Inhibitory Potencies of Several Iridoids on Cyclooxygenase-1, Cyclooxygnase-2 Enzymes Activities, Tumor Necrosis factor-α and Nitric Oxide Production In Vitro

To verify the anti-inflammatory potency of iridoids, seven iridoid glucosides (aucubin, catalpol, gentiopicroside, swertiamarin, geniposide, geniposidic acid and loganin) and an iridoid aglycone (genipin) were investigated with in vitro testing model systems based on inhibition of cyclooxygenase (COX)-1/-2 enzymes, the tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) formation and nitric oxide (NO) production. The hydrolyzed-iridoid products (H-iridoid) with β-gludosidase treatment only showed inhibitory activities, and revealed different potencies, depending on their chemical structures. Without the β-gludosidase treatment, no single iridoid glycoside exhibited any activities. The aglycone form (genipin) also did not show inhibitory activities. To compare anti-inflammatory potency, the inhibitory concentrations (IC50) in each testing system were measured. The hydrolyzed-aucubin product (H-aucubin) with β-gludosidase treatment showed a moderate inhibition on COX-2 with IC50 of 8.83 μM, but much less inhibition (IC50, 68.9 μM) on COX-1 was noted. Of the other H-iridoid products, the H-loganin and the H-geniposide exhibited higher inhibitory effects on COX-1, revealing IC50 values of 3.55 and 5.37 μM, respectively. In the case of TNF-α assay, four H-iridoid products: H-aucubin, H-catalpol, H-geniposide and H-loganin suppressed the TNF-α formation with IC50 values of 11.2, 33.3, 58.2 and 154.6 μM, respectively. But other H-iridoid products manifested no significant activity. Additional experiments on NO production were conducted. We observed that only the H-aucubin exhibited a significant suppression with IC50 value of 14.1 μM. Genipin, an agycone form, showed no inhibitory effects on all testing models, implying the hydrolysis of the glycosidic bond of iridoid glycoside is a pre-requisite step to produce various biological activities

Soft Tissue Surgery for Equinus Deformity in Spastic Hemiplegic Cerebral Palsy: Effects on Kinematic and Kinetic Parameters

The purpose of this study was to evaluate how soft tissue surgery for correcting equinus deformity affects the kinematic and kinetic parameters of the ankle and proximal joints. Sixteen children with spastic hemiplegic cerebral palsy and equinus deformities (age range 3-16 years) were included. Soft tissue surgeries were performed exclusively on the ankle joint area in all subjects. Using computerized gait analysis (Vicon 370 Motion Analysis System), the kinematic and kinetic parameters during barefoot ambulation were collected preoperatively and postoperatively. In all 16 children, the abnormally increased ankle plantar flexion and pelvis anterior tilting on the sagittal plane were significantly improved without a weakening of push-off (p < 0.05). In a group of 8 subjects with a recurvatum knee gait pattern before operation, the postoperative kinematic and kinetic parameters of the knee joint were significantly improved (p < 0.05). In a group of 8 subjects with ipsilateral pelvic external rotation before operation, the postoperative pelvic deviations on the transverse plane were significantly decreased (p < 0.05). These findings suggest that the soft tissue surgery for correcting equinus deformity improves not only the abnormal gait pattern of the ankle, but also that of the knee and pelvis

Blending in Future Space-based Microlensing Surveys

We investigate the effect of blending in future gravitational microlensing surveys by carrying out simulation of Galactic bulge microlensing events to be detected from a proposed space-based lensing survey. From this simulation, we find that the contribution of the flux from background stars to the total blended flux will be equivalent to that from the lens itself despite the greatly improved resolution from space observations, implying that characterizing lenses from the analysis of the blended flux would not be easy. As a method to isolate events for which most of the blended flux is attributable to the lens, we propose to use astrometric information of source star image centroid motion. For the sample of events obtained by imposing a criterion that the centroid shift should be less than three times of the astrometric uncertainty among the events for which blending is noticed with blended light fractions $f_{\rm B}>0.2$, we estimate that the contamination of the blended flux by background stars will be less than 20% for most ($\sim 90$) of the sample events. The expected rate of these events is $\gtrsim 700$ events/yr, which is large enough for the statistical analysis of the lens populations.Comment: total 6 pages, including 5 figures, ApJ, in pres

The Case for Hypercritical Accretion in M33 X-7

The spin parameter of the black hole in M33 X-7 has recently been measured to be a*=0.77+-0.05 (Liu et al. 2008). It has been proposed that the spin of the 15.65 M_sun black hole is natal. We show that this is not a viable evolutionary path given the observed binary orbital period of 3.45 days since the explosion that would produce a black hole with the cited spin parameter and orbital period would disrupt the binary. Furthermore, we show that the system has to be evolved through the hypercritical mass transfer of about 5 M_sun from the secondary star to the black hole.Comment: 4 page

Dependence of GCRs influx on the Solar North-South Asymmetry

We investigate the dependence of the amount of the observed galactic cosmic ray (GCR) influx on the solar North-South asymmetry using the neutron count rates obtained from four stations and sunspot data in archives spanning six solar cycles from 1953 to 2008. We find that the observed GCR influxes at Moscow, Kiel, Climax and Huancayo stations are more suppressed when the solar activity in the southern hemisphere is dominant compared with when the solar activity in the northern hemisphere is dominant. Its reduction rates at four stations are all larger than those of the suppression due to other factors including the solar polarity effect on the GCR influx. We perform the student's t-test to see how significant these suppressions are. It is found that suppressions due to the solar North-South asymmetry as well as the solar polarity are significant and yet the suppressions associated with the former are larger and more significant.Comment: 17 pages, 3figures, accepted to JAST

Fabrication and Evaluation of Mechanical Properties of CF/GNP Composites

AbstractCNT/CFRP (Carbon Nanotube/ Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic) composites and GNP/CFRP (Graphene Nano platelet/ Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic) have several excellent mechanical properties including, high strength, young's modulus, thermal conductivity, corrosion resistance, electronic shielding and so on. In this study, CNT/CFRP composites were manufactured by varying the CNT weight ratio as 2wt% and 3wt%, While GNP/CFRP composites were manufactured by varying the GNP weight ratio as 0.5wt% and 1wt%. The composites ware manufactured by mechanical method (3-roll-mill). Tensile, impact and wear tests were performed according to ASTM standards D638, D256 and D3181 respectively. It was observed that, increasing the CNT weight ratio improves the mechanical properties, e.g., tensile strength, impact and wear resistance