Stochastic ranking process with time dependent intensities

We consider the stochastic ranking process with the jump times of the particles determined by Poisson random measures. We prove that the joint empirical distribution of scaled position and intensity measure converges almost surely in the infinite particle limit. We give an explicit formula for the limit distribution and show that the limit distribution function is a unique global classical solution to an initial value problem for a system of a first order non-linear partial differential equations with time dependent coefficients

Wondrous Detritus: Thingness and Alternative Spirituality in American Modernist Fiction.

This dissertation explores the hitherto unattended aspect of the interpenetration of materiality and spirituality in American modernist novels. Revisiting the works of Dreiser, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Nathanael West, my project articulates the reason why modernist writers repeatedly showed qualms about the inefficacy of disembodied spirituality, and turned instead to the materiality of objects as embodying an alternative spirituality. Chapter by chapter, I focus on the way each novelist transforms a particular object into something spiritual by exposing its thingness, and how each writer suggests that unruly materiality can resonate with the alterity of the human subject. In my first chapter, I focus on West’s Miss Lonelyhearts, paying particular attention to West’s idiosyncratic formulation of similes that resists mass media’s enormous capacity to turn once authentically spiritual words into mere clichés. In Chapter 2, I take up Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury to explore how Faulkner found a nexus between the highly religious atmosphere of the New South and the modernist aesthetics whose emphasis on the revolutionary and the transient were directly at odds with his cultural upbringing. My third chapter focuses on Dreiser’s interest in “facts” as supernatural entities. Against the longstanding image of the naturalist novelist, as an atheist and proponent of science, my analysis illuminates another side of Dreiser, as a devotee of a self-imposed researcher of anomalous phenomena, Charles Fort. My final chapter focuses on Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and its treatment of discarded objects to pursue the power and urgency with which the author sought to experience a sense of wonder in the age of disillusionment. Collectively, these modernist writers saw spiritual manifestations within the thingness of objects. They turned toward an alternative spirituality residing in the very materiality of objects, a thingness that rejects facile signification. By so doing, they sought to make visible and available for the experience of modern life, a kind of alterity they understood to be inherent in both things and the human subject.PHDEnglish Language and LiteratureUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/96167/1/kkumiko_1.pd

地理位置情報に基づく分散ルーティングテーブルを用いた情報検索システム

In this thesis, we propose an information look up system using geographic location-based distributed routing (GDR) table that collects and manages information gathered by moving vehicles in urban areas. Throughout this thesis, weassume the underlay network of the GDR system can be modeled as a grid. This assumption makes a sense for an urban area where the roads are paved on a grid pattern. The system uses area nodes placed on several locations where each node manages location-oriented information on a designated non-overlapping area. The GDR system provides an information lookup based on the geographic latitude and longitude coordinates. A geographic coordinate is assigned for a node as its identifier (ID), and each node manages an overlay routing table. The routing table consists of pointers to other nodes in the network in order to forward messages to the geographically nearest overlay node toward its final destination. In a system with N nodes, each node has a routing table of size log N and a search is possiblein O(log N). We evaluate the mean and the variance of the path length and the relay length of GDR, CAN, Chord and Kademlia, under the assumptions that the ID is in cartesian format (x, y), all nodes are active, and the source node and the destination node are chosen independently with equal probability. We show that regardless of the ID format (i.e. even though the ID is in cartesian format or the ID is generated by using Space Filling Curve (SFC)), GDR, Chord and Kademlia have the same mean and the same variance of the path length,while the mean and the variance of the relay length of GDR are smaller than those of Chord and Kademlia. Furthermore, while GDR and CAN have the same mean and the same variance of the relay length, the mean and the variance of the pathlength of GDR are smaller than those of CAN.We show that the mean relay length of GDR is about half of that of Chord, and about 2/3 of that of Kademlia, and the mean path length is about (3/4) log N/√N of that of CAN. In addition, the GDR system has a routing redundancy to increase robustness. When a node fails, its neighbor node behaves as an agent for the failing node. To know the agent node of the failing node, each node has an agent list which is the records of the agent nodes of the nodes of its routing table. Since the number of the agent nodes is 2, the size of the agent list is 2 log N. If an underlay network can be modeled as a grid, it is easy to assign a physical address for a node. However, if a node fails, it is difficult to modify or change its physical address. In the GDR system, the nodes can avoid a failed node by using its agent list on the overlay network. We also present an application of the GDR system. In order to send a reply to a terminal after it moves to the neighboring area, we proposed Wall Pass (WP) algorithm. We consider a node as a wall player of wall pass in football. We evaluated the performance of the GDR system when the mobile mobile terminals are moving. The results show that WP algorithm can decrease the communication overhead.電気通信大学201

Role of BacA in Lipopolysaccharide Synthesis, Peptide Transport, and Nodulation by \u3cem\u3eRhizobium\u3c/em\u3e sp. Strain NGR234

BacA of Sinorhizobium meliloti plays an essential role in the establishment of nitrogen-fixing symbioses with Medicago plants, where it is involved in peptide import and in the addition of very-long-chain fatty acids (VLCFA) to lipid A of lipopolysaccharide (LPS). We investigated the role of BacA in Rhizobium species strain NGR234 by mutating the bacA gene. In the NGR234 bacA mutant, peptide import was impaired, but no effect on VLCFA addition was observed. More importantly, the symbiotic ability of the mutant was comparable to that of the wild type for a variety of legume species. Concurrently, an acpXL mutant of NGR234 was created and assayed. In rhizobia, AcpXL is a dedicated acyl carrier protein necessary for the addition of VLCFA to lipid A. LPS extracted from the NGR234 mutant lacked VLCFA, and this mutant was severely impaired in the ability to form functional nodules with the majority of legumes tested. Our work demonstrates the importance of VLCFA in the NGR234-legume symbiosis and also shows that the necessity of BacA for bacteroid differentiation is restricted to specific legume-Rhizobium interactions

Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor: A Multifunctional Cytokine in Rheumatic Diseases

Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) was originally identified in the culture medium of activated T lymphocytes as a soluble factor that inhibited the random migration of macrophages. MIF is now recognized to be a multipotent cytokine involved in the regulation of immune and inflammatory responses. Moreover, the pivotal nature of its involvement highlights the importance of MIF to the pathogenesis of various inflammatory disorders and suggests that blocking MIF may be a useful therapeutic strategy for treating these diseases. This paper discusses the function and expressional regulation of MIF in several rheumatic diseases and related conditions

Linking the beneficial effects of current therapeutic approaches in diabetes to the vascular endothelin system

The rising epidemic of diabetes worldwide is of significant concern. Although the ultimate objective is to prevent the development and find a cure for the disease, prevention and treatment of diabetic complications is very important. Vascular complications in diabetes, or diabetic vasculopathy, include macro- and microvascular dysfunction and represent the principal cause of morbidity and mortality in diabetic patients. Endothelial dysfunction plays a pivotal role in the development and progression of diabetic vasculopathy. Endothelin-1 (ET-1), an endothelial cell-derived peptide, is a potent vasoconstrictor with mitogenic, pro-oxidative and pro-inflammatory properties that are particularly relevant to the pathophysiology of diabetic vasculopathy. Overproduction of ET-1 is reported in patients and animal models of diabetes and the functional effects of ET-1 and its receptors are also greatly altered in diabetic conditions. The current therapeutic approaches in diabetes include glucose lowering, sensitization to insulin, reduction of fatty acids and vasculoprotective therapies. However, whether and how these therapeutic approaches affect the ET-1 system remain poorly understood. Accordingly, in the present review, we will focus on experimental and clinical evidence that indicates a role for ET-1 in diabetic vasculopathy and on the effects of current therapeutic approaches in diabetes on the vascular ET-1 system

Successful voriconazole treatment of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis in a patient with acute biphenotypic leukemia

A 23-year old woman with acute biphenotypic leukemia (ABL) complained of chest pain with cough, high fever and hemoptysis during induction chemotherapy, although she had been treated with anti-biotics and micafungin. We made a clinical diagnosis of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) based on a consolidation in the right upper lung field on a chest radiograph as well as a high level of serum beta-D-glucan (with no evidence of tuberculosis and candidiasis). We changed her treatment from micafungin to voriconazole. Later, we discovered an air-crescent sign by CT scan that supported the diagnosis of IPA. Following voriconazole treatment, clinical symptoms ceased and abnormal chest shadows improved gradually and concurrently with a recovery of neutrophils. IPA must be considered in immunocompromised patients with pulmonary infiltrates who do not respond to broad-spectrum antibiotics. Serological tests and CT findings can aid in early diagnosis of IPA, which, along with treatment for IPA, will improve clinical outcomes.</p

Collagen of Chronically Inflamed Skin Is Over-Modified and Upregulates Secretion of Matrix Metalloproteinase 2 and Matrix-Degrading Enzymes by Endothelial Cells and Fibroblasts

In order to investigate the properties of collagen in chronically inflamed tissue, we isolated collagen from the ear skin of mice with chronic contact dermatitis and examined its biochemical characteristics and the functions that regulate the secretion of matrix metalloproteinase 2 and collagen-degrading enzymes from endothelial cells and fibroblasts. Collagen in skin with chronic contact dermatitis comprised 60% type I collagen and 40% type III collagen, which latter is higher than the content of type III collagen in control skin (35%). The denaturation temperature was higher (42°C) than that of control skin (39°C). The α2 chain of type I collagen was over-hydroxylated at both proline and lysine residues. Segment-long-spacing crystallites of type I collagen were unusually connected in tandem. Collagen of chronically inflamed skin was less susceptible to matrix metalloproteinase 2 after heat denaturation. Endothelial cells and fibroblasts secreted an increased amount of matrix metalloproteinase 2 when cultured on a gel formed from the collagen of chronically inflamed skin. Collagen-degrading activity secreted from fibroblasts was also upregulated when cells were in contact with collagen of chronically inflamed skin. These results suggest that the collagen in chronically inflamed tissue has altered biochemical characteristics and functions, which may affect the pathogenesis of the chronic skin disease

Cloning, tissue expression, and mapping of a human photolyase homolog with similarity to plant blue-light receptors

Enzymatic photoreactivation is a DNA repair mechanism that removes UV- induced pyrimidine dimer lesions by action of a single enzyme, photolyase, and visible light. Its presence has been demonstrated in a wide variety of organisms, ranging from simple prokaryotes to higher eukaryotes. We have isolated a human gene encoding a 66-kDa protein that shows clear overall homology to known bacterial photolyase genes. The human gene product is more similar to plant blue-light receptors within class I ph