Detailed Structure and Pathophysiological Roles of the IgA-Albumin Complex in Multiple Myeloma

Immunoglobulin A (IgA)-albumin complexes may be associated with pathophysiology of multiple myeloma, although the etiology is not clear. Detailed structural analyses of these protein–protein complexes may contribute to our understanding of the pathophysiology of this disease. We analyzed the structure of the IgA-albumin complex using various electrophoresis, mass spectrometry, and in silico techniques. The data based on the electrophoresis and mass spectrometry showed that IgA in the sera of patients was dimeric, linked via the J chain. Only dimeric IgA can bind to albumin molecules leading to IgA-albumin complexes, although both monomeric and dimeric forms of IgA were present in the sera. Molecular interaction analyses in silico implied that dimeric IgA and albumin interacted not only via disulfide bond formation, but also via noncovalent bonds. Disulfide bonds were predicted between Cys34 of albumin and Cys311 of IgA, resulting in an oxidized form of albumin. Furthermore, complex formation prolongs the half-life of IgA molecules in the IgA-albumin complex, leading to excessive glycation of IgA molecules and affects the accumulation of IgA in serum. These findings may demonstrate why complications such as hyperviscosity syndrome occur more often in patients with IgA dimer producing multiple myeloma.     

Smoke detection using time series property of texture features

We present a method of smoke detection using image sequences from a single camera on open areas under general environmental conditions. We combine several simple image processing techniques to detect smoke with texture analysis. First, moving objects are detected from gray‐scale image sequences. Then, the texture features are extracted. Finally, we determine the existence of smoke based on the time series property of those texture features. In the experiment, the performance is evaluated using real‐scene data. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The effect of the blockage ratio on the blow-off limit of a hydrogen/air flame in a planar micro-combustor with a bluff body

We recently developed a micro-combustor with a bluff body, which has a demonstrated 3- to 5-time extension in the blow-off limit. In the present work, the dimension effect of the bluff body on the blow-off limit (indicated by the blockage ratio, ζ) was investigated with a detailed H₂/O₂ reaction mechanism. The results indicate that the blow-off limits for ζ = 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5 are 20, 31 and 36 m/s, respectively. Analyses reveal that for ζ = 0.3, flame blowout occurs due to insufficient recirculation zone size. However, flame blowout occurs due to the stretching effect in the shear layers when ζ = 0.4 and 0.5. Calculations indicate that the three cases have negligible differences in heat loss because the high temperature zones are located in the combustor centers; therefore, their effects on the combustor walls are mitigated.     

Smoke detection in open areas with texture analysis and support vector machines

Early and certain fire detection is one of the important issues to keep infrastructures safe. Especially, it becomes an urgent problem for open places such as port facilities, large factories, and power plants, due to its large harmful effect to the surrounding areas. In these places, direct detection of fire or flame has some difficulties because they are open and hence have problem to set sensor devices. Therefore, smoke is an important and useful sign to detect fire or flames robustly even in such cases. In this paper, we present a novel smoke detection method based on image information. First, we extract moving objects in an image sequence as smoke candidate regions in a preprocessing step. Since smoke has a characteristic pattern as image information, we focus on the texture pattern of smoke. Here, we use texture analysis to extract feature vectors of the images. To classify extracted areas of moving objects to smoke or nonsmoke, we use support vector machines (SVMs) with texture features as an input feature vector. Extraction of moving objects is sometimes easily and greatly affected by environmental conditions such as wind, background objects, and so forth. It obviously causes bad classification results. To solve this problem, we additionally accumulate the results of classification with SVM about time to obtain accurate extraction result of smoke regions under these conditions. Experimental results using real‐scene data show that our method works effectively under several different environmental conditions. © 2012 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Decisive Interactions between the Heterocyclic Moiety and the Cluster Observed in Polyoxometalate-Surfactant Hybrid Crystals

Inorganic-organic hybrid crystals were successfully obtained as single crystals by using polyoxotungstate anion and cationic dodecylpyridazinium (C₁₂pda) and dodecylpyridinium (C₁₂py) surfactants. The decatungstate (W₁₀) anion was used as the inorganic component, and the crystal structures were compared. In the crystal comprising C₁₂pda (C₁₂pda-W₁₀), the heterocyclic moiety directly interacted with W₁₀, which contributed to a build-up of the crystal structure. On the other hand, the crystal consisting of C₁₂py (C₁₂py-W₁₀) had similar crystal packing and molecular arrangement to those in the W₁₀ crystal hybridized with other pyridinium surfactants. These results indicate the significance of the heterocyclic moiety of the surfactant to construct hybrid crystals with polyoxometalate anions.     

Diagnostic value of hemostatic parameters in bone marrow transplant-associated thrombotic microangiopathy

We investigated hemostatic parameters in a prospective study of 16 patients who received bone marrow transplants (BMT). We found a significant rise in the levels of fibrinogen, plasmin-alpha2 antiplasmin inhibitor complex, tissue-plasminogen activator.plasminogen activator inhibitor complex (t-PA.PAI), von Willebrand factor antigen, and thrombomodulin on day 14 after transplant compared with values before transplant. Protein C and thrombin-antithrombin III levels did not change significantly. No significant changes in prothrombin time ratio, activated partial thromboplastin time, or protein S were detected. Patients who had grades II-IV graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) (n = 6) showed a significantly higher level of t-PA.PAI on day 14 compared with those with grades 0-I GVHD (n = 10) (P = 0.0062). Three patients with grades II-IV GVHD developed thrombotic microangiopathy (TMA) on days 19, 19 and 62. In these patients, we noted significantly lower levels of fibrinogen (P = 0.0383), and significantly higher levels of t-PA.PAI (P = 0.0008) and thrombomodulin (P = 0.0001) on day 14 compared with those patients who did not develop TMA. These results suggest that prothrombotic states and endothelial damage may be caused by the conditioning regimen and/or acute GVHD during BMT; thrombomodulin values on day 14 post BMT may be useful in surveillance for TMA because of endothelial cell injury.     

Helicobacter pylori infection enhances N-methyl-N-nitrosourea-induced stomach carcinogenesis in the Mongolian gerbil

No previous report has demonstrated the relationship between Helicobacter pylori (HP) infection and gastric carcinogenesis in an experimental animal model. A total of 170 male Mongolian gerbils (MGs) were divided into nine groups (18 < or = n < or = 20 for each group). MGs of four groups were inoculated with HP before or after continuous N-methyl-N-nitrosourea (MNU) administration via the drinking water. Both intestinal-type and diffuse-type adenocarcinomas, including signet ring-cell carcinomas, were found at 40 weeks after the study commenced, but only in the HP inoculation groups with MNU exposure and not in the MNU alone or HP inoculation alone control groups. The present findings demonstrate that HP infection increases the incidence of MNU-induced adenocarcinoma of the glandular stomach in MGs.     

Regime diagrams and characteristics of flame patterns in radial microchannels with temperature gradients

Comprehensive regime diagrams of flame pattern formation in radial microchannels with temperature gradients were drawn based on experimental findings. A premixed methane–air mixture was introduced at the center of microchannels formed by two parallel circular quartz plates that were heated with an external porous burner to create a positive temperature gradient condition in the direction of flow. Combustion behavior in those microchannels at channel widths of 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, and 3.0 mm were experimentally investigated. Regime diagrams of various stable and unstable flame patterns were obtained, confirming that the flame pattern is a strong function of mixture equivalence ratio, inlet mixture velocity, and channel width. Furthermore, some combustion characteristics, such as the rotating frequency of the single pelton-like flame and the triple flame, the radius of the stable circular flame front, and comparison between the major combustion products of the single and double pelton-like flames, were also investigated.     

A novel intuitive GUI method for user-friendly operation

A novel push-pin icon is introduced as an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) in associations from free layouts of printed paper sheets on a pin-up board. It is shown that necessary commands for GUI implementation can be represented by push-pin states. Detailed state transition diagrams for the actual GUI implementation based on this icon are given. Superiority of the new GUI method to the conventional one was demonstrated through user evaluations both in objective and subjective tests. It is firmly believed by the authors that the use of the proposed method will significantly improve work efficiency of computer users.