Preparation and Intestinal Immunostimulating Activity of Low Molecular Weight Alginate from Saccharina (Laminaria) Species in Japan

We studied the structure of alginates extracted from five commercial Saccharina (Laminaria) species including three varieties (eight samples in all) harvested in Hokkaido, Japan. The algae used were Saccharina japonica, S. japonica var. diabolica, S. japonica var. ochotensis, S. japonica var. religiosa, S. longissima, S. coriacea, S. angustata, and S. sculpera (Kjellmaniella crassiforia). These alginates have molar fractions of mannuronic acid (F_M) ranging from 0.68 to 0.76 and weight average molecular weights (M_ws) ranging from 511,000 to 616,000. Alginate samples from both S. angustata (F_M = 0.76) and S. longissima (F_M = 0.68) showed intestinal immunological activity through Peyer’s patch cells of C3H/HeJ mice. Low molecular weight S. angustata alginate (F_M = 0.75, M_w = 70,000) degraded using a wet pulverizing system showed higher activity than the native one.     

High capacitance B/C/N composites for capacitor electrodes synthesized by a simple method

The B/C/N composites were synthesized by a very simple method, that is, carbonization at HTT = 800-1200 °C of the precursor prepared by drying a solution mixture of polyacrylamide and boric acid, followed by boiling in water to remove borate by-products. The amount of insoluble B species in the composite increased linearly from 4.8 to 18.6 mass% with raising HTT. The XRD and FT-IR revealed that turbostratic h-BN started to form at around 1000 °C as a by-product. By XPS, major B and N components in the composite were B-N bond, C-B-O type B, pyridinic N, pyrrolic N, and quaternary N. A fraction for B-N bond including h-BN in the total B or N components increased with raising HTT and it exceeded 50 at% between 900 and 1000 °C. It was suggested that in the composites formed at HTT > 1000 °C the amounts of h-BN increased, leading to reduction in other B and N components. The S_BET was almost unchanged up to 1000 °C, 410-420 m² g⁻¹. Large and broad redox peaks arisen from plural reactions appeared in the cyclic voltammogram (CV) measured in 1 mol dm⁻³ H₂SO₄ for the composites formed at HTT ≤ 1000 °C. These peaks disappeared in 1 mol dm⁻³ solutions of Na₂SO₄ and Li₂SO₄. By comparing CV with that for C/N composite formed from PAA by the MgO template method, the pseudo-capacitance owing to reactions of B-N and C-B-O components with protons was found to be added to commonly observed pseudo-capacitance for nitrogen-doped carbons. The capacitances for the composites formed at 850-950 °C exceeded 300 F g⁻¹ at 2 mV s⁻¹ in the acid electrolyte and the retention at 50 mV s⁻¹ was 78-80%. The shape of CV in the neutral electrolytes was trapezoid and the current density increased with lowering potential, suggesting adsorption and desorption of Na⁺ and Li⁺ ions. This was considered to be due to doped nitrogen, indicating the development of pseudo-capacitance. The capacitance per S_BET was 0.33-0.74 F m⁻² and 0.17-0.32 F m⁻², larger for lower HTT, in the acid and neutral electrolytes, respectively.     

Adaptive removable visible watermarking technique using dual watermarking for digital color images

This paper proposes a removable visible watermarking system based on a dual watermark technique and blind removal. A visible watermark pattern is embedded in the cosine discrete transform (DCT) domain, taking into consideration the texture and luminance features of the watermark and host images to create a visible watermarked image. To prevent illegal visible watermark removal, the original watermark is embedded in an invisible manner in the visible watermarked image by employing the Quantization Index Modulation-Dither Modulation (QIM-DM) technique, thus ensuring that the original watermark cannot be obtained by malicious attacks. The visible watermark removal process is carried out using only the correct user’s keys, without the need for additional information, such as the original watermark or the original host image, which allows a high-quality image to be obtained; however, if the user’s keys used in the removal process are wrong, the visible watermarked image suffers higher distortion in its content, even in non-visible watermarked regions. The experimental results show that the proposed system outperforms previous related works in terms of blind removal, preservation of the quality of the unmarked recovered image, and higher visual degradation of the content in the recovered image if an illegal removal attempt is performed.     

A view-invariant gait recognition algorithm based on a joint-direct linear discriminant analysis

This paper proposes a view-invariant gait recognition algorithm, which builds a unique view invariant model taking advantage of the dimensionality reduction provided by the Direct Linear Discriminant Analysis (DLDA). Proposed scheme is able to reduce the under-sampling problem (USP) that appears usually when the number of training samples is much smaller than the dimension of the feature space. Proposed approach uses the Gait Energy Images (GEIs) and DLDA to create a view invariant model that is able to determine with high accuracy the identity of the person under analysis independently of incoming angles. Evaluation results show that the proposed scheme provides a recognition performance quite independent of the view angles and higher accuracy compared with other previously proposed gait recognition methods, in terms of computational complexity and recognition accuracy.     

Effects of isocyanuric acid on the monochlorodimedone chlorinating rates with free chlorine and ammonia chloramine in water

Changes in monochlorodimedone (MCD) chlorinating rates with free chlorine (mixture of HOCl and OCl-) and ammonia monochloramine (NH2Cl) in water at pH 7 by the addition of isocyanuric acid (H3Cy) were determined at room temperature. Decreases in MCD absorbance at 290nm in equimolar (0.04mM) reactions of MCD and free available chlorine solutions containing H3Cy (0.01-1.60 mM) were recorded in a stopped-flow spectrophotometer. The rates indicate second-order reactions. Since the rate with free chlorine was high (> 7.6 x 10(6) M(-1) s(-1)), the amounts of free chlorine in the solutions could be distinguished from that of chlorinated cyanurates. The chlorinating rates with chlorinated cyanurates decreased with an increase in H3Cy concentrations. Plotting the rates against the molar ratio of chlorine to H3Cy showed a linear correlation and the rates with chlorinated cyanurates (H2ClCy) was estimated at 0.5 x 10(5) M(-1) s(-1). In contrast, the rates with the NH2Cl solution containing H3Cy increased with an increase in H3Cy concentrations, increasing from 1.2 x 10 to 2.7 x 10 M(-1) s(-1) by the addition of 1.55 mM H3Cy. The DPD color development rates (OD512/t1/2/M) with free available chlorine (0.015mM) declined from 1.3 x 10(5) to 0.9 x 10(5)M(-1) by the addition of 0.61 mM H3Cy.     

Sex hormonal modulation of hyperbolic discount factor in men.

Hormones in the brain have many types of visceral influences on social behavior and economic decision-making. Although hormone-associated visceral effects attract attention in neuroeconomics, little is known regarding the relationship between sex hormones and hyperbolic discounting. Furthermore, although the “discount factor” (a parameter indicating patience in intertemporal choice) is economically relevant and has neural correlates, most neuroeconomic studies on intertemporal choice have been focusing on neuromodulation of logged discount rates, which sometimes results in difficulty in interpretation. This study was aimed to examine linear correlations between chronic sex hormone levels and hyperbolic discount factors of gains and losses in healthy male students. Participants’ salivary sex hormone (testosterone) levels were also assessed. We observed a positive linear relationship between testosterone levels and hyperbolic discount factor of gains; while no linear relationship between testosterone levels and discount factor of losses was observed. The results indicate that (i) chronic elevation in testosterone may be associated with patience (indicated by a discount factor) in intertemporal choice on gains, (ii) testosterone is unrelated to discounting of delayed losses. Implications for sex hormone-related visceral effects on problematic decision-making (e.g. addiction) and possible neuroendocrinological mechanism (e.g. conversion of testosterone into female hormones in the brain) are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Detection of six single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with rheumatoid arthritis by a loop-mediated isothermal amplification method and an electrochemical DNA chip

An electrochemical DNA chip using an electrochemically active intercalator and DNA probe immobilized on a gold electrode has been developed for genetic analysis. In this study, the six polymorphisms associated with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), N-acetyltransferase2 (NAT2) gene polymorphisms T341C, G590A, and G857A, methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) gene polymorphisms C677T and A1298C, and serum amyloid A1 (SAA1) gene promoter polymorphism C-13T were simultaneously detected by the electrochemical DNA chip and the loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) method, which is a novel technique for DNA amplification. Human genomic DNAs were extracted from blood, and the targets containing the six polymorphisms were amplified by the LAMP method. A sample containing the six LAMP products was reacted with the electrochemical DNA chip using a DNA detection system that controls hybridization reaction, washing, electrochemical detection, and data analysis automatically. A total of 31 samples were genotyped by this method, and the results were completely consistent with those determined by the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) analysis or the PCR direct sequence analysis. The time required for this method was only 2 h, and operations were very simple. Therefore, this method is expected to contribute to personalized medicine based on genotype.