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The focal ratio degradation (FRD) of optical fiber is one of major sources causing light loss in multi-fiber astronomical instruments. Meanwhile, the sky subtraction is crucial to multi-fiber spectra reduction, especially for the objects which are as faint as the sky background, not to mention for those even fainter ones. To improve the accuracy of sky subtraction, it is necessary to normalize the throughput among object fibers and sky sampling fibers. The rotation and twist during mounting and rotating could change the FRD of individual fibers, which means the variation of the transmission throughput among fibers. We investigate such throughput variation among LAMOST fibers and its correlation with the intensity of sky emission lines on all wavelength coverage in this paper. On the basis of this work, we present an approach to correcting the varied fiber throughput by measuring the intensity of the sky emission lines as the secondary throughput correction. This approach has been applied to LAMOST 2D Pipeline.

To evaluate apoptotic neuronal damage by carbon monoxide (CO) in medico-legal autopsy cases, we investigated the immunohistochemical distribution of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) as a marker of apoptosis and programmed cell death in the brain. Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded brain tissue specimens, including cerebral cortex of frontal lobe, substantia nigra of the midbrain and pallidum, from medico-legal autopsy cases of fire fatality (n=63), including cases with blood carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) of a lower (<60%) and a higher (>60%) level (n = 39 and 24, respectively), and CO intoxication without burns (n = 6) were examined, in comparison with acute ischemic heart disease (IHD, n = 29) and asphyxiation due to strangulation (AS, n= 14). In the pallidum, neuronal immunopositivity for ssDNA was significantly higher in fire fatality with a higher COHb level than in IHD (p<0.0001), and CO intoxication cases showed significantly higher positivity than other groups excluding fire fatality with a higher COHb level (p< 0.05). In cases without cardiopulmonary resuscitation, ssDNA-positivity in the pallidum mildly correlated to COHb concentrations (r = 0.31, p<0.05), and the positivity was significantly higher in higher COHb (>60%) cases than in lower COHb (<30%) cases. In the cerebral cortex and substantia nigra of the midbrain, neuronal ssDNA-positivity showed no significant findings with regard to the cause of death and COHb concentration. These findings suggest that CO causes selective neuronal damage in the pallidum.

A randomized double-blind placebo-controlled study was conducted on 63 subjects to determine the antihypertensive effect of a vegetable drink in which sardine protein hydrolysates containing a dipeptide, Valyl-Tyrosine (VY), were incorporated. The subjects, consisting of people with mild hypertension, high-normal blood pressure and normal blood pressure, were randomly divided into test (male/female = 25/6, average age 50.1 +/- 10.4 years old) and control groups (26/6, 49.0 +/- 5.0). Each subject in the test group was given 195 g of the vegetable drink containing 0.5 g of sardine peptides (sardine protein hydrolysates) with 0.4 mg of VY (test drink) once a day for 13 weeks in a row, and subjects in the control group were given the same amount of the vegetable drink without sardine peptides (control drink) in the same manner. In the test group, 40 subjects with mild hypertension or high-normal blood pressure (130 mmHg < or = systolic blood pressure (SBP) < 160 mmHg and/or 80 mmHg < or = diastolic blood pressure (DBP) < 100 mmHg) showed a significant decrease in SBP, from 142.0 +/- 10.3 mmHg at the start of the test to 134.4 +/- 11.1 mmHg during the first week of the test period, after which similar values were seen throughout the test period (13 weeks). Compared to the control group, the difference in SBP from baseline was statistically significant in the test group throughout the intake period. DBP also decreased significantly from 88.0 +/- 7.9 mmHg at baseline to 83.5 +/- 8.6 mmHg after 13 weeks. In the control group, SBP and DBP were 140.8 +/- 8.4 mmHg and 90.5 +/- 6.6 mmHg respectively at the start of the test, and neither decreased during the test period. In subjects with normal blood pressure, neither those in the test group nor those in the control group showed a significant change in SBP and DBP during the test period. An excessive ingestion test was performed on 25 subjects with hypertension, mild hypertension, high-normal blood pressure, and normal blood pressure by giving 585 g (3 times the recommended amount of intake) of the test drink for 14 days in a row. As a result, a significant decrease of blood pressure was observed in the hypertension, mild hypertension and high-normal blood pressure groups, but no excessive decline in blood pressure or any side-effects were associated with any subjects during the test period. In the groups with normal blood pressure, the excessive ingestion of the test drink did not affect blood pressure. In these two studies, physical check-ups and biochemical analyses of blood and urine were also conducted in all subjects, and no abnormalities were observed. These results suggest that the test drink containing sardine protein hydrolysates exhibited the antihypertensive effect in only the subjects with mild hypertension or high-normal blood pressure. No adverse effects were observed in either hypertensive or normotensive subjects.