We investigated the effect of the water extract of Cordyceps sinensis (WECS) on liver metastasis of Lewis lung carcinoma () and B16 melanoma (B16) cells in mice. C57BL/6 mice were given a s.c. injection of and B16 cells and sacrificed 20 and 26 days after tumor inoculation, respectively. WECS was daily administered p.o. to the mice in a dose of 100 mg/kg body weight (wt.) in the experiment of and in a dose of 100 or 200 mg/kg body wt. in the experiment of B16 from one week before tumor inoculation to one day before the date of sacrifice. The tumor cells increased in the thigh in -inoculated mice and in the footpad in B16-inoculated mice. The relative liver wt. of the tumor-inoculated mice significantly increased as compared to that of the normal mice due to the tumor metastasis, as verified by the hematoxylin-eosin staining pathological study in the experiment. The relative liver wt. of the WECS-administered mice significantly decreased relative to that of the control mice in both the and B16 experiments. WECS showed a strong cytotoxicity against and B16 cells, while cordycepin (3′-deoxy- adenosine), an active component of WECS, was not cytotoxic against these cells. These findings suggest that WECS has an anti-metastatic activity that is probably due to components other than cordycepin.

抄録全体を表示

A perspective on the current US Electrical Power Industry situation is provided. The main topics are : Most of the large increase in US generation capacity over the past 40 years was accomplished in several major building time periods that includes a surge of combustion turbine/combined cycle capacity during the past three years Future annual peak and total energy growth is expected to be less than in the past five years. Natural gas pricing was low for the past 10 years, but may become more expensive in the future. Coal and nuclear fuel prices have declined and are expected to be remain nearly constant in the future. US Environmental Agency mandated emissions reductions have substantially reduced the environmental impact of new and existing units. However, the trend for future additional reductions continues; especially for mercury and small particulate emissions. Currently there are a significant number of transmission lines operating near capacity. Eliminating these capacity restrictions is important to electricity supply reliability and pricing. Current generation reserve margins and diversity of supply should result in reliable service and slow rates of electricity price increases.

抄録全体を表示

In the previous study, we prepared phosphatidylcholine (PC) liposomes and phosphatidylserine (PS)-containing PC/PS liposomes, and investigated the uptake characteristics of lipophilic organic cations. The uptake of bisoprolol into PC/PS liposomes was significantly greater than that into PC liposomes. In the present study, we prepared the 5-component liposomes containing PC, PS, phosphatidylethanolamine, sphingomyelin, and cholesterol, and compared the uptake characteristics of lipophilic organic cations into the liposomes with that into porcine kidney

-PK₁ cells. The uptake of flecainide was significantly inhibited by lipophilic diphenhydramine (DPH) both in 5-component liposomes and in -PK₁ cells, but not by hydrophilic tetraethylammonium. The 50％ inhibitory concentration (IC₅₀ value) for the DPH-sensitive uptake of flecainide was 1.08 mM and 657 µM in the 5-component liposomes and -PK₁ cells, respectively. In addition, the uptake of the various 11 cationic compounds both into the 5-component liposomes and into -PK₁ cells was significantly correlated with their lipophilicity (Log D) values and their polar surface area (Log PSA) values. Collectively, the uptake characteristics of lipophilic cations in the 5-component liposomes was considerably similar to that of the postulated H⁺/lipophilic cation antiport system in -PK₁ cells.

抄録全体を表示

It has been proven that interleukin-15 (IL-15) has structural and functional features similar to those of interleukin-2 (IL-2). In this study we examined the anti-tumor effect of IL-15 using an adenoviral vector in a mouse model. We constructed an adenoviral vector expressing the IL-15 gene, and introduced it into a mouse Lewis lung carcinoma () cell line. Then we inoculated pulmonary tissue of a syngeneic mouse strain (C57BU6 CR) with the IL-15 gene-expressing cells (/IL-15). At the early phase (Day 14), a large number of NK cells accumulated around the IL-15 expressing tumors. At the late phase (Day 28), a much larger number of NK cells had accumulated around the tumors and quite a few NK cells had invaded the IL-15 expressing tumors. The /IL-15-inoculated group survived significantly longer compared to the control groups, i.e., a group inoculated with LacZ gene-expressing cells or a group inoculated with IL-2 gene-expressing cells. After 60 days, the surviving mice of the /IL-15-inoculated group were re-challenged with an additional inoculation of cells alone. Tumor growth was significantly inhibited in the rechallenged /IL-15 group. Induction of cytotoxic T cells was confirmed by interferon-γ production by splenocytes. We concluded that the IL-15 expressed in the IL-15 expressing tumor cells enhanced the accumulation of NK cells and activated them, leading to suppression of proliferation of the tumor cells.

抄録全体を表示

Recently, locality-constrained linear coding () as a coding strategy has attracted much attention, due to its better reconstruction than sparse coding and vector quantization. However, ignores the weight information of codewords during the coding stage, and assumes that every selected base has same credibility, even if their weights are different. To further improve the discriminative power of code, we propose a weighted algorithm that considers the codeword weight information. Experiments on the KTH and UCF datasets show that the recognition system based on WLLC achieves better performance than that based on the classical and VQ, and outperforms the recent classical systems.

抄録全体を表示

The shared last level cache (SLLC) in tile chip multiprocessors (TCMP) provides a low off-chip miss rate, but it causes a long on-chip access latency. In the two-level cache hierarchy, data replication stores replicas of L1 victims in the local

(L2 cache) to obtain a short local access latency on the next accesses. Many data replication mechanisms have been proposed, but they do not consider both L1 victim reuse behaviors and replica reception capability. They either produce many useless replicas or increase pressure, which limits the improvement of system performance. In this paper, we propose a two-level cache aware adaptive data replication mechanism (TCDR), which controls replication based on both L1 victim reuse behaviors prediction and replica reception capability monitoring. TCDR not only increases the accuracy of L1 replica selection, but also avoids the pressure of replication on . The results show that TCDR improves the system performance with reasonable hardware overhead.

抄録全体を表示

Long Life Coolant (

), which has been used as a coolant for an automobile engine, is also expected as a coolant for a next generation SiC inverter. In this study, subcooled flow boiling heat transfer characteristics of heated by a SiC device are discussed under high heat flux conditions in order to clarify the applicability of to the cooling system with boiling heat transfer. The subcooled flow boiling heat transfer performance in a narrow channel is evaluated using TOYOTA at the concentration of 30 vol% and distilled water. Although the heat transfer coefficient of TOYOTA is approximately 1/2 lower than that of distilled water at the heat flux of 300W/cm² and the flow velocity of 1.0 m/s, it is confirmed that the maximum heat flux exceeds 300 W/cm² for all the flow velocities in our experiments.

抄録全体を表示

[Purpose] The purpose of this study was to evaluate the correlation between the lumbar lordosis curve () and temperature differences of the lower extremity regions in lumbar herniated nucleus pulposus (L-HNP) cases. [Subjects] We divided the study subjects into patients with L-HNP (n=15) and normal persons (n=15). [Methods] Both the L-HNP group and control group were measured for and temperature differences of the lower extremity regions by X-ray and digital infrared thermal imaging (DITI). [Results] The and temperature differences of the lower extremity regions of the L-HNP group were significantly different from the control group. The and temperature differences of the lower extremity regions of the L-HNP group showed strong positive correlations. [Conclusion] We found that as the decreased, the difference in the temperature of the lower extremity regions in the L-HNP cases increased.

抄録全体を表示

The effects of 3, 3', 4, 4', 5-pentachlorobiphenyl (PCB-126), which is the most toxic congener of coplanar polychlorinated biphenyls (Co-PCBs), on intracellular accumulation and transepithelial transport of vinblastine were examined in porcine kidney cells, -PK1, and its transformant cells expressing human P-glycoprotein (-MDR1). The accumulation decreased less than one-tenth in -MDR1 compared to -PK1. In both cells, the accumulation increased with the addition of PCB-126 and cyclosporine A (CYA), which are P-glycoprotein modulators, though the magnitudes were different in these two cell groups as well as for these two chemicals. Thus, PCB-126 might inhibit extrusion of vinblastine through the drug extrusion system as does CYA. In both the cells, there might be an endogenous drug extrusion system other than P-glycoprotein that was inhibited by CYA or PCB-126. The net basal-to-apical transepithelial transport of vinblastine increased 1.7-fold more in -MDR1 than in -PK1. By adding PCB-126 on the apical side, the transport was greatly decreased by -76% in the monolayer of both cells. By adding PCB-126 and CYA on the basal side in -MDR1 monolayer, the transports increased -1.7-fold, so that PCB-126 might inhibit the extrusion of vinblastine on both the apical and basal sides. One of the causes to be considered for the adverse effects of Co-PCBs, in addition to the binding with an aryl hydrocarbon receptor, might be the modification of drug transport by its interaction with the drug transport system.

抄録全体を表示

One thousand autopsy cases were studied in regard to the clinico-pathological factors influencing renal crystalline deposition. Cases with calcium oxalate crystals (CaOX group) were 67, cases with leucine like crystals ( group) were 105, and cases with CaOX+ were 28.1. Significant factors found through 3 groups were oliguria, albuminuria, anemia, decrease of Ht, increased erythrocyte sedimentation rate, hypoalbuminemia, increased serum α₂-gl, disturbances of liver function, hypocalcemia, azotemia, decreased PSP excretion, blood transfusions, supplemental fluids of large amounts, vitamins, diuretics, antibiotics, and surgical operations.2. Oliguria, albuminuria, anemia, azotemia, supplemental fluids of large amounts, diuretics, and surgical operations were found in markedly high incidences in all 3 groups. These factors seemed to be the important and common causes to/or results of/the renal tubular degeneration.3. In the CaOX group, disturbances of the renal function such as alubuminuria, abnormalities in urinary sediments, increased serum α₂-gl, azotemia and decreased PSP excretion were marked, and a close relationship between CaOX deposition and renal diseases was supposed. In the group, disturbances of the liver functions such as bilirubinuria, jaundice and increased GOT was significant and influence of liver diseases upon deposition was considered. In the CaOX+ group, the findings were roughly intermediate between those in the CaOX and groups. These findings perfectly coincided with pathological findings already reported by the author.4. This is the first report studied on the factors for renal CaOX and depositon respectively.

抄録全体を表示

We investigated the effects of a protein kinase C inhibitor and a tyrosine kinase inhibitor on the cellular injury induced by cephaloridine in an established renal epithelial cell line, -PK₁. Cephaloridine increased the leakage of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) from -PK₁ cells into the medium and also caused an increase in the level of lipid peroxide (index of oxidative stress) in the cells. Treatment of the cells with a hydroxyl radical scavenger, dimethylthiourea (DMTU), inhibited the increases in LDH leakage and lipid peroxidation in -PK₁ cells exposed to cephaloridine. A protein kinase C inhibitor, H-7, and tyrosine kinase inhibitors, genistein and lavendustinA, inhibited the increases in LDH leakage and lipid peroxidation in -PK₁ cells exposed to cephaloridine. These results suggest that a signaling pathway which involves protein kinase C and tyrosine kinase plays a role in the generation of reactive oxygen species in -PK₁ cells damaged by cephaloridine.

抄録全体を表示

The aim of this study was to characterize injuries of -PK₁ and MDCK cells exposed to hypoxia and reoxygenation. Exposure of -PK₁ cells to hypoxia reduced the ATP contents and increased the leakage of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), but MDCK cells had no such injuries. Hypoxia-reoxygenation of -PK₁ cells dramatically increased LDH leakage, which was suppressed by free radical scavengers, N, N'' diphenyl p-phenylenediamine, superoxide dismutase and N, N'' dimethylthiourea. These results suggest that use of -PK₁ cells has advantages for the investigation of ischemia-reperfusion injury of the kidney as an in vitro model and that generation of oxygen radicals is involved in the cellular injury induced by hypoxia-reoxygenation.

抄録全体を表示

This paper introduces a simple but effective way to boost the performance of scene classification through a novel approach to the coding process. In our proposed method, a local descriptor is encoded not only with k-nearest visual words but also with k-farthest visual words to produce more discriminative code. Since the proposed method is a simple modification of the image classification model, it can be easily integrated into various existing BoF models proposed in various areas, such as coding, pooling, to boost their scene classification performance. The results of experiments conducted with three scene datasets: 15-Scenes, MIT-Indoor67, and Sun367 show that adding k-farthest visual words better enhances scene classification performance than increasing the number of k-nearest visual words.

抄録全体を表示

Non-Volatile Memories (NVMs) are considered as promising memory technologies for Last-Level Cache () due to their low leakage and high density. However, NVMs have some drawbacks such as high dynamic energy in modifying NVM cells, long latency for write operation, and limited write endurance. A number of approaches have been proposed to overcome these drawbacks. But very little attention is paid to consider the cache coherency issue. In this letter, we suggest a new cache coherence protocol to reduce the write operations of the . In our protocol, the block data of the is updated only if the cache block is written-back from a private cache, which leads to avoiding useless write operations in the . The simulation results show that our protocol provides 27.1% energy savings and 26.3% lifetime improvements in STT-RAM at maximum.

抄録全体を表示

The design of the resonant converter is presented for use in Electric discharge machining (EDM) applications. The converter is designed to operate with a 3phase ac input voltage and will output controlled dc voltages during the striking and arc conditions of EDM process. The method of the resonant converter can operate at zero voltage and zero current transitions, we change the output current and control the current waveform of the EDM.

抄録全体を表示

Heterogeneous systems with CPU and GPU cores integrated on a single chip provide fast communication between CPU and GPU cores and high performance. The last-level cache (

) is one of the most essential shared memory resources in heterogeneous CPU-GPU systems. Due to the different access behaviors and collaboration patterns from CPU and GPU, the shared is not guaranteed to be used efficiently without any management. In this paper, we propose a reuse distance-based management mechanism to improve system performance and save energy consumption. Our mechanism monitors reuse distances of cache lines accessed by CPU and GPU in sampling cache sets. It compares average reuse distance values of CPU and GPU cores to determine cache line insertion, promotion, and eviction in the . Our mechanism can achieve significant performance improvement with a higher hit rate. The evaluation results show that our management method can improve performance by up to 16% and 7%, and achieve energy savings of up to 13% and 4% over the LRU and TAP-RRIP policies, respectively.

抄録全体を表示

In order to know the cause of the scarcity of flagellate red tide in the eutrophicated waters of Ariake Bay, acetone extracts were prepared from sediments for the analysis of chtorophyll in the sediments and for the bioassay of the growth inhibiting effects on Gyrodinium sp. For dissolvingthe acetone extracts in water, 40 ppm Tween 20 was used. The promotive and inhibitory effects were seen depending on the sampling points. The inhibitory effects were observed in offshore waters. When 2, 200 ppm DMSO which was confirmed to be safe was used, strong in-hibitory effects were revealed and the lowest lethal concentrations () ranged from 0.07 to 2.74 ppm, statistically 0.68±0.63 ppm. The causal substance was named as dinoflagellate growth inhibitor (DGI). If the potency of the acetone extract of 1 kg dried sediment inducing a certain quantity of liters of environmental water toxic to Gyrodinium sp. causing death is expressed as equivalent, the contents of DGI in the sediments of Ariake Bay ranged from 333 to 14, 560, statistically 3, 867±3, 246 in equivalent. Since chemical industrial wastes had been dis-charged for a long period in Ariake Bay, the waste components separated from the sediment in the vicinity of the outfall were subjected to the same bioassay. A certain fraction with the of 0.4 ppm was found, but its yield was too small for the broad distribution of DGI in Ariake Bay. In Hakata Bay, where frequent diatom and occasional flagellate red tides occurred in summer and the inflow of the chemical industrial wastes were negligible, the distribution of DGI was also observed. The of the acetone extracts ranged from 0.65 to 10.1 ppm, statistically 3.14±2.31 ppm. The contents of DGI in the sediments ranged from 231 to 1, 428, statistically 761±358 in equivalent.

抄録全体を表示

This paper presents a comparative loss analysis performed between an

converter and a phase-shift converter under the same size conditions using a power supply manufactured for information communications equipment. It is also shown herein that the converter has a much higher ratio of transformer loss to total loss than the phase-shift converter and that the cause is the difference in the number of transformer turns between the two converters. Further, the ON-resistance of the secondary-side rectifier element and the number of transformer primary turns are shown to determine which of the two converters is superior in terms of low loss.

抄録全体を表示

Itraconazole is known to interact with digoxin, a substrate of P-glycoprotein, in clinical situations. In this study, the interactions of the azole antifungal agents, miconazole, fluconazole, ketoconazole as well as itraconazole, with P-glycoprotein were examined using a transfected kidney epithelial cell line, -GA5-COL150, which expresses human P-glycoprotein on the apical membrane.
Itraconazole decreased the transcellular transport of digoxin from the basolateral to apical side in -GA5-COL150 cell monolayers, that was accompanied by increased cellular accumulation. The basolateralto-apical transcellular transport of digoxin in the host -PK₁ cell monolayers was not affected by itraconazole. Ketoconazole and fluconazole also significantly inhibited P-glycoprotein-mediated transport of digoxin, although miconazole was not effective. The inhibitory effects of itraconazole and ketoconazole on digoxin transport in -GA5-COL150 monolayers were as strong as that of cyclosporin A, a typical P-glycoprotein modulator, and neither quinidine nor cimetidine inhibited digoxin transport at the same concentration (10 μM). In addition, the viability of -GA5-COL150 cells against itraconazole was higher than that of -PK₁ cells, but viability against the other three azoles was similar to that of -PK₁ cells.
In conclusion, ketoconazole and fluconazole as well as itraconazole inhibited the transport of digoxin via human P-glycoprotein, and itraconazole could be a substrate of P-glycoprotein.

抄録全体を表示