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TRAIL is a potent inducer of apoptosis in most cancer cells, but not in normal cells, and therefore has deserved intense interest as a promising agent for cancer therapy. In the search for bioactive natural products for overcoming TRAIL-resistance, we previously reported a number of active compounds. In our screening program on natural resources targeting overcoming TRAIL-resistance, activity-guided fractionation of the MeOH extract of Datura stramonium leaves led to the isolation of three alkaloids – scopolamine (1), trigonelline (2), and tyramine (3). Compounds 1, 2, and 3 exhibited TRAIL-resistance overcoming activity at 50, 150, and 100 μM, respectively in TRAIL-resistant AGS cells.

Some users in a community site abuse the anonymity and attempt to manipulate communications in a community site. These users and their submissions discourage other users, keep them from retrieving good communication records, and decrease the credibility of the communication site. To solve this problem, we conducted an experimental study to detect users suspected of using multiple user accounts and manipulating evaluations in a community site. In this study, we used messages in the data of Yahoo! chiebukuro for data training and examination.

Gemcitabine hydrochloride (GEM) is a first-line therapeutic agent for advanced pancreatic cancer, but there is no established second-line treatment after GEM failure. We assessed the clinical benefit of systemic combined chemotherapy with 5-fluorouracil and cisplatin (FP therapy) in 19 patients compared with GEM in 32 patients, respectively. Tumor response rates were 10.5% and 15.6% for FP therapy and GEM, respectively. The median survival time in the FP therapy and GEM was 137 days and 241 days, respectively. Although clinical benefit was similar in both types of therapy, median survival time was more favorable for GEM, especially for Stage IVb. Nausea and vomiting were the most commonly observed toxicity in the FP therapy group. Our data indicate that FP therapy is not considered to be a useful second-line agent in patients with GEM pretreated pancreatic cancer.

The antibiotic β-indomycinone was isolated from Streptomyces sp. IFM11607 by cytotoxicity-guided fractionation against human gastric adenocarcinoma AGS cells, and the geometry of its Δ17,18-double bond was revised from E to Z based on the coupling constant.

Previous studies have suggested that aging is associated with progressive arterial stiffness and widening of the pulse pressure, and pulse pressure has been found to be a risk factor of cardiovascular diseases. However, the effects of age, blood pressure (including pulse pressure) or atherogenic factors on thoracic aortic wall stiffness in patients with mild atherosis are unclear, so the present study used transesophageal echocardiography to examine 103 consecutive patients with various cardiovascular diseases. The extent of atherosis was evaluated in terms of intima-medial thickness (IMT), and 2 indices of wall stiffness in the aorta were calculated: elastic modulus and stiffness parameter (beta). In subjects with mild atherosis (IMT

We report a case of extraadrenal pheochromocytoma of Zuckerkandl imaged by dynamic magnetic resonance imaging (dynamic MRI) with a 0.5 tesla (T) machine. The dynamic MRI proved useful in disclosing the tumor clearly because of strong enhancement in its early phase. This case has the advantages of dynamic computed tomography (dyanmic CT) as well as of T2-weighted spin-echo (SE) MR images.

Biosynthesis of rabbit red cell carbonic anhydrase isozyme B and C was demonstrated in reticulocyte cell-free lysates by the specific immunoprecipitin reaction. Using this homologous protein synthesis system, it was found that 10−5 to 10−7 M thyroxine preferentially inhibited the synthesis of carbonic anhydrase B isozyme without affecting that of C isozyme. These results suggested that this inhibitory action of the protein synthesis by thyroxine may be responsible for the decreased level of the B type isozymes in human hyperthyroidism or experimental hyperthyroidism of rabbits.

Sixty years of coherent versus non-coherent tradeoff as well as the twenty years of coherent versus non-coherent tradeoff in Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) systems are surveyed. Furthermore, the advantages of adaptivity are discussed. More explicitly, in order to support the diverse communication requirements of different applications in a unified platform, the 5G New Radio (NR) offers unprecendented adaptivity, abeit at the cost of a substantial amount of signalling overhead that consumes both power and the valuable spectral resources. Striking a beneficial coherent versus non-coherent tradeoff is capable of reducing the pilot overheads of channel estimation, whilst relying on low-complexity detectors, especially in high-mobility scenarios. Furthermore, since energy-efficiency is of salient importance both in the operational and future networks, following the powerful Index Modulation (IM) pholosophy, we conceive a holistic adaptive pholosophy striking the most appropriate coherent/non-coherent, single-/multiple-antenna and diversity/multiplexing tradeoffs, where the number of RF chains, the Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR) of signal transmission and the maximum amount of interference tolerated by signal detection are all taken into account. We demonstrate that this intelligent tripple-fold adaptivity offers significant benefits in next-generation applications of mmWave and Terahertz solutions, in space-air-ground integrated networks, in full-duplex techniques and in other sophisticated channel coding assisted system designs, where powerful machine learning algorithms are expected to make autonomous decisions concerning the best mode of operation with minimal human intervention.

Zinc deficiency states were produced in rabbit erythrocytes by experimentally induced bleeding anemia and hemolytic anemia. Parallel decreases in total zinc levels and the contents for major zinc protein, carbonic anhydrase I and II isozymes were observed in the erythrocytes. During the process of the anemias the zinc status in the erythrocytes varied remarkably and the relative increase of zinc ions other than that derived from carbonic anhydrase was observed, suggesting that the former zinc ions play an important role in forming a zinc pool in the erythrocytes under the anemic conditions.

A sensitive and specific radioimmunoassay method for human erythrocyte carbonic anhydrase B was developed using a solid-phase technique. The assay was found to be sensitive for the detection of nanogram amounts of the enzyme in incubation mixtures. Iodination of it gave rise to a loss of antigenicity and a solid-phase assay technique using antibody-coated paper discs was employed in order to exclude the chemical modification or conformational changes of the enzyme. The levels of carbonic anhydrase B in the erythrocytes of newborn infants and in some biological fluids were determined.

A patient with a brain infarct was found to have chronic pulmonary embolism associated with perfusion defects on blood flow imaging with N-isopropyl-p-[I-123]iodoamphetamine (I-123 IMP). However, gradually increasing uptake of I-123 IMP was seen in later images, in areas distal to the embolus. The increased uptake to the embolized lung seemed to be through the systemic collateral circulation.

Levels of rabbit erythrocyte carbonic anhydrase B and C isozymes were determined in experimental hyperthyroidism using a quantitative immunologic technique. Levels of erythrocyte 2,3-diphosphoglycerate and protein binding iodine were simultaneously determined. Thyroxine and 3,5,3'-triiodothyronine were administered to rabbits orally for 30 days. A significant decrease in carbonic anhydrase B type was observed after 30 days, although no significant change was observed in carbonic anhydrase C type. These findings suggest that the steady state level of carbonic anhydrase B type in red cells is affected by thyroid hormone more readily than that of carbonic anhydrase C type. The level of red cell 2,3-diphosphoglycerate increased markedly after 10 days of treatment, corresponding to the increase of protein binding iodine. The clinical or pathologic significances were discussed in relation to the changes in the levels of these isozymes and 2,3-diphosphglycerate in red cells.

As the enabling technologies move up to the mmWave and even to the TeraHertz bands for the next-generation wireless systems, the signal processing of high-bandwidth orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) becomes increasingly power-thirsty, owing to the following OFDM deficiencies: (1) the high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR); (2) the bandwidth efficiency loss due to the cyclic prefix (CP) overhead; (3) the sensitivity to carrier frequency offset; (4) the complex out-of-band (OOB) filtering. Over the past six decades, a variety of waveforms have been developed in order to mitigate these deficiencies, which are generally achieved at the cost of compromising some of OFDM's beneficial properties, such as its subcarrier (SC) orthogonality, its high throughput and its straighforward adoption to multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. Against this background, we propose a new waveform termed as multi-band discrete Fourier transform spread-OFDM with index modulation (MB-DFT-S-OFDM-IM), where the component multi-carrier techniques are conceived to constructively function together in order to mitigate the OFDM deficiencies without compromising the beneficial OFDM properties. More explicitly, first of all, the PAPR is reduced by the DFT-precoding. Secondly, thanks to the IM design, MB-DFT-S-OFDM-IM is capable of achieving a high throughput that is strictly equal to or higher than the OFDM throughput. Thirdly, MB-DFT-S-OFDM-IM achieves a beneficial frequency diversity gain, which leads to a higher tolerance to carrier frequency offset. Fourthly, the OOB filters are placed in each sub-band before DFT, so that the SC orthogonality remains intact, which is unique to the proposed MB-DFT-S-OFDM-IM structure. Last but not least, we extend the proposed MB-DFT-S-OFDM-IM to support a variety of MIMO schemes, where the IM philosophy is integrated with the space-, time-and frequency-domains within a single unified platform.