Transporters in the neurohypophysial neuroendocrine system, with special reference to vesicular glutamate transporters (BNPI and DNPI): a review.

Recent advances in gene technology have helped to identify novel proteins and allowed study of their distribution and functions in the mammalian brain. One class of these proteins is that of transporters, which exist in plasma and organellar membranes of neurons and other cells to move substances selectively across membranes. These transporters can be categorized further into subclasses by their structural property, substrate selectivity, and site of action. Some of them have been identified in the hypothalamus, which is the only brain site where a neural signal is converted to a humoral one, namely, a hormone for a target organ. This unique neural mechanism has long attracted attention as the neuroendocrine system, part of which has been extensively studied as the hypothalamic-neurohypophysial system involved in secretion of vasopressin and oxytocin. However, transporters in this system have been less well studied. A morphological examination of novel transporters would give us cues to a better understanding of the neuronal organization and function of the system. In this review, we first summarize recent findings on expression of transporter gene and immunoreactivity in the hypothalamus. In the second part, we explain our observations on two vesicular glutamate (inorganic phosphate) transporters (BNPI and DNPI) in the supraoptic and paraventricular nuclei and neurohypophysis. Further study of these and other transporters will provide a basis on which to reevaluate the organization and function of the hypothalamic-neurohypophysial system.     

Gas absorption accompanied by an instantaneous irreversible reaction in laminar falling films of pseudoplastic liquids

Gas absorption accompanied by an instantaneous irreversible chemical reaction into laminar falling films of power-law liquids was studied theoretically. The convective-diffusion equations for a solute gas and a liquid-phase reactant were solved numerically and the numerical solution for the reaction factor was obtained as a function of the Graetz number, the concentration ratio, the diffusivity ratio and the power-law index of the liquid.     

Evolutionary design of dynamic neural networks for evaporator control

This paper presents a novel neural network (NN) to control an ammonia refrigerant evaporator. Inspired by the latest findings on the biological neuron, a dynamic synaptic unit (DSU) is proposed to enhance the information processing capacity of artificial neurons. Treating the dynamic synaptic activity after the nonlinear somatic activity helps to capture the dynamics demarcated by the Gaussian activation pertaining to the input space. This practice leads to a remarkable reduction in curse of dimensionality. The proposed NN architecture has been compared with two other conventional architectures; one with dynamic neural units (DNUs) and the other with nonlinear static functions as perceptrons. The objective is to control evaporator heat flow rate and secondary fluid outlet temperature while keeping the degree of refrigerant superheat in the range 4–7 K at the evaporator outlet by manipulating refrigerant and evaporator secondary fluid flow rates. The drawbacks of conventional approaches to this problem are discussed, and how the novel method can overcome them are presented. An evolutionary approach is adopted to optimize the parameters of the NN controllers. Then evaporator process model is accomplished as a combination of governing equations and a sub NN resulting in a simple and sufficiently accurate model. The effectiveness of the proposed dynamic NN controller for the evaporator system model is validated using experimental data from the ammonia refrigeration plant.     

Hydrogen absorption by Pd-coated ZrNi prepared by using Barrel-Sputtering System

To improve the durability of hydrogen storage materials against surface poisoning by impurity gases, effectiveness of Pd-coating layer prepared by using a Barrel-Sputtering System was examined for ZrNi powder. The effectiveness of Pd-coating was evaluated by activation temperature, at which Pd/ZrNi poisoned by air could be activated to absorb hydrogen. Characterization of Pd-coated ZrNi (denoted as Pd/ZrNi) by scanning electron microscopy, electron probe microanalysis and X-ray diffraction showed that a uniform Pd-coating layer was formed with the barrel-sputtering system. It was found that the poisoned Pd/ZrNi sample could be activated even at 423 K to absorb hydrogen at room temperature. This exhibits remarkable contrast to bare ZrNi, which could be only activated appreciably above 1073 K. It is concluded that the Pd-coating by barrel sputtering is quite effective to avoid the effect of surface poisoning of powdery hydrogen storage materials. However, the activation at excessively high temperature resulted in the loss of high activity to absorb hydrogen. It was concluded that this phenomenon was associated with reactions between Pd and ZrNi to form PdZr and other byproducts.     

Evaluation of intraductal ultrasonography in the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer

An intraductal ultrasound (IDUS) probe which is inserted via the papilla into the main pancreatic duct (MPD) was evaluated in the diagnosis of 20 patients with pancreatic cancer. The examination was successfully performed with the probe in 17 of the patients (85%). Due to its high frequency (30 MHz) the probe only allowed visualization of the ductal wall and the immediate periductal vicinity (up to about 10 mm). In 15 of the 20 patients the tumors were surgically resected and IDUS scanning was also performed in vitro on the resection specimens, the results being compared to those of histopathological examination. Of these 15 patients, 13 were found to have ductal adenocarcinomas and all but one had been unequivocally diagnosed as having such by ultrasonography (US), computed tomography (CT), endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) and endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS). IDUS showed an echorich area (corresponding to cancerous canaliculi on histopathological examination), surrounded by an echopoor area (abundant stroma). This pattern was classified as type I. In two patients with intraductal papillary carcinomas in whom a conclusive diagnosis was not established on US, CT, EUS or ERCP, IDUS showed tumorous tissue with an inhomogeneous echopattern outside (type II) or within (type III) the duct. These results show that IDUS offers valuable diagnostic information complementary to ERCP especially in cases of intraductal papillary tumors. Whether the high resolution imaging of the duct and the paraductal tissue can be used to differentiate between the different forms of pancreatic lesions (inflammation, neoplasms) has to be investigated further.     

Accelerator Analysis of Tributyltin Adsorbed onto the Surface of a Tributyltin Resistant Marine Pseudoalteromonas sp. Cell

Tributyltin (TBT) released into seawater from ship hulls is a stable marine pollutant and obviously remains in marine environments. We isolated a TBT resistant marine Pseudoalteromonas sp. TBT1 from sediment of a ship’s ballast water. The isolate (10^{9.3 ± 0.2} colony-forming units mL⁻¹) adsorbed TBT in proportion to the concentrations of TBTCl externally added up to 3 mM, where the number of TBT adsorbed by a single cell was estimated to be 10^8.2. The value was reduced to about one-fifth when the lysozyme-treated cells were used. The surface of ethanol treated cells became rough, but the capacity of TBT adsorption was the same as that for native cells. These results indicate that the function of the cell surface, rather than that structure, plays an important role to the adsorption of TBT. The adsorption state of TBT seems to be multi-layer when the number of more than 10^6.8 TBT molecules is adsorbed by a single cell.     

Changes of biochemical markers during fracture healing

Clinical diagnosis of canine nasal mite (Pneumonyssoides caninum) infection is difficult due to the mite's location in the caudal nasal cavity and frontal sinuses. The current study was performed to evaluate the efficacy of milbemycin oxime in treating dogs with nasal mite infection. A prospective open uncontrolled study included 20 dogs with case histories indicating possible nasal mite infection. Inclusion criteria consisted of either nasal mites being demonstrated (group 1, four dogs), or suspicious clinical signs with no other apparent causes, combined with eosinophilia (group 2, 16 dogs). Milbemycin oxime 1 mg/kg was given orally three times at 10-day intervals. In 17 (85 per cent) dogs, clinical signs resolved completely following milbemycin therapy; within 10 days of the first treatment in 13 cases (group 1, four dogs; group 2, nine dogs) and within 14 days in four cases. In the remaining three dogs clinical signs persisted but were diminished.     

Hyper-gourd theory: solving simultaneously the mysteries in particle physics, biology, oncology, neurology, economics, and cosmology

The inevitability of various particle masses for hadrons, quarks, leptons, atoms, biological molecules, liquid droplets of fossil fuel and water, living cells including microorganisms and cancers, multi-cellar systems such as organs, neural systems, and the brain, stars, galaxies, and the cosmos is synthetically revealed. This is possible because each flexible particle is commonly generated by a mode in which a larger particle breaks up into two smaller ones through a gourd shape with two lumps. These masses, sizes, frequencies, and diversity dominated by super-magic numbers including the silver ratio, in fractal nature can be derived by the fusion of the quasi-stability principle defined between absolute instability and neutral stability, the indeterminacy principle extended for quantum, statistical, and continuum mechanics, and the spherical Lie group theory. The analyses also result in a new mathematical definition of living beings and non-living systems and further explain the standard network patterns of various particles and also the relation between information, structure, and function, because the proposed theory based on gourds posits a new hyper-interdisciplinary physics that explains a very wide range of scales, while the Newton, Schr?dinger, and Boltzmann equations describe only a narrow range of scales.     

Sialon formation by Si+ and N2 + ion implantation into sapphire

Single-crystal alumina was implanted firstly with 400 keV Si⁺ and subsequently with N₂ ⁺ ions and then annealed at 1673 K in an No atmosphre. The implanted layers were characterized by means of X-ray diffraction, Rutherford backscattering-channelling of 2 MeV He⁺ ions, and the resonance nuclear reaction¹⁵N(p,)¹²C. The annealing of sapphire implanted at ambient temperature resulted in the formation of-sialon, a solid solution of-silicon nitride and alumina in the subsurface layer, while implantation at 100 K resulted in the formation of aluminium oxynitride in the surface layer. In the latter case, the implanted silicon atoms were believed not to react vxi1h the implanted nitrogen atoms but with the substrate oxygen atoms. These crystalline precipitates were found to have epitaxial relations with the sapphire substrate.