Disease staging, first developed in 1970, has been used to assess the levels of biological severity, defined as the risk of organ failure or death, of specific medical diseases. Because few studies to date have evaluated disease staging in Japan, a small pilot study was designed to determine whether disease staging is available and useful in actual medical practice in Japan. The relationships between disease staging and length of stay, medical costs and age were retrospectively evaluated in patients admitted to Japan Association for Development of Community Medicine - Tokyo Bay Urayasu Ichikawa Medical Center for appendicitis, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and cerebrovascular diseases from April 2012 to March 2013. Patients were easily staged based on information at the time of hospital discharge. Disease stages were found to be affected significantly by length of hospital stay and medical costs. Age also affected disease stages in patients with appendicitis. These findings indicate that disease staging was available in Japan and was affected by hospital resources, including length of hospital stay and medical costs.

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The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of and factors associated with clinical and perceived oral malodor among dental students. Clinical oral malodor was measured in 163 Malaysian dental students using organoleptic method and Oral ChromaTM and they were asked about their perception of self-oral malodor. Oral examination was performed to assess oral health status. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS version 19.0. There were 52.7% students who had clinical oral malodor, while 19.0% students perceived they had oral malodor. The sensitivity (0.244) of self-perceived oral malodor was lower than its specificity (0.870). Tongue coating was closely associated with clinical oral malodor whereas high plaque index was closely associated with perceived oral malodor. These results showed that clinical oral malodor was prevalent among dental students, but students’ perception of oral malodor did not always reflect actual clinical oral malodor. Furthermore, associating factors of clinical oral malodor differ from perceived oral malodor. The importance of controlling clinical oral malodor with proper tongue cleaning should be emphasized and dental students should be taught on the differences between clinical and perceived oral malodor in order to manage this problem.

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We have cloned a gene from a rat liver cDNA library, representing alternatively spliced cDNAs encoding 83-kDa and 68-kDa proteins, which we have designated as UKp83 and UKp68, respectively. Both proteins have a predicted nuclear localization signal and five CCCH motifs (zinc-binding motifs), and share a degree of sequence similarity with Nab2, a yeast protein that contains nucleic acidbinding motifs and tandem CCCH zinc fingers. Nab2 binds homopolymeric RNA and single-stranded DNA and regulates poly(A) tail length and the export of mRNA to the cytosol. The CCCH motifs of UKp83/68 bound poly(A) and ssDNA strongly and other RNA homopolymers and dsDNA less efficiently. The UKp83/68 protein localized within the nucleus with a fibrous or punctate structure that reflected the distribution of SC35, a known marker of nuclear speckles which are nuclear domains enriched in pre-mRNA splicing factors and located in the interchromatin regions of the nucleoplasm of mammalian cells. The distribution of UKp83/68 changed during the different stages of mitosis. During prometaphase, when the nuclear envelope disintegrates, the protein becomes partially localized on the chromosomes; at other times, transiently dispersed over the cytoplasm with the formation of fibrous structure. The transient expression of UKp83 in HEK293T cells had no apparent effect on cellular function, whereas the expression of an antisense sequence or C-terminal domain of UKp83 induced apoptosis. These results suggest that UKp83/68 is probably essential for cell viability and may play important role in mRNA processing.

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