Regression-based model of skin diffuse reflectance for skin color analysis

A simple regression-based model of skin diffuse reflectance is developed based on reflectance samples calculated by Monte Carlo simulation of light transport in a two-layered skin model. This reflectance model includes the values of spectral reflectance in the visible spectra for Japanese women. The modified Lambert Beer law holds in the proposed model with a modified mean free path length in non-linear density space. The averaged RMS and maximum errors of the proposed model were 1.1 and 3.1%, respectively, in the above range.     

Further studies on palytoxin. II. structure of palytoxin

The full structure of palytoxin, a potent coelenterate toxin, is reported.     

Synthesis of lipid A analogues containing glucose instead of glucosamine and their LPS-antagonistic activities

Lipid A analogues containing glucose in substitution for glucosamine on the reducing end were synthesized, and the inhibitory activities on LPS-induced TNFα production (LPS-antagonistic activity) in vitro using human whole blood cells were measured. The IC₅₀ values (nM) of these ten compounds, 8, 14, 21, 31, 40, 51, 57, 62, 67 and 72, were 11.2, 15.4, 2.7, 0.1, 0.4, 1.3, 3.2, 3.2, 1.4 and 14.4, respectively. And also inhibitory activities (ID₅₀) on TNFα production toward galactosamine loaded C3H/HeN mice in vivo of compounds 21, 31, 57, 62 and 67 were measured. The values of these compounds were 0.29, 0.50, 0.61, not dose-dependent and 0.33 mg/kg, respectively.     

Feeding attractants for the muricid gastropod Drupella cornus, a coral predator

The muricid gastropods genus Drupella are known to be voracious coral predator. Outbreaks of them have accelerated significant destruction on coral reefs, but its precise mechanism is poorly understood. Here, we describe the identification of montiporic acids C (1) and A (2) isolated from sea water extracts of the coral Montipora sp., which showed potent feeding-attractant activity toward D. cornus.     

Ion association dynamics in aqueous solutions of sulfate salts as studied by Raman band shape analysis

A new perspective is shown on the interaction between the sulfate ion and its counter cation in aqueous solutions. We propose the dynamic exchange model of ion association instead of the conventional static equilibrium model. The concentration dependence of the Raman band shape of the totally symmetric (a(1)) SO stretch mode of the sulfate ion is investigated systematically for four sulfate ions, MgSO(4), (NH(4))(2)SO(4), K(2)SO(4), and Li(2)SO(4). The concentration dependence of the a(1) Raman band shape in the MgSO(4) system is successfully reproduced by the analysis based on the dynamic exchange model. As a result, quantitative information about the extremely dynamic nature of the ion association has been obtained: the mean time between associations is a few picoseconds and the mean lifetime of association is several hundred femtoseconds.     

A new method to reconstruct three-dimensional spatial distribution function from radial distribution function in solvation structure

Three-dimensional spatial distribution function (SDF) of solvent is a fundamental quantity for analysis of solvation. However, its calculation has been very limited because long computational time is required. We here developed a novel and robust method to construct approximated SDFs of solvent sites from radial distribution functions. In this method, the expansion of SDFs in real solid harmonics around atoms of solute leads to a linear equation, from which SDFs are evaluated with reasonable computational time. This method is applied to the analysis of the solvation structure of liquid water, as an example. The successful results clearly show that this method is very powerful to investigate solvation structure.