談話論からみた句末音調形式の抽出

信州大学Shinshu University東京式アクセント言語ではアクセント,イントネーションはともにピッチ変動による超分節的単位であるが,イントネーションはアクセントより上位に位置し,語アクセントにかぶさり,語に付帯するアクセントを弱化もしくは除去する力をもっている。アクセントが語に付帯する所与の単位であるのに対して,イントネーションは,記号列の意味に随伴し,談話表現において話し手が意図的,選択的に使用しうる単位である。イントネーションの働きは,(1)句音調と(2)句末音調に大別される。(1)は記号列の意味的まとまりを表現する機能,(2)は記号列の有する知的意味に話し手の発話態度というモーダルな意味を加算する機能を有している。話し手は,句音調によって音調句を表現しつつ談話を推進させていく。この音調句末において,話し手は,句末音調による表現を記号列による表現に加算することができる。有標となる句末音調の音韻的形式には,/上げ・平ら・下げ/の3種がある。これら3種の句末音調には,それぞれA種とB種がある。A種とは,句末拍とその手前の拍との高さの関係で/上げ・平ら・下げ/が決定される形式,B種とは,句末母音の伸長による漸次的高さの方向性で,/上げ・平ら・下げ/が決定される形式である。A種はプロミネンス,B種はインテンシティの働きによる。表現的圧力がかからない無標の形式では,アクセントがそのまま顕現する。表現的圧力がかかる場合,句末音調は,(i)A種のみ,(ii)B種のみ,(iii)組み合わせ,として結節される。(iii)には,A種とB種,B種とB種の組み合わせがある。While lexical accent, which cannot be changed freely, is a property of words, intonation is an aspect of expression and can be determined by the speaker. The speaker has considerable freedom in using intonation. In dialects with the Tokyo accent system, both accent and intonation manifested by rises and falls in pitch, but the function of accent and intonation is different. In the relationship between accent and intonation, intonation presents us with the option of de-accenting (= weakening or removing) certain accents. Intonation works in two ways. The first involves tonality, the chunking or division into IPs (intonation phrases), and the second is its role at the end of IPs, which adds modal meaning expressing the speaker\u27s attitude. With regard to the form of IP-final intonation, there are three main categories: rising, flat and falling. Each of these categories contains two types. In type A, the prosody appears as a change in pitch between the penultimate and final mora, the main feature being prominence. In type B, by lengthening the last vowel and gradually changing its pitch, intonation works by affecting intensity. When the speaker has no expressive intention, an accent appears unchanged. When the speaker has a desire to express some attitude through intonation, the intonational effect appears at the end of the IP. The IP-final intonation can be (1) type A, (2) type B or (3) a combination, which can be A+B or B+B

Liganded Thyroid Hormone Receptor Inhibits Phorbol 12-O-Tetradecanoate-13-Acetate-Induced Enhancer Activity via Firefly Luciferase cDNA

Thyroid hormone receptor (TR) belongs to the nuclear hormone receptor (NHR) superfamily and regulates the transcription of its target genes in a thyroid hormone (T3)-dependent manner. While the detail of transcriptional activation by T3 (positive regulation) has been clarified, the mechanism of T3-dependent repression (negative regulation) remains to be determined. In addition to naturally occurring negative regulations typically found for the thyrotropin β gene, T3-bound TR (T3/TR) is known to cause artificial negative regulation in reporter assays with cultured cells. For example, T3/TR inhibits the transcriptional activity of the reporter plasmids harboring AP-1 site derived from pUC/pBR322-related plasmid (pUC/AP-1). Artificial negative regulation has also been suggested in the reporter assay with firefly luciferase (FFL) gene. However, identification of the DNA sequence of the FFL gene using deletion analysis was not performed because negative regulation was evaluated by measuring the enzymatic activity of FFL protein. Thus, there remains the possibility that the inhibition by T3 is mediated via a DNA sequence other than FFL cDNA, for instance, pUC/AP-1 site in plasmid backbone. To investigate the function of FFL cDNA as a transcriptional regulatory sequence, we generated pBL-FFL-CAT5 by ligating FFL cDNA in the 5' upstream region to heterologous thymidine kinase promoter in pBL-CAT5, a chloramphenicol acetyl transferase (CAT)-based reporter gene, which lacks pUC/AP-1 site. In kidney-derived CV1 and choriocarcinoma-derived JEG3 cells, pBL-FFL-CAT5, but not pBL-CAT5, was strongly activated by a protein kinase C activator, phorbol 12-O-tetradecanoate-13-acetate (TPA). TPA-induced activity of pBL-FFL-CAT5 was negatively regulated by T3/TR. Mutation of nt. 626/640 in FFL cDNA attenuated the TPA-induced activation and concomitantly abolished the T3-dependent repression. Our data demonstrate that FFL cDNA sequence mediates the TPA-induced transcriptional activity, which is inhibited by T3/TR

Dental exchange class in the 2018 introduction to dentistry practice impressions analysis of junior high school students and dental university students

Summary[Purpose]In the introduction to dentistry practice in 2018, the first–year students of Matsumoto Dental University (MDU) had the opportunity to participate in the dental exchange class with students from junior high schools and elementary schools in Shiojiri City. Among them, the MDU students received a report on the class from the first and sec ond graders of Koryo Junior High School. The MDU students returned the impressions of the class to the junior high school students. The class was a valuable experience for the students and the teachers of MDU. We thought we should analyze the students’ impressions and use them for future reference.[ Methods ] The number of the students’ impressions was 131 for the first–year, and 149 for the second–year students of Koryo Junior High School, while the number of MDU students’ impressions was 56 for the first–year students and 50 for the second–year students.Based on these impressions, (1) we selected the main words of the impressions as keywords,counted them, and organized them into items based on our subjective opinion. (2)The impressions were text–mined and multivariate analysis was performed. (3) Visualizationwas attempted by cooccurrence network analysis.[Results] The result of (1), the key words were 354 words for the first–year students of junior high school and 353 words for the second–year students. The MDU students had 144 words for the first–year students and 154 words for the second–year students. The importanceof the key words and the frequency of their occurrence were found in (2). The importance of the key word “tooth” was the most important and thefrequency of its appearance in the first year of junior high school, while “understanding” was the most important and “tooth” was the most frequent in the second year of junior high school. The MDU students gave the highest importance and frequency of occurrence of “presentation” to both the first and second–year students. In task (3), we connected the key words in the network and visualized the relationship between the words.[Discussion] By looking at the number of key words, it can be inferred that the first and second–year students were able to understand the task. The investigation implies that theMDU students might have gained valuable experience from this exchange class.[Conclusion] Throughout the exchange class,1. The first and second–year students of Koryo Junior High School gained professional knowledge of dentistry.2. Students at Koryo Junior High School gained a better understanding of the MDU.3. First year students of the MDU gained valuable experience as presenters by understanding, preparing and devising class assignments

OryzaExpress: An Integrated Database of Gene Expression Networks and Omics Annotations in Rice

Similarity of gene expression profiles provides important clues for understanding the biological functions of genes, biological processes and metabolic pathways related to genes. A gene expression network (GEN) is an ideal choice to grasp such expression profile similarities among genes simultaneously. For GEN construction, the Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) has been widely used as an index to evaluate the similarities of expression profiles for gene pairs. However, calculation of PCCs for all gene pairs requires large amounts of both time and computer resources. Based on correspondence analysis, we developed a new method for GEN construction, which takes minimal time even for large-scale expression data with general computational circumstances. Moreover, our method requires no prior parameters to remove sample redundancies in the data set. Using the new method, we constructed rice GENs from large-scale microarray data stored in a public database. We then collected and integrated various principal rice omics annotations in public and distinct databases. The integrated information contains annotations of genome, transcriptome and metabolic pathways. We thus developed the integrated database OryzaExpress for browsing GENs with an interactive and graphical viewer and principal omics annotations (http://riceball.lab.nig.ac.jp/oryzaexpress/). With integration of Arabidopsis GEN data from ATTED-II, OryzaExpress also allows us to compare GENs between rice and Arabidopsis. Thus, OryzaExpress is a comprehensive rice database that exploits powerful omics approaches from all perspectives in plant science and leads to systems biology

GATA2 Mediates Thyrotropin-Releasing Hormone-Induced Transcriptional Activation of the Thyrotropin β Gene

Thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) activates not only the secretion of thyrotropin (TSH) but also the transcription of TSHβ and α-glycoprotein (αGSU) subunit genes. TSHβ expression is maintained by two transcription factors, Pit1 and GATA2, and is negatively regulated by thyroid hormone (T3). Our prior studies suggest that the main activator of the TSHβ gene is GATA2, not Pit1 or unliganded T3 receptor (TR). In previous studies on the mechanism of TRH-induced activation of the TSHβ gene, the involvements of Pit1 and TR have been investigated, but the role of GATA2 has not been clarified. Using kidney-derived CV1 cells and pituitary-derived GH3 and TαT1 cells, we demonstrate here that TRH signaling enhances GATA2-dependent activation of the TSHβ promoter and that TRH-induced activity is abolished by amino acid substitution in the GATA2-Zn finger domain or mutation of GATA-responsive element in the TSHβ gene. In CV1 cells transfected with TRH receptor expression plasmid, GATA2-dependent transactivation of αGSU and endothelin-1 promoters was enhanced by TRH. In the gel shift assay, TRH signal potentiated the DNA-binding capacity of GATA2. While inhibition by T3 is dominant over TRH-induced activation, unliganded TR or the putative negative T3-responsive element are not required for TRH-induced stimulation. Studies using GH3 cells showed that TRH-induced activity of the TSHβ promoter depends on protein kinase C but not the mitogen-activated protein kinase, suggesting that the signaling pathway is different from that in the prolactin gene. These results indicate that GATA2 is the principal mediator of the TRH signaling pathway in TSHβ expression