Peumusolide A, unprecedented NES non-antagonistic inhibitor for nuclear export of MEK

A new polyketide peumusolide A was disclosed as an unprecedented NES non-antagonistic inhibitor for nuclear export of MEK, a promising scaffold for antitumor agents with novel mechanism of action, from Peumus boldus Molina. The absolute stereostructure as well as optical purity was established by use of the two synthesized enantiomeric model lactones. In addition, the Δε values in their CD spectra were demonstrated to be the conclusive index for determination of not only configuration at C-3 but also optical purity of natural congeneric polyketides. Peumusolide A was revealed to show NES non-antagonistic action by the biotinylated probe and to inhibit proliferation of MEK-activated tumor cells selectively.     

Contrarian investment strategy with data envelopment analysis concept

One of the typical issues in financial literature is that the market tends to be overly pessimistic about value stocks, many of which are past losers. Therefore, over-reactions might capture by measuring earnings surprise vary with past return levels. In this paper, we propose a new index for an effective investment strategy to capture the return-reversal effect using both Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Inverted DEA in order to consider the above characteristics of the market. Our investment strategy using the new index exhibits better performance than the naive return-reversal strategy that only uses past returns or earnings surprise. In addition, the correlations between our new index and commonly used value indices are insignificant, and the value indices cannot represent the over-valued (under-valued) situations perfectly. Hence, considering both proposed and value indices like book-to-price one, we could select value stocks more effectively than by using only one of these indices.     

Flow-injection spectrophotometric determination of acetyl-coenzyme A with immobilized phosphotransacetylase

Phosphotransacetylase (PTA) is immobilized on AF-Tresyl TOYOPEARL 650 gel and used on-line in a stainless-steel column (10 × 4 mm i.d.). CoA-SH liberated enzymatically from acetyl-CoA is reacted with Ellman's reagent [5,5′-dithiobis(2-nitrobenzoic acid)] in the carrier stream. The calibration graph for acetyl-CoA is linear from 4 × 10^?6 to 4 × 10^?4 M and the detection limits is 8 × 10^?7 M. The immobilized enzyme can be employed for over 4 months without any significant decrease in activity. The enzyme retains its activity in methanol even though the initial rate of reaction is decreased.     

Pulsed EPR spectrometer with injection-locked UCSB free-electron laser

We describe the first free-electron laser (FEL)-based pulsed electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) system designed to study spin dynamics and structure changes of proteins in aqueous solution with nano-second of time resolution. This novel approach opens up the possibility for high-power sub-THz and THz pulsed EPR spectroscopy.     

Measurement of the noise spectrum using a multiple-pulse sequence

A method is proposed for obtaining the spectrum for noise that causes the phase decoherence of a qubit directly from experimentally available data. The method is based on a simple relationship between the spectrum and the coherence time of the qubit in the presence of a π pulse sequence. The relationship is found to hold for every system of a qubit interacting with the classical-noise, bosonic, and spin baths.