A Japanese text dictation system based on phoneme recognition and a dependency grammar

PROCEEDINGS OF IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ACOUSTICS, SPEECH, AND SIGNAL PROCESSIN

デジタルカメラ画像から3次元シーンの復元と計測の応用調査

デザイン学部長特別研究費サイエンスとデザイン　平成14年度学部長特別研究テーマ「エピポーラ幾何による多視点画像を用いた3次元シーン復元の応用」(静岡文化芸術大学　研究紀要VOL.5 2004 101-112頁)を発展的継続する。　コンピュータビジョン(CV)分野における基礎的問題である3次元シーンの復元と計測を引き続き取り上げ、新しい応用分野、応用効果を探求する。本研究にて利用したソフトウェアがグレードアップされ、今回はそれを入手して利用するので、前回問題となった特徴点の操作性などの改善に期待してさらに発展させる。　ここで採用している方式の特徴は、任意の視点におけるカメラ画像だけから対象物の復元結果が得られるという手軽さにある。実際に製造業では、位置情報が判明した視点からの3次元レーザースキャナーが実用化され始めており、この手法を組み合わせることにより、より大きな対象物の復元が可能となるものと期待される。　(我々が多目的に利用しているコンピュータ・グラフィックス(CG)とは、既知の3次元世界(物体)を射影し、2次元画像に合成するものである。その逆に、人間の目は2次元画像から元の3次元世界を知覚しており、これと同じ事をコンピュータにさせる研究がコンピュータ・ビジョン(CV)の分野である。

Stability of transverse dunes against perturbations; a theoretical study using dune skeleton model

The dune skeleton model is a reduced model to describe the formation process and dynamics of characteristic types of dunes emerging under unidirectional steady wind. Using this model, we study the dependency of the morphodynamics of transverse dunes on the initial random perturbations and the lateral field size. It was found that i) an increase of the lateral field size destabilizes the transverse dune to cause deformation of a barchan, ii) the initial random perturbations decay with time by the power function until a certain time; thereafter, the dune shapes change into three phases according to the amount of sand and sand diffusion coefficient, iii) the duration time, until the transverse dune is broken, increases exponentially with increasing the amount of sand and sand diffusion coefficient. Moreover, under the condition without the sand supply from windward ground, the destabilization of transverse dune in this model qualitatively corresponds to the subaqueous dunes in water tank experiments.Comment: 7pages, 8figure

USP8 prevents aberrant NF-κB and Nrf2 activation by counteracting ubiquitin signals from endosomes

K63-linked ubiquitin chains attached to plasma membrane proteins serve as tags for endocytosis and endosome-to-lysosome sorting. USP8 is an essential deubiquitinase for the maintenance of endosomal functions. Prolonged depletion of USP8 leads to cell death, but the major effects on cellular signaling pathways are poorly understood. Here, we show that USP8 depletion causes aberrant accumulation of K63-linked ubiquitin chains on endosomes and induces immune and stress responses. Upon USP8 depletion, two different decoders for K63-linked ubiquitin chains, TAB2/3 and p62, were recruited to endosomes and activated the TAK1-NF-κB and Keap1-Nrf2 pathways, respectively. Oxidative stress, an environmental stimulus that potentially suppresses USP8 activity, induced accumulation of K63-linked ubiquitin chains on endosomes, recruitment of TAB2, and expression of the inflammatory cytokine. The results demonstrate that USP8 is a gatekeeper of misdirected ubiquitin signals and inhibits immune and stress response pathways by removing K63-linked ubiquitin chains from endosomes.</p

Human RIF1 and protein phosphatase 1 stimulate DNA replication origin licensing but suppress origin activation

We thank David Stead at the Aberdeen Proteomics Service for help in mass spectrometry interpretation, and Raif Yücel and his team at the University of Aberdeen Iain Fraser Cytometry Centre for assistance with flow cytometry. We thank Robert Alver and Julian Blow at University of Dundee for advice on the use of tautomycetin. Peter Cherepanov of the Francis Crick Institute gifted XL413. Daniel Durocher of Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute gifted DNA constructs. Work by ADD and SH was supported by Cancer Research UK Grant A13356, Cancer Research UK Programme Award A19059, and BBSRC grant (BB/K006304/1). AIL was supported by Wellcome Trust Awards (108058/Z/15/Z & 105024/Z/14/Z). This work was also supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant # 16H04739, 25116004 to CO and 16J04327 to YO.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Zinc-pyrithione exerts diverse actions on human leukemia K562 cells : A preliminary study on hormetic action

Zinc-pyrithione is widely used as a topical agent. It may be likely that zinc-pyrithione possesses unique cytotoxic action because zinc exerts diverse actions on process of cell death. In this study, we examined the cytotoxicity of zinc-pyrithione on human leukemia K562 cells in order to examine the possibility of hormetic action. Zinc-pyrithione at concentrations ranging from 0.3 μM to 3 μM induced diverse actions on K562 cells. The agent at 0.3 and 1 μM significantly inhibited spontaneous occurrence of cell death during 72 h incubation while it was not the case for 3 μM. Significant decrease in population of shrunken cells was observed when the concentrations of zinc-pyrithione were 0.3 and 1 μM. Cell growth was significantly inhibited by 1 and 3 μM zinc-pyrithione, but not by 0.3 μM. Although the inhibition of cell growth by zinc-pyrithione was concentration-dependent, the inhibition of spontaneous cell death was observed only at lower concentrations (0.3 and 1 μM) of zinc-pyrithione. Results suggest that zinc-pyrithione possesses diverse actions, including hormetic action, on proliferative cells

Biological and Biochemical Studies on Melanogenesis and M elanoma Cells

For the previous ten years, we have been studying intracellular transport of melanosoma1 proteins and their biological and biochemical functions in melanoma cells. Melanosoma1 proteins,tyrosinase, tyrosinase-related protein 1 (TYRP1) and TYRP2/DOPAchrome tautomerase (DCT), gp100/Pme117 are transported from the trans-Golgi network (TGN) to earlystage melanosomes via endosoma1 compartments. We suggest that Rab7 is involved in the vesicular transport of tyrosinase and TYRP1 and in the melanogenesis through the regulation of gp100/Pme117 maturation. TYRP1 and TYRP 2/DCT were shown to play an essential role in suppressing TYR-mediated cytotoxicity in melanocytic cells, possibly through interaction with TYR in melanosomes. We also studied apoptotic cell death of melanoma cells and death mediators. Among p53 family members, p51A (p63) induced apoptosis in both wild-type and mutant p53-expressing melanoma cells more significantly than p53 and 73β. Interferon(IFN) exerts anti-tumor activities possibly by regulating IFN-stimulated genes. Caspase-2 activation was commonly associated with induction of apoptosis in IFN一β一sensitive melanoma cells. The diacylglycero1 kinase (DGK) , expressed in several human melanoma cell lines but not in melanocytes, was a novel positive regulator of NF-KB, which suppresses TNF一α一induced melanoma cell apoptosis

Two distinct modes of DNMT1 recruitment ensure stable maintenance DNA methylation

Stable inheritance of DNA methylation is critical for maintaining differentiated phenotypes in multicellular organisms. We have recently identified dual mono-ubiquitylation of histone H3 (H3Ub2) by UHRF1 as an essential mechanism to recruit DNMT1 to chromatin. Here, we show that PCNA-associated factor 15 (PAF15) undergoes UHRF1-dependent dual mono-ubiquitylation (PAF15Ub2) on chromatin in a DNA replication-coupled manner. This event will, in turn, recruit DNMT1. During early S-phase, UHRF1 preferentially ubiquitylates PAF15, whereas H3Ub2 predominates during late S-phase. H3Ub2 is enhanced under PAF15 compromised conditions, suggesting that H3Ub2 serves as a backup for PAF15Ub2. In mouse ES cells, loss of PAF15Ub2 results in DNA hypomethylation at early replicating domains. Together, our results suggest that there are two distinct mechanisms underlying replication timing-dependent recruitment of DNMT1 through PAF15Ub2 and H3Ub2, both of which are prerequisite for high fidelity DNA methylation inheritance

トクシマ コウエン トクシマ チュウオウ コウエン ノ ゾウエン セッケイ ニツイテ : ヒビヤ コウエン オヨビ ザイファースドルフジョウ トノ ヒカク

Tokushima Park (originally named Tokushima Central Park) is the Japan’s second western-style park that was opened in 1906. We investigated landscape architecture of Tokushima Park based on a blueprint made in 1905 to understand its purpose and function of the park, and compared with Hibiya Park that is the Japan’s first western-style park. Tokushima Park consisted of five areas. The central area included Mt. Shiroyama (Castle Mountain), and primeval forest was protected without allowing to make a big building within the area. A commercial museum, an athletic field, and a botanical garden and a library were placed in the southern, western and eastern areas respectively, so that each area was designed to exhibit each function. Tokushima Park and Hibiya Park were designed by the same two persons Seiroku Honda and Takanori Hongo. The two parks were equipped with a wide road, an athletic field, a botanical garden and so on, and these facilities were adopted to the park made since them. Because Seiroku Honda adopted three design drawings of German parks from the book Gärtnerisches Planzeichnen into a blueprint of Hibiya Park, we investigated the book to ascertain whether any design drawing was also used in Tokushima Park. We found that Seifersdorf Castle, the castle of count Brühl that was built at Seifersdorf in Germany in 13th century, is similar to the southern area of Tokushima Park