Bunkyo Gakuin University (文京学院大学, Bunkyō Gakuin Daigaku) is a coeducational university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan, near the University of Tokyo. Bunkyo Gakuin University was founded in April 1991 in Kamekubo, Ōimachi, Iruma, Saitama by Ishiko Shimada. In 2001, it opened the Faculty of Foreign Studies on what had been the Tokyo campus of Bunkyo Women's College (文京女子短期大学).There is another campus located northwest of Tokyo in Fujimino, Saitama. The university was originally called Bunkyo Women's University (文京女子大学). It was renamed Bunkyo Gakuin University in 2002 and became coeducational in 2005. The current president of Bunkyo University is Akiko Shimada.One of the unique features of the university is its "Chat Lounge", where students can practice their conversational language skills free of charge. Two "chat partners" staff the English facility from Monday to Friday. The Chinese Chat Lounge space, staffed by one native Chinese speaker, is located next to the English Chat Lounge space and open in the afternoon.The university also has three student dormitories in Hongo, Nishikata, and Fujimino, a dormitory for foreign exchange students next to the Hongo campus, a junior and senior girls' high school in Komagome, Tokyo, and a kindergarten across the street from the Hongo campus.Bunkyo Gakuin University celebrated its 85th anniversary in 2009..
Children’s independent mobility is considered important for the healthy development of children. One of the known barriers to children’s independent mobility is parental fear of strangers. The present study investigated the effectiveness of school-based crime prevention programs on parental fear of strangers in Japan. An online survey administered through an online research panel company was conducted. We analyzed responses from 275 mothers living in Tokyo with their female elementary school children in the range of third grade to sixth grade. A multiple regression analysis was conducted to examine the associations between the implementation and participation in school-based crime prevention programs and mothers’ fear of strangers, while controlling for parental factors, child factors, and neighborhood characteristics. Overall, no crime prevention programs were found to reduce fear of strangers. Paradoxically, however, three school-based crime prevention programs were associated with a significant increase in mothers’ fear.
BackgroundThe Time to Walking Independently after Stroke (TWIST) prediction tool is designed to predict the number of post-stroke weeks at which patients are expected to achieve walking independence. The external validation of the TWIST tool's clinical applicability and generalizability has been desired.ObjectiveWe performed a geographic external validation of TWIST prediction in a multicenter prospective cohort.Patients and MethodsAdult post-stroke patients with lower-limb weakness and inability to walk independently were enrolled. Each patient's TWIST score (max. score: 4 points) was calculated using age, knee-extension strength, and the Berg Balance Scale score at 1 week post-stroke. The TWIST score predicts independent walking by 4, 6, 9, 16, or 26 weeks post-stroke, and we calculated the overall fit, calibration, and discrimination at each of these timepoints to assess the model's performance.ResultsThe validation cohort consisted of 145 patients (median age 73 years, 44% women, 36% moderate-severe stroke). At 9 and 26 post-stroke weeks, 60.7% and 72.4% of the patients achieved walking independence. The overall fit explained a moderate proportion of the outcome's variance (Nagelkerke R2 = 0.28-0.49), and the discrimination performance was good (c-statistic >0.75). Calibration performance showed over-prediction at all timepoints (calibration-in-the-large = -1.62 to -0.34). Higher TWIST scores (3 or 4 points) over-predicted early post-stroke; lower TWIST scores (1 or 2 points) became increasingly over-predictive over time.ConclusionsThe TWIST prediction tool optimistically predicted walking independence in Japanese patients with stroke. Further validation studies are necessary to assess this tool's precise clinical impact and generalizability.Clinical Trial Registration URL:https://www.umin.ac.jp/UMIN000050588.
Background : Competitive swimming is characterised by repetitive movements and is associated with a substantial burden of musculoskeletal injuries. However, descriptive epidemiological studies organising injuries according to both onset pattern and injured body region, including regions other than the shoulder, remain limited. This study aimed to describe the distribution of injury onset patterns and injured body regions among competitive swimmers seeking medical care. Methods : This retrospective descriptive study included competitive swimmers who visited a single medical institution between 2019 and 2024. Data on age, sex, competition level, diagnosis, injury onset pattern, and injured body region were extracted from electronic medical records. Injury onset patterns were classified as acute–sudden, repetitive–sudden, or repetitive–gradual. Injured body regions were categorised as follows: the trunk as head/face, neck, chest, thoracic spine/upper back, lumbosacral spine/buttocks, and abdomen; the upper extremity as shoulder, upper arm, elbow, forearm, wrist, hand, and fingers; and the lower extremity as hip/groin, thigh, knee, lower leg/Achilles tendon, ankle, and foot. The number and proportion of injury events with 95% confidence intervals were calculated, and the associations between injury onset patterns and injured body regions were explored using the chi-square test. Results : Overall, 615 injury events from 360 swimmers were analysed (mean age, 19.4 ± 6.5 years). Repetitive gradual-onset injuries were most frequently observed in the shoulder and lumbosacral spine/buttocks, whereas acute sudden-onset injuries were more commonly distributed in the lower extremity (χ² = 27.7, df = 4，p < 0.001), particularly at the ankle. Conclusions : Distinct distributions of injury onset patterns and injured body regions were observed in competitive swimmers seeking medical care, potentially providing baseline data that support future hypotheses and injury prevention strategies.
BACKGROUND:Item response theory (IRT), particularly the graded response model, provides a latent trait (θ) that reflects balance ability and offers a complementary framework for psychometric evaluation. Although IRT is recommended for estimating clinical thresholds, its application to cutoff determination for stroke populations remains limited. We hypothesized that IRT-based approaches will yield cutoff values that differ from those derived using classical test theory and provide additional methodological insight for cutoff determination. PURPOSE:To estimate and compare cutoff values for walking independence in inpatients with stroke using classical test theory and IRT. METHODS:Data from 165 inpatients with stroke were analyzed. Balance was assessed using the Brief Balance Evaluation Systems Test (Brief-BESTest). Cutoff scores were calculated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC), IRT combined with ROC (IRT+ROC), prevalence-based IRT method (old IRT), and embedded state-item IRT method (new IRT). Discriminative performance was evaluated using area under the ROC curve (AUC), sensitivity, specificity, likelihood ratios, and accuracy. RESULTS:The cutoff values for walking independence were 12.37 (ROC), 11.46 (IRT+ROC), 10.54 (old IRT), and 7.90 (new IRT). All methods demonstrated comparable performance, with AUC values ranging from 0.769 to 0.794, indicating good discriminative ability of the Brief-BESTest for identifying walking independence. The new IRT method achieved the highest AUC and sensitivity; ROC and IRT+ROC methods achieved similar AUCs. Although cutoff values and classification metrics differed slightly across methods, their confidence intervals overlapped. CONCLUSION:To our knowledge, this is the first study to directly compare cutoff estimation methods incorporating IRT in stroke rehabilitation, suggesting that IRT-based approaches can yield cutoff values with stability comparable to that of classical test theory and providing methodological insight for future research and clinical assessment scale development.
Terbinafine (TBF) is a first-line allylamine antifungal used to treat dermatophytosis caused by Trichophyton species, targeting squalene epoxidase (SQLE). The recent emergence of TBF-resistant Trichophyton rubrum (T. rubrum) strains represents a significant global clinical challenge. Although the SQLE Leu393Phe substitution is a commonly reported resistance mechanism in Japan, direct genetic evidence demonstrating its effect when introduced into a T. rubrum recipient strain has been lacking. In this study, we established the causal relationship between the SQLE Leu393Phe substitution and TBF resistance via targeted gene replacement in T. rubrum. A homologous recombination plasmid containing SQLE from the TBF-resistant T. rubrum strain BGUTR13, which harbours the 1177TTA→TTC mutation encoding Leu393Phe, together with the neomycin phosphotransferase II (nptII) selection marker, was constructed and introduced into the TBF-susceptible strain T. rubrum CBS118892 Δku80. The resulting mutant transformants exhibited a > 8000-fold increase in TBF minimum inhibitory concentration compared with the parental strain, whereas control transformants carrying nptII but lacking the SQLE Leu393Phe substitution remained susceptible. Structural modelling indicated that the Leu393Phe substitution causes substantial steric hindrance within the SQLE binding pocket, displacing TBF's aliphatic chain and disrupting key hydrophobic interactions. Molecular docking simulations predicted reduced TBF binding affinity (ΔG changed from -6.3 to -0.8 kcal/mol) following the mutation. These findings provide the first robust genetic evidence that the single SQLE Leu393Phe substitution is sufficient to confer high-level TBF resistance in T. rubrum. These findings highlight the importance of monitoring SQLE mutations in clinical isolates and provide a foundation for developing strategies to address antifungal resistance in dermatophytes.
