Control of Osteogenic Differentiation and Mineralization of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells on Composite Nanofibers Containing Poly[lactic‐co‐(glycolic acid)] and Hydroxyapatite

We fabricated composite fibrous scaffolds from blends of poly(lactide‐co‐glycolide) (PLGA) and nano‐sized hydroxyapatite (HA) via electrospinning. SEM‐EDX and AFM analysis demonstrated that HA was homogeneously dispersed in the nanofibers, and the roughness increased along with the amount of incorporated HA. When hMSCs were cultured on these PLGA/HA composite nanofibers, we found that incorporation of HA on the nanofibers did not affect cell viability whereas increased ALP activity and expression of osteogenic genes as well as the calcium mineralization of hMSCs. Our results indicate that the composite nanofibers can be offered as a potential bone regenerative biomaterial for stem cell based therapies.

     

Bulk-boundary correlators in the hermitian matrix model and minimal Liouville gravity

We construct the one matrix model (MM) correlators corresponding to the general bulk-boundary correlation numbers of the minimal Liouville gravity (LG) on the disc. To find agreement between both discrete and continuous approach, we investigate the resonance transformation mixing boundary and bulk couplings. It leads to consider two sectors, depending on whether the matter part of the LG correlator is vanishing due to the fusion rules. In the vanishing case, we determine the explicit transformation of the boundary couplings at the first order in bulk couplings. In the non-vanishing case, no bulk-boundary resonance is involved and only the first order of pure boundary resonances have to be considered. Those are encoded in the matrix polynomials determined in our previous paper. We checked the agreement for the bulk-boundary correlators of MM and LG in several non-trivial cases. In this process, we developed an alternative method to derive the boundary resonance encoding polynomials.     

Electrical relaxation of bismuth germanate silicate glasses

The frequency-dependent electrical data of the bismuth germanate silicate (BGSO) glasses have been discussed in the framework of the electric modulus representation and the power-law conductivity. The activation energies of the mean electric relaxation time and the direct current (dc) conductivity obtained by the complex modulus analysis show that the BGSO glasses satisfy the Barton, Nakajima, and Namikawa (BNN) relation. The proper relation between the exponent of the power-law conductivity and the stretched exponential of the modulus representation is shown. The temperature- and frequency-dependent characteristics of non-Debye behavior are discussed. The scaling properties of both the modulus M*(omega) and the alternating current (ac) conductivity sigma(omega) are examined.     

Synthesis of water-soluble phenylazosalicylaldehyde analogues and their application to capillary electrophoretic determination of primary amines

Several primary amines are known to be endogenous substances, and they are to be detected at very low concentration level. Novel water-soluble azo dyes as precolumn derivatizing reagents were synthesized for the analysis of primary amines with strong visible-light absorption by CZE. A coupling reaction was used to introduce a sulfophenylazo group to salicylaldehyde or 1-hydroxy-2-naphthaldehyde to extend the conjugation and to improve the solubility in water of the derivatizing reagents, as well as the target compounds of the reaction products with the primary amines. Two azo dyes of 5-(4-sulfophenylazo)salicylaldehyde sodium salt (AZO1) and 4-(4-sulfophenylazo)-1-hydroxy-2-naphthaldehyde sodium salt (AZO2) were synthesized. Separation of eight kinds of n-alkylamines was performed by CZE after the derivatization with AZO1 or AZO2. The addition of Brij 35 to the running electrolyte and to the sample solutions was necessary to improve the solubility and the resolution among the analytes. Both reagents, AZO1 and AZO2, were compared with each other in terms of the reaction time of derivatization, the detection sensitivity and the total analysis time. The derivatization process using AZO2 was applied to the determination of four biogenic amines, histamine, tyramine, cadaverine and putrescine, and LODs at around micromolar level were achieved for the four amines.     

Estimates of weighted Hardy-Littlewood averages on the p-adic vector space

In the p-adic vector space , we characterize those non-negative functions ψ defined on for which the weighted Hardy-Littlewood average is bounded on (1?r?∞), and on . Also, in each case, we find the corresponding operator norm ‖Uψ‖.     

Determination of bromate ion in drinking water by capillary zone electrophoresis with direct photometric detection

Bromate ion in drinking water was determined by capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) with direct photometric detection. Bromate ion in the sample solution was introduced and concentrated into the capillary by electrokinetic injection for 50s at -10 kV. Electrophoretic separation was made at an applied voltage of -25 kV and bromate ion was detected at wavelength 193 nm, at which the baseline was stabilized with less UV-absorbing acidic phosphate buffer. Bromate ion was detected within 5 min in the electropherogram. By increasing the electric conductivity in the migrating solution with 10 mM Na2SO4, a limit of detection (LOD) of 9 x 10(-10)M (0.1 microg/L BrO3-) was achieved. The proposed method was applied to the analysis of tap water and river water samples, but bromate ion was not detected. Because the practical samples contain relatively large amount of foreign ionic substances, the tap water sample was diluted to avoid the matrix ions. Bromate ion added in a tap water at the concentration of 8 x 10(-8)M was quantitatively recovered by diluting it 1/10.     

Composition Operators on Small Spaces

We show that if a small holomorphic Sobolev space on the unit disk is not just small but very small, then a trivial necessary condition is also sufficient for a composition operator to be bounded. A similar result for holomorphic Lipschitz spaces is also obtained. These results may be viewed as boundedness analogues of Shapiro’s theorem concerning compact composition operators on small spaces. We also prove the converse of Shapiro’s theorem if the symbol function is already contained in the space under consideration. In the course of the proofs we characterize the bounded composition operators on the Zygmund class. Also, as a by-product of our arguments, we show that small holomorphic Sobolev spaces are algebras.     

The Influence of the Extent of Enzymatic Hydrolysis on Antioxidative Properties and ACE-Inhibitory Activities of Protein Hydrolysates from Goby (Zosterisessor ophiocephalus) Muscle

Antioxidant properties and angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory activities of protein hydrolysates from goby (Zosterisessor ophiocephalus) muscle, with different degrees of hydrolysis (DH) from 5 to 25 %, prepared by treatment with crude proteases extract from smooth hound intestines, were investigated. Goby protein hydrolysates (GPHs) are rich in Gly and Thr, which accounted for 14.1–15 % and 11.6–13.2 % of the total amino acids, respectively. The antioxidant activities of GPHs were investigated by using several in vitro assay systems. All GPHs exhibited significant metal chelating activity and DPPH free radical-scavenging activity, and inhibited linoleic acid peroxidation. For the ACE-inhibitory activity, as the DH increased, the activity of GPHs increased. The obtained results revealed that antioxidant and ACE-inhibitory activities of GPHs were influenced by the degree of hydrolysis. A medium degree of enzymatic hydrolysis was appropriate to obtain GPHs with good antioxidant activity, while small peptides were essential to obtain high ACE inhibitory activity.