Diverse Promotive Action of Pyridinecarboxylic Acids on Flowering in Ornamentals and Seedling Growth in Vegetable Crops

This chapter describes our recent findings on diverse biological effects of pyridinecarboxylic acids, both pyridine-di-carboxylic acids (PDCAs) and pyridine-mono-carboxylic acids (PCAs), on plant growth processes. PDCA analogs promoted flowering and extended display time (vase life) of cut flowers of spray-type carnation. 2,3-PDCA and 2,4-PDCA were most active in the promotion. Apart from these actions, some of PDCAs and PCAs stimulated root and shoot growth of lettuce, carrot, and rice seedlings. Studies on structure–activity relationship of the chemicals showed that one of the most effective chemicals was pyridine-3-carboxylic acid. Pyridine-3-carboxylic acid is known as vitamin B3 (niacin) and safe for human and animals. These findings suggested the possibility to develop PDCAs and PCAs as novel flower-care agents as well as growth-promoting agents which will be used for vegetable cultivation

Making Sustainable Network-Community for Refugees from Fukushima Nuclear Plant Disaster on Stable Historic Castle Town and Region

[EN] After the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident disaster, all of the residents in the area contaminated by radioactivity and all public facilities were evacuated to surrounding regions or more remote cities on the direction of the central government. As a result, temporary housing estates for the refugees are scattered, and aged refugees still remain on these estates six years after the disaster. The town of Namie had the largest number of people who were ordered to evacuate in the evacuated area. The city of Nihonmatsu, adjacent to the contaminated area, is a typical Japanese castle town, and accepted many Namie refugees, offering temporary housing, and housing the town office, schools, hospitals, industrial sites, etc. The Fukushima Namie Recovery Project team, organized by the NPO Shinmachi-Namie and Waseda University, proposed a Network-community connecting several refugee housing estates, evacuated public facilities and other core city services. These need to be connected and their community reintegrated, in practice facilitating the “support system for the network community”. This vision of a Network-community would be adapted to the historically stable region, which includes various dispersed, aged and isolated communities. Nihonmatsu, as the Castle Town of the Nakadori region of Fukushima Prefecture, is noteworthy for its historical urban areas, old streets, lots of unoccupied housing etc. That is, it is very hard to get the people of Nihonmatsu to think optimistically about shelter for Namie evacuees. Nevertheless, areas of the Nakadori region including Nihonmatsu may cooperate with the Namie evacuees and reinvigorate the ruined coastline by means of the “Network Community” – a network encompassing various historical traditions that still exist today as regional assets; thus, the vision for the future of Fukushima is one of hope.Satoh, S. (2018). Making Sustainable Network-Community for Refugees from Fukushima Nuclear Plant Disaster on Stable Historic Castle Town and Region. En 24th ISUF International Conference. Book of Papers. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 3-12. https://doi.org/10.4995/ISUF2017.2017.4983OCS31

Medieval Castles and Pre-modern Castle Towns Planned with Nature As The Heritages for Landscape Design Today -A Case Study of Nanbu Region in Tohoku-

This research is to manifest the nature-symbiosis methods that distinguish the Nanbu castle towns built in the Edo Era from the castle towns elsewhere in Japan.Ever since the early 13th century onwards the Nanbu Clan had ruled Tohoku region till the end of Edo; their feudal lords respect the native mountain-worship, e.g., Iwakura (revering huge rocks as certain divinity’s beings); these17th century Nanbu castle towns – Morioka, Hachinohe and Tohno – were planned with visible mountain tops views and had Iwakura Rock as center of concentric circle on which the town installations were placed.The Nanbu Clan declined, and the framework of castle towns became the foundation for urban modernisation from 1800 onwards. Morioka Castle Town, the prominent among three, has been modernised as the capital of Iwate Prefecture today; its historical heritages enliven the town making by government and citizenry.This paper concerns itself with the relation between Nanbu castle towns and Nature, with that among town construction, micro-topology, Iwakura and Mountains worship, with that between street composition and the locations of temples, shrines and other installations. Analysing Morioka castle town through modern landscaping science, this research tries to discover the relation between planning and Nature, seeking to revive the vista of the Nanbu mountain-worship.First, through field investigation and reading of historical texts, the street axes extended to link up the mountain tops of Object Mountain as Yama-ate are verified; the religious tie between Nanbu Clan and Object Mountains is analysed.Second, historical texts help grasp the religious installations in Nanbu, analysing their locations, micro-topography, and castle installation by GIS.Third, verify the Yama-ate street axes and their relation with temples and shrines by GIS; measure the streets, parallel or perpendicular, to the Yama-ate main street; and analyse the relation between urban frame and the mountains. Forth, how are those mountain views required by Morioka City related to the Nanbu mountain worship?The analyses show that the historical planning corresponded to their environment; the street composition, including temples and shrines, did link up the Mountain, Iwakura objects and micro-topography. And, the medieval methods like vista are employed to revive the castle town cities today with four points below: 1) A Yama-ate Street provides us unobstructed view of the mountains worshiped; the Yama-ate highways that terminate at castle gate or temple entrance path must be verified. 2) The temples strongly tied to the Clan are located in the areas of slight elevation in Nanbu District. Also, several points nearby the castle gate are built with temples to worship the sacred mountains. 3) Morioka is distinctive, the main street axis terminates the excavated Iwakura; various castle gates are designed with same distance towards the Iwakura. 4) The Morioka landscaping policy today has a set of rules: e.g., the height of building is limited to keep the mountain views visible from the bridges or from the castle park; all the rules are made to preserve the views of mountains worshipped in the medieval

Collaborative planning for post-disaster reconstruction in Italy

Community participation after a disaster is widely acknowledged to be crucial in both mitigation and reconstruction planning; however, to date very little research has been done on collaborative planning in a post-disaster context. This paper addresses the issue of collaborative planning for post-disaster reconstruction to effectively facilitate community participatory processes. First, we surveyed the characteristics of community participation for post-disaster reconstruction in Italy. Second, we studied the regional legislative regulations for reconstruction in Emilia-Romagna. Third, we compared the community participation and formulation processes of reconstruction planning tools used by communities. Lastly, we verified the dynamic mechanism of the town of Novi di Modena’s reconstruction planning process by using an evaluation framework with two axes: stage of planning process and community participation level. As a conclusion, we identified three key factors that encourage collaborative planning for reconstruction. The first key factor is the timing of the participatory process must be well managed. The second is a participatory proposal shared with citizens, which must be considered the guiding document for local development. The third key factor is regeneration scenarios for the whole territory considering the different periods must be defined, as well as the implementation strategies and tactics for each urban core

Identification and expression of the lamprey Pax6 gene: evolutionary origin of the segmented brain of vertebrates

The Pax6 gene plays a developmental role in various metazoans as the master regulatory gene for eye patterning. Pax6 is also spatially regulated in particular regions of the neural tube. Because the amphioxus has no neuromeres, an understanding of Pax6 expression in the agnathans is crucial for an insight into the origin of neuromerism in the vertebrates. We have isolated a single cognate cDNA of the Pax6 gene, LjPax6, from a Lampetra japonica cDNA library and observed the pattern of its expression using in situ hybridization. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that LjPax6 occurs as an sister group of gnathostome Pax6. In lamprey embryos, LjPax6 is expressed in the eye, the nasohypophysial plate, the oral ectoderm and the brain. In the central nervous system, LjPax6 is expressed in clearly delineated domains in the hindbrain, midbrain and forebrain. We compared the pattern of LjPax6 expression with that of other brain-specific regulatory genes, including LjOtxA, LjPax2/5/8, LjDlx1/6, LjEmx and LjTTF1. Most of the gene expression domains showed conserved pattern, which reflects the situation in the gnathostomes, conforming partly to the neuromeric patterns proposed for the gnathostomes. We conclude that most of the segmented domains of the vertebrate brain were already established in the ancestor common to all vertebrates. Major evolutionary changes in the vertebrate brain may have involved local restriction of cell lineages, leading to the establishment of neuromeres.</p

Enhancement of electrolytic mass transfer around spheres by applying static magnetic fields

金沢大学大学院自然科学研究科エコサイクルシステム金沢大学工学部The effect of applying a static magnetic field on mass transfer rate in diffusion-controlled electroreduction was studied experimentally around single spheres of diameters 8 to 14 mm under the condition of laminar natural convection. The electrolytic solution of the system K"SUB 3" Fe(CN)"SUB 6" -K"SUB 4" Fe(CN)"SUB 6" with a supporting electrolyte was employed and the magnetic field was applied to the cathode in the horizontal or vertical direction and up to 336 mT in flux density. By applying the magnetic field in every direction, the mass transfer rate was enhanced more than 50% at the highest magnetic flux density, compared to the simple natural convection case. (from Authors)

Double knockdown of α1,6-fucosyltransferase (FUT8) and GDP-mannose 4,6-dehydratase (GMD) in antibody-producing cells: a new strategy for generating fully non-fucosylated therapeutic antibodies with enhanced ADCC

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) is greatly enhanced by the absence of the core fucose of oligosaccharides attached to the Fc, and is closely related to the clinical efficacy of anticancer activity in humans <it>in vivo</it>. Unfortunately, all licensed therapeutic antibodies and almost all currently-developed therapeutic antibodies are heavily fucosylated and fail to optimize ADCC, which leads to a large dose requirement at a very high cost for the administration of antibody therapy to cancer patients. In this study, we explored the possibility of converting already-established antibody-producing cells to cells that produce antibodies fully lacking core fucosylation in order to facilitate the rapid development of next-generation therapeutic antibodies.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Firstly, loss-of-function analyses using small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) against the three key genes involved in oligosaccharide fucose modification, i.e. α1,6-fucosyltransferase (<it>FUT8</it>), GDP-mannose 4,6-dehydratase (<it>GMD</it>), and GDP-fucose transporter (<it>GFT</it>), revealed that single-gene knockdown of each target was insufficient to completely defucosylate the products in antibody-producing cells, even though the most effective siRNA (>90% depression of the target mRNA) was employed. Interestingly, beyond our expectations, synergistic effects of <it>FUT8 </it>and <it>GMD </it>siRNAs on the reduction in fucosylation were observed, but not when these were used in combination with <it>GFT </it>siRNA. Secondly, we successfully developed an effective short hairpin siRNA tandem expression vector that facilitated the double knockdown of <it>FUT8 </it>and <it>GMD</it>, and we converted antibody-producing Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells to fully non-fucosylated antibody producers within two months, and with high converting frequency. Finally, the stable manufacture of fully non-fucosylated antibodies with enhanced ADCC was confirmed using the converted cells in serum-free fed-batch culture.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results suggest that FUT8 and GMD collaborate synergistically in the process of intracellular oligosaccharide fucosylation. We also demonstrated that double knockdown of <it>FUT8 </it>and <it>GMD </it>in antibody-producing cells could serve as a new strategy for producing next-generation therapeutic antibodies fully lacking core fucosylation and with enhanced ADCC. This approach offers tremendous cost- and time-sparing advantages for the development of next-generation therapeutic antibodies.</p