Pathogenesis of AD is similar to that of uremic encephalopathy of Homocysteic acid.

Homocysteic acid (HA) has been established as a pathogen in Alzheimer's disease (AD) in 3xTg-AD model mice. However, it is not established whether HA is involved in the AD pathogenesis in humans. We investigated the relationship between urinary HA levels and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores in patients with AD (n = 110, normal =22, AD=88) and found a positive, statistically significant relationship between the two variables (r = 0.39, p =0.00003, n = 110). This relationship was stronger in females. (r = 0.47, p = 0.00008, n = 65 in females; r = 0.39, p = 0.02, n =45 in males). The difference in the urinary HA level between normal and AD females was statistically significant (normal:18.4 + 10.6vsAD: 9.1 + 7.2 mM,p<0.01), but this difference in males was not statistically significant. (normal:12.7 + 6 vs AD8.8 + 7.8). Smoking, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus decreased urinary HA excretion. On the basis of these results, we showed that HA is usually excreted into urine in humans and did not affect brain function in normal individuals. However, when urinary HA excretion was decreased, HA was shown to damage brain function, particularly cognitive ability. To confirm our hypothesis, that is, when urinary HA is suppressed to be excreted into urine, the blood HA level will increase, we examined the relationship between the urinary HA level and blood HA level in 19 patients. The result was shown that the negative statistically significant relationship between them was observed (r=-0.6, p=0.007, n=19). From this result, the uremic encephalopathy of HA toxicity was confirmed. However there remains the question of how the blood HA affected the brain's cognitive function. The direct effect of green tea leaves ingestion on HA level and MMSE score were also observed. Ingested green tea leaves decreased HA level in blood and concomitantly increased MMSE score, suggesting that blood HA could affect cognitive function. But How? Some papers showed that exogenous NMDA including HA disrupted the blood brain barrier and entered into the brain and affected the cognitive function to decrease MMSE score. These results indicate that human AD pathogenesis is influenced by HA, and that HA is a human pathogen in AD, indicating that the pathogenesis of AD is similar to that of uremic encephalopathy. Also, urinary HA can be used as a biomarker for Alzheimer's disease

Commuting difference operators arising from the elliptic C_2^{(1)}-face model

We study a pair of commuting difference operators arising from the elliptic C_2^{(1)}-face model. The operators, whose coefficients are expressed in terms of the Jacobi's elliptic theta function, act on the space of meromorphic functions on the weight space of the C_2 type simple Lie algebra. We show that the space of functions spanned by the level one characters of the affine Lie algebra sp(4,C) is invariant under the action of the difference operators.Comment: latex2e file, 19 pages, no figures; added reference

Aggregation properties of mycolic acid molecules in monolayer films: a comparative study of compounds from various acid-fast bacterial species

AbstractThree kinds of mycolic acids (MAs) (α-, keto and methoxy-MAs) extracted from several species of mycobacteria were used to prepare monolayer films on water, and the surface pressure–area (π–A) isotherms of the monolayers have been compared, so that the monolayer characteristics of the MAs as in cell walls would be revealed, since the monolayer molecular aggregation is related to drug permeability via the molecular packing. It was expected that the limiting molecular areas of the isotherms would be changed only a little, which reflects the minor difference in chemical structure and conformation of the mycobacteria. Nevertheless, the results are largely different from the expectation, and two greatly different patterns of the limiting molecular area have been observed. In a new model for elucidation of the results, two parts in an MA molecule are separately considered, and both contributions to the molecular unfolding by the monolayer compression have been suggested. This model is found to be useful to totally understand the isotherm behaviors of MAs. The relationship between monolayer properties and chemical structures for MAs has been summarized for the first time

Characterization of Adsorbed Molecular Water on the Surface of a Stretched Polytetrafluoroethylene Tape Analyzed by1H NMR

A single molecule often exhibits a largely different material character from a bulk matter. Although a perfluoroalkyl (Rf) compound is a representative one, many interests have mostly been devoted to the bulk character only thus far, leaving the single molecular character unclear. Recently, a new theoretical framework, stratified dipole-arrays (SDA) theory, has appeared for comprehensive understanding of Rf compounds in terms of both single and bulk systems. On this theory, a mechanically stretched polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is expected to exhibit a single-molecular character having dipole-driven properties, which should attract molecular water. In the present study, a stretched PTFE tape is revealed to attract molecular water (not water droplet) in fact, and the adsorbed water molecules are highly restricted in motion by the dipole–dipole interaction studied by using 1H NMR, which agrees with the prediction by the SDA theory

Idea Creation: Function Synthesis Approach with Simplification and Evaluation

AbstractProduct engineer is being required to design attractive products in a short product development cycle from stakeholder. And, its attraction is influenced a great deal by idea creation in a conceptual design phase of this cycle. On the other hand, K. Yoshioka and H. Hasegawa proposed the FSA (Function Synthesis Approach) to create a combination of a large number of functions in a short period of time. FSA become a conceptual design support tool that combines the PSO (Particle Swarm Optimization) and the particle method of USIT. However, FSA is only to outputting combination of large numbers of functions. For this reason, there is a need to provide a way to support the conceptual design process systematically. Therefore, this paper proposes a method to systematically support the conceptual design process from the output of the FSA. This systematic process is consisted from two phases. First, the design solution is built by combination of large number of function via using axiomatic design and function structure method. Next, it is evaluated by using UCP (Use Case Points) method. And, this paper described these phases via example to the refrigerator

Cancer diagnosis marker extraction for soft tissue sarcomas based on gene expression profiling data by using projective adaptive resonance theory (PART) filtering method

BACKGROUND: Recent advances in genome technologies have provided an excellent opportunity to determine the complete biological characteristics of neoplastic tissues, resulting in improved diagnosis and selection of treatment. To accomplish this objective, it is important to establish a sophisticated algorithm that can deal with large quantities of data such as gene expression profiles obtained by DNA microarray analysis. RESULTS: Previously, we developed the projective adaptive resonance theory (PART) filtering method as a gene filtering method. This is one of the clustering methods that can select specific genes for each subtype. In this study, we applied the PART filtering method to analyze microarray data that were obtained from soft tissue sarcoma (STS) patients for the extraction of subtype-specific genes. The performance of the filtering method was evaluated by comparison with other widely used methods, such as signal-to-noise, significance analysis of microarrays, and nearest shrunken centroids. In addition, various combinations of filtering and modeling methods were used to extract essential subtype-specific genes. The combination of the PART filtering method and boosting – the PART-BFCS method – showed the highest accuracy. Seven genes among the 15 genes that are frequently selected by this method – MIF, CYFIP2, HSPCB, TIMP3, LDHA, ABR, and RGS3 – are known prognostic marker genes for other tumors. These genes are candidate marker genes for the diagnosis of STS. Correlation analysis was performed to extract marker genes that were not selected by PART-BFCS. Sixteen genes among those extracted are also known prognostic marker genes for other tumors, and they could be candidate marker genes for the diagnosis of STS. CONCLUSION: The procedure that consisted of two steps, such as the PART-BFCS and the correlation analysis, was proposed. The results suggest that novel diagnostic and therapeutic targets for STS can be extracted by a procedure that includes the PART filtering method

Stereoisomer-dependent conversion of dinaphthothienothiophene precursor films

Soluble precursor materials of organic semiconductors are employed for fabricating solution-processable thin film devices. While the so-called precursor approach has already been tried for various organic electronic devices such as transistors and solar cells, understanding of the conversion process in the film lags far behind. Here, we report that molecular aggregation of the precursor compound significantly influences the thermal conversion reaction in the film. For this study, two stereoisomers of a dinaphthothienothiophene (DNTT) precursor that are the endo- and exo-DNTT-phenylmaleimide monoadducts are focused on. The structural change during the thermal conversion process has been investigated by a combination of infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction techniques. The results show that the endo-isomer is readily converted to DNTT in the film by heating, whereas the exo-isomer exhibits no reaction at all. This reaction suppression is found to be due to the self-aggregation property of the exo-isomer accompanying the intermolecular C–H⋯O interactions. This finding shows a new direction of controlling the on-surface reaction, as well as the importance of analyzing the film structure at the initial stage of the reaction

Preliminary Report of the Waseda University Excavations at Dahshur North:Tenth Season,2004-2005

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