Validation of Short-Term Skin-Sensitizing Igg Antibodies to Egg in Atopic Dermatitis by Prausnitz-Küstner (P-K) and Oral P-K Tests

ABSTRACTWe tried to evaluate the role of IgG antibodies in the wheal and flare reaction of infantile atopic dermatitis by in vivo skin-sensitizing methods. Sera from 49 patients under 6 years of age were heated at 56°C for 30min to inactivate IgE antibodies, according to previous reports. Two-fold serial dilutions of the heated serum were injected intracutaneously in both forearms of a non-allergic recipient. One hour later, the whole egg antigen (1:1000) was injected in the serum transfer sites of an arm and the reaction was read at 15min (IgG Prausnitz-Küstner (P-K) test). Immediately afterwards, a raw hen's egg was swallowed by the recipient and the serum transfer sites of the other arm were observed for 2h (oral IgG P-K test). Three patients under 1 year of age showed an immediate wheal and flare reaction in the IgG P-K test, but none of the patients showed a positive reaction in the oral IgG P-K test. The patients with a positive IgG P-K test had an IgE radioallergosorbent test (RAST) score >4 to egg white and a positive IgE P-K titer of >28 to whole egg antigen. Two patients showed a positive reaction to the oral IgE P-K test to raw egg ingestion. Ovalbumin-specific IgG, lgG3 and lgG4 antibodies were assayed in 20 patients. IgG, and lgG3 antibodies were significantly increased in two patients with a positive IgG P-K test, while levels of the lgG4 antibody in positive patients were not significantly increased in comparison with levels in negative patients. In conclusion, these results suggest that the IgG antibody may play a role in the immediate type allergic reaction in infantile atopic dermatitis

Nonlinear model predictive control for hexacopter with failed rotors based on quaternions —simulations and hardware experiments—

This work applies real-time nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) to fault-tolerant control problems of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with failed rotors. In the control problem, a hexacopter with up to three failed rotors out of the six available rotors is considered. The NMPC approach includes a quaternion-based nonlinear model of the hexacopter as well as constraints in the thrusts to consider the inherent nonlinearities of UAVs. The proposed method aims to achieve real-time optimization of the NMPC in the on-board computers without any linearization. We explore all possible scenarios in up to three rotor failures and demonstrate control designs in the NMPC for these scenarios. The simulation results indicate that by using the quaternion model, the position and attitude of a hexacopter can be controlled from a large inclined initial state with a non-zero angular velocity and falling velocity. Moreover, the results reveal that the quaternion model is superior to the Euler angle model in terms of the computation time. We also conduct hardware experiments using an actual hexacopter with a failed rotor to demonstrate the real-time NMPC optimization. The results of the simulations and hardware experiments demonstrate that the NMPC can deal with various operation conditions of a hexacopter in a unified manner, with only minor modifications in the performance index

Recent Advances in Fluorescent Labeling Techniques for Fluorescence Microscopy

Tremendous progress in recent computer-controlled systems for fluorescence and laser-confocal microscopy has provided us with powerful tools to visualize and analyze molecular events in the cells. Various fluorescent staining and labeling techniques have also been developed to be used with these powerful instruments. Fluorescent proteins such as green fluorescent protein (GFP) allow us to directly label particular proteins of interest in living cells. This technique has been extended over a large area of cell biology, and a variety of fluorescent protein-derived techniques have been developed to visualize the functions and conditions of the molecules within living cells. In this review, we summarize the techniques for fluorescent staining and labeling for recent fluorescence microscopy

Definitive Identification of the Transition between Small- to Large-Scale Clustering for Lyman Break Galaxies

We report angular correlation function (ACF) of Lyman Break Galaxies (LBGs) with unprecedented statistical quality on the basis of 16,920 LBGs at z=4 detected in the 1 deg^2 sky of the Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep Field. The ACF significantly departs from a power law, and shows an excess on small scale. Particularly, the ACF of LBGs with i'<27.5 have a clear break between the small and large-scale regimes at the angular separation of ~7'' whose projected length corresponds to the virial radius of dark halos with a mass of 10^11-12 Mo, indicating multiple LBGs residing in a single dark halo. Both on small (2''<theta<3'') and large (40''<theta<400'') scales, clustering amplitudes monotonically increase with luminosity for the magnitude range of i'=24.5-27.5, and the small-scale clustering shows a stronger luminosity dependence than the large-scale clustering. The small-scale bias reaches b~10-50, and the outskirts of small-scale excess extend to a larger angular separation for brighter LBGs. The ACF and number density of LBGs can be explained by the cold dark matter model.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJL. 5 pages, 4 figures. The text and Figures 2-4 have been revised. There is no major change which affects to the main discussion shown in the original preprint. This paper with high resolution figures is available at http://www-int.stsci.edu/~ouchi/work/astroph/sxds_z4LBG/ouchi_highres.pdf (PDF

Pharmacokinetics of Beclomethasone Dipropionate in an Hydrofluoroalkane-134a Propellant System in Japanese Children with Bronchial Asthma

ABSTRACTBackgroundHydrofluoroalkane-134a (HFA) has been shown to be a safe replacement for chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) as a pharmaceutical propellant, with the advantage that it has no ozone-depleting potential. This is the first report of the pharmacokinetics of beclomethasone dipropionate (BDP) delivered from a pressurized solution formulation using an HFA propellant system (HFA-BDP) in Japanese children with bronchial asthma.MethodsPlasma concentrations of beclomethasone 17-monopropionate (17-BMP), a major metabolite of BDP, following an inhaled dose of HFA-BDP (200 μg as four inhalations from 50 μg/actuation) in five Japanese children with bronchial asthma were quantified and analyzed by a non-compartmental analysis to obtain pharmacokinetic parameters.ResultsThe area under the concentration-time curve from time zero to the last quantifiable time (AUC0-t) was 1659 ± 850 pg • h/mL (arithmetic mean ± standard deviation (SD)), the maximum concentration observed (Cmax) was 825 ± 453 pg/mL and the apparent elimination half-life (t1/2) was 2.1 ± 0.7 hours. The time to reach Cmax (Tmax) was 0.5 hours in all patients. No special relationship was observed between these parameters and age or body weight. These parameters were compared with the previously reported parameters of American children with bronchial asthma. The Japanese/American ratio of the geometric means of each parameter was 1.36 for AUC0-t, 1.04 for Cmax and 1.4 for t1/2. The median of Tmax was 0.5 hours in American patients as well as Japanese patients.ConclusionsThe pharmacokinetics of HFA-BDP in Japanese children with bronchial asthma are reported for the first time and a similarity to those in American children is suggested

Chemogenetic sensory fMRI reveals behaviorally relevant bidirectional changes in primate somatosensory network

手と足の感覚は、実は脳の中でつながっていた --脳障害による活動変化の広がりを見ることで常識を覆す発見、脳機能・疾患機序の理解へ前進--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2021-10-21.Concurrent genetic neuromodulation and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in primates has provided a valuable opportunity to assess the modified brain-wide operation in the resting state. However, its application to link the network operation with behavior still remains challenging. Here, we combined chemogenetic silencing of the primary somatosensory cortex (SI) with tactile fMRI and related behaviors in macaques. Focal chemogenetic silencing of functionally identified SI hand region impaired grasping behavior. The same silencing also attenuated hand stimulation-evoked fMRI signal at both the local silencing site and the anatomically and/or functionally connected downstream grasping network, suggesting altered network operation underlying the induced behavioral impairment. Furthermore, the hand region silencing unexpectedly disinhibited foot representation with accompanying behavioral hypersensitization. These results demonstrate that focal chemogenetic silencing with sensory fMRI in macaques unveils bidirectional network changes to generate multifaceted behavioral impairments, thereby opening a pivotal window toward elucidating the causal network operation underpinning higher brain functions in primates

Dusty ERO Search behind Two Massive Clusters

We performed deep K'-band imaging observations of 2 massive clusters, MS 0451.6-0305 at z = 0.55 and MS 0440.5+0204 at z = 0.19, for searching counterparts of the faint sub-mm sources behind these clusters, which would provide one of the deepest extremely red object(ERO) samples. Comparing our near-infrared images with optical images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and by the Subaru Telescope, we identified 13 EROs in these fields. The sky distributions of EROs are consistent with the previous results, that there is a sign of strong clustering among detected EROs. Also, the surface density with corrected lensing amplification factors in both clusters are in good agreement with that derived from previous surveys. We found 7 EROs and 3 additional very red objects in a small area (\sim 0.6 arcmin^2) of the MS 0451.6-0305 field around an extended SCUBA source. Many of their optical and near-infrared colors are consistent with dusty star-forming galaxies at high redshifts(z \sim 1.0-4.0), and they may be constituting a cluster of dusty starburst galaxies and/or lensed star-forming galaxies at high redshift. Their red J-K' colors and faint optical magnitudes suggest they are relatively old massive stellar systems with ages(>300 Mega years) suffering from dust obscuration. We also found a surface-density enhancement of EROs around the SCUBA source in the MS 0440.5+0204 field.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures, Latex(using pasj00.cls). To be published in PASJ vol 55, No. 4(Aug 2003