Postischemic Changes of Spirodecanone Binding in the Gerbil Hippocampus

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Detection of serum soluble markers of immune activation in rheumatoid arthritis

The mutual correlation among soluble CD4 (sCD4), soluble CD8 (sCD8), and soluble CD23 (sCD23) has not yet been studied in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), although previous studies have demonstrated that certain soluble markers of immune activation are elevated in RA. Thus, we examined this correlation based on the serum levels of sCD4, sCD8 and sCD23, and that of their levels with other serum markers such as immunoglobulin (Ig) subtypes (IgG, IgM and IgA), IgM-rheumatoid factor (IgM-RF) and C-reactive protein (CRP) in 25 RA patients, sCD4 was not elevated, whereas both sCD8 and sCD23 increased in RA patients compared with the healthy controls; a majority of RA patients, in particular, showed a high sCD23 level. The level of sCD23 showed a correlation with that of IgM-RF, but not with those of IgG, IgM, IgA and CRP. Importantly, a high level of sCD23 was not always accompartied with that of sCD8. The independent change between sCD23 and sCD8 levels was also observed in a one-year follow-up study of the two RA patients. These findings indicate that B cells might be generally activated in RA, whereas T-cell activation in variable in each patient with RA, suggesting that sCD23 is a more indicative marker for the immune status of RA patients than sCD8 from the clinical aspects

Comparison of gravity wave propagation directions observed by mesospheric airglow imaging at three different latitudes using the M-transform

We developed user-friendly software based on Matsuda et al.'s (2014) 3D-FFT method (Matsuda-transform, M-transform) for airglow imaging data analysis as a function of Interactive Data Language (IDL). Users can customize the range of wave parameters to process when executing the program. The input for this function is a 3-D array of a time series of a 2-D airglow image in geographical coordinates. We applied this new function to mesospheric airglow imaging data with slightly different observation parameters obtained for the period of April–May at three different latitudes: Syowa Station, the Antarctic (69∘&thinsp;S, 40∘&thinsp;E); Shigaraki, Japan (35∘&thinsp;N, 136∘&thinsp;E); and Tomohon, Indonesia (1∘&thinsp;N, 122∘&thinsp;E). The day-to-day variation of the phase velocity spectrum at the Syowa Station is smaller and the propagation direction is mainly westward. In Shigaraki, the day-to-day variation of the horizontal propagation direction is larger than that at the Syowa Station; the variation in Tomohon is even larger. In Tomohon, the variation of the nightly power spectrum magnitude is remarkable, which indicates the intermittency of atmospheric gravity waves (AGWs). The average nightly spectrum obtained from April–May shows that the dominant propagation is westward with a phase speed &lt;50&thinsp;m&thinsp;s−1 at the Syowa Station and east-southeastward with a phase speed of up to ∼80&thinsp;m&thinsp;s−1 in Shigaraki. The day-to-day variation in Tomohon is too strong to discuss average characteristics; however, a phase speed of up to ∼100&thinsp;m&thinsp;s−1 and faster is observed. The corresponding background wind profiles derived from MERRA-2 indicate that wind filtering plays a significant role in filtering out waves that propagate eastward at the Syowa Station. On the other hand, the background wind is not strong enough to filter out relatively high-speed AGWs in Shigaraki and Tomohon and the dominant propagation direction is likely related to the distribution and characteristics of the source region, at least in April and May.</p

Facilitated Recovery of Protein Synthesis following Ischemia in the Brain with Induced Ischemic Tolerance

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A study of the B and Be star population in the field of the LMC open cluster NGC2004 with VLT-FLAMES

Observations of hot stars belonging to the young cluster LMC-NGC2004 and its surrounding region have been obtained with the VLT-GIRAFFE facilities in MEDUSA mode. 25 Be stars were discovered; the proportion of Be stars compared to B-type stars is found to be of the same order in the LMC and in the Galaxy fields. 23 hot stars were discovered as spectroscopic binaries (SB1 and SB2), 5 of these are found to be eclipsing systems from the MACHO database, with periods of a few days. About 75% of the spectra in our sample are polluted by hydrogen (Halpha and Hgamma), [SII] and [NII] nebular lines. These lines are typical of HII regions. They could be associated with patchy nebulosities with a bi-modal distribution in radial velocity, with higher values (+335 kms^{-1}) preferentially seen inside the southern part of the known bubble LMC4 observed in HI at 21 cm.Comment: 12 pages, 17 figures, accepted to A&

Fabrication of Functionalized Double-Lamellar Multifunctional Envelope-Type Nanodevices Using a Microfluidic Chip with a Chaotic Mixer Array

Multifunctional envelope-type nanodevices (MENDs) are very promising non-viral gene delivery vectors because they are biocompatible and enable programmed packaging of various functional elements into an individual nanostructured liposome. Conventionally MENDs have been fabricated by complicated, labor-intensive, time-consuming bulk batch methods. To avoid these problems in MEND fabrication, we adopted a microfluidic chip with a chaotic mixer array on the floor of its reaction channel. The array was composed of 69 cycles of the staggered chaotic mixer with bas-relief structures. Although the reaction channel had very large Péclet numbers (>105) favorable for laminar flows, its chaotic mixer array led to very small mixing lengths (<1.5 cm) and that allowed homogeneous mixing of MEND precursors in a short time. Using the microfluidic chip, we fabricated a double-lamellar MEND (D-MEND) composed of a condensed plasmid DNA core and a lipid bilayer membrane envelope as well as the D-MEND modified with trans-membrane peptide octaarginine. Our lab-on-a-chip approach was much simpler, faster, and more convenient for fabricating the MENDs, as compared with the conventional bulk batch approaches. Further, the physical properties of the on-chip-fabricated MENDs were comparable to or better than those of the bulk batch-fabricated MENDs. Our fabrication strategy using microfluidic chips with short mixing length reaction channels may provide practical ways for constructing more elegant liposome-based non-viral vectors that can effectively penetrate all membranes in cells and lead to high gene transfection efficiency