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.     

Pharmacokinetic and clinical evaluation of azithromycin in pediatrics

Azithromycin (AZM), a new macrolide antibiotic, in fine granules and in capsules was administered at a standard dose of 10 mg/kg once daily for 3 days to pediatric patients with bacterial infections. AZM was studied for its pharmacokinetic and clinical evaluation. 1. AZM possessed potent activity against Gram-positive bacteria and Gram-negative bacteria that had been clinically isolated. 2. Plasma samples were collected from two patients diagnosed as having pneumonia or enteritis, and urine samples were collected from one patient diagnosed as having pneumonia for drug level determination. The drug concentrations in plasma were 0.095 and 0.204 microgram/ml just before the end of treatment, and 0.017 and 0.096 microgram/ml at 48 hours post-treatment. The drug concentrations in urine were 5.16 micrograms/ml and 5.63 micrograms/ml during a period between 24 and 48 hours and between 48 and 72 hours after the start of treatment, respectively. 3. The drug was found effective in 37 of 38 cases with various pediatric infections. AZM treatment eradicated bacteria in 17 of 30 strains (56.7%). 4. One patient complained of mild vomiting, while abnormal laboratory test results indicating mild eosinophilia were reported in four cases.     

Analysis of the IgE-epitope of Der f 2, a major mite allergen, by in vitro mutagenesis

Der f 2 is a major mite allergen composed of 129 amino acid residues. To determine the major epitopes on Der f 2 recognized by human IgE antibodies, artificial mutations were introduced to Der f 2 protein. The IgE-binding activity of Der f 2 was significantly decreased by deletion of 10 amino acids at the N-terminus or nine amino acids at the C-terminus. Site-directed mutagenesis with a single amino acid replacement by Ala or Leu in both N- and C-terminal regions as well as a central portion was performed to generate 42 single-site mutations. Amino acid replacement around a disulfide bond of Cys8-Cys119 caused a marked decrease in IgE-binding activity. Furthermore, a distinct decrease in IgE-binding was also caused by Ala-substitution close to a disulfide bond of Cys73-Cys78 and by mutations of a few charged residues. From these results, it was concluded that the two disulfide-forming regions of Der f 2 and several charged residues are important for forming major epitope structures recognized by human IgE antibodies.     

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.     

Software‐processed edge‐ and level‐adaptive overdrive (SELAO) method for high‐quality motion pictures

Abstract— In this paper, a software‐processed edge‐ and level‐adaptive overdrive (SELAO) method, which is a novel overdrive technique that utilizes not only a temporal change of gray levels but also a spatial edge intensity of motion pictures, is proposed. The SELAO method is a software video‐processing technology to improve motion‐picture quality rendered on LCDs more than is possible with a conventional SLAO method without edge‐adaptive overdrive, and it works in real time on commonly used personal computers (PCs).     

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.