1 Department of Physiology, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 1130033
2 Laboratory for Neurobiology of Synapse, RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Saitama 3510198, Japan
Submitted ...29 December 2003;
accepted in final form 9 February 2004
Mitral and tufted cells in the mammalian olfactory bulb are principal neurons, each type having distinct projection pattern of their dendrites and axons. The morphological difference suggests that mitral and tufted cells are functionally distinct and may process different aspects of olfactory information. To examine this possibility, we recorded odorant-evoked spike responses from mitral and middle tufted cells in the aliphatic acid- and aldehyde-responsive cluster at the dorsomedial part of the rat olfactory bulb. Homologous series of aliphatic acids and aldehydes were used for odorant stimulation. In response to adequate odorants, mitral cells showed spike responses with relatively low firing rates, whereas middle tufted cells responded with higher firing rates. Examination of the molecular receptive range (MRR) indicated that most mitral cells exhibited a robust inhibitory MRR, whereas a majority of middle tufted cells showed no or only a weak inhibitory MRR. In addition, structurally different odorants that activated neighboring clusters inhibited the spike activity of mitral cells, whereas they caused no or only a weak inhibition in the middle tufted cells. Furthermore, responses of mitral cells to an adequate excitatory odorant were greatly inhibited by mixing the odorant with other odorants that activated neighboring glomeruli. In contrast, odorants that activated neighboring glomeruli did not significantly inhibit the responses of middle tufted cells to the adequate excitatory odorant. These results indicate a clear difference between mitral and middle tufted cells in the manner of decoding the glomerular odor maps.
Address for reprint requests and other correspondence: K. Mori, Dept. of Physiol., Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo, 731 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 1130033, Japan (E-mail: moriken{at}m.u-tokyo.ac.jp ).
Abstract Background The aim of this study was to assess the differences in pharmacokinetic (PK) profiles after the 1:1 ratio-based conversion from a twice-daily to a once-daily tacrolimus formulation ...(TD-TAC and OD-TAC, respectively) in pediatric recipients of kidney transplants. Methods TD-TAC was initially administered to 29 pediatric patients who underwent kidney transplantations between April 2010 and September 2015 and were then subsequently switched to OD-TAC. The switch dose ratio was 1:1, and the 24-hour complete PK parameter assessment was performed before and after the regimen was changed from TD-TAC to OD-TAC. Results The mean total daily dose at baseline was 5.5 ± 2.9 mg (0.18 ± 0.10 mg/kg body weight). Consecutive PK studies revealed no significant difference in the mean time to achieve maximum concentrations and the area under the concentration–time curve from 0 to 24 hours (AUC0–24 ) of both drug formulations. However, the mean trough concentration (Cmin ) and the maximum concentration of OD-TAC were 22% and 6% lower and higher, respectively, than those of TD-TAC. Therefore, a better correlation was observed between the AUC0–24 and Cmin of OD-TAC than between those of TD-TAC. Conclusions After the change from TD-TAC to OD-TAC, the AUC0–24 values were equivalent despite a 22% reduction in Cmin . Cmin may therefore be an excellent predictor in the therapeutic drug monitoring of OD-TAC because of its superior correlation with AUC0–24.
A new project to develop a terahertz (THz)-wave light source is in progress at the parametric X-ray (PXR) beamline of the Laboratory for Electron Beam Research and Application (LEBRA) at Nihon ...University. The THz-wave source is based on coherent transition radiation (CTR) emitted from a metal foil inserted downstream from a crystal target that is the PXR radiator. Beryllium or titanium foil is the most promising candidate for a THz-wave radiator. Since the electron linac of LEBRA was developed for a free electron laser (FEL), electron beam with bunch length of 1 ps (rms) can be provided by magnetic bunching at the bending magnet section. Thus, very intense coherent transition radiation (CTR) can be obtained in the frequency region around 1 THz. The results of preliminary experiments for CTR production suggested that sufficiently intense THz-CTR can be obtained using the LEBRA linac. In order to realize a THz-wave source for practical application studies, we have a plan to add the extraction feature for THz waves to the PXR beamline.
Sprite luminosities produced by winter lightning in Japan were found to be associated with simultaneous occurrences of clusters of radio atmospherics as observed in the VLF range, suggesting an ...in‐cloud discharge activity. Concurrent ELF data show transient perturbations, indicating continuous charge transfer in causative lightning. These data provide the first evidence that an in‐cloud discharge activity plays an important role in the generation mechanism of sprites.
We present a high-power and narrow-linewidth laser for intercombination magneto-optical trapping of ytterbium (Yb) atoms using the 6s
2
1
S
0
–6s6p
3
P
1
transition. The system generates 415 mW of ...continuous wave laser radiation at 556 nm with a linewidth of less than 100 kHz. It is based on a commercial 1 W fiber laser with a frequency doubling stage. Up to 58% frequency doubling efficiency is obtained at an input power of 0.5 W by using a lithium triborate crystal as a nonlinear medium. The system has been successfully used for laser cooling of Yb atoms.
We examined the antitumour effect of a combination of betulinic acid (BA) and vincristine (VCR) on murine melanoma B16F10 cells in vitro and in vivo. Betulinic acid, a pentacyclic triterpene, showed ...a synergistic cytotoxic effect on melanoma cells by combinational use of VCR. Betulinic acid and VCR induced cell cycle arrest at different points (BA at G1 phase and VCR at G2/M phase) and caused apoptosis in B16F10 melanoma cells. In the in vivo study, VCR inhibited metastasis of tumour cells to the lung. The addition of BA to VCR augmented suppression of the experimental lung metastasis of melanoma cells in C57BL/6 mice. The number of lung nodules of more than 1 mm in diameter in mice treated with BA and VCR was less than that in mice treated with VCR alone. These results suggest that BA is an effective supplement for enhancing the chemotherapeutic effect on malignant melanoma.
The aim of this paper is to explicitly compute parameters for which the Bramson-Kalikow (BK) model exhibits phase transition. The main ingredient of the proof is a simple new criterion for ...non-uniqueness of g-measures. We show that the existence of multiple g-measures compatible with a function g can be proved by estimating the -distances between some suitably chosen Markov chains. The method is optimal for the important class of binary regular attractive kernels, which includes the BK model.
Evidence for an intermediate-scale energy spectrum anisotropy has been found in the arrival directions of ultra-high energy cosmic rays for energies greater than 1019.2 eV in the northern hemisphere ...using 7 years of Telescope Array surface detector data. A relative energy distribution test is done comparing events inside oversampled spherical caps of equal exposure, to those outside, using the Poisson likelihood ratio. The center of maximum significance is at 9h16m, 45°, and has a deficit of events with energies 1019.2 ≤ E < 1019.75 eV and an excess for E ≥ 1019.75 eV. The post-trial probability of this energy anisotropy, appearing by chance anywhere on an isotropic sky, is found by Monte Carlo simulation to be 9 × 10−5 (3.74 global).
Fish meat was easily liquefied by hydrolysis under subcritical conditions without oxidants, and aqueous phase and water‐insoluble phase containing oil and fat‐like solid were formed. Lactic acid ...found in the raw fish meat (about 0.03 g/g‐dry meat) was stable up to the reaction temperature 513 K (3.35 MPa). Pyroglutamic acid was produced with a yield of 0.095 kg/kg of dry meat by 30 min reaction at 553 K (6.42 MPa). Amino acids such as cystine, alanine, glycine, and leucine were produced in the temperature range 513–623 K with a maximum peak at 543 K. Amounts of cystine, alanine, glycine, and leucine produced in 5 min at 543 K (5.51 MPa) were 0.024, 0.013, 0.009, and 0.004 kg/kg of dry meat, respectively. The oil extracted with hexane contained useful fatty acids such as eicosapentanoic acid (EPA) and docosahexianoic acid (DHA). Thus, subcritical water hydrolysis would be an efficient process for recovering useful substances from organic waste such as fish waste discarded from fish market.
In this paper, we propose a musical-noise-controllable algorithm for array signal processing with the aim for high-performance and high-quality noise reduction. Recently, many methods of integrating ...linear microphone array signal processing and nonlinear signal processing for noise reduction have been studied, but these methods often suffer from the problem of musical noise. In the proposed algorithm, channelwise spectral subtraction is applied before adaptive array signal processing. We also introduce a new automatic control algorithm to obtain the subtraction strength parameter used in the spectral subtraction, which depends on the amount of generated musical noise, measured by higher order statistics. We confirm the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm via objective and subjective evaluations.
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