Question hard, answer simply: A comment on Storms et al. (2003).

It seems clear that, for whatever reasons, the dementia of the Alzheimer type patient group (as well as other patient groups) exhibits behavior that is different from the normal control group. G. Storms, T. Dirikx, J. Saerens, S. Verstraeten, and P. P. De Deyn (2003) rightfully argue that the observed behavior (similarity judgments) does not tell us the source (cause) of the differences between the 2 groups. Rather, the focus of the study should be placed more on finding the ways the 2 groups are different. They also point out various methodological problems in some of the previous attempts to characterize the nature of the differences. Further methodological issues in G. Storms et al.'s study are examined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Estimation of Growth Curve Models with Structured Error Covariances by Generalized Estimating Equations

The growth curve model is useful for the analysis of longitudinal data. It helps investigate an overall pattern of change in repeated measurements over time and the effects of time-invariant explanatory variables on the temporal pattern. The traditional growth curve model assumes that the matrix of covariances between repeated measurements is unconstrained. This unconstrained covariance matrix often appears unattractive. In this paper, the generalized estimating equation method is adopted to estimate parameters of the growth curve model. As a result, the proposed method allows a more variety of constrained covariance structures than the traditional growth curve model. An empirical application is provided so as to illustrate the proposed method.

     

Molecular Identification of Commercial Spicy Pollack Roe Products by PCR-RFLP Analysis

ABSTRACT: Spicy pollack roe products are a popular seafood item made from fish eggs that should be made with salt-cured mature roes of walleye pollack Theragra chalcogramma . Because of high demand and poor catch of walleye pollack, however, spicy pollack roe products are often susceptible to substitution with roes of closely related codfish. In this study, a simple method identifying the ingredients of commercial spicy pollack roe products was developed to differentiate walleye pollack from codfish substitutes such as gray cod Gadus macrocephalus using PCR-RFLP (Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism) analysis. PCR amplification of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene yielded single fragments commonly from pollack and cod. Direct digestion of the PCR products with Mph 11031 restriction enzyme showed an unique restriction fingerprint only in pollack. This PCR-RFLP analysis enabled the reliable identification of commercial spicy pollack roe products made by only pollack roes from products padded with cod roes. It thus can be useful to expose substitution of pollack roes with lower valued codfish roes in commercial spicy pollack roe products.     

Effects of free radical scavengers on cytokine actions on islet cells

We investigated the effect of free radical scavengers on the actions of cytokines on islet cells. Interferon-gamma and tumor necrosis factor-alpha reduced the nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide content of mouse islet cells; the combination of interferon-gamma (4 x 10(5) U/l) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (4 x 10(5) U/l) caused nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide reduction by approximately 40%. Dimethyl urea and dimethyl sulfoxide prevented the decrease, whereas superoxide dismutase, catalase, and mannitol were not effective. Dimethyl urea and dimethyl sulfoxide protected islet cells from the synergistic cytotoxic action of interferon-gamma and tumor necrosis factor-alpha. Major histocompatibility complex class II antigen induction by interferon-gamma and tumor necrosis factor-alpha was also inhibited by dimethyl urea and dimethyl sulfoxide, but not by superoxide dismutase, catalase and mannitol. Since superoxide dismutase of a membrane-penetrable form attenuated the class II antigen induction, the inefficiency of superoxide dismutase, catalase and mannitol may be attributable to their inability to penetrate islet cells. These results suggest that the intracellular generation of free oxygen radicals is involved in islet cell cytotoxicity and class II molecule expression by interferon-gamma and tumor necrosis factor-alpha, and that nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide reduction may be associated with islet cell dysfunction caused by the cytokines.     

Jamming layered membrane gripper mechanism for grasping differently shaped-objects without excessive pushing force for search and rescue missions

A gripper comprising a jamming membrane was developed with the capability of grasping collapsible, soft, and fragile objects without applying heavy pressure. In disaster sites, it is necessary for robots to grab various types of objects, such as fragile objects. Deformable grippers that contain bags filled with powder cannot handle collapsible or soft objects without excessive pressure. Changing powder density relatively by changing inner volume is one approach to overcome this problem. By expanding the concept and simplifying the variable inner volume of the gripping mechanism, we developed a jamming membrane comprising the following three layers: outer layer and inner layer made of rubber and a powder layer in between the outer and inner rubber layer. This jamming membrane allows collapsible, soft, or fragile objects to be held securely without applying too much pressure. We designed and developed a prototype of the jamming membrane gripper. Our experiments confirmed the validity of the proposed jamming membrane mechanism.     

Medium-energy ion scattering spectroscopy with a position-sensitive and time-resolving detector

A Si (1 0 0) sample covered with a thin Ho layer was measured with a three-dimensional medium-energy ion scattering spectrometer. The spectrometer is an extended version of a time-of-flight spectrometer for medium-energy ion scattering, equipped with a large position-sensitive detector. The device is used for composition depth profiling and crystal structure determination. The intensity distribution of detected particles was visualized to present medium-energy scattering phenomena. Circular shapes were observed in images created with part of the data containing particles scattered from the surfaces of the sample layers. Images show leading edges of “clouds” of arriving scattered particles were detected using the flat surface of the detector, integrated over 2 ns intervals. The center positions of shapes produced by particles scattered on Ho and Si atoms are different. This is explained by the different kinematic-factor dependences on scattering angle of particles scattered on Si and Ho atoms. The depth resolution of the time-of-flight spectra acquired with the full solid acceptance angle of the detector is limited by the kinematic spread. Using position information of detected particles from the detector, corrections for the kinematic spread and variations of flight path lengths were applied to spectra, increasing the depth resolution.     

A short‐cut DNA extraction from cod caviar

Caviars represent the most consumed form of fish roe products. Due to high demand, ingredient roes of fish are often susceptible to illegal substitution with those of related fish. This study developed a simple and inexpensive protocol enabling the rapid extraction of DNA of acceptable quality and amount to PCR amplification from both cod caviars and their ingredient pollack roes. The protocol was based on extracting total genomic DNA from eggs using urea and a Chelex 100 chelating resin, and could be completed in less than 15 min. Approximately 8 µg of DNA were reproducibly obtained from single eggs of cod caviars and pollack roes in eight individual experiments, and the quality and amount of DNA were sufficient to serve as template for hundreds of PCR reactions of polymorphic DNA markers for phylogenetic analysis. Being applicable to various caviars, this protocol can be useful to detect illegal substitution among ingredient roes of related fishes in PCR‐based food inspection. Copyright © 2005 Society of Chemical Industry     

Insight into the Effect of Dendrimer Structure on Photoluminescence from Assembled Bismuth Complexes

Our previous report demonstrated the fabrication and functionalization of the luminous dendrimer based on phenylazomethine-BiCl₃ complexes (Kambe et al. in Angew Chem Int Ed 55:13151, 2016). It is now revealed that the bismuth assembled phenylazomethine dendrimers have different luminous efficiencies depending on the layers of the DPAG4 by photoemission and absorption spectroscopy.     

Edge effect on electronic transport properties of graphene nanoribbons and presence of perfectly conducting channel

Numerical calculations have been performed to elucidate unconventional electronic transport properties in disordered nanographene ribbons with zigzag edges (zigzag ribbons). The energy band structure of zigzag ribbons has two valleys that are well separated in momentum space, related to the two Dirac points of the graphene spectrum. The partial flat bands due to edge states make the imbalance between left- and right-going modes in each valley, i.e. appearance of a single chiral mode. This feature gives rise to a perfectly conducting channel in the disordered system, i.e. the average of conductance 〈g〉 converges exponentially to 1 conductance quantum per spin with increasing system length, provided impurity scattering does not connect the two valleys, as is the case for long-range impurity potentials. Ribbons with short-range impurity potentials, however, through inter-valley scattering, display ordinary localization behavior. Symmetry considerations lead to the classification of disordered zigzag ribbons into the unitary class for long-range impurities, and the orthogonal class for short-range impurities. The electronic states of graphene nanoribbons with general edge structures are also discussed, and it is demonstrated that chiral channels due to the edge states are realized even in more general edge structures except for armchair edges.     

Discriminant component pruning. Regularization and interpretation of multi-layered back-propagation networks

Neural networks are often employed as tools in classification tasks. The use of large networks increases the likelihood of the task's being learned, although it may also lead to increased complexity. Pruning is an effective way of reducing the complexity of large networks. We present discriminant components pruning (DCP), a method of pruning matrices of summed contributions between layers of a neural network. Attempting to interpret the underlying functions learned by the network can be aided by pruning the network. Generalization performance should be maintained at its optimal level following pruning. We demonstrate DCP's effectiveness at maintaining generalization performance, applicability to a wider range of problems, and the usefulness of such pruning for network interpretation. Possible enhancements are discussed for the identification of the optimal reduced rank and inclusion of nonlinear neural activation functions in the pruning algorithm.