Yuya Tanaka

Calcium Overload-Induced Myocardial Damage Caused by Isoproterenol and by Adriamycin: Possible Role of Taurine in its Prevention

Calcium ion (Ca2+) is essential for excitation-contraction coupling and for maintenance of cell integrity in the myocardium. On the other hand, it is clear that cytosolic Ca2+ loading may be the first event leading to cell death in certain forms of myocytic injury, such as Ca2+ paradox and isoproterenol (ISO) toxicity. The Ca2+ overload injury is characterized by an exhaustion of tissue high-energy phosphate, massive release of enzymes and extensive ultrastructural damage, as well as excessive influx of Ca2+ into the myocardial cells.

Performance Study of Nonrigid Registration Algorithm for Investigating Lung Disease on Clusters

This paper presents a performance study of a nonrigid registration algorithm for investigating lung disease on clusters. Our algorithm combines two conventional acceleration techniques in order to achieve fast registration: a data-parallel processing technique for accelerating the registration procedure; and a precomputation technique for reducing the computational complexity. We perform some experiments on three clusters with different CPU and network performance in order to make clear what kinds of acceleration techniques and computing environments provide higher performance. The results show that a cluster with Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) network is the most cost effective solution that reduces registration time from ten hours to ten minutes with a linear speedup.

Real-time monitoring of intracellular redox changes in Methylococcus capsulatus (Bath) for efficient bioconversion of methane to methanol

This study aimed to develop a novel method for real-time monitoring of the intracellular redox states in a methanotroph Methylococcus capsulatus, using Peredox as a genetically encoded fluorescent sensor of the NADH:NAD+ ratio. As expected, the fluorescence derived from the Peredox-expressing M. capsulatus transformant increased by supplementation of electron donor compounds (methane and formate), while it decreased by specifically inhibiting the methanol oxidation reaction. Electrochemical measurements confirmed that the Peredox fluorescence reliably represents the intracellular redox changes. This study is the first to construct a reliable redox-monitoring method for methanotrophs, which will facilitate to develop more efficient methane-to-methanol bioconversion processes.

(13) C-TmDOTA as versatile thermometer compound for solid-state NMR of hydrated lipid bilayer membranes.

Recent advances in solid‐state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques, such as magic angle spinning and high‐power decoupling, have dramatically increased the sensitivity and resolution of NMR. However, these NMR techniques generate extra heat, causing a temperature difference between the sample in the rotor and the variable temperature gas. This extra heating is a particularly crucial problem for hydrated lipid membrane samples. Thus, to develop an NMR thermometer that is suitable for hydrated lipid samples, thulium‐1,4,7,10‐tetraazacyclododecane‐1,4,7,10‐tetraacetate (TmDOTA) was synthesized and labeled with 13C (i.e., 13C‐TmDOTA) to increase the NMR sensitivity. The complex was mixed with a hydrated lipid membrane, and the system was subjected to solid‐state NMR and differential scanning calorimetric analyses. The physical properties of the lipid bilayer and the quality of the NMR spectra of the membrane were negligibly affected by the presence of 13C‐TmDOTA, and the 13C chemical shift of the complex exhibited a large‐temperature dependence. The results demonstrated that 13C‐TmDOTA could be successfully used as a thermometer to accurately monitor temperature changes induced by 1H decoupling pulses and/or by magic angle spinning and the temperature distribution of the sample inside the rotor. Thus, 13C‐TmDOTA was shown to be a versatile thermometer for hydrated lipid assemblies. Copyright

Development of information filtering systems for disaster prevention

Text data with spatio-temporal information are becoming common with the popularization of mobile phones with a GPS function and microblog services like Twitter. This study proposes a system supporting operators in a disaster prevention center who control an area in real-world. Our system has three functions: (i) automatic classification that classifies messages into a fixed category, (ii) clustering that aggregates similar messages and (iii) burst detection that detects an event in which messages are arising in high frequency. We asked 120 people to send text data with spatio-temporal information by cell phones in the Osaka Expo Memorial Park. We evaluated our system using the above data.