Formation of Supramolecular Nanostructures through in Situ Self-Assembly and Post-Assembly Modification of a Biocatalytically Constructed Dipeptide Hydrazide**

Aqueous self-assembly of short peptides has attracted growing attention for the construction of supramolecular materials for various bioapplications. Herein, we describe how the thermolysin-assisted biocatalytic construction of a dipeptide hydrazide from an N-protected amino acid and an amino acid hydrazide leads to the formation of thermally stable supramolecular hydrogels. In addition, we demonstrate the post-assembly modification of the supramolecular architectures constructed in situ tethering hydrazide groups as a chemical handle by means of fluorescence imaging.     

Ion-exchange selectivity of anion exchange resin modified with polystyrenesulfonic acid.

In order to change the ion-exchange selectivity of anion-exchange resin, the surface of a gel-type anion exchange resin was modified with anionic polyelectrolyte, polystyrenesulfonic acid. Using this modified resin, the ion-exchange rate of nitrate was little decreased, but that of sulfate was evidently decreased. It is considered that the ion-exchange reaction of the multivalent anion is suppressed by the greater electrostatic repulsive force against the modification layer than that against the monovalent anion. Thus, this modified resin may be suitable for the selective separation of monovalent anions. The influence of the modified condition on the ion-exchange rate was examined. Furthermore, this modified resin was used to separate nitrate ions from sulfate ions in the aqueous solution.     

RSOS Models and Jantzen–Seitz Representations of Hecke Algebras at Roots of Unity

A special family of partitions occurs in two apparently unrelated contexts: the evaluation of one-dimensional configuration sums of certain RSOS models, and the modular representation theory of symmetric groups or their Hecke algebras H_m. We provide an explanation of this coincidence by showing how the irreducible H_m-modules which remain irreducible under restriction to H_{m_1} (Jantzen–Seitz modules) can be determined from the decomposition of a tensor product of representations sl_n.     

Endoscopic Observation of Tissue by Narrowband Illumination

We propose a new illumination method for a medical endoscope: narrow band imaging (NBI), in which the spectral bandwidth of the filtered light is narrowed. To confirm how the spectral specifications of the filtered light influence a reproduced image, an experiment was conducted observing the endoscopic images of the back mucosa of a human tongue. In addition, the effect of NBI on endoscopic images was investigated through preliminary clinical tests in colonoscopy and upper gastrointestinal endoscopy. It has been shown that NBI can enhance the capillary pattern and the crypt pattern on the mucosa. These patterns are useful features for diagnosing an early cancer.     

Validation of a method for predicting the precision, limit of detection and range of quantitation in competitive ELISA.

The mathematical model for predicting the precision, limit of detection (LOD) and range of quantitation (ROQ) in a competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) proposed by Hayashi et al. (Anal. Chem., 2004, 76, 1295) was validated. The model describes the relative standard deviation (RSD) of concentration estimates by the RSDs of pipetting volumes of analyte, enzyme-conjugated antigen, antibody and substrate solutions, and the standard deviation (SD) of inherent absorbances between the wells in an ELISA plate. For 6 kinds of direct competitive ELISA kits, the LOD and ROQ predicted by the model agreed well with those obtained by experiments with real samples. It was also confirmed that the model is applicable to the prediction of uncertainty that depends on the pipetting error of the viscous antiserum solution. The model was demonstrated to be useful for estimating the LOD and ROQ of competitive ELISA.     

Stable marker-particle method for the Voronoi diagram in a flow field

The Voronoi diagram in a flow field is a tessellation of water surface into regions according to the nearest island in the sense of a “boat-sail distance”, which is a mathematical model of the shortest time for a boat to move from one point to another against the flow of water. The computation of the diagram is not easy, because the equi-distance curves have singularities. To overcome the difficulty, this paper derives a new system of equations that describes the motion of a particle along the shortest path starting at a given point on the boundary of an island, and thus gives a new variant of the marker-particle method. In the proposed method, each particle can be traced independently, and hence the computation can be done stably even though the equi-distance curves have singular points.     

Ring‐opening grafting polymerization of cyclic monomers onto human hair

Natural human hair was successfully modified by the graft polymerization of trimethylene carbonate, β‐propiolactone, ε‐caprolactone, glycidol, ε‐caprolactam, and 5,5‐dimethyl‐1,3‐dioxane‐2‐thione. In contrast, we could not modify natural human hair by the graft polymerization of oxetane under similar conditions. The model reaction suggested that the main initiating species in these polymerizations were the amino, thiol, and hydroxyl groups in hair, which could induce ring‐opening polymerization. Among the tested monomers, β‐propiolactone was most effective for hair modification with its graft polymer, whose concentration was as high as 0.5 g/g of hair though polymerization under mild conditions. The effects of the hair pretreatment and polymerization temperature on the weight ratio of the grafted polymers were also investigated. Hair modified by grafted polymers was characterized with scanning electron microscopy and Fourier transform infrared measurements. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 45: 736–744, 2007     

10-Gbit/s optical receiver using ICs with low-capacitance HBT technology

A 10-Gbit/s optical receiver is developed using low-capacitance HBT IC technology. The HBT allows a cutoff frequency of 45 GHz and a maximum oscillation frequency of 70 GHz. The receiver contains an automatic gain-control amplifier IC with a gain of 16 dB, a bandwidth of 10.7 GHz, and a decision-circuit IC with an ambiguity of 66 mVp-p at a data rate of 10 Gbit/s. The sensitivity of this receiver is -26.5 dBm at a bit error rate of 10^-9. Transmission over a 140-km fiber was achieved successfully.