Novel spirocyclic trichothecanes, spirotenuipesine A and B, isolated from entomopathogenic fungus, Paecilomyces tenuipes

Entomopathogenic fungi forming fruiting bodies have been employed as tonics and antitussives from ancient times. Paecilomyces tenuipes, which is also called Isaria japonica, is a very popular entomopathogenic fungus and is often considered a health food in northeast Asian countries such as China, Korea, and Japan. We cultivated the fruiting bodies of Paecilomyces tenuipes. Among the large-scale cultivations, fruiting body grown in barley grain contained two novel spirocyclic trichothecane derivatives, spirotenuipesine A (1) and B (2), and known trichothecane mycotoxins. Compounds 1 and 2 showed potent activity in neurotrophic factor biosynthesis in glial cells. The isolation of these compounds indicated that P. tenuipes is a promising source for producing various biologically active substances including trichothecanes. It is noteworthy that trichothecane mycotoxins are present in Paecilomyces tenuipes, which is typically used in medicinal health food.     

Synergistic extraction of lanthanoids(III) with 2-thenoyltrifluoroacetone and benzoic acid: thermodynamic parameters in the complexation in organic phases and the hydration

In order to examine the reason why the magnitude of the synergistic effect observed in the extraction of lanthanoids(III) with a β-diketone and a monodentate Lewis base generally decreases along with increasing atomic number, the hydration number of the extracted species when lanthanoids(III) are extracted with TTA (2-thenoyltrifluoroacetone, HA) and benzoic acid (HB) into chloroform by Karl Fischer titration and the enthalpy change in complexation between LnA₃ and HB by calorimetric titration were determined across the lanthanoid series at 25 °C.It has been concluded that since the decrement of entropy change caused by the change in the number of released water molecules and in the coordination number of lanthanoids(III) upon complexation is larger than the increment of the enthalpy change, the values of the second formation constants of the complexes decrease with increasing the atomic number across lanthanoid series so that the magnitude of the synergistic extraction decreases with increasing the atomic number.     

Bright band gap photoluminescence from unprocessed single-walled carbon nanotubes

Unprocessed single-walled carbon nanotubes suspended in air at room temperature emit bright, sharply peaked band gap photoluminescence. This is in contrast with measurements taken from nanotubes lying on the flat surface for which no luminescence was detected. Each individual nanotube has a luminescence peak of similar linewidth ( approximately 13 meV), with different species emitting at various different wavelengths spanning at least 1.0 to 1.6 microm. A strong enhancement of photoluminescence intensity is observed when the excitation wavelength is resonant with the second Van Hove singularity, unambiguously confirming the origin of the photoluminescence.     

One-pot alpha-glycosylation method using Appel agents in N,N-dimethylformamide

[reaction: see text] A concept for the development of practical glycosylation is presented and demonstrated by one-pot alpha-glycosylation applying Appel agents for 2-O-benzyl-1-OH hexoses in DMF. The reaction, in situ giving the equilibrium of glycosyl bromides and more reactive O-glycoside intermediates, accomplishes a near-quantitative alpha-glycosylation removing the water molecules.     

Aqueous chromatographic system for the quantification of propofol in biological fluids using a temperature-responsive polymer modified stationary phase

A new method for the quantitative analysis of monkey serum propofol, which is widely used as an anaesthetic agent, was developed by utilizing a temperature-responsive polymer of N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAAm) and butyl methacrylate (BMA) as the stationary phase of HPLC–fluorescence detection. This poly(NIPAAm-co-BMA) copolymer undergoes a reversible phase transition from a hydrophilic to a hydrophobic microstructure when triggered by change in the temperature. Also this chromatographic system is possible to separate the analytes by using only water as a mobile phase. A pretreatment of the serum (80 μL) was only solid-phase extraction, and the recovery rate of propofol and internal standard was more than 77%, respectively. This method covered the calibration range from 0.5 μg/mL to 10 μg/mL and allowed a reproducible quantification of the serum propofol in administrated monkey serum. The intra- and inter-assay relative standard deviations were less than 14.1%. In addition, there was good relationship of the quantification values between the developed method and the widely used reversed-phase HPLC method. Our developed method has proven to be useful for a simple analysis of propofol in clinical practice, because the avoidance of complicated mobile phase preparation was possible, and only temperature changing could regulate the retention time of the analyte. In addition, by using water instead of fossil fuel, it is the ideal analytical method according to green chemistry.     

On the discrepancy of uniformly distributed roots of quadratic congruences

In this paper we consider the distribution of fractional parts {ν/p}, where p is a prime less than or equal to x and ν is the root in Z/pZ of a quadratic polynomial with negative discriminant. This set is known to be uniformly distributed as x→∞. Here we apply the Erd?s-Turán inequality to obtain an estimate for the discrepancy.     

Complexity of Body Movements during Sleep in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Recently, measuring the complexity of body movements during sleep has been proven as an objective biomarker of various psychiatric disorders. Although sleep problems are common in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and might exacerbate ASD symptoms, their objectivity as a biomarker remains to be established. Therefore, details of body movement complexity during sleep as estimated by actigraphy were investigated in typically developing (TD) children and in children with ASD. Several complexity analyses were applied to raw and thresholded data of actigraphy from 17 TD children and 17 children with ASD. Determinism, irregularity and unpredictability, and long-range temporal correlation were examined respectively using the false nearest neighbor (FNN) algorithm, information-theoretic analyses, and detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA). Although the FNN algorithm did not reveal determinism in body movements, surrogate analyses identified the influence of nonlinear processes on the irregularity and long-range temporal correlation of body movements. Additionally, the irregularity and unpredictability of body movements measured by expanded sample entropy were significantly lower in ASD than in TD children up to two hours after sleep onset and at approximately six hours after sleep onset. This difference was found especially for the high-irregularity period. Through this study, we characterized details of the complexity of body movements during sleep and demonstrated the group difference of body movement complexity across TD children and children with ASD. Complexity analyses of body movements during sleep have provided valuable insights into sleep profiles. Body movement complexity might be useful as a biomarker for ASD.