Comprehensive Analysis of Oligo/Polysialylglycoconjugates in Cancer Cell Lines

In cancer cells, cell-surface sialylation is altered, including a change in oligo/polysialic acid (oligo/polySia) structures. Since they are unique and rarely expressed in normal cells, oligo/polySia structures may serve as promising novel biomarkers and targets for therapies. For the diagnosis and treatment of the disease, a precise understanding of the oligo/polySia structures in cancer cells is necessary. In this study, flow cytometric analysis and gene expression datasets were obtained from sixteen different cancer cell lines. These datasets demonstrated the ability to predict glycan structures and their sialylation status. Our results also revealed that sialylation patterns are unique to each cancer cell line. Thus, we can suggest promising combinations of antibody and cancer cell for glycan prediction. However, the precise prediction of minor glycans need to be further explored.     

Bile Acid–Drug Interaction via Organic Anion-Transporting Polypeptide 4C1 Is a Potential Mechanism of Altered Pharmacokinetics of Renally Excreted Drugs

Patients with liver diseases not only experience the adverse effects of liver-metabolized drugs, but also the unexpected adverse effects of renally excreted drugs. Bile acids alter the expression of renal drug transporters, however, the direct effects of bile acids on drug transport remain unknown. Renal drug transporter organic anion-transporting polypeptide 4C1 (OATP4C1) was reported to be inhibited by chenodeoxycholic acid. Therefore, we predicted that the inhibition of OATP4C1-mediated transport by bile acids might be a potential mechanism for the altered pharmacokinetics of renally excreted drugs. We screened 45 types of bile acids and calculated the IC₅₀, K_i values, and bile acid–drug interaction (BDI) indices of bile acids whose inhibitory effect on OATP4C1 was >50%. From the screening results, lithocholic acid (LCA), glycine-conjugated lithocholic acid (GLCA), and taurine-conjugated lithocholic acid (TLCA) were newly identified as inhibitors of OATP4C1. Since the BDI index of LCA was 0.278, LCA is likely to inhibit OATP4C1-mediated transport in clinical settings. Our findings suggest that dose adjustment of renally excreted drugs may be required in patients with renal failure as well as in patients with hepatic failure. We believe that our findings provide essential information for drug development and safe drug treatment in clinics.     

Current steel forgings and their properties for steam generator of nuclear power plant

Current steel forgings used for the construction of steam generators (SGs) for a nuclear power plant (NPP) were introduced from the following three (3) features. (1) Integral type steel forgings such as (i) primary head integrated with nozzles, manways and supports, (ii) steam drum head integrated with nozzle and handhole, (iii) conical shell integrated with cylindrical sections and handholes, have been developed to enhance the structural integrity of the component and to make fabrication and inspection including in-service inspection easier. (2) The high strength steel such as SA508 Cl.3a has been adopted to decrease the weight of components, resulting in enhancement of aseismatic properties of SG. (3) Low Si SA508 Cl.3 steel with the addition of Al was investigated and was applied to a heavy thick tube sheet forging, to minimize the macro- and micro-segregations in the ingot.     

The effect of molybdate anion on the ion-selectivity of hydrous ferric oxide films in chloride solutions

The ion-selective property of hydrous ferric oxide precipitate films has been investigated by measuring membrane potentials which arise across precipitate membranes of hydrous ferric oxide with and without adsorbed MoO₄^2? ions and of ferric molybdate in solutions of NaCl, KCl, MgCl₂, CaCl₂, BaCl₂, AlCl₃, and FeCl₃. The hydrous ferric oxide membrane was only permeable to Cl^? ions in chloride solutions, whereas the membrane with adsorbed MoO₄^2? ions was permeable to cations in NaCl and KCl solutions, and to both Cl^? and cations in the presence of multivalent cations. The ferric molybdate membrane was permeable to Cl^? and cations in NaCl and KCl solutions, and only to Cl^? ions in the presence of multivalent cations. It is suggested that in chloride solutions, the corrosion of iron covered with a precipitate film of hydrous ferric oxide is accelerated by enrichment of Cl^? ions under the film, which may decrease the local pH and introduce a positive diffusion potential in the film. The adsorption of MoO₄^2? ions on the oxide changes the ion-selectivity of the precipitate film from the anion-selective to the cation-selective in solutions of NaCl and KCl. This cation-selectivity of the film may inhibit the corrosion of iron, because of H⁺ ions diffusing out of the film. The inhibitive effect of MoO₄^2? ions would be reduced in the presence of multivalent cations.     

Highly efficient electrochemical valence control of uranium using microfluidic chip equipped with microelectrodes

We have developed a novel microchip equipped with a microchannel and Pt microelectrode array for electrochemically controlling valences of actinide (An) species. The square wave voltammograms of the redox reaction of potassium hexacyanoferrate(II) in the microchannel were measured. We found that the fabricated Pt microelectrode array has superior performances for the detection of the electrochemically active species in the microchannel. Therefore, the potentiostatic electrolysis experiments of uranium ions were carried out in the microchannel, and the concentration changes of uranium ions accompanied by the potentiostatic electrolysis were examined using thermal lens microscope. The results showed that the redox reactions between U(VI) and U(IV) can be performed completely in a microchannel in a few minutes, that is, the microscale reaction is accelerated by a factor of more than 10 compared with the bulk solution reactions taking hours mostly. The developed microchip was found to have enough performances for realizing rapid and highly efficient redox reactions for An species, which are impossible in the bulk reactions.     

Fabrication of Al matrix composite reinforced with submicrometer-sized Al<Subscript>2</Subscript>O<Subscript>3</Subscript> particles formed by combustion reaction between HEMM Al and V<Subscript>2</Subscript>O<Subscript>5</Subscript> composite particles during sintering

To fabricate an Al-V matrix composite reinforced with submicron-sized Al₂O₃ and Al_xV_y (Al₃V, Al₁₀V) phases, high energy mechanical milling (HEMM) and sintering were employed. By increasing the milling time, the size of mechanically milled powder was significantly reduced. In this study, the average powder size of 59 μm for Al, and 178 μm for V₂O₅ decreased with the formation of a new product, Al-Al₂O₃-Al_xV_y, with a size range from 1.3 μm to 2.6 μm formed by the in-situ combustion reaction during sintering of HEM milled Al and V₂O₅ composite powders. The in-situ reaction between Al and V₂O₅ during the HEMM and sintering transformed the Al₂O₃ and Al_xV_y (Al₃V, Al₁₀V) phases. Most of the reduced V reacted with excess the Al to form Al_xV_y (Al₃V, Al₁₀V) with very little V dissolved into Al matrix. By increasing the milling time and weight percentage of V₂O₅, the hardness of the Al-Al₂O₃-Al_xV_y composite sintered at 1173 K increased. The composite fabricated with the HEMM Al-20wt.%V₂O₅ composite powder and sintering at 1173 K for 2 h had the highest hardness.     

An Improvement Method of Matrix Converter Drives Under Input Voltage Disturbances

While the matrix converter has many advantages that include bidirectional power flow, a size reduction, a long lifetime, and sinusoidal input currents, it is vulnerable to the input voltage disturbances, because it directly exchanges the input voltage to the output voltage. The instantaneous effective power control (IEPC) method has been proposed to compensate the input voltage disturbances, in which the instantaneous effective power is kept constant by controlling input current. However, to date, no method has been proposed to maintain the stability of the system with the IEPC. The purpose of this paper is to propose a method to control the stability of the system with IEPC. First, this paper explains the IEPC theoretically. Next, a model of the system with the IEPC is developed, and stability analyses are conducted. Then, based on the results of the analyses, a stability control method for the system with the IEPC is proposed. Furthermore, the validities of the proposed method are demonstrated by simulation and experiments. Finally, a restart performance of the system after momentary power interruption is discussed. Because the IEPC does not need phase-locked-loop to detect the phase angle of the input voltage, fast restart is expected     

Enhanced centralized management of gateways using redirection-based rules sharing for mobile network virtualization

One of the current issues in the peer-to-peer streaming systems is to supply sufficient upload bandwidth for continuous streaming of high-quality video channels. The helpers as upload bandwidth boosters can improve the streaming capacity of system, so that the imbalance of upload bandwidth between different video channel overlays is compensated. With the deployment of helpers as an intermediate level between server and peers, building and maintaining the optimal peer-helper topology becomes a challenging task since the one-directional nature of video streaming from the helpers to users makes the well-known reciprocity-based algorithms useless. Because of selfish behavior of peers and lack of a central authority among them, selection of helpers requires implicit coordination. In this paper, we design a decentralized, stochastic approximation helper selection mechanism which is adaptable to supply and demand pattern of various video channels. Our regret-tracking-based solution for allowing peers to strategically exploit their shared resources is guaranteed to converge to the correlated equilibria (CE) among the helper selection strategies. Online convergence to the set of CE is achieved through the regret-tracking algorithm which tracks the equilibrium in the presence of stochastic dynamics of helpers’ bandwidth. The resulting CE can help to select proper cooperation policies. Simulation results demonstrate that our algorithm achieves good convergence, load distribution on helpers and sustainable streaming rates for peers.