Increase in the Intracellular Bulk Water Content in the Early Phase of Cell Death of Keratinocytes,Corneoptosis, as Revealed by 65 GHz Near-Field CMOS Dielectric Sensor

While bulk water and hydration water coexist in cells to support the expression of biological macromolecules, how the dynamics of water molecules, which have long been only a minor role in molecular biology research, relate to changes in cellular states such as cell death has hardly been explored so far due to the lack of evaluation techniques. In this study, we developed a high-precision measurement system that can discriminate bulk water content changes of ±0.02% (0.2 mg/cm³) with single-cell-level spatial resolution based on a near-field CMOS dielectric sensor operating at 65 GHz. We applied this system to evaluate the temporal changes in the bulk water content during the cell death process of keratinocytes, called corneoptosis, using isolated SG1 (first layer of stratum granulosum) cells in vitro. A significant irreversible increase in the bulk water content was observed approximately 1 h before membrane disruption during corneoptosis, which starts with cytoplasmic high Ca²⁺ signal. These findings suggest that the calcium flux may have a role in triggering the increase in the bulk water content in SG1 cells. Thus, our near-field CMOS dielectric sensor provides a valuable tool to dissect the involvement of water molecules in the various events that occur in the cell.     

Paçäeëeèèe èçotoèob kèeëopoäa pekthÔèkaèèeіі Moëekóëÿphoão kèeëopoäa

Es wurde eine Laboreinrichtung zur kontiniuerlichen Aktivierungsanalyse strömender, Flüssigkeiten entworfen und gebaut. Die Einrichtung bestecht aus dem Vorratsbehälter für die Probelösung, der Aktivierungskammer, einer Pu-Be-Neutronenquelle, der Meβkammer, der Meβeinrichtung, einer Laborpumpe und einem Strömungsmesser. Die vorläufigen Versuche bewiesen, daβ mit der gebauten Einrichtung die Bestimmung von Vanadium, Silber and Kobalt möglich ist.     

含氧空位的氟掺杂二氧化锰助力稳定锌离子电池

将无机盐NH₄F加入到MnO₂的前驱体溶液中,通过高效、简单的一步水热法制备了具有氧缺陷的F掺杂α-MnO₂纳米棒(记为F-MnO₂)。氧空位和F掺杂对提高F-MnO₂的导电性、促进离子扩散、提高倍率性能起着至关重要的作用。另外,由于F掺杂,形成了F—Mn键,这可以有效地抑制放电产物中Mn³⁺的Jahn-Teller畸变,从而提高结构的稳定性。得益于这些协同效应,组装的Zn||F-MnO₂全电池在0.5 A·g^-1下,首圈放电比容量高达274 mAh·g^-1,且具有较长的循环寿命和优异的倍率性能。同时,通过循环伏安(CV)和恒流充放电(GCD)曲线证明了F-MnO₂的储能机制为H⁺和Zn²⁺的共嵌入/脱出过程。     

Studies on the Photochemical Oxidation of 1,3-Diphenylisobenzofuran and Cis-Cyclooctene in N,N-Dimethylformamide–Propanol Binary Mixture

Kinetic studies on the photochemical oxidation of 1,3-diphenylisobenzofuran have been carried out in binary liquid mixtures of N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) with 1-propanol (PrOH). The strongest influence of solvating effects upon the course of this reaction was observed for compositions of the studied mixture corresponding respectively to ca. 50?mol% of PrOH. Additionally, we have carried out analogous studies of photooxidation of cis-cyclooctene. Similarly as previously, the noticeable influence of solvating effects upon the course of this reaction corresponded to ca. 50?mol% of DMF. We suspect that the mechanism of this effect is associated with the formation of the polar intermediate during the ene reaction being easier.     

Spectroscopic properties of the photoproducts of pyridoxal-5′-P irradiation: Catalytic site recognition of ribonuclease A

Photoproducts of pyridoxal-5-P, i.e., 4-pyridoxic-5-P and bis-pyridoxal-5-P, have been studied by spectroscopic methods. The spectroscopic properties of bis-pyridoxal-5-P (bis-PLP) resemble those of pyridoxal-5-P (PLP) under similar experimental conditions. The coupling of methylen hydrogens to the phosphorus atom has been shown by NMR spectroscopy. The singlet in the³¹P-NMR spectra and the triplet in¹H-undecoupled experiments confirm the presence of the phosphate group in the 5 position of the structure of the vitamin. The effect of pH and solvent composition on the relative distribution of species of bis-pyridoxine-5-P (bis-PNP) has been investigated by absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy. The acid-base dissociation of the phosphate group is easily detected by emission spectroscopy. Bis-PNP and bis-PLP bind to the enzyme RNase A and they behave as competitive inhibitors with respect to the substrate cytidine-2-3-cyclic phosphate. The natural forms of vitamin B₆, pyridoxine, and pyridoxine-5-P have no effect on the catalytic activity of the protein. Experimental evidence derived from fluorescence and inhibition experiments is consistent with the hypothesis that bis-PNP recognizes the catalytic site of RNase A.     

A Monte Carlo method for an objective Bayesian procedure

This paper describes a method for an objective selection of the optimal prior distribution, or for adjusting its hyper-parameter, among the competing priors for a variety of Bayesian models. In order to implement this method, the integration of very high dimensional functions is required to get the normalizing constants of the posterior and even of the prior distribution. The logarithm of the high dimensional integral is reduced to the one-dimensional integration of a cerain function with respect to the scalar parameter over the range of the unit interval. Having decided the prior, the Bayes estimate or the posterior mean is used mainly here in addition to the posterior mode. All of these are based on the simulation of Gibbs distributions such as Metropolis' Monte Carlo algorithm. The improvement of the integration's accuracy is substantial in comparison with the conventional crude Monte Carlo integration. In the present method, we have essentially no practical restrictions in modeling the prior and the likelihood. Illustrative artificial data of the lattice system are given to show the practicability of the present procedure.     

Pseudo-Anosov Flows and Incompressible Tori

We study incompressible tori in 3-manifolds supporting pseudo-Anosov flows and more generally ZZ subgroups of the fundamental group of such a manifold. If no element in this subgroup can be represented by a closed orbit of the pseudo-Anosov flow, we prove that the flow is topologically conjugate to a suspension of an Anosov diffeomorphism of the torus. In particular it is non singular and is an Anosov flow. It follows that either a pseudo-Anosov flow is topologically conjugate to a suspension Anosov flow, or any immersed incompressible torus can be realized as a free homotopy from a closed orbit of the flow to itself. The key tool is an analysis of group actions on non-Hausdorff trees, also known as R-order trees – we produce an invariant axis in the free action case. An application of these results is the following: suppose the manifold has an R-covered foliation transverse to a pseudo-Anosov flow. If the flow is not an R-covered Anosov flow, then it follows that the manifold is atoroidal.     

Uniform Continuity of a Family of Weakly Regular Set Functions on Topological Spaces

Conditions for the uniform continuity of a family of weakly regular set functions defined on an algebra of subsets of a -topological space (T,) and taking values in an arbitrary topological space are found.