR social stress task that can generate HPA-axis stress is the V-TSST the results of this study have potential applications in observing human physiological responses to stress and formulating stress reduction strategies the finding that a VR-based communication simulation can elicit an HPA-axis stress response similar to actual verbal interactions provides evidence of the effectiveness of communication training using VR The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors The studies involving humans were approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Tokyo The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study Written informed consent was obtained from the individual(s) for the publication of any potentially identifiable images or data included in this article The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research This research was partially supported by Council for Science “Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program (SIP) Big-data and AI-enabled Cyberspace Technologies.” (funding agency: NEDO) The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: 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This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited in accordance with accepted academic practice distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms *Correspondence: Yuki Ban, YmFuQGVkdS5rLnUtdG9reW8uYWMuanA= Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher 94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or goodLearn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish The manga is a sequel to Sakamoto's Innocent series. The story again centers on Charles-Henri the eldest brother in the Sanson family of executioners Marie-Joseph's love Alain is murdered at the hands of aristocrats The 12th and final volume of Innocent Rouge shipped in February 2020 The manga inspired a stage musical at the Hulic Hall in Tokyo in November-December 2019 and at the Paris at Palais des congrès de Paris in February 2020 Sources: Press release, Dark Horse's X/Twitter account It retains its dissonant and searching tone throughout with synth melodies sticking out at right angles to the chords behind them; only the effervescent “Bonus Track” is unscathed by the pall that hangs over the record but it bounces off into the distance after only three minutes There aren’t many sounds on Peace of Mind that you couldn’t find on a house record in 1992, but Atobe deploys his limited palette in striking and suspenseful ways. The tinny horn synth on “Saxophone and Bass” buzzes like an errant hornet, and the acid squelch on “Out” is less a bassline than a spiky melodic diddle. Like Moodymann he creates a purgatorial sense of unease by pairing basslines as if they’ve been Frankensteined together from disparate songs he had lying around with no conscious regard to how they might fit whose music is often perfumed with sampled club audio and convivial glass-clinks A sampled diva or a funk-break “whoo” would sound as out of place here as it would on a Bach fugue Dark Horse Manga announced that it will release Shin’ichi Sakamoto’s Innocent manga sequel Innocent Rouge in omnibus format in October 2025 The manga will be sold in bookstores starting on October 21 2025 and in comic book shops the next day on October 22 Crunchyroll News was first given the exclusive news The first 608-page omnibus volume includes the first three volumes of the original Japanese sequel manga with English translation by Michael Gambos and lettering by Susie Lee and Studio Cutie Innocent Rouge serves as the sequel to Sakamoto’s Innocent manga series It was serialized in Shueisha’s Grand Jump magazine from May 20 A total of 12 tankobon volumes were released during its publication Innocent ran in Shueisha’s Weekly Young Jump on January 31, 2013, before ending on April 16, 2015. Nine tankobon volumes were released in total. Dark Horse Comics previously released the first series in three omnibus volumes that collected three of the original Japanese volumes Dark Horse describes the main synopsis of Innocent Rouge as  The dawn of the French Revolution is rife with intrigue Charles-Henri Sanson reigns as the head of a family of executioners His dreams of a world without execution have faded as the legacy of House Sanson takes precedence lives free—unshackled by the precepts of society and her cavalier attitude towards duty jeopardizes the sanctity of that legacy she sets herself on a crimson-soaked path of vengeance She will stop at nothing to expose the murderer and overthrow the unjust system that cost him his life Source: Crunchyroll News, Dark Horse Comics Blog His best known manga is the horror series Eko Eko Azarek which ran from 1975 to 1979 in Akita Shoten’s Shonen Champion magazine and was collected into 19 volumes by Akita Shoten Although that series was very popuar in Japan Mansect is the first of Koga's works to be published in English Smudge, which is curated by manga scholar Ryan Holmberg, recently published UFO Mushroom Invasion, its second title (see “Smudge Announces New Horror/Sci-Fi Manga”) two of the company's board directors volunteered to receive a two-month pay reduction of 10% from February to March though the announcement did not name these executives Prior to joining Marvelous in 2014, Terui has previously worked at Sega and Atlus Marvelous, Inc. previously revealed organizational changes for its XSEED Games subsidiary in August 2024 It retains the XSEED Games brand for its Western releases of third-party titles with in-house Western releases of the company's titles now falling under the now-renamed Marvelous USA company Marvelous recently launched the Farmagia game in November 2024. The game is inspiring a currently-airing television anime adaptation that premiered on January 10 Marvelous is developing both Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma and Rune Factory 6 as new games in its Rune Factory RPG/farming game franchise. Marvelous is launching Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma on May 30 in both Japan and the West Source: Marvelous via Siliconera Koga debuted the single-volume Mansect manga in 1975 Koga died on March 1 Living the Line describes Smudge as "a line of classic pulp, horror, and dark fantasy manga, curated and translated into English by award-winning historian Ryan Holmberg." Her Frankenstein was the first title under the imprint Update: Removed line about the Barairo no Kaibutsu manga as it was published in error Source: Ryan Holmberg's Instagram page Your Ads Privacy ChoicesIMDb The festival's website also includes a short introduction to Ishizuka and a second visual by him: The festival's YouTube channel released a three-part interview series where it discusses the visuals and all things jazz with Ishizuka on September 11: The festival is set to take place at the Pia Arena MM in Yokohama on December 7-8. It will feature Herbie Hancock, Yōko Kanno SEATBELTS, Bialystocks, Wonk, Tomoak Baba Electiric Riders Special Guest: BIGYUKI Tickets range from 13,000 yen to 90,000 yen (about US$90 to US$623) The confines of designing a bicycle seem pretty tight, but custom bike builder Shinichi Konno breaks out of them admirably. Shown here is his Silver Flyer track bike, which recently won both Best in Show and the President's Choice award at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show. Photos by John WatsonPhotos by John WatsonAt last year's NAHBS, Konno pulled the sheet off of the equally-striking Air Line Bike a very different take on fluidity that still manages to break new aesthetic ground while fulfilling its mechanical duties Tokyo-based Konno is a second-generation master bike builder who heads up Konno Cycle Works and its attendant brand CHERUBIM, both of which were founded by his father Hitoshi wayyyy back in 1965. To see more of their stuff, check out the (mostly-Japanese-language) Cherubim website here. See also: Van Hulsteijn Bicycles Test it out; it only takes a single click to unsubscribe Kritzer Design Studio | KDS specializes in providing award winning industrial .. is a product development and engineering company ded.. Springtime is a creative force that develops exciting sustainable and paradigm-shifting products Y Studios is an award-winning Industrial Design and Research consultancy in San Francisco with exten.. Hardware product design is a high risk business - unless you have a design partner who has done it s.. Acorn Product Development is based in Silicon Valley with design centers in Boston studioFAR is a softgoods design firm based in the Mission district of San Franc.. The confines of designing a bicycle seem pretty tight, but custom bike builder Shinichi Konno breaks out of them admirably. Shown here is his Silver Flyer track bike, which recently won both Best in Show and the President's Choice award at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show. Photos by John WatsonPhotos by John WatsonAt last year's NAHBS, Konno pulled the sheet off of the equally-striking Air Line Bike Tokyo-based Konno is a second-generation master bike builder who heads up Konno Cycle Works and its attendant brand CHERUBIM, both of which were founded by his father Hitoshi wayyyy back in 1965. To see more of their stuff, check out the (mostly-Japanese-language) Cherubim website here. See also: Van Hulsteijn Bicycles Don't have an account? Join Now Already have an account? Sign In Please enter your email and we will send an email to reset your password I began studying jellyfish after the Faculty of Applied Biological Science transferred from Fukuyama Campus to Higashi-Hiroshima Campus but after I attempted to collect plankton at new sampling locations I found that the majority of the samples were affected by jellyfish thus making them unsuitable for my experiments there was considerable talk among local fishermen about "detrimental effects of jellyfish outbreaks on fishing." Therefore I turned my research topic toward jellyfish there were only a few jellyfish researchers in the world and jellyfish ecology was shrouded in mystery It was against this backdrop that I sought to clarify the origins of the giant jellyfish (Nemopilema nomurai) I became the first researcher in the world to successfully breed giant jellyfish which subsequently went from being an unknown creature to one of the most well-known jellyfish species in the world This was the key success of our research team further research on jellyfish blooms revealed that they are caused by warming all of which are attributable to human activities jellyfish are gradually wielding their innate power and threatening human populations I see the jellyfish as a "messenger from the sea" that has come to inform humans of their arrogance Large blooms of the giant jellyfish have occurred almost annually since 2002 these outbreaks were estimated to have caused a damage of approximately 30 billion yen due to the lack of effective countermeasures we created the concept of "jellyfish bloom forecasting" to minimize the damage caused by these outbreaks Based on the knowledge that jellyfish originate in Chinese waters and drift to the Sea of Japan within one to three months (with the help of the Tsushima current) our monitoring activities have enabled us to predict the scale of the jellyfish blooms our group at Hiroshima University has continued to examine the giant jellyfish in China's exclusive economic zone by visually observing them from the deck of international ferries Based on the results of these investigations it is now possible to predict the occurrence of jellyfish blooms approximately one month before they intrude upon the Tsushima Strait Although 2009 saw the largest invasion of jellyfish in Japan to date the damage was reduced to 10 billion yen as a result of the forecasting system and the countermeasures taken by those involved I am extremely happy and proud that our research achievements have contributed to society in this way I had the extreme honor of receiving the "Commendation for Contribution to Promote the Country as a Marine Nation." the "Fourth International Jellyfish Bloom Symposium" was held in Hiroshima The symposium was attended by as many as 140 scientists from 29 countries and it was the first time that the event had been held in East Asia - a region that has suffered tremendously from jellyfish blooms researchers focused on the worldwide growth of jellyfish blooms and presented a wide array of research findings thus resulting in an extremely successful event One of the presentations introduced a study with an interesting methodology This study focused on a Mediterranean resort in which outbreaks of poisonous jellyfish had damaged its tourism industry The researchers enlisted the support of local residents who used their mobile phones to report the presence of jellyfish and gather data on jellyfish incidences which they made available for real-time viewing the number of young jellyfish researchers has been increasing and information exchanges between researchers and local inhabitants has flourished This will probably lead to the further widening of research on jellyfish blooms in the future While continuing to conduct visual observations from the ferry we intend to increase the precision of our jellyfish outbreak forecasting system based on the successes of the last decade we hope to make further efforts to return East Asia's seas to their former glory as "rich satoumi environments" with abundant fish populations we endeavor to expand our research at the international level by sharing our knowledge of jellyfish bloom mechanisms and outbreak prediction technology-knowledge that our research team has developed up until now as a world leader in jellyfish research This is not something that I intend to achieve myself it is a challenge that I hope young researchers will embrace it is my wish that young researchers will pursue their dreams through marine environment research develop their English language skills-which can also be used outside the realm of science-and conduct collaborative research with like-minded researchers from overseas Copyright © 2003- Hiroshima University Metrics details an Emeritus Member of the Journal of Antibiotics He served this journal as an editorial member for more than 50 years We all want to thank him for his contributions is credited with leading and developing practical scientific research on aminoglycoside antibiotics Kondo practically played a very important role the Institute of Microbial Chemistry (IMC) of the Microbial Chemistry Research Foundation (MCRF) (formerly Meiji Seika Kaisha Ltd.; Meiji Seika) in the field of exploratory research and chemical studies on aminoglycoside antibiotics and various kinds of biologically active natural products made in 1957 at the Department of Antibiotics Japan (now renamed the National Institute of Infectious Diseases purification and crystallization of newly discovered aminoglycoside antibiotic These experimental results have greatly prompted further research on aminoglycoside antibiotics in Japan Sumio Umezawa’s Laboratory of the Faculty of Science and Technology to the NIH in order to learn technologies on production of streptomycin he worked on discovery and chemical studies of novel antibiotics in microbial resources including kanamycin the MCRF was established in 1958 with the patent royalties of kanamycin as an endowment and the IMC was built in 1962 under the appointment of Prof Kondo joined the IMC at its beginning of research and had worked for 27 years until his return to Meiji Seika as the director of the Central Research Laboratory Kondo published 199 articles until 1988 and a total of 244 articles by 1994 according to SciFinder (There are 22 more articles between 1999 and 2010 according to ResearchGate) Their contents are 89 articles of aminoglycoside antibiotics 25 of enzyme inhibitors of microbial origin including “siastatin B” 65 of other antibacterial and antifungal antibiotics including “beta-lactam antibiotics” and “benanomicins” Kondo isolated 47 new antibiotics and other microbial products (68 natural molecules including related products were practically reported) until 1988 and 6 more natural products until 1992 Kondo was a thoughtful and encouraging mentor for more than 20 researchers for their PhD during his career at IMC and Meiji Seika Umezawa was not only the discover of kanamycin (KM) but also elucidation of resistance mechanisms for aminoglycoside antibiotics Kondo thoroughly investigated the chemistry and structures of kanamycins A Kondo isolated and structurally elucidated several kinds of important inactivated kanamycin metabolites during research of resistance mechanisms of aminoglycoside antibiotics 2”-O-phosphorylated KM and 2”-O-adenylyrated KM as metabolically inactivated KMs These research results contributed not only to clarify inactivation mechanisms against antibiotics but also to design novel aminoglycoside antibiotics which are active against resistant bacteria 1-N-[(2S)-4-amino-2-hydroxybutanoyl]-3’,4’-dideoxykanamycin B with Prof Umezawa in 1973 (launched in 1990 in Japan) Arbekacin was effective against clinically important resistant bacteria as expected and the following clinical research made it clear that arbekacin was effective enough against MRSA also Arbekacin is still important antibacterial agent for MRSA infections nowadays in Japan Recent research results of effectiveness of arbekacin especially against MRSA focusing activities against metabolically double modified resistant bacteria were reviewed with Dr Kondo has been interested in sistatin B (a neuraminidase inhibitor) podophyllotoxin (an antitumor agent) and cephalosporins/oxacephalosporins Kondo found destomycin A in 1966 and it was launched as a veterinary deworming agent in 1969 in Japan Kondo’s contribution to academic societies were beyond description especially to the Journal of Antibiotics (JA) Kondo contributed as a reviewer to JA in addition to being the corresponding author Kondo was at times the most prolific reviewer of articles according to Dr Kondo was the councilor (1973-2004) of Japan Antibiotic Research Association Kondo was interested in scientific services to relationships between China and Japan which prompted Chinese researchers at Shanghai Institute of Pharmaceutical Industry to start working in the Dr Hotta visited Antibiotic Research Institute when China had requested 100 million JP Yen in aid for the fermentation tank renewal from the Japanese government via the UN Kondo left many important scientific research results about antibiotics and bioactive natural products by tireless efforts in IMC and Meiji Seika Kondo has produced numerous distinguished researchers including Dr Yoshio Nishimura in the field of bioactive natural products and antibiotics Research of science and chemistry of antibiotics in Japan were clearly accelerated by his discoveries Download references Structure Determination/Synthetic Chemistry Kitasato Research Center for Environmental Science The author declares no competing interests Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations Download citation DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41429-023-00685-0 Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: a shareable link is not currently available for this article the Center for Ecological Research (CER) re-elected Professor Shin-ichi Nakano (aquatic ecology) as Director Shinichi Fujimura was celebrated in Japan's archeological circles - some even believed he had 'divine hands' One of Fujimura's first major discoveries was in 1981 when he found stoneware dating back 40,000 years the oldest stoneware ever unearthed in Japan By 1999 Fujimura had visited more than 150 dig sites and discovered artifacts at nearly all of them The Japanese government designated some of his dig locations as national historical sites School children were taught about his important discoveries.‍ when Fujimura was at the height of his fame he was part of an ongoing excavation at a prehistoric site near Tsukidate The celebrity archaeologist and the dig were major tourist attractions Tsukidate even created a signature drink for the thirsty visitors called ‘Early Man’ Stoneware unearthed at the Kamitakamori ruins in Tsukidate purportedly dated back as far as 700,000 years ‍The incredible discoveries were drawing international attention and they weren't about Fujimura's divine hands A small group of expert archaeologists examined Fujimura's work in a research paper They deemed his findings 'odd' in comparison to similar finds from the same era.‍ Journalists from the Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun decided to investigate They planted hidden video cameras at one of Fujimura’s dig sites and discovered his secret: Fujimura was caught positioning 61 fake artifacts Mainichi Shimbun's exposé revealed that Fujimura would take artifacts either from his own collection or other sites then dig them up again later and claim to have made extraordinary discoveries Of 31 pieces 'found' at the Kamitakamori site Fujimura claimed in a tearful admission that he had been possessed by an uncontrollable urge but insisted that most of his other findings were legitimate I don't know how I can apologize for what I did.. I wanted to be known as the person who excavated the oldest stoneware in Japan," he explained The Japanese Archaeological Association expelled Fujimura and then spent nearly three years reviewing the scandal finally admitting in 2003 that they could have done more to uncover the vast inconsistencies in his fraudulent artifacts The Tokyo National Museum removed more than a dozen artifacts from display; others followed suit Japanese archaeologists were pushed to review findings of the country's Palaeolithic period The chairman of the Japanese Archaeological Association admitted Japan's academic environment may have played a role in the scandal whether enough information was disclosed and enough theories were exchanged among researchers with differing opinions concerning the new discoveries," Amaksu said Two VIP tickets for just $79 at NYC's #1 Rated Experience Sign up to receive the FREE briefing to your inbox Put your spy skills to work with these fabulous choices from secret notepads & invisible inks to Hacker hoodies & high-tech handbags We also have an exceptional range of rare spy books We all have valuable spy skills - your mission is to discover yours See if you have what it takes to be a secret agent with our authentic spy skills evaluation* developed by a former Head of Training at British Intelligence It's FREE so share & compare with friends now * Find more information about the scientific methods behind the evaluation here self-effacement among techno artists became an increasingly silly cliché a Shutterstock image for a Berlin DJ starter pack The pursuit of facelessness has occasionally cannibalized dance music’s Black heritage; some white producers have adopted racially ambiguous pseudonyms in the name of cultivating mystique At a moment where Black techno artists are spotlighting their identity to re-center their position in dance music “Yes” might have been called “Yay!”—its descending major-key piano chords evoke an everyman joy while a whistling harmony seems ready to swing open a studio door and say Even if we accept that Atobe’s nettling claps and rimshots are a feature rather than a bug Yes’s hi-fi polish intuitively seems like a less forgiving environment thanks to some nice contrasts of space and texture “Lake 2”’s shaker has a satisfying safety-match scrape and works as a gentle brake on Atobe’s cruising keys And the mallets on “Rain 3,” which might remind you of a cartoon spider scrambling out of a bathtub You may notice that the trebles are slightly softer than usual With a couple of comparable tracks on Heat—especially “Heat 4”—the effect could be like having your skull scratched from the inside Reasonably secure in the knowledge that he isn’t the figment of a German man’s imagination we can probably abide the not-knowing of his life story the most immediate of which might be this: After all those years of inactivity how is it that Atobe came to be this reliable Catch up every Saturday with 10 of our best-reviewed albums of the week. 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Volume 12 - 2024 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2024.1240339 This article is part of the Research TopicIndividual’s Mechanics, Movement and Kinematics Post-StrokeView all 10 articles The differences in kinetic mechanisms of decreased gait speed across brain lesion sides have not been elucidated including the arrangement of motor modules reflected by kinetic interjoint coordination The purpose of this study was to elucidate the differences in the kinetic factors of slow gait speed in patients with stroke on the lesion sides A three-dimensional motion analysis system was employed to assess joint moment in the lower limb and representative gait parameters in 32 patients with right hemisphere brain damage (RHD) and 38 patients with left hemisphere brain damage (LHD) following stroke as well as 20 healthy controls Motor module composition and timing were determined using principal component analysis based on the three joint moments in the lower limb in the stance phase which were the variances accounted for principal components (PCs) and the peak timing in the time series of PCs A stepwise multiple linear regression analysis was performed to identify the most significant joint moment and PC-associated parameter in explaining gait speed A negligible difference was observed in age and gait speed among patients with RHD and LHD and controls The following factors contributed to gait speed: in patients with RHD larger ankle plantarflexion moment on the paretic (p = 0.001) and nonparetic (p = 0.002) sides and ankle dorsiflexion moment on the nonparetic side (p = 0.004); in patients with LHD larger ankle plantarflexion moment (p < 0.001) and delayed peak timing of the first PC (p = 0.012) on the paretic side as well as ankle dorsiflexion moment on the nonparetic side (p < 0.001); in the controls delayed peak timing of the first PC (p = 0.002) on the right side and larger ankle dorsiflexion moment (p = 0.001) as well as larger hip flexion moment on the left side (p = 0.023) The findings suggest that the kinetic mechanisms of gait speed may differ among patients with RHD following patients with stroke with LHD Patients with stroke have reduced gait speed, which impairs their mobility within the community (Fulk et al., 2017), limits their living space (Tashiro et al., 2019), compromises their independence in daily life (Compagnat et al., 2021), and hinders their ability to resume to work (Jarvis et al., 2019). This can ultimately affect their overall quality of life (Sprigg et al., 2013) Gait speed is a crucial indicator of functional mobility and is associated with various aspects of daily life for patients with stroke indicating different mechanisms at play when it comes to increasing gait speed Trail limb angle is defined as the angle between the laboratory’s vertical axis and the vector connecting the greater trochanter and the fifth metatarsal head understanding individual-specific factors contributing to reduced gait speed is crucial for developing personalized training strategies These observations suggest that the reduction in walking speed and increase in WBAM observed in patients with RHD may be due to a significant decrease in ankle plantar flexion moment in late stance on the paretic side during gait this is only a tentative explanation and further research is needed to confirm or refute this hypothesis it remains unclear whether there is a relationship between the timing of the first PC and gait speed in patients with stroke The purpose of this study was to elucidate the differences in the kinetic factors of slow gait speed between the lesion sides in patients with stroke We conducted a stepwise multiple linear regression analysis to determine which joint moment and parameter associated with kinetic coordination are most explanatory for gait speed In patients with right hemisphere damage (RHD) we hypothesize that the observed reduction in walking speed and increase in whole body angular momentum (WBAM) may be due to a significant decrease in the ankle plantar flexion moment in the late stance on the paretic (left) side during gait difficulties in dynamic control may result in a lack of correlation between walking speed and kinetic coordination on the paretic (right) side This study provides valuable insights into the kinetic mechanisms underlying decreased gait speed in patients with stroke and may inform future rehabilitation strategies By identifying specific joint moments and parameters associated with decreased gait speed rehabilitation professionals may be able to develop more targeted interventions to improve walking speed and functional mobility in patients with stroke The present study included 32 patients with right-sided (8 females, 58 ± 10 years old, Table 1) and 38 patients with left-sided (9 females, 54 ± 13 years old, Table 1) brain lesions following stroke as well as 20 healthy controls (8 females, 57 ± 16 years old, Table 1) All patients underwent post-stroke rehabilitation which was tailored to each patient’s needs and recovery phase patient with strokes had to meet the following criteria (1) being able to walk without a cane over a distance of at least 7 m (2) experiencing paresis ranging from mild to severe with a Brunnstrom recovery stage of VI or lower in the lower limb on the paretic side and (3) having an ischemic or hemorrhagic supratentorial lesion healthy controls must not have had any neurological lesions Healthy controls were not eligible if they had any of the following: (1) medical conditions that were not stable (2) a history of major orthopedic surgery or current orthopedic conditions that could affect their ability to walk or (3) higher brain dysfunction that could affect the accuracy of the measurements the participants gave their written and informed consent Our institutional review board approved this study (2016-1-354) Subjects’ demographic characteristics The three-dimensional coordinates were smoothed with a bidirectional fourth-order Butterworth low-pass filter with a cutoff frequency of 6 Hz Ground reaction force data were collected at a rate of 1,200 Hz using four force plates (Anima Corporation Japan) embedded in the walkway and smoothed with a bidirectional fourth-order Butterworth low-pass filter with a cutoff frequency of 200 Hz The diagram illustrates the experimental setup for the gait analysis study Participants walked a 7-meter distance multiple times with data from an average of more than five strides used for analysis Reflective markers were placed on 12 body segments and motion data were collected using an 8-camera motion analysis system Ground reaction force data were collected using four force plates embedded in the walkway A model consisting of 12 body segments, based on anthropometric data and following the work of (Dumas et al., 2007), included the feet, shanks, thighs, pelvis, thorax, upper arms, and forearms. A joint coordinate system was used to calculate the kinematic data for each joint in the lower extremities, as described by Winter (2009) The kinetic data was normalized to the patient’s body weight A spatiotemporal decomposition using principal component analysis (PCA) was performed on the joint moments in the lower limb (ankle, knee, and hip) to calculate the coordination of the lower limb joints and the loading on each joint. This is the same method used in our previous study (Sekiguchi et al., 2022). The kinetic data in the stance phase during gait was used in this study unlike one gait cycle used in the previous study (Sekiguchi et al., 2022) The parameters of interest included the percentage of variance explained by each principal component (PC) and the factor loadings of each joint in each PC The percentage of variance explained by each PC and the peak timings represented the spatial and temporal aspects of the motor module The evaluation of balance control was conducted using the range of whole-body angular momentum (WBAMR) in the frontal plane (Brough et al., 2019) The calculation of whole-body angular momentum (WBAM) was performed using a 12-segment inverse dynamics model This involved aggregating the angular momentum of each body segment around the center of mass for the entire body in the frontal plane The whole-body angular momentum was then normalized based on the subject’s mass WBAMR was characterized as the difference between the maximum positive and minimum negative peaks of WBAM All gait-related parameters were calculated using a custom software program created with MATLAB (MathWorks Inc. A physical therapist, Y.S., assessed the neurological impairment of patients using the Stroke Impairment Assessment Set (SIAS) (Tsuji et al., 2000) Information about the patients’ demographic and clinical characteristics was gathered through interviews and medical records The number of gait cycles used for statistical analysis varied from 5 to 9 for each participant The determination of the number of gait cycles was based on each patient’s walking ability In instances where a slower walking speed and high variability were expected we incorporated a larger number of steps into our analysis and WBAMR were compared between the three groups (RHD and LHD patients and controls) using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and PCA-related parameters were analyzed using a two-way ANOVA Although we evaluated the normality of the gait dataset using the Shapiro-Wilk test we did not conduct non-parametric tests for the two-way ANOVA as these tests do not compute interactions between factors The within-subject factor was side (paretic/nonparetic for hemiparesis patients and right/left for controls) and the independent factor was group (hemiparesis patients/controls) The two-way ANOVA was performed separately for left-sided and right-sided brain lesions we compared all parameters between patients with RHD and LHD using unpaired t-test A chi-square test of independence was conducted to investigate the relationship between the side of the lesion and the location of the lesion and the diagnosis Stepwise multiple linear regression was used to determine which joint moments and PCA-related parameters best explained gait speed Forward and backward selection methods were used the independent variable with the smallest probability of F not in the regression equation and ≤0.05 was included the independent variable with a probability of F ≥0.10 was removed The analysis ended if no variables met the criteria for inclusion or exclusion A post hoc statistical power was conducted using G*Power software (ver 3.1.9.2; Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf) and MATLAB (MathWorks Inc. The significance level was set at p = 0.05 and we estimated effect sizes using partial eta squared (ηp2) Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS ver we initially conducted a sample size calculation using G*Power 3.1.9.2 We assumed a multiple regression model with 22 predictors and aimed to estimate the partial regression coefficients corresponding to an adjusted coefficient of determination R2 ≈ 0.15 we performed our tests at a 5% significance level and aimed for 80% power This led us to a required sample size of 140 participants in total The common and differing results of the parameters related to gait for patients with LHD and RHD are compiled in the Supplementary Material Data Sheet which also includes a summary due to the extensive amount of results for ease of reference The post hoc power analysis demonstrates that despite our sample size being less than the initially estimated 140 participants the actual power achieved with our sample of 32 patients with right-sided brain lesions This high power indicates that our study was adequately powered to detect significant effects We did not find significant differences in gender r = 3.15) and finger function (p = 0.030 r = 0.56) item scores in patients with LHD were lower than those with RHD No significant difference in the other items of SIAS was also found between patients with RHD and LHD Tables 2–4 present the representative gait, kinetic and kinematic, and PCA-related parameters, respectively, of patients with RHD, LHD, and also healthy controls. We presented the results of the statistical power in Supplementary Tables S6–S9 as Supplementary Material Mean and standard deviation of spatiotemporal and WBAMR data in patients following stroke and healthy controls Mean and standard deviation of kinematic and kinetic data in patients following stroke and healthy controls Mean and standard deviation results for the PCA-related data Significant main effects of group (F(1,50) = 7.654, p = 0.008, ηp2 = 0.13) and side (F(1,50) = 4.981, p = 0.030, ηp2 = 0.09) on step length were found. Patients with RHD had shorter step lengths than controls, and the step length on the left side was longer than on the right side (Table 2) Significant main effects of group (F(1,50) = 33.112 and interactions between group and side (F(1,50) = 28.013 ηp2 = 0.36) were also found on swing time The swing time on the paretic (left) side was longer than on the nonparetic (right) side in patients with RHD (p < 0.001 The swing time on the nonparetic (right) side in patients with RHD was shorter than that on the right side in healthy controls (p < 0.001 there were significant main effects of side (F(1,50) = 33.626 ηp2 = 0.40) and interaction between group and side (F(1,50) = 25.687 ηp2 = 0.34) on stance time The post hoc test showed that the stance time was shorter on the paretic (left) side than on the nonparetic (right) side in patients with RHD (p < 0.001 The stance time was shorter on the paretic (left) side in patients with RHD than on the left side in healthy controls (p = 0.031 Significant main effects of group (F(1,50) = 11.766, p = 0.001, ηp2 = 0.17) on step length, with patients with LHD having shorter step lengths than the controls, were found (Table 2) There were also significant main effects of group (F(1,50) = 32.147 and interactions between group and side (F(1,50) = 12.974 The swing time on the paretic (right) side was longer than that on the nonparetic (left) side in patients with LHD (p < 0.001 The swing time on the nonparetic (left) side was shorter than that on the left side in healthy controls (p < 0.001 there were significant main effects of side (F(1,50) = 15.989 ηp2 = 0.22) and interaction between group and side (F(1,50) = 20.884 ηp2 = 0.27) on stance time The post hoc test found that the stance time was shorter on the paretic (right) side than on the nonparetic (left) side in patients with LHD (p < 0.001 The results of the post hoc test for kinetic parameters were as follows The peak hip extension moment and first and second peak knee extension moments in stance on the nonparetic (right) side in patients with RHD were larger than those on the right side in healthy controls (p < 0.001 d = 0.58) and those on the paretic (left) side in patients with RHD (p < 0.001 Although the peak knee flexion moment in the stance phase on the nonparetic (right) side was smaller than that on the paretic (left) side (p < 0.001 d = 1.59) and that on the right side in healthy controls (p < 0.001 the peak knee flexion moment in the stance phase on the paretic (left) side in patients was larger than that on the left side in healthy controls (p = 0.015 The peak ankle dorsiflexion moment in early stance and ankle plantarflexion moment in the stance phase on the paretic (left) side were smaller than those on the nonparetic (right) side in patients (p < 0.001 d = 0.98) and those on the left side in healthy controls (p = 0.043 There were significant main effects of group, side, and interaction between group, and side on kinematics such as the peak hip extension in stance, peak knee flexion in early stance, and peak ankle dorsiflexion in stance, as presented in Table 3 there were significant main effects of side and interaction between group and side on the peak knee extension in stance and peak ankle plantarflexion in early stance d = 0.69) and peak ankle dorsiflexion (p = 0.037 d = 0.51) in early stance on the paretic side in patients with RHD were smaller than those with LHD the peak knee extension in stance on the paretic side with RHD was larger than those with LHD (p = 0.004 The results of the post hoc test for kinematic parameters were as follows The peak hip extension in the stance phase and peak ankle plantarflexion in early stance on the nonparetic (right) side were lower than those on the paretic (left) side (p = 0.001 d = 0.98) and those on the right side (p = 0.001 The peak knee flexion in early and late stance and peak ankle dorsiflexion in the stance phase on the nonparetic side (right) were higher than those on the paretic (left) side in patients (p < 0.001 d = 1.41) and those on the right side in healthy controls (p < 0.001 and peak ankle dorsiflexion in stance on the paretic (left) side were also smaller than those on the left side in healthy controls (p = 0.001 The peak hip extension moment and second peak knee extension moment in stance on the nonparetic (left) side in patients with RHD were larger than those on the left side in healthy controls (p = 0.006 d = 0.48) and those on the paretic (right) side in patients (p < 0.001 The peak knee flexion moment in the stance phase on the nonparetic (left) side in patients with RHD was smaller than that on the left side in healthy controls (p < 0.001 d = 1.16) and that on the paretic (right) side in patients (p = 0.007 The peak ankle plantarflexion moment in the stance phase on the paretic (right) side was smaller than that on the nonparetic (left) side in patients (p < 0.001 d = 0.78) and that on the left side in healthy controls (p < 0.001 Significant main effects of side and interaction between group and side were observed on kinematics such as the peak knee flexion in the late stance phase and peak ankle dorsiflexion in the stance phase, as presented in Table 3 there were significant main effects of group and interaction between group and side on the peak knee extension in stance Significant main effects of side on the peak ankle plantarflexion in early stance were found which was larger on the right side than on the left side Significant main effects of group on the peak hip extension and peak knee flexion in early stance were also observed The peak knee extension in the stance phase on the nonparetic (left) side in patients was smaller than that on the left side in healthy controls (p < 0.001 The peak knee flexion in the late stance phase on the paretic (right) side in patients was smaller than those on the nonparetic (left) side (p < 0.001 d = 1.74) and on the right side in healthy controls (p = 0.005 The peak knee flexion in late stance on the nonparetic side (right) was higher than that on the right side in healthy controls (p < 0.001 There were significant main effects of side on the loading of knee joint moment for the first PC (F(1,50) = 17.572 of group on the loading of hip joint moment for the first PC (F(1,50) = 8.636 and of interaction between group and side on the loading of knee joint moment for the first PC (F(1,50) = 12.488 The post hoc test showed that the loading of hip joint moment for the first PC was a negative value and larger in patients than in healthy controls the loading of knee joint moment for the first PC was a negative value and lower than those on the nonparetic (right) side (p < 0.001 d = 1.26) and on the left side in healthy controls (p = 0.003 The loading of knee joint moment for the first PC on the paretic side in patients with RHD was smaller than those with LHD (p < 0.001 There were significant main effects of the group on the loading of hip joint moment for the first PC (F(1,50) = 6.723 ηp2 = 0.11) as well as of interaction between group and side on the loading of ankle joint moment for the first PC (F(1,50) = 4.571 The post hoc test indicated that the loading of hip joint moment for the first PC was a negative value and larger in patients than in healthy controls The loading of ankle joint moment for the first PC was higher on the paretic (right) side than on the nonparetic (left) side (p = 0.015 d = 0.42) and right side in healthy controls (p = 0.016 Multiple regression analysis with gait speed in patients with hemiparesis and healthy controls The factors that contributed to gait speed varied among patients with RHD larger ankle plantarflexion moments on both the paretic (left) and nonparetic (right) sides as well as ankle dorsiflexion moment on the nonparetic (right) side were contributing factors WBAM in RHD did not differ from that in patient with LHD and healthy controls The results may reflect the cautious gait in patients with RHD larger ankle plantarflexion moment and delayed peak timing of the first PC on the paretic (right) side as well as ankle dorsiflexion moment on the nonparetic (left) side were contributing factors larger ankle dorsiflexion moment as well as larger hip flexion moment on the left side and delayed peak timing of the first PC on the right side were contributing factors our results indicated that patients with LHD controlled walking speed by the timing of kinetic coordination on the paretic (right) side No study has investigated the factors contributing to gait speed in patients with stroke by simultaneously including kinetic parameters of both the paretic and nonparetic sides this is the first study that included bilateral kinetic factors in a multiple regression analysis and demonstrated that the kinetic factors contributing to gait speed differ between patients with LHD and RHD damage to one network component is more easily compensated for by other network components indicating that patients with LHD could control gait speed by timing kinetic coordination despite a left hemisphere lesion These facts support the idea that as walking speed increases the ankle dorsiflexion moment is controlled by the right hemisphere to stabilize the left lower limb whereas the left hemisphere is involved in skilled movements such as intersegmental coordination and ankle dorsiflexion moment on the nonparetic side which controls ankle plantarflexion and braking in the late stance in patients with stroke is important for increasing gait speed the kinetic factors in patients with left-sided brain lesions differed from those in patients with right-sided brain lesions Contrary to normal subjects and patients with left-sided lesions in patients with right-sided brain lesions the left lower limb is responsible for propulsion whereas the right lower limb is responsible for braking and stability the timing of peak PC1 was not related to gait speed as the right limb is responsible for stability patients with right-sided brain lesions may alternate kinetic roles of the lower limbs in gait speed between the left and right limbs the differences in multiple regression analysis results due to the variance between the left and right brain lesion sides may be influenced by differences caused by finger motor dysfunction rather than differences between the left and right brain lesion sides because healthy controls and patients with left brain damage had similar results in multiple regression analysis the influence of finger motor dysfunction is thought to be small The second limitation is that this study measured barefoot walking and walked without using a cane it is possible that the kinetic factors of walking speed examined were different from those of daily walking Third limitation is that we did not investigate the dominant foot about 61.6% of the general population with a broad age range is right-footed while 8.2% is left-footed and 30.2% is mixed-footed (Tran Since the majority of people are right-footed it is possible that the majority of the subjects in this study were also right-footed The fourth limitation is that due to the lack of MRI images for all cases we were unable to perform a detailed analysis of the size and severity of the lesions in the subjects it is unclear whether there is difference in the size and severity of the lesions between the patients with RHD and LHD this study has provided valuable insights into the kinetic mechanisms of decreased gait speed in patient with strokes with a specific focus on differences across brain lesion sides For patients with right hemisphere brain damage larger ankle plantarflexion moments on both the paretic and nonparetic sides as well as ankle dorsiflexion moment on the nonparetic side were significant contributors to gait speed for patients with left hemisphere brain damage larger ankle plantarflexion moment and delayed peak timing of the first principal component on the paretic side along with ankle dorsiflexion moment on the nonparetic side These findings highlight the necessity of taking into account the side of the brain lesion when devising rehabilitation strategies aimed at improving gait speed in patients with stroke The raw data supporting the conclusion of this article will be made available by the authors The studies involving humans were approved by Ethics Committee Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP18K17665 and JP22K11443 We are grateful to the staff at the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Tohoku University for their valuable advice and assistance The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fbioe.2024.1240339/full#supplementary-material Minimal clinically important difference for change in comfortable gait speed of adults with 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March 2024;Published: 19 March 2024 Copyright © 2024 Sekiguchi, Owaki, Honda, Izumi and Ebihara. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use *Correspondence: Yusuke Sekiguchi, eXVzdWtlLnNla2lndWNoaS5iMkB0b2hva3UuYWMuanA= Shinichi Nakagawa will establish the first project of its kind applying AI to weed out flawed studies in ecology and evolution As a new Canada Excellence Research Chair at the U of A Shinichi Nakagawa will lead a large-scale project enabling researchers to identify trustworthy evidence and rebuild research where evidence has been flawed In the world of science, it’s known as the “replication crisis.” scientists have become increasingly aware that the results of many studies can’t be reproduced In a 2016 survey of 1,500 scientists in the journal Nature 70 per cent — mostly in medicine and psychology — reported that they had been unable to replicate at least one of their peers’ studies A study in 2021 showed that studies with unreproducible results were cited more than those that could be replicated with the authors noting that standout papers tend to attract more funding and media coverage Another report found that 90 per cent of cancer biology studies could not be reproduced To combat the diminishing confidence in scientific findings, evolutionary biologist Shinichi Nakagawa of the University of New South Wales in Australia has been keeping a keen eye on the big picture in his field He applies what’s called meta-science — or the science of science — to quickly growing mountains of scientific data using artificial intelligence and statistical analysis to weed out flawed research As a global leader in the practice, he now brings his expertise to the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Science as the newly named Canada Excellence Research Chair in Open Science and Synthesis in Ecology and Evolution The chairs are considered one of the most prestigious and generous programs in the world awarding leading researchers and their teams up to $8 million over eight years to establish internationally recognized knowledge centres Nakagawa will head the first systematic, large-scale meta-science project in ecology and evolution by building diverse and global collaboration networks The project will aim to continuously synthesize and update large bodies of evidence while improving reporting guidelines and best practices in science research data and inferences in ecology and evolution more accessible Crucial to his approach is the promotion of “open science” — communities of researchers sharing methods and results to make their collective evidence more robust and credible In addition to using artificial intelligence to analyze the millions of research articles published every year Nakagawa and his team plan to generate online resources — as well as hold workshops and conduct outreach activities such as school visits — to make the science of ecology and evolution more accessible to the public His program will also aim to train more than 250 early-career researchers in highly sought-after quantitative data and synthesis skills “The U of A has one of the best computing science departments in the country but is also very strong in ecology and evolutionary biology,” says Nakagawa and it makes this a unique opportunity.” The replication crisis has long been recognized in medicine and psychology but has taken longer for evolutionary biologists to accept As a doctoral student studying the parental behaviour of house sparrows in the U.K. he couldn’t help but notice the poor quality of reporting: “I saw opportunities to write something about it.” That was the beginning of his mission in meta-science “The whole eco-evolutionary dynamic is changing and we need to understand the forces that are changing the selection pressure,” he says To do that properly takes a lot of researchers sharing and analyzing quantities of data that are growing exponentially Nakagawa’s purview extends far beyond the boundaries of his discipline, however. At his current Interdisciplinary Ecology and Evolution Laboratory in New South Wales he and his team have been collaborating with researchers in statistical and computational sciences as well as medical and social sciences to exchange expertise: “They can teach us how to use those most advanced techniques.” His work as a Canada Excellence Research Chair is expected to transform the fields of ecology enabling researchers to identify trustworthy evidence and rebuild research where evidence has been flawed or weak “Open science is changing how scientists conduct and share research, making research methodology and outputs more open and transparent,” says computing science professor Eleni Stroulia vice-dean of the Faculty of Science and an expert in applying AI to improve or automate industrial systems Nakagawa will amplify our current strengths in this area leading the establishment of an international knowledge hub for evolutionary ecology and open science at the U of A.” Nakagawa joins two other new recipients of the prestigious national chairs at the U of A: Kalyan Das, Canada Excellence Research Chair in Antiviral Drug Design, and Rebecca Hull-Meichle Canada Excellence Research Chair in the Islet Microenvironment The U of A now has seven current or past Canada Excellence Research Chairs, including virologist Michael Houghton, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2020 after coming to the U of A as one of the inaugural chairs in 2010 SaveSave this storySaveSustaining creativity over the decades isn’t always a question of figuring out who you are. Sometimes, the operative question is how: How much of yourself should surround your work? How do you balance a unique point of view with the utilitarian demands of the dancefloor? How do you change while remaining yourself? Across two decades and six albums, Shinichi Atobe has developed an adventurous and deeply pleasurable body of work that offers a clear answer to the first question: Very little A handful of photos identify his physical form. His origin story is short and sweet: He somehow managed to release a single 12", 2001’s Ship-Scope on Chain Reaction, itself among the most mysterious and respected techno labels, and then went quiet until another cult label, Demdike Stare’s DDS suddenly reactivated his career with a series of instantly sold-out albums—or are they compilations Atobe’s early work floated industrial loops across seas of melodies with rhythms like iron anchors tethered to vast rubber bands It was odd; it was awkward; it sounded like nobody else yet fit right into the mix he came to sound even more singular: Tracks like 2014’s “Butterfly Effect 2,” 2018’s “Heat 2,” or 2020’s “Ocean 1” are off-the-grid endeavors that murmur in your headphones but bang on the floor one could be forgiven for expecting Love of Plastic to be arch or brittle it’s his most approachable and generous collection to date “Plastic” as in “malleable,” not “artificial.” The brief “Intro” is all bubbles, something coming to the surface—and what comes is “Love of Plastic 1,” so bright and bouncy that it glistens like a bauble before revealing itself as a crown jewel in Atobe’s catalog. What the world needs now is more good old gay house music, and while I wasn’t expecting Atobe to suddenly go all Frankie Knuckles Love isn’t all poppers and pianos and synth pads acidic bassline etching lines between your ears that never quite form pathways one so delirious that when the kick drum suddenly tumbles over itself “Beyond the Pale” is coated in so much high-viscosity gloss that its house feels more like an apartment in a high-end magazine but there’s a gaggle of glitchy noise panned way to the side and a situation of rattling like a purse spilling all over the floor its tunneling dub techno gradually expanding into a jaw-dropping immensity of detuned bells Atobe is striking a pose and showing off his poise perfecting gestures he’s finessed over the years Catch up every Saturday with 10 of our best-reviewed albums of the week. Sign up for the 10 to Hear newsletter here. This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page highly relevant issue briefs and reports that break new ground with a focus on advancing debates by integrating foundational research and analysis with concrete policy solutions the Atlantic Council’s experts have you covered—delivering their sharpest rapid insight and forward-looking analysis direct to your inbox New Atlanticist is where top experts and policymakers at the Atlantic Council and beyond offer exclusive insight on the most pressing global challenges—and the United States’ role in addressing them alongside its allies and partners A weekly column by Atlantic Council President and CEO Frederick Kempe Inflection Points focuses on the global challenges facing the United States and how to best address them UkraineAlert is a comprehensive online publication that provides regular news and analysis on developments in Ukraine’s politics UkraineAlert sources analysis and commentary from a wide-array of thought-leaders and activists from Ukraine and the global community MENASource offers the latest news from across the Middle East and independent analysis from fellows and staff Econographics provides an in-depth look at trends in the global economy utilizing state-of-the-art data visualization tools Shinichi Kihara was appointed in June 2020 as the deputy commissioner for international affairs at the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy Kihara has rich experience in the area of international energy policy He served as director for international affairs for four years starting in 2012 He took the lead for the G7 Kitakyushu Energy Ministerial in 2016 He was also involved in energy-related work including the International Affairs Division in 2004 and Nuclear Power Safety Administration Division in 1998 Kihara served as senior energy analyst at the International Energy Agency in Paris starting in 2009 He contributed to their flagship publication Kihara joined METI in 1993 and has diverse experience serving various offices in the METI including during his time at the Division of Trade Policy Bureau; the Middle East and Africa Division His experience also covers the area of economic cooperation Kihara earned a bachelor of economics from University of Tokyo in 1993 and a masters of business administration in 1998 from Cornell University in the United States Sign up to receive our weekly DirectCurrent newsletter to stay up to date on the program’s work Sign up to receive expert analysis from our community on the most important global issues © 2025 Atlantic CouncilAll rights reserved If refreshing the page doesn't resolve the issue you could try clearing the sites browser cache Global Climate Agreements: Successes and Failures How Tobacco Laws Could Help Close the Racial Gap on Cancer Could Trump’s Tariffs Replace Income Tax for the Bottom 90% Peter McColough Series on International Economics With Robert E Japan’s newly appointed ambassador to China He was hospitalized last week after collapsing outside his home Ambassador Nishimiya was well-known in the United States as one of Japan’s most energetic and passionate diplomats he represented Japan here in United States multiple times and he emerged as one of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ leading America hands Nishimiya headed up the North American Affairs Bureau from 2007 he served as Japan’s consul-general in New York before becoming deputy minister in 2010 This fall he was to replace Ambassador Uichiro Niwa as Japan’s ambassador to the People’s Republic of China Nishimiya previously served in Japan’s embassy in Beijing from 2005 while tensions between Japan and China were running high increasingly strident calls for a more active defense of these islands against Chinese activists flared up again after nine Hong Kong-based activists landed there in mid-August This latest round of popular Chinese demonstrations comes as China begins a transition in leadership Ambassador Nishimiya’s vibrant personality and energetic advocacy of Japanese foreign policy goals would have served him well in Beijing In a press conference in Tokyo on September 17 a visibly saddened Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba acknowledged the loss of one of Japan’s leading diplomats but noted that it will take some time to find someone capable of taking his place in Beijing Ambassador Nishimiya was a frequent guest at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York He was a lively contributor to our discussions and a conspicuously good friend to the United States Our condolences are extended to Ambassador Nishimiya’s family and to his colleagues at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Dark Horse Manga has announced the release of the third omnibus volume for Shin’ichi Sakamoto’s historical manga drama Innocent Pre-orders for the third volume are now open and will be sold in retail book stores as a trade paperback volume on October 29 Anime Trending has exclusively been given a sneak peek at the cover for the upcoming volume The third omnibus volume of Innocent collects volumes 7-9 of Sakamoto’s critically acclaimed Japanese manga The series is inspired by real historic figures and events revolving around executioner Charles-Henri Sanson Sakamoto’s manga is described as a series that “captures the beauty Dark Horse Manga describes the third omnibus volume as:  Change is on the horizon as Marie-Joseph Sanson ascends the block The rivalry between Charles-Henri and his sister has hit a peak With Charles-Henri accepting his position as head of House Sanson and Marie-Joseph rejecting all convention the conflict threatens to shatter the family legacy Charles meets a young prince who invites him to the Palace of Versailles Innocent was announced as a new license from Dark Horse Comics in November 2022 during the company’s Anime NYC industry panel It is the first title of Sakamoto’s work to be available in the English language and has been released in 3-in-1 omnibus volumes The first omnibus volume was released on November 22 while the second volume will be released on May 1 Innocent was first serialized in Shueisha’s Weekly Young Jump on January 31 A total of nine tankoubon volumes were released A sequel series titled Innocent Rouge ran in Grand Jump magazine from May 20 Twelve tankoubon volumes were released in total Dark Horse Manga describes the general synopsis of the manga as:  Charles-Henri Sanson must take up his father’s mantle as the Royal Executioner of Paris Conflicted between his desire to honor the family name and rebelling against the longstanding practice but vows to be the last executioner–the last Sanson to spill blood in the name of justice Shin’ichi Sakamoto previously worked on Kokou no Hito from 2007 until 2011 has been serialized in Grand Jump magazine since January 20 Three tankoubon volumes have been released as of June 2023 with a fourth volume set for release on February 19 the Corolla was already an emblematic Toyota model whenever I looked at the Corolla development team from my place in a separate department I started out at the Development Planning Division where I helped develop safety equipment such as air bags I moved on to design seats and seatbelts in the Body Design Division and was later transferred to the Product Planning Division where I worked on compact cars such as the first-generation Vitz and the bB I was assigned to the Corolla's product planning team I had worked on models with very unique personalities which were targeted for younger generations "Why me?" This was because I was entrusted with the Corolla – a traditional model it dawned on me that it might have been because I was in-charge of creating more unique cars previously It was right at the time when the concept for the tenth-generation model had been discussed and the Chief Engineer at the time was Ken Yoshida "You don't know anything about the Corolla so go overseas and take a careful look." I only knew about the Corolla that was designed for the Japan market so my impression was that it's a vehicle that the older generations would buy I was really surprised when I went overseas the Corolla is popular among families with kids It is as though there is an infinite variety Yoshida said to me when I joined the Corolla development team Tatsuo Hasegawa (chief engineer of the first-generation Corolla) wrote on a piece of colored paper "The Corolla: for the happiness and welfare of the people of Earth." This was an expression of the raison d'être of why the Corolla exists Anywhere in the world where the Corolla is people are moving along with their lives within the overarching constant movement of the economy I then realized that this is why the Corolla has grown globally It was after this experience that I had begun working on developing the eleventh-generation Corolla When the marketing research was conducted for the tenth generation we received feedback from customers that "while the Corolla is a good car it doesn't create much anticipation or excitement" Our customers wanted something that would make the Corolla more attractive we came up with an idea in the middle of the development for the eleventh-Corolla: to extend the wheelbase of the overseas development model by 100 mm This was at the time of the collapse of Lehman Brothers so the economic situation was not favorable and we had a hard time convincing the company to go along with our idea as there was a principle of controlling investment to a level as low as possible That's because if we did extend the wheelbase wide-ranging changes on the factory production lines in 16 locations worldwide would have been necessary there was a chance that extending the wheelbase would make the body even more stylish it would make for a more spacious interior then an automaker should build a car that meets those expectations we managed to convince the company that we had to do it then so people may believe it's made in the known it has been outfitted with new mechanisms and electronic devices by lowering the cost with its high volume before high-end models were I think these challenges have been around since the first-generation Corolla Its red interior was a loud design element that is not really suited to as an affordable car of its nature if you faithfully reproduce the color from that time you find that the interior was an elegant red with a distinctive texture So we tried using that red for the leather seats for the 50th anniversary Corolla which we had launched in the Japanese market in 2016 I have spent over half of my career at Toyota with the Corolla I aspire to continue working with the Corolla and build a car that consistently meets global needs Yasui was transferred to product planning in 1997 where he was in charge of compact cars like the first-generation Vitz and bB he was assigned to product planning of the Corolla as a concept planner for the tenth-generation Corolla he was appointed the Chief Engineer for the tenth- and eleventh-generation Corollas (for overseas markets) Yasui became the Chief Engineer for all Corollas including domestic versions for the Japanese market he became Executive Chief Engineer and Executive General Manager Yasui has been the Executive General Manager of product planning at the Mid-size Vehicle Company SaveSave this storySaveThe price to send a package via airmail from Saitama, Japan to Manchester, England is a little over $20. Not too long ago, a CD made this 5,853-mile journey, arriving at the offices of DDS records, the label run by the electronic duo Demdike Stare. The disc contained Japanese producer Shinichi Atobe’s fourth LP There was no other info attached: no artist statement or supplemental details just an hour of new music from one of dance music’s most reclusive producers But whatever route the seven tracks took to arrive at DDS’ doorstep one thing rings true: The cost of postage pays for itself Atobe’s latest is a priceless addition to a formidable catalog and it stands apart from anything he’s done before each building upon the dreamy logic of Ship-Scope Atobe’s recent releases have been every bit as enigmatic and alluring as their creator Even as Atobe paints with brighter, more vivid hues on Heat, a blueness works at the lower registers of the album. There is a rich, emotional world here, one where melancholy freely intermixes with joy: On “Heat 4,” hi-hats chirp and crawl around hissing ghostly ambient noise like crickets on a foggy night, but right beneath the creepiness is the softest, supplest low end. Metrics details All-solid-state batteries incorporating lithium metal anode have the potential to address the energy density issues of conventional lithium-ion batteries that use flammable organic liquid electrolytes and low-capacity carbonaceous anodes they suffer from high lithium ion transfer resistance mainly due to the instability of the solid electrolytes against lithium metal we report a complex hydride lithium superionic conductor with excellent stability against lithium metal and a high conductivity of 6.7 × 10−3 S cm−1 at 25 °C This complex hydride exhibits stable lithium plating/stripping reaction with negligible interfacial resistance (<1 Ω cm2) at 0.2 mA cm−2 enabling all-solid-state lithium-sulfur batteries with high energy density (>2500 Wh kg−1) at a high current density of 5016 mA g−1 The present study opens up an unexplored research area in the field of solid electrolyte materials contributing to the development of high-energy-density batteries lithium metal alloys have higher potential than that of pure lithium metal lowering the cell voltage and thus energy density buffer layers increase cell resistance due to their lower conductivities compared to those of solid electrolytes It is thus desirable to find a solid electrolyte that is intrinsically stable and compatible with lithium metal to maximize the advantages of the lithium metal anode the development of complex hydride solid electrolytes that exhibit high ionic conductivity at room temperature will be a revolutionary breakthrough for all-solid-state batteries employing a lithium metal anode we develop a complex hydride lithium superionic conductor from a solid solution of two complex hydrides The partial replacement of (CB9H10)− with (CB11H12)− stabilizes the disordered high-temperature (high-T) phase of Li(CB9H10) at lower temperatures leading to a lithium superionic conductivity of 6.7 × 10−3 S cm−1 at 25 °C This material shows unparalleled stability with lithium metal and thus has a variety of advantages as the solid electrolyte for all-solid-state lithium metal batteries even near room temperature allowing high lithium ion transfer capability at the interface with the lithium metal anode and stable cycling of high-energy-density all-solid-state lithium–sulfur (Li–S) batteries are provided in the Supplementary Information Stabilization of high-T phase at room temperature a XRD patterns of Li(CB9H10) at 150 °C and 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12) at room temperature b DTA curves of Li (CB9H10) and 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12) d FE-SEM images of 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12) The magnified image (right) is of the yellow marked area (left) 20 μm for the left image in d and 3 μm for the right image in d were observed for 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12) These results indicate that (CB9H10)− and (CB11H12)− remain intact and coexist in the solid-solution phase The primary particles were interconnected with very smooth edges These morphologies reflect the softness and deformability of the prepared sample which can allow close contact with electrode materials during cell preparation Lithium ion conductivity of 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12) a Nyquist plots of Li(CB9H10) and 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12) at 25 °C (left) Magnified Nyquist plots of 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12) in the high-frequency region (right) b Arrhenius plots of the lithium ion conductivities of Li(CB9H10) and 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12) c Arrhenius plots of the diffusion coefficients calculated from the impedance and NMR measurements 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12) exhibits a high lithium ion conductivity of 6.7 × 10−3 S cm−1 at 25 °C which is the highest value reported for complex hydride lithium ion conductors Stability of 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12) with lithium metal a CV curve of a Mo/0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12)/Li cell at a scan rate of 0.5 mV s−1 and a scan range of −0.1 to 5.0 V (vs b Nyquist plot of a Li/0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12)/Li cell Inset shows the magnified plot in the region of the semicircle indicating the 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12)/Li interfacial resistance c FE-SEM image of the 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12)/Li interface d 10th galvanostatic cycling profile of the Li/0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12)/Li cell e Galvanostatic cycling profiles for prolonged cycles All electrochemical measurements were conducted at 25 °C The remarkable interfacial compatibility of 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12) with the lithium metal anode is ascribed to its high chemical stability and high physical deformability The superior lithium ion transfer performance confirms the high electrochemical stability of 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12) against the lithium metal anode High-energy-density all-solid-state lithium metal batteries a Schematic illustration of the prepared all-solid-state batteries and lithium metal were used as the cathodes b Voltage profiles for a rate of 0.03 C (50.2 mA g−1) at 25 °C during the first two cycles d Capacity retention as a function of current density f Cycling performances of discharge capacity and coulombic efficiency (e) for a rate of 1 C at 25 °C and (f) for a discharging rate of 3 C and a charging rate of 1 C at 50 °C Stability of 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12) during prolonged cycling a Cycling performance of discharge capacity and coulombic efficiency for a discharging rate of 5 C and a charging rate of 1 C at 60 °C b FE-SEM image of the 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12)/Li interface after 100 cycles c XRD patterns and d Raman profiles of 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12) before and after 100 cycles A small amount of an unknown phase was detected in the XRD pattern We developed the complex hydride lithium superionic conductor 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12) The partial incorporation of Li(CB11H12) into Li(CB9H10) allows the disordered high-T phase of Li(CB9H10) to stabilize at room temperature As a result of the effects of the disordered complex hydride phase a room-temperature lithium superionic conductivity of over 10−3 S cm−1 was achieved for the first time for a pure complex hydride this study provides a general guideline for how to develop lithium superionic conductors based on closo-type complex hydrides: (1) find a host closo-type complex hydride that exhibits a high ionic conductivity in the disordered high-T phase (2) find a closo-type complex anion whose structure and size are similar to those of the host material and (3) partially incorporate the given complex anion into the host material to form a disordered structure which stabilizes the high-T phase at lower temperatures complicating efforts to apply the conductors to batteries as well as making precise analyses of conduction properties difficult The developed closo-type complex hydride has various advantages as a solid electrolyte in all-solid-state batteries Its intrinsic stability with the lithium metal anode enables facile and stable lithium ion transfer at the interface The high ionic conductivity of 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12) coupled with its stability with lithium metal enables excellent performance of high-energy-density Li–S batteries in a wide temperature range From the battery manufacturing perspective the superior deformability of 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12) facilitates the preparation of compact solid electrolytes and electrode/electrolyte interface resulting in intimate contact throughout the battery The unique properties of the developed complex hydride solid electrolyte will not only inspire future efforts to find lithium superionic conductors based on complex hydrides but also opens up a new group of solid electrolytes for practical all-solid-state lithium metal batteries that may lead to the development of high-energy-density electrochemical devices were obtained by drying Li(CB9H10)·xH2O (Katchem) at 200 °C for 12 h and Li(CB11H12)·xH2O (Katchem) at 160 °C for 12 h under vacuum (<5 × 10−4 Pa) Li(CB9H10) and Li(CB11H12) were weighted in the appropriate molar ratios and ground using a mortar and pestle for 15 min To synthesize the (1−x)(CB9H10)−x0.3Li(CB11H12) (x = 0.1 the mixed powder was mechanically milled using a planetary ball mill (Pulverisette 7 Fritsch) with 20 steel balls (each 7 mm in diameter) at 400 rpm for 20 h the powders were reground using a mortar and pestle for 15 min All of the procedures were conducted under an Ar atmosphere The phase analysis was performed with XRD (X’PERT Pro PANalytical) measurements with CuKα radiation (wavelength λ = 1.5406 Å for Kα1 and 1.5444 Å for Kα2) in the 2θ range of 7–50° The powder for the XRD measurements was loaded into a thin-walled glass capillary under an Ar atmosphere and sealed with paraffin liquid DTA was performed using a Rigaku Thermo Plus TG-8120 system from 25 to 200 °C at a ramping rate of 5 °C min−1 under an Ar flow (150 cc min−1) The vibrational modes of complex anions were characterized by Raman spectroscopy (DXR Morphologies and particle sizes were analyzed using FE-SEM (SU9000 Fifty milligrams of the powder was first placed into a 10-mm-diameter Teflon guide and uniaxially pressed at 153.6 MPa to prepare the pellet-type sample (0.10 cm in thickness and 0.785 cm2 in surface area) Au electrode powders were transferred onto both sides of the pressed sample still present in the Teflon guide and uniaxially pressed again at 153.6 MPa to obtain a single pellet comprising the solid electrolyte and Au electrodes No additional sintering process was conducted to reduce grain boundaries before measurements Ionic conductivities were measured using the AC impedance method over a temperature range of 25–110 °C K with applied frequencies of 4 Hz–1 MHz using a frequency response analyzer (3532-80 Lithium self-diffusion coefficients were estimated using the PFG stimulated-echo method of 7Li NMR with a Bruker Avance 400 NMR spectrometer equipped with a Bruker Diff60 probe operating at a resonance frequency of 155.6 MHz The electrochemical stability was evaluated by CV (1470E Solartron Analytical) using a Mo/0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12)/Li cell in a scan range of −0.1 to 5 V (vs The interfacial resistance between 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12) and lithium metal was examined with a frequency response analyzer (3532-80 Hioki) using a Li/0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12)/Li cell Lithium plating/stripping cycling was conducted with a Li/0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12)/Li cell at a current density of 0.2 mA cm−2 using a battery tester (580 Battery Test System For the symmetric Li/0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12)/Li cell a 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12) pellet with a larger thickness (0.14 cm) than that (0.10 cm) used for the conductivity evaluation was prepared to avoid lithium–lithium shorting Mo foil (Nilaco) and lithium foil (Honjo Metal) were used as electrodes of the Mo/0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12)/Li and Li/0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12)/Li cells 50–70 mg of the 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12) powder was placed into a 10-mm-diameter Teflon guide and uniaxially pressed at 38.4 MPa The electrodes were transferred onto the pressed sample still present in the Teflon guide and uniaxially pressed again at 153.6 MPa to prepare pellet-type cells The cross-section of the 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12)/Li interface was observed using FE-SEM (S-3400N To prevent lithium metal from sticking to the cell Cu foil was inserted between the lithium metal and cell The FE-SEM specimen for the cross-section observation was prepared using a dual-beam focused ion beam (FIB The S–C composite and 0.7Li(CB9H10)–0.3Li(CB11H12) powders were then mixed at a 1:1 mass ratio using an agate mortar and pestle for 15 min and used as the cathode composite ~8 mg of the cathode composite powder and lithium foil anode were transferred onto opposite sides of the electrolyte still present in the Teflon guide and uniaxially pressed again at 153.6 MPa to prepare pellet-type cells The cells were cycled in the voltage range of 1.0–2.5 V (vs Li+/Li) using a battery tester (580 Battery Test System The C-rate in this study is defined based on 1 C = 1672 mA g−1 For the calculation of the gravimetric capacities and currents only the mass of the S cathode material was taken into account The specific energy density was calculated using T is the discharging time required to reach the cutoff voltage and m is the mass of the S cathode material The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request A sulphide lithium super ion conductor is superior to liquid ion conductors for use in rechargeable batteries Negating interfacial impedance in garnet-based solid-state Li metal batteries High-power all-solid-state batteries using sulfide superionic conductors Superionic conductors: Li10+δ[SnySi1–y]1+δP2−δS12 with a Li10GeP2S12-type structure in the Li3PS4–Li4SnS4–Li4SiS4 quasi-ternary system highly ion-conductive crystals precipitated from Li2S-P2S5 glasses Li6PS5X: a class of crystalline Li-rich solids with an unusually high Li+ mobility structure and electrochemical performance of the argyrodite Li6PS5Cl solid electrolyte for Li-ion solid state batteries High ionic conductivity in lithium lanthanum titanate Low temperature synthesis and ionic conductivity of the epitaxial Li0.17La0.61TiO3 film electrolyte Fast lithium ion conduction in garnet-type Li7La3Zr2O12 Epitaxial growth and lithium ion conductivity of lithium-oxide garnet for an all solid-state battery electrolyte First principles study of the Li10GeP2S12 lithium super ionic conductor material The origin of high electrolyte–electrode interfacial resistances in lithium cells containing garnet type solid electrolytes Origin of outstanding stability in the lithium solid electrolyte materials: insights from thermodynamic analyses based on first-principles calculations Bulk-type all solid-state batteries with 5 V class LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4 cathode and Li10GeP2S12 solid electrolyte High cycle capability of all-solid-state lithium–sulfur batteries using composite electrodes by liquid-phase and mechanical mixing Lithium superionic conducting oxysulfide solid electrolyte with excellent stability against lithium metal for all-solid-state cells Interface re-engineering of Li10GeP2S12 electrolyte and lithium anode for all-solid-state lithium batteries with ultralong cycle life Stable interface formation between TiS2 and LiBH4 in bulk-type all-solid-state lithium batteries The renaissance of hydrides as energy materials Development of bulk-type all-solid-state lithium-sulfur battery using LiBH4 electrolyte Fast lithium-ion conduction in atom-deficient closo-type complex hydride solid electrolytes Liquid-like ionic conduction in solid lithium and sodium monocarba-closo-decaborates near or at room temperature Diffuse and doubly split atom occupation in hexagonal LiBH4 Structural origin of the superionic Na conduction in Na2B10H10 closo–borates and enhanced conductivity by Na deficiency for high performance solid electrolytes and dynamical frustration: origins of superionic conductivity in closo-borate solid electrolytes Carbon incorporation and anion dynamics as synergistic drivers for ultrafast diffusion in superionic LiCB11H12 and NaCB11H12 Deviation from the Einstein relation in average crystals self-diffusion of Ag+ ions in α-Ag2S and α-Ag2Se Lithium diffusion coefficient in amorphous lithium phosphate thin films measured by secondary ion mass spectroscopy with isotope exchange methods Origin of fast ion diffusion in super-ionic conductors Review of gel-type polymer electrolytes for lithium-ion batteries Li7La3Zr2O12 interface modification for Li dendrite prevention Characterizing the Li–Li7La3Zr2O12 interface stability and kinetics as a function of temperature and current density Achieving high capacity in bulk-type solid-state lithium ion battery based on Li6.75La3Zr1.75Ta0.25O12 electrolyte: interfacial resistance Structure and dynamics of the fast lithium ion conductor “Li7La3Zr2O12” High-performance all-solid-state lithium-sulfur batteries enabled by amorphous sulfur-coated reduced graphene oxide cathodes Synthesis of a bimetallic dodecaborate LiNaB12H12 with outstanding superionic conductivity Stabilizing superionic-conducting structures via mixed-anion solid solutions of monocarba-closo-borate salts Lithium superionic conduction in lithium borohydride accompanied by structural transition a room-temperature lithium fast-ion conductor Li+ ionic conductivities and diffusion mechanisms in Li-based imides and lithium amide Lithium-ion conduction in complex hydrides LiAlH4 and Li3AlH6 Complex hydrides with (BH4)− and (NH2)− anions as new lithium fast-ion conductors Unparalleled lithium and sodium superionic conduction in solid electrolytes with large monovalent cage-like anions Download references This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI (Grant–in–Aid for Research Activity Start–up 17H06519 and Grants–in–Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas “Hydrogenomics” the Collaborative Research Center on Energy Materials in IMR (E–IMR) Warifune for technical assistance (Tohoku University) WPI-Advanced Institute for Materials Research (WPI-AIMR) High Energy Accelerator Research Organization Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials assisted in the electrochemical measurements assisted in the Raman spectroscopy measurements assisted in the phase analyses using XRD patterns participated in discussions of the results All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript The authors declare no competing interests Journal peer review information: Nature Communications thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work Publisher’s note: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations Download citation DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09061-9 Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily. First published in 1869, Nature is the world's leading multidisciplinary science journal. Nature publishes the finest peer-reviewed research that drives ground-breaking discovery, and is read by thought-leaders and decision-makers around the world. Math Mystery: Shinichi Mochizuki and the Impenetrable Proof A Japanese mathematician claims to have solved one of the most important problems in his field hardly anyone can work out whether he's right By Davide Castelvecchi & Nature magazine Shinichi Mochizuki quietly posted four papers on his website The papers were huge—more than 500 pages in all—packed densely with symbols and the culmination of more than a decade of solitary work They also had the potential to be an academic bombshell Mochizuki claimed to have solved the abc conjecture a 27-year-old problem in number theory that no other mathematician had even come close to solving it would be one of the most astounding achievements of mathematics this century and would completely revolutionize the study of equations with whole numbers who works at Kyoto University's Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences (RIMS) in Japan did not even announce his work to peers around the world If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today Probably the first person to notice the papers was Akio Tamagawa knew that Mochizuki had been working on the conjecture for years and had been finalizing his work Tamagawa e-mailed the news to one of his collaborators number theorist Ivan Fesenko of the University of Nottingham Fesenko immediately downloaded the papers and started to read But he soon became “bewildered” “It was impossible to understand them.” Fesenko e-mailed some top experts in Mochizuki's field of arithmetic geometry, and word of the proof quickly spread. Within days, intense chatter began on mathematical blogs and online forums (see Nature http://doi.org/725; 2012) early elation about the proof quickly turned to scepticism Everyone—even those whose area of expertise was closest to Mochizuki's—was just as flummoxed by the papers as Fesenko had been Mochizuki had invented a new branch of his discipline one that is astonishingly abstract even by the standards of pure maths you feel a bit like you might be reading a paper from the future or from outer space,” number theorist Jordan Ellenberg of the University of Wisconsin–Madison wrote on his blog a few days after the paper appeared Mochizuki's proof remains in mathematical limbo—neither debunked nor accepted by the wider community Mochizuki has estimated that it would take an expert in arithmetic geometry some 500 hours to understand his work and a maths graduate student about ten years only four mathematicians say that they have been able to read the entire proof He has so far lectured about his work only in Japan he has declined invitations to talk about it elsewhere He does not speak to journalists; several requests for an interview for this story went unanswered Mochizuki has replied to e-mails from other mathematicians and been forthcoming to colleagues who have visited him but his only public input has been sporadic posts on his website there was a “need for researchers to deactivate the thought patterns that they have installed in their brains and taken for granted for so many years” To mathematician Lieven Le Bruyn of the University of Antwerp in Belgium “Is it just me,” he wrote on his blog earlier this year “or is Mochizuki really sticking up his middle finger to the mathematical community” that community is attempting to sort the situation out the first workshop on the proof outside of Asia will take place in Oxford but he is said to be willing to answer questions from the workshop through Skype The organizers hope that the discussion will motivate more mathematicians to invest the time to familiarize themselves with his ideas—and potentially move the needle in Mochizuki's favour Mochizuki wrote that the status of his theory with respect to arithmetic geometry “constitutes a sort of faithful miniature model of the status of pure mathematics in human society” The trouble that he faces in communicating his abstract work to his own discipline mirrors the challenge that mathematicians as a whole often face in communicating their craft to the wider world Primal importanceThe abc conjecture refers to numerical expressions of the type a + b = c which comes in several slightly different versions concerns the prime numbers that divide each of the quantities a, b and c can be expressed in an essentially unique way as a product of prime numbers—those that cannot be further factored out into smaller whole numbers: for example 15 = 3 × 5 or 84 = 2 × 2 × 3 × 7 the prime factors of a and b have no connection to those of their sum, c But the abc conjecture links them together that if a lot of small primes divide a and b then only a few This possibility was first mentioned in 1985 in a rather off-hand remark about a particular class of equations by French mathematician Joseph Oesterlé during a talk in Germany a fellow number theorist now at the University of Basel in Switzerland who recognized the potential importance of the conjecture and later publicized it in a more general form and is often known as the Oesterlé–Masser conjecture a mathematician at Harvard University in Cambridge would have profound implications for the study of equations concerning whole numbers—also known as Diophantine equations after Diophantus the ancient-Greek mathematician who first studied them Elkies found that a proof of the abc conjecture would solve a huge collection of famous and unsolved Diophantine equations in one stroke That is because it would put explicit bounds on the size of the solutions For example, abc might show that all the solutions to an equation must be smaller than 100 all one would have to do would be to plug in every number from 0 to 99 and calculate which ones work there would be infinitely many numbers to plug in Elkies's work meant that the abc conjecture could supersede the most important breakthrough in the history of Diophantine equations: confirmation of a conjecture formulated in 1922 by the US mathematician Louis Mordell which said that the vast majority of Diophantine equations either have no solutions or have a finite number of them That conjecture was proved in 1983 by German mathematician Gerd Faltings who was then 28 and within three years would win a Fields Medal you don't just know how many solutions there are Soon after Faltings solved the Mordell conjecture he started teaching at Princeton University in New Jersey—and before long Mochizuki spent his formative years in the United States where his family moved when he was a child He attended an exclusive high school in New Hampshire and his precocious talent earned him an undergraduate spot in Princeton's mathematics department when he was barely 16 He quickly became legend for his original thinking People who know Mochizuki describe him as a creature of habit with an almost supernatural ability to concentrate he just gets up and works,” says Minhyong Kim a mathematician at the University of Oxford who has known Mochizuki since his Princeton days researchers and students would often go out together for a beer—but not Mochizuki but he's so much focused on his mathematics.” Faltings was Mochizuki's adviser for his senior thesis and for his doctoral one “It was clear that he was one of the brighter ones,” he says But being a Faltings student couldn't have been easy “Faltings was at the top of the intimidation ladder,” recalls Kim even eminent mathematicians could often be heard nervously clearing their throats Faltings's research had an outsized influence on many young number theorists at universities along the US eastern seaboard. His area of expertise was algebraic geometry, which since the 1950s had been transformed into a highly abstract and theoretical field by Alexander Grothendieck—often described as the greatest mathematician of the twentieth century “Compared to Grothendieck,” says Kim “Faltings didn't have as much patience for philosophizing.” His style of maths required “a lot of abstract background knowledge—but also tended to have as a goal very concrete problems Mochizuki's work on abc does exactly this” Mochizuki spent two years at Harvard and then in 1994 moved back to his native Japan Although he had lived for years in the United States “he was in some ways uncomfortable with American culture” growing up in a different country may have compounded the feeling of isolation that comes from being a mathematically gifted child “I think he did suffer a little bit.” which does not require its faculty members to teach undergraduate classes “He was able to work on his own for 20 years without too much external disturbance,” Fesenko says he boosted his international reputation when he solved a conjecture that had been stated by Grothendieck; and in 1998 he gave an invited talk at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Berlin—the equivalent His work was reaching higher levels of abstraction and he was writing papers that were increasingly impenetrable to his peers In the early 2000s he stopped venturing to international meetings and colleagues say that he rarely leaves the Kyoto prefecture any more “It requires a special kind of devotion to be able to focus over a period of many years without having collaborators,” says number theorist Brian Conrad of Stanford University in California Mochizuki did keep in touch with fellow number theorists who knew that he was ultimately aiming for abc He had next to no competition: most other mathematicians had steered clear of the problem rumours were flying that Mochizuki was getting close to a proof Then came the August news: he had posted his papers online Fesenko became the first person from outside Japan to talk to Mochizuki about the work he had quietly unveiled The two met on a Saturday in Mochizuki's office a spacious room offering a view of nearby Mount Daimonji and with neatly arranged books and papers It is “the tidiest office of any mathematician I've ever seen in my life” As the two mathematicians sat in leather armchairs Fesenko peppered Mochizuki with questions about his work and what might happen next and thinks that his behaviour was a result of excessive media attention But Fesenko soon saw that the two mathematicians' personalities could not have been more different Whereas Perelman was known for his awkward social skills (and for letting his fingernails grow unchecked) Mochizuki is universally described as articulate and friendly—if intensely private about his life outside of work mathematicians read the work—which is typically a few pages long—and can understand the general strategy and years may then pass for leading specialists to fully vet it and reach a consensus that it is correct Perelman's work on the Poincaré conjecture became accepted in this way Even in the case of Grothendieck's highly abstract work experts were able to relate most of his new ideas to mathematical objects they were familiar with Only once the dust has settled does a journal typically publish the proof But almost everyone who tackled Mochizuki's proof found themselves floored Some were bemused by the sweeping—almost messianic—language with which Mochizuki described some of his new theoretical instructions: he even called the field that he had created 'inter-universal geometry' not claiming that what they are doing is a revolution of the whole Universe,” says Oesterlé at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris who made little headway in checking the proof The reason is that Mochizuki's work is so far removed from anything that had gone before He is attempting to reform mathematics from the ground up starting from its foundations in the theory of sets (familiar to many as Venn diagrams) And most mathematicians have been reluctant to invest the time necessary to understand the work because they see no clear reward: it is not obvious how the theoretical machinery that Mochizuki has invented could be used to do calculations “I tried to read some of them and then I don't understand what he's doing,” says Faltings Fesenko has studied Mochizuki's work in detail over the past year visited him at RIMS again in the autumn of 2014 and says that he has now verified the proof (The other three mathematicians who say they have corroborated it have also spent considerable time working alongside Mochizuki in Japan.) The overarching theme of inter-universal geometry is that one must look at whole numbers in a different light—leaving addition aside and seeing the multiplication structure as something malleable and deformable Standard multiplication would then be just one particular case of a family of structures just as a circle is a special case of an ellipse Fesenko says that Mochizuki compares himself to the mathematical giant Grothendieck—and it is no immodest claim “We had mathematics before Mochizuki's work—and now we have mathematics after Mochizuki's work,” Fesenko says the few who have understood the work have struggled to explain it to anyone else “Everybody who I'm aware of who's come close to this stuff is quite reasonable but afterwards they become incapable of communicating it,” says one mathematician who did not want his name to be mentioned reminds him of the Monty Python skit about a writer who jots down the world's funniest joke Anyone who reads it dies from laughing and can never relate it to anyone else “It's not enough if you have a good idea: you also have to be able to explain it to others.” Faltings says that if Mochizuki wants his work to be accepted “People have the right to be eccentric as much as they want to,” he says things could begin to turn around later this year when the Clay Mathematics Institute will host the long-awaited workshop in Oxford Leading figures in the field are expected to attend who along with Fesenko is one of the organizers says that a few days of lectures will not be enough to expose the entire theory “hopefully at the end of the workshop enough people will be convinced to put more of their effort into reading the proof” Most mathematicians expect that it will take many more years to find some resolution (Mochizuki has said that he has submitted his papers to a journal where they are presumably still under review.) Eventually someone will be willing not only to understand the work but also to make it understandable to others—the problem is researchers think that it is unlikely that future open problems will be as complex and intractable Ellenberg points out that theorems are generally simple to state in new mathematical fields The question now is whether Mochizuki's proof will edge towards acceptance Some researchers see a cautionary tale in that of Louis de Branges a well-established mathematician at Purdue University in West Lafayette de Branges released a purported solution to the Riemann hypothesis which many consider the most important open problem in maths But mathematicians have remained sceptical of that claim; many say that they are turned off by his unconventional theories and his idiosyncratic style of writing Even if the proof of the abc conjecture does not work out his methods and ideas could still slowly percolate through the mathematical community and researchers might find them useful for other purposes that the likelihood that there's interesting or important math in those documents is pretty high,” Ellenberg says But there is still a risk that it could go the other way “I think it would be pretty bad if we just forgot about it This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on October 7 Davide Castelvecchi is a staff reporter at Nature who has been obsessed with quantum spin for essentially his entire life. Follow him on Twitter @dcastelvecchi First published in 1869, Nature is the world's leading multidisciplinary science journal Nature publishes the finest peer-reviewed research that drives ground-breaking discovery and is read by thought-leaders and decision-makers around the world Subscribe to Scientific American to learn and share the most exciting discoveries innovations and ideas shaping our world today Scientific American is part of Springer Nature which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at www.springernature.com/us) Scientific American maintains a strict policy of editorial independence in reporting developments in science to our readers Davide Castelvecchi is a staff reporter at Nature who has been obsessed with quantum spin for essentially his entire life. Follow him on Twitter @dcastelvecchi Nature is the world's leading multidisciplinary science journal and is read by thought-leaders and decision-makers around the world.