Quadrupole Deformation of Barium Isotopes

The B(E2:0_1^+ -> 2_1^+) values of the Ba isotopes (Z=56) exhibit a sharp increase in deformation as the neutron numbers approach the mid-shell value of N=66. This behavior is anomalous because the 2_1^+ level energies are very similar to those of the neighboring isotopes. By means of the axially-symmetric deformed Woods-Saxon (WS) hamiltonian plus the BCS method, we investigated the systematics of B(E2) of the Ba isotopes. We showed that 15% of the B(E2) values at N=66 was due to the level crossing, occurring at the deformation with beta being nearly 0.3, between the proton orbits originating from the orbits Omega=1/2^-(h11/2) and 9/2^+(g9/2) at zero deformation. The latter of these two was an intruder orbit originating from below the energy gap at Z=50, rising higher in energy with the deformation and intruding the Z=50-82 shell. These two orbits have the largest magnitude of the quadrupole moment with a different sign among the orbits near and below the Fermi surface. Occupancy and non-occupancy of these orbits by protons thus affect B(E2:0_1^+ -> 2_1^+) significantly.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, to be published in Phys.Lett.

Inhibitory Effect of Flavonoids on the Efflux of N-Acetyl 5-Aminosalicylic Acid Intracellularly Formed in Caco-2 Cells

N-acetyl 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-AcASA) that was intracellularly formed from 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA) at 200 μM was discharged 5.3, 7.1, and 8.1-fold higher into the apical site than into the basolateral site during 1, 2, and 4-hour incubations, respectively, in Caco-2 cells grown in Transwells. The addition of flavonols (100 μM) such as fisetin and quercetin with 5-ASA remarkably decreased the apically directed efflux of 5-AcASA. When 5-ASA (200 μM) was added to Caco-2 cells grown in tissue culture dishes, the formation of 5-AcASA decreased, and, in addition, the formed 5-AcASA was found to be accumulated within the cells in the presence of such flavonols. Thus, the decrease in 5-AcASA efflux by such flavonols was attributed not only to the inhibition of N-acetyl-conjugation of 5-ASA but to the predominant cellular accumulation of 5-AcASA. Various flavonoids also had both of the effects with potencies that depend on their specific structures. The essential structure of flavonoids was an absence of a hydroxyl substitution at the C5 position on the A-ring of flavone structure for the inhibitory effect on the N-acetyl-conjugation of 5-ASA, and a presence of hydroxyl substitutions at the C3′ or C4′ position on the B-ring of flavone structure for the promoting effect on the cellular accumulation of 5-AcASA. Both the decrease in 5-AcASA apical efflux and the increase in 5-AcASA cellular accumulation were also caused by MK571 and indomethacin, inhibitors of MRPs, but not by quinidine, cyclosporin A, P-glycoprotein inhibitors, and mitoxantrone, a BCRP substrate. These results suggest that certain flavonoids suppress the apical efflux of 5-AcASA possibly by inhibiting MRPs pumps located on apical membranes in Caco-2 cells

Inhibitory Effect of Flavonoids on the Efflux of N-Acetyl 5-Aminosalicylic Acid Intracellularly Formed in Caco-2 Cells

Recommended by Mostafa Z. Badr N-acetyl 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-AcASA) that was intracellularly formed from 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA) at 200 μM was discharged 5.3, 7.1, and 8.1-fold higher into the apical site than into the basolateral site during 1, 2, and 4-hour incubations, respectively, in Caco-2 cells grown in Transwells. The addition of flavonols (100 μM) such as fisetin and quercetin with 5-ASA remarkably decreased the apically directed efflux of 5-AcASA. When 5-ASA (200 μM) was added to Caco-2 cells grown in tissue culture dishes, the formation of 5-AcASA decreased, and, in addition, the formed 5-AcASA was found to be accumulated within the cells in the presence of such flavonols. Thus, the decrease in 5-AcASA efflux by such flavonols was attributed not only to the inhibition of N-acetyl-conjugation of 5-ASA but to the predominant cellular accumulation of 5-AcASA. Various flavonoids also had both of the effects with potencies that depend on their specific structures. The essential structure of flavonoids was an absence of a hydroxyl substitution at the C5 position on the A-ring of flavone structure for the inhibitory effect on the N-acetylconjugation of 5-ASA, and a presence of hydroxyl substitutions at the C3 or C4 position on the B-ring of flavone structure for the promoting effect on the cellular accumulation of 5-AcASA. Both the decrease in 5-AcASA apical efflux and the increase in 5-AcASA cellular accumulation were also caused by MK571 and indomethacin, inhibitors of MRPs, but not by quinidine, cyclosporin A, P-glycoprotein inhibitors, and mitoxantrone, a BCRP substrate. These results suggest that certain flavonoids suppress the apical efflux of 5-AcASA possibly by inhibiting MRPs pumps located on apical membranes in Caco-2 cells

Transcript Annotation in FANTOM3: Mouse Gene Catalog Based on Physical cDNAs

The international FANTOM consortium aims to produce a comprehensive picture of the mammalian transcriptome, based upon an extensive cDNA collection and functional annotation of full-length enriched cDNAs. The previous dataset, FANTOM2, comprised 60,770 full-length enriched cDNAs. Functional annotation revealed that this cDNA dataset contained only about half of the estimated number of mouse protein-coding genes, indicating that a number of cDNAs still remained to be collected and identified. To pursue the complete gene catalog that covers all predicted mouse genes, cloning and sequencing of full-length enriched cDNAs has been continued since FANTOM2. In FANTOM3, 42,031 newly isolated cDNAs were subjected to functional annotation, and the annotation of 4,347 FANTOM2 cDNAs was updated. To accomplish accurate functional annotation, we improved our automated annotation pipeline by introducing new coding sequence prediction programs and developed a Web-based annotation interface for simplifying the annotation procedures to reduce manual annotation errors. Automated coding sequence and function prediction was followed with manual curation and review by expert curators. A total of 102,801 full-length enriched mouse cDNAs were annotated. Out of 102,801 transcripts, 56,722 were functionally annotated as protein coding (including partial or truncated transcripts), providing to our knowledge the greatest current coverage of the mouse proteome by full-length cDNAs. The total number of distinct non-protein-coding transcripts increased to 34,030. The FANTOM3 annotation system, consisting of automated computational prediction, manual curation, and final expert curation, facilitated the comprehensive characterization of the mouse transcriptome, and could be applied to the transcriptomes of other species

Cyclostationarity-Inducing Transmission Methods for Recognition among OFDM-Based Systems

This paper proposes two cyclostationarity-inducing transmission methods that enable the receiver to distinguish among different systems that use a common orthogonal frequency division multiplexing- (OFDM-) based air interface. Specifically, the OFDM signal is configured before transmission such that its cyclic autocorrelation function (CAF) has peaks at certain preselected cycle frequencies. The first proposed method inserts a specific preamble where only a selected subset of subcarriers is used for transmission. The second proposed method dedicates a few subcarriers in the OFDM frame to transmit specific signals that are designed so that the whole frame exhibits cyclostationarity at preselected cycle frequencies. The detection probabilities for the proposed cyclostationarity-inducing transmission methods are evaluated based on computer simulation when optimum and suboptimum detectors are used at the receiver

Cyclostationarity-Inducing Transmission Methods for Recognition among OFDM-Based Systems

Abstract This paper proposes two cyclostationarity-inducing transmission methods that enable the receiver to distinguish among different systems that use a common orthogonal frequency division multiplexing- (OFDM-) based air interface. Specifically, the OFDM signal is configured before transmission such that its cyclic autocorrelation function (CAF) has peaks at certain preselected cycle frequencies. The first proposed method inserts a specific preamble where only a selected subset of subcarriers is used for transmission. The second proposed method dedicates a few subcarriers in the OFDM frame to transmit specific signals that are designed so that the whole frame exhibits cyclostationarity at preselected cycle frequencies. The detection probabilities for the proposed cyclostationarity-inducing transmission methods are evaluated based on computer simulation when optimum and suboptimum detectors are used at the receiver.</p