The effect of additional autopolyploidization in a slow growing cellulase hyperproducer of Trichoderma

M14-2 is a cellulase hyperproducer derived from Trichderma recesei QM 6a, but with a growth rate lower than that of the original strain. When M14-2 was autopolyploidized followed by haploidization and selection, the strain with both a higher cellulase productivity per mycelia and a higher growth rate could be obtained as M14-2B. This strain seemed to be constructed using gene sources amplified by additional autopolyploidization.     

GaN:ZnO solid solution as a photocatalyst for visible-light-driven overall water splitting

Photocatalytic overall water splitting has been studied extensively from the viewpoint of solar energy conversion. Despite numerous attempts, none have yielded satisfactory results for the development of photocatalysts, which work under visible light irradiation to efficiently utilize solar energy. We report here the first example of visible-light-driven overall water splitting on a novel oxynitride photocatalyst, a solid solution of GaN and ZnO with a band gap of 2.58-2.76 eV, modified with RuO2 nanoparticles. In contrast to the conventional non-oxide photocatalysts, such as CdS, the solid solution is stable during the overall water splitting reaction. This is the first example of achieving overall water splitting by a photocatalyst with a band gap in the visible light region, which opens the possibility of new non-oxide-type photocatalysts for energy conversion.     

Prevention of carcinogenesis and cancer metastasis by bovine lactoferrin

Increasing attention is being paid to chemopreventive agents for individuals at high risk of cancer. We have concentrated on bovine lactoferrin (bLF), an 80 kDa iron-binding glycoprotein known to have anti-microbial and immunoprotective effects. Lactoferrin is particularly abundant in colostrum, and is also present in tears, saliva and seminal and uterine secretions. However, only little is known regarding its influence on carcinogenesis. We have shown preventive effects of bLF and its fragment peptide, lactoferricin (bLFcin), consisting of a 25 amino acid sequence without iron binding capacity, on chemically-induced colon carcinogenesis in the rat and transplanted carcinoma cell metastasis in the mouse. The mechanisms are wide-spectrum, including elevation of caspase-1 and IL-18 in the small intestine, enhancement of the cell killing activity of cytotoxic T and natural killer (NK) cells, and anti-inflammatory and anti-angiogenic effects. It also inhibits the induction of liver CYP1A2, a carcinogen activating enzyme, and induces apoptosis in the colon epithelium of carcinogen treated rats. Thus, bLF possesses multi-functional potential to suppress carcinogenesis and is a good candidate for practical application in humans.     

Multimedia Corpus of In-Car Speech Communication

An ongoing project for constructing a multimedia corpus of dialogues under the driving condition is reported. More than 500 subjects have been enrolled in this corpus development and more than 2 gigabytes of signals have been collected during approximately 60 minutes of driving per subject. Twelve microphones and three video cameras are installed in a car to obtain audio and video data. In addition, five signals regarding car control and the location of the car provided by the Global Positioning System (GPS) are recorded. All signals are simultaneously recorded directly onto the hard disk of the PCs onboard the specially designed data collection vehicle (DCV). The in-car dialogues are initiated by a human operator, an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system and a wizard of OZ (WOZ) system so as to collect as many speech disfluencies as possible. In addition to the details of data collection, in this paper, preliminary results on intermedia signal conversion are described as an example of the corpus-based in-car speech signal processing research.     

Effects of benzoyl group substituents on the mesomorphic properties of 5-alkoxy-2-benzoylaminotropones

Three types of 5-alkoxy-2-benzoylaminotropones, containing an electron-donating group and seven types of derivatives with electron-withdrawing groups on the benzoyl group, were prepared in order to study the thermal ranges of the mesophases exhibited. The troponoid amides had higher transition temperatures than the corresponding troponoid esters and benzenoid amides. From the ¹H NMR spectroscopic measurements and X-ray crystallographic analysis of 5-butoxy-2-(4-methoxybenzoylamino)tropone, it was observed that the benzoyl carbonyl group faced to the H-3 of the tropone ring to form an intramolecular hydrogen bond between the tropone carbonyl and the amide NH groups. The intramolecular hydrogen bonding of the troponoid amides made the molecules flat, inducing strong π-π intermolecular interactions between head-to-tail dimers and so reduced the possibility of intermolecular hydrogen bonding between the NH group and the carbonyl group of neighbouring molecules so decreasing melting points. Electron-donating groups enhanced the appearance of nematic phases while electron-withdrawing groups promoted smectic A phases.     

Mesogenic Unsymmetric dimers containing cholesteryl ester and tolane moieties

Among unsymmetric oligomesogens, chiral dimers formed by connecting a cholesteryl ester fragment with various aromatic mesogenic cores through a polymethylene spacer have been attracting much attention due to their remarkable thermal behaviour. In particular, dimers containing a diphenylacetylene segment having an alkoxy chain have shown interesting mesomorphic behaviour. In view of this a new series of unsymmetric dimers consisting of a diphenylacetylene moiety having an alkyl chain and a cholesteryl ester unit joined through a paraffinic spacer have been synthesized and their liquid crystalline properties characterized. The lengths of the central methylene spacer (C₃, C₄, C₅ and C₇) as well as that of the alkyl chain (n-butyl, n-pentyl, n-hexyl and n-heptyl) have been varied to establish structure-property relationships. These investigations have revealed that all the dimers exhibit smectic A, twist grain boundary and chiral neamtic (N*) phases with the exception of one of the dimers for which only the N* phase was observed. Some differences in the mesomorphic properties of the unsymmetric dimers containing odd or even parity methylene spacers have been observed. The majority of dimers having an even (C₄) parity paraffinic spacer show a blue phase while the dimers with odd (C₃, C₅ and C₇) parity spacers exhibit the chiral smectic (SmC*) phase. In some cases, the SmC* phase exists well below (-60°C) and above room temperature.     

Ising models on the lattice Sierpinski gasket

Ferromagnetic Ising models on the lattice Sierpinski gasket are considered. We prove the Dobrushin-Shlosmann mixing condition and discuss corresponding properties of the stochastic Ising models.     

The set of axiom A diffeomorphisms with no cycles

LetM be aC ^∞ closed manifold and Diff¹ (M) be the space of diffeomorphisms ofM endowed with theC ¹ topology. This paper contains an affirmative answer to the following conjecture raised by Mañé, which is an extension of the stability and Ω-stability conjectures of Palis and Smale, as follows: theC ¹ interior of the subset of diffeomorphism such that all the periodic points are hyperbolic is characterized as the set of diffeomorphisms satisfying Axiom A and the no-cycles condition. Moreover, it is showed that theC ¹ interior of the set of all Kupka-Smale diffeomorphisms coincides with the set of all diffeomorphisms satisfying Axiom A and the strong transversality condition.     

Isospectral connections on line bundles

Dedicated to Professor Shingo Murakami for his 60th Birthday