No mobile,no life: Self-perception and text-message dependency among Japanese high school students

A survey was conducted to investigate how self-perception of text-message dependency leads to psychological/behavioral symptoms in relation to personality factors. Japanese high school students completed a self-report questionnaire measuring frequency of text-messages, self-perception of text-message dependency, psychological/behavioral symptoms, extroversion and neuroticism. Self-perception of text-message dependency was composed of three factors: perception of excessive use, emotional reaction, and relationship maintenance. Although message frequency was significantly related to psychological/behavioral symptoms, this effect was qualified by self-perception and personality factors. In particular, self-perception of text-message dependency strongly affected psychological/behavioral symptoms. Importance of distinction between extroverted and neurotic text-message dependency through the process of self-perception of maladaptive behavior is discussed.     

Novel vaginal danazol ring therapy for pelvic endometriosis, in particular deeply infiltrating endometriosis

Danazol is routinely administered orally to inhibit ovulation and to treat pelvic endometriosis. However, recent evidence suggests that danazol can act directly on endometriotic tissue in vitro to inhibit DNA synthesis and induce apoptosis. Danazol was administered via the vagina in this study, using a vaginal ring drug delivery system containing 1500 mg of danazol. This therapy was effective for treatment of pelvic endometriosis, especially for deeply infiltrating endometriosis, resulting in a cure of dysmenorrhoea and tenderness in the cul-de-sac within 3 months, and of induration or nodularity in the cul-de-sac within 7 months. Moreover, conception was possible during insertion of the vaginal ring in 17 out of 31 infertile women with deeply infiltrating endometriosis, and in two out of eight infertile women with ovarian endometriotic cysts not adhering to the cul-de-sac and without deeply infiltrating endometriosis. Serum danazol concentrations, high during oral daily 400 mg danazol therapy, but undetectable during vaginal danazol ring therapy, explain why ovulation and conception could occur during insertion of the vaginal danazol ring, and why general side-effects, which are often observed during oral danazol therapy, were not observed during vaginal danazol ring therapy. Danazol seems to be absorbed through the vaginal mucosa and reaches the deeply infiltrating endometriosis via diffusion.     

Effects of microstructure on restrained autogenous shrinkage behavior in high strength concretes at early ages

Fluorescence microscopic examinations were conducted to identify damages induced by restraining autogenous shrinkage. Characteristics of fluorescent areas and their correspondence to autogeneous shrinkage behavior of high strength concretes were discussed. Silica fume concrete exhibited a greater creep potential when loaded at very early ages. The microstructure in sealed concretes with an extremely low water/binder ratio was porous. The vicinity of aggregate grains was more porous and weaker than the bulk matrix in sealed concretes. In addition, sealed silica fume concretes contained many unhydrated cement particles which were profiled by thin gaps between the core cement particles and the surrounding cement paste matrix. These features of microstructure were not observed in water ponded concretes. The detected fluorescent areas may be defects caused by selfdesiccation and autogenous shrinkage. The flaws had little effects on the development of strength. However, the presence of thin gaps around remnant cement particles may increase creep deformation to relieve internal stresses.     

Dose-related cardiovascular effects of amrinone and epinephrine in reversing bupivacaine-induced cardiovascular depression

Effective dose, an indicator of the stochastic effect of radiation, has been widely used in dose evaluation in the environment. Though conversion factors have been used to obtain E from the air kerma or air absorbed dose, the variation of the conversion factors due to the change of exposure conditions has not been sufficiently investigated. This report documents an investigation of the variation of the effective dose per air kerma for environmental gamma rays depending on the exposure conditions using anthropomorphic phantoms and Monte Carlo calculations, taking into account the precise angular and energy distributions of the environmental gamma rays incident on the human body. As causes of the variation, posture of human bodies, biases of environmental source distributions, and body size were considered. The variation of effective dose in a prone position compared with that in a standing position was found to be within 30%. The bias of environmental sources causes the effective dose per air kerma to vary by 20% at maximum, but in some cases for low-energy gamma rays the variation was found to be up to 40% due to the change in the energy spectrum. The effective dose for a new born infant was estimated to be higher than that for an adult by a maximum of 80-90% for low-energy gamma rays from anthropogenic sources because of a lower shielding effect of the smaller body. The variation of the effective dose equivalent shows a similar tendency to the effective dose. Consequently, this study made it possible to estimate the uncertainties of effective dose and effective dose equivalent evaluated from air kerma or absorbed dose in air using the standard available conversion factors.     

Hyperexpression of the gene for a Bacillus alpha-amylase in Bacillus subtilis cells: enzymatic properties and crystallization of the recombinant enzyme

We have constructed a new excretion vector, pHSP64, to develop a hyperexcretion system for Bacillus subtilis [Sumitomo et al., Biosci. Biotech. Biochem., 59, 2172-2175 (1995)]. The structural gene for a novel liquefying semi-alkaline alpha-amylase from the alkaliphilic Bacillus sp. KSM-1378 was amplified by PCR. It was cloned into a SalI-SmaI site of pHSP64 and the recombinant plasmid obtained was introduced into B. subtilis. The transformed B. subtilis hyperproduced the alpha-amylase activity extracellularly, corresponding to approximately 1.0 g (5 x 10(6) units) per liter of an optimized liquid culture. The recombinant enzyme was purified to homogeneity by a simple purification procedure with very high yield. No significant differences in physiochemical and catalytic properties were observed between the recombinant enzyme and the native enzyme produced by Bacillus sp. KSM-1378. The enzymatic properties of the recombinant enzyme were further examined with respect to the responses to various metal ions. The recombinant enzyme could easily be crystallized at room temperature within one day in a buffered solution of 10% (w/v) ammonium sulfate (pH 6.5).     

Robustness of the multigrid method for edge‐based finite element analysis

The dependence of the multigrid finite element method solving three‐dimensional magnetostatic fields on the quality of the finite element mesh is reported. It is shown that the convergence of the multigrid method is strongly influenced by the mesh quality. Moreover, the multigrid method with ICCG smoother is shown to be more robust against mesh distortion than that with Gauss–Seidel and SOR smoothers. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 148(1): 75–81, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.10289     

A novel brain-specific isoform of beta spectrin: isolation and its interaction with Munc13

Munc13 is a component of the neurotransmitter release machinery which is specifically expressed in brain. Munc13 interacts with Doc2 and syntaxin which are also implicated in the neurotransmitter release process. Here we isolated another Munc13-interacting molecule from a rat brain cDNA library by use of the yeast two-hybrid system, identified it to be a novel type of beta spectrin, and named it beta SpIII sigma 1. beta SpIII sigma 1 was specifically expressed in brain, where it was enriched in the synaptic vesicle and plasma membrane fractions. Because spectrin has been shown to interact with the actin cytoskeleton which is involved in the exocytotic process, the present results suggest that the Munc13-beta SpIII sigma 1 interactions play a role in neurotransmitter release.     

Thermodynamic characterization of variants of mesophilic cytochrome c and its thermophilic counterpart

Thermal stability was measured for variants of cytochrome c-551(PA c-551) from a mesophile, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and a thermophiliccounterpart, Hydrogenobacter thermophilus cytochrome c-552 (HTc-552), by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) at pH 3.6.The mutated residues in PA c-551, selected with reference tothe corresponding residues in HT c-552, were located in threespatially separated regions: region I, Phe7 to Ala/Val13 toMet; region II, Glu34 to Tyr/Phe43 to Tyr; and region III, Val78to Ile. The thermodynamic parameters determined indicated thatthe mutations in regions I and III caused enhanced stabilitythrough not only enthalpic but also entropic contributions,which reflected improved packing of the side chains. Meanwhile,the mutated region II made enthalpic contributions to the stabilitythrough electrostatic interactions. The obtained differencesin the Gibbs free energy changes of unfolding [