Disseminated cutaneous nodules revealing gastric carcinoma

A 39-year-old Japanese male presented with multiple erythematous nodules on the head, face and trunk. Further investigations revealed a Borrmann type II gastric carcinoma and identified disseminated bone metastases. No other metastases of internal organs, including the liver and lungs, were clinically detected in this stage. This metastatic pattern is quite unusual.     

Determination of Arabidopsis floral meristem identity by AGAMOUS

Determinate growth of floral meristems in Arabidopsis requires the function of the floral regulatory gene AGAMOUS (AG). Expression of AG mRNA in the central region of floral meristems relies on the partially overlapping functions of the LEAFY (LFY) and APETALA1 (AP1) genes, which promote initial floral meristem identity. Here, we provide evidence that AG function is required for the final definition of floral meristem identity and that constitutive AG function can promote, independent of LFY and AP1 functions, the determinate floral state in the center of reproductive meristems. Loss-of-function analysis showed that the indeterminate central region of the ag mutant floral meristem undergoes conversion to an inflorescence meristem when long-day-dependent flowering stimulus is removed. Furthermore, gain-of-function analysis demonstrated that ectopic AG function results in precocious flowering and the formation of terminal flowers at apices of both the primary inflorescence and axillary branches of transgenic Arabidopsis plants in which AG expression is under the control of the 35S promoter from cauliflower mosaic virus. Similar phenotypes were also observed in lfy ap1 double mutants carrying a 35S-AG transgene. Together, these results indicate that AG is a principal developmental switch that controls the transition of meristem activity from indeterminate to determinate.     

Exponential stability of a class of nonlinear dynamical systems with uncertainties

Exponential stability for a class of nonlinear dynamical systems with uncertainties is investigated. Based on the stability of the nominal systems, a new approach to synthesizing a class of continuous state feedback controllers for uncertain nonlinear dynamical systems is proposed. By such a class of feedback controllers, we can guarantee exponential stability of uncertain nonlinear dynamical systems. Our approach can give a clear insight into system analysis. Finally, an illustrative example is given to demonstrate the utilization of the approach developed in this paper.     

GABAA receptor beta 2 and beta 3 subunits mRNA in the hippocampal formation of aged human brain with Alzheimer-related neuropathology

Our work on the role of glutamate in Alzheimer's disease (AD)-related neuronal vulnerability and death provided significant insight into the potential contribution of the gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) neurotransmitter system as it participates in countering the neurotoxic effects of excessive glutamate receptor stimulation. Our previous studies demonstrate that beta2/3 GABAA receptor subunit immunoreactivity is relatively well preserved in hippocampi with AD pathology. To further elucidate the molecular basis for this observation, we employed in situ hybridization histochemistry to examine the levels of beta2 and beta3 receptor subunit mRNAs in the hippocampus of 19 elderly subjects presenting with a broad range of pathologic severity (i.e., Braak stage I-VI). Semi-quantitative analysis with film autoradiograms revealed that beta2 mRNA signal was highest in the granule cell layer, CA2 and CA1 subfields, while beta3 mRNA hybridization was highest in the granule cell layer, followed by CA2>/=CA3>/=CA1 regions. No significant difference in beta2 mRNA expression was detected among the pathologically mild, moderate or severe groups. In contrast, levels of beta3 mRNA in the pathologically severe group was significantly decreased compared to the mild group within all subregions examined except CA4. Our data suggest that alterations in the expression of GABAA receptor subunits in the AD hippocampus differ between specific receptor subunits with the amount of beta2 mRNA being relatively well-preserved, while beta3 mRNA levels were decreased.     

A Petrov-Galerkin finite element method for convection-dominated flows: An accurate upwinding technique for satisfying the maximum principle

In this paper we present a new Petrov-Galerkin method for convection-dominated flow problems which is conservative and satisfies the discrete maximum principle. This method also possesses no spurious crosswind diffusion and gives very accurate solutions. The method is representative of a class of methods which may be described as ‘fixed-mesh adaptive’.     

Simultaneous alignment of optical axes by monitoring reflected light from core and cladding

We propose a method of aligning optical axes by monitoring reflected light from the core and the cladding at the coupling end. This method enables the simultaneous alignment of optical axes at multiple coupling ends because it is not necessary to monitor the transmitted light through the couplings. Experimental results show that this method can be used for coupling between cleaved single-mode fibers and between fibers with slant ends. The simultaneous alignment of two coupling ends is also achieved, and it is shown to obtain the optical power transmitted through the coupling, which is enough to begin the precise alignment. Moreover, we confirm fundamentally that one can use this method for precise alignment of optical axes by monitoring the optical beam profiles of the reflected light.