NFKB1 and MANBA Confer Disease Susceptibility to Primary Biliary Cholangitis via Independent Putative Primary Functional Variants.

Background & Aims: Primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) is a chronic and cholestatic liver disease that eventually leads to cirrhosis and hepatic failure. We recently identified several susceptibility genes included NFKB1 and MANBA for PBC in the Japanese population by genome-wide association study. However, the primary functional variants in the NFKB1/MANBA region and the molecular mechanism for conferring disease susceptibility to PBC have not yet been clarified.

SDN Based End-to-End Inter-Domain Routing Mechanism for Mobility Management and Its Evaluation.

Nowadays, due to the widespread usage of mobile devices and wireless network technologies, we can use various ICT services almost anytime, anywhere even if we are changing our location at that moment. Therefore, mobility management technology have been attracting attention. This technology is to keep communication alive even when a mobile node (MN), which is communicating with the server or some nodes, moves to another network domain.

COXPRESdb v7: a gene coexpression database for 11 animal species supported by 23 coexpression platforms for technical evaluation and evolutionary inference.

The advent of RNA-sequencing and microarray technologies has led to rapid growth of transcriptome data generated for a wide range of organisms, under various cellular, organ and individual conditions. Since the number of possible combinations of intercellular and extracellular conditions is almost unlimited, cataloging all transcriptome conditions would be an immeasurable challenge. Gene coexpression refers to the similarity of gene expression patterns under various conditions, such as disease states, tissue types, and developmental stages.

Genome analyses for the Tohoku Medical Megabank Project towards establishment of personalized healthcare.

Personalized healthcare (PHC) based on an individual's genetic make-up is one of the most advanced, yet feasible, forms of medical care. The Tohoku Medical Megabank (TMM) Project aims to combine population genomics, medical genetics and prospective cohort studies to develop a critical infrastructure for the establishment of PHC. To date, a TMM CommCohort (adult general population) and a TMM BirThree Cohort (birth+three-generation families) have conducted recruitments and baseline surveys.

Performance Evaluation of a Quality of Service Control Scheme in Multi-Hop WBAN Based on IEEE 802.15.6.

The performance of a quality of service (QoS) control scheme in a multi-hop wireless body area network (WBAN) based on the IEEE Std. 802.15.

Dynamic recognition and linkage specificity in K63 di-ubiquitin and TAB2 NZF domain complex.

Poly-ubiquitin (poly-Ub) is involved in various cellular processes through the linkage-specific recognition of Ub-binding domains (UBD). In this study, using molecular dynamics (MD) simulation together with an enhanced sampling method, we demonstrated that K63-linked di-Ub recognizes the NZF domain of TAB2, a zinc finger UBD, in an ensemble of highly dynamic structures that form from the weak interactions between UBD and the flexible linker connecting the two Ubs. However, the K63 di-Ub/TAB2 NZF complex showed a much more compact and stable ensemble than the non-native complexes, linear di-Ub/TAB2 NZF and K33 di-Ub/TAB2 NZF, that were modeled from linear di-Ub/HOIL-1L NZF and K33 di-Ub/TRABID NZF1, respectively.

Molecular Mechanism of Depolarization-Dependent Inactivation in W366F Mutant of Kv1.2.

Voltage-gated potassium channels play crucial roles in regulating membrane potential. They are activated by membrane depolarization, allowing the selective permeation of K ions across the plasma membrane, and enter a nonconducting state after lasting depolarization, a process known as inactivation. Inactivation in voltage-activated potassium channels occurs through two distinct mechanisms, N-type and C-type inactivation.

Genome-Wide Analysis of Glucocorticoid-Responsive Transcripts in the Hypothalamic Paraventricular Region of Male Rats.

Glucocorticoids (GCs) are essential for stress adaptation, acting centrally and in the periphery. Corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF), a major regulator of adrenal GC synthesis, is produced in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVH), which contains multiple neuroendocrine and preautonomic neurons. GCs may be involved in diverse regulatory mechanisms in the PVH, but the target genes of GCs are largely unexplored except for the CRF gene (Crh), a well-known target for GC negative feedback.

UNO DMRG CAS CI calculations of binuclear manganese complex Mn(IV) O (NHCHCO ) : Scope and applicability of Heisenberg model.

Both direct exchange and super-exchange interactions cooperate to realize inter-spin magnetic interaction in binuclear manganese complex Mn(IV) O (NHCHCO ) with a di-μ-oxo path. We revisited this spin system using DMRG CAS methods and CAS selection procedures. Our results indicate that our previous "dynamically extended spin polarization" (DE-SP) procedure for organic polyradicals and so forth does not work well.

Extracting the orientation of rotating objects without object identification: Object orientation induction.

When a rotating object (inducer) is briefly replaced by a static face image (test stimulus), the orientation of the face appears to shift in the rotation direction of the inducer (object orientation induction, OOI). The OOI effect suggests that there is a process to continuously analyze and update the orientation of an object in motion. We investigated the perception of object orientation in motion, examining potential factors that contribute to OOI.

Zn-Binding to the Voltage-Gated Proton Channel Hv1/VSOP.

The voltage-gated proton channel (Hv1/VSOP) is inhibited by Zn, of which the binding site is located in the extracellular region. We utilized attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy to examine the coordination structure by monitoring protein structural changes induced by Zn-binding. The Zn-induced difference ATR-FTIR spectra of Hv1 showed IR features that can be assigned to the histidine C5-N1 and carboxylate-COO stretches as well as amide I changes likely in α-helical peptide bonds.

Earable POCER: Development of a Point-of-Care Ear Sensor for Respiratory Rate Measurement.

We have carried out research and development on an earphone-type respiratory rate measuring device, earable POCER. The name earable POCER is a combination of "earable", which is a word coined from "wearable" and "ear", and "POCER", which is an acronym for "point-of-care ear sensor for respiratory rate measurement". The earable POCER calculates respiratory frequency, based on the measurement values over one minute, through the simple attachment of an ear sensor to one ear of the measured subject and displays these on a tablet terminal.

Using H amide temperature coefficients to define intrinsically disordered regions: An alternative NMR method.

This report describes a cost-effective experimental method for determining an intrinsically disordered protein (IDP) region in a given protein sample. In this area, the most popular (and conventional) means is using the amide ( H ) NMR signal chemical shift distributed in the range of 7.5-8.

Metabolomic changes in the mouse retina after optic nerve injury.

In glaucoma, although axonal injury drives retinal ganglion cell (RGC) death, little is known about the underlying pathomechanisms. To provide new mechanistic insights and identify new biomarkers, we combined latest non-targeting metabolomics analyses to profile altered metabolites in the mouse whole retina 2, 4, and 7 days after optic nerve crush (NC). Ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography Fourier transform mass spectrometry covering wide spectrum of metabolites in combination highlighted 30 metabolites that changed its concentration after NC.

Co-translational folding of α-helical proteins: structural studies of intermediate-length variants of the λ repressor.

Unlabelled: Nascent polypeptide chains fold cotranslationally, but the atomic-level details of this process remain unknown. Here, we report crystallographic, modeling, and spectroscopic studies of intermediate-length variants of the λ repressor N-terminal domain. Although the ranges of helical regions of the half-length variant were almost identical to those of the full-length protein, the relative orientations of these helices in the intermediate-length variants differed.

[Using Super Resolution to Denoise on PET Images].

A high-resolution display panel comes to practical use, but the resolution of the indicated contents does not change. The up-sampling processing is applied to indication of the low-resolution contents. In the up-sampling process, the super resolution enables an up-sampling process which estimates information of high frequency components lost by sampling while analyzing input images is noticed.

De novo profile generation based on sequence context specificity with the long short-term memory network.

Background: Long short-term memory (LSTM) is one of the most attractive deep learning methods to learn time series or contexts of input data. Increasing studies, including biological sequence analyses in bioinformatics, utilize this architecture. Amino acid sequence profiles are widely used for bioinformatics studies, such as sequence similarity searches, multiple alignments, and evolutionary analyses.

Strong Association of the Locus with Childhood Steroid-Sensitive Nephrotic Syndrome in the Japanese Population.

Nephrotic syndrome is the most common cause of chronic glomerular disease in children. Most of these patients develop steroid-sensitive nephrotic syndrome (SSNS), but the loci conferring susceptibility to childhood SSNS are mainly unknown. We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in the Japanese population; 224 patients with childhood SSNS and 419 adult healthy controls were genotyped using the Affymetrix Japonica Array in the discovery stage.

Matataki: an ultrafast mRNA quantification method for large-scale reanalysis of RNA-Seq data.

Background: Data generated by RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) is now accumulating in vast amounts in public repositories, especially for human and mouse genomes. Reanalyzing these data has emerged as a promising approach to identify gene modules or pathways. Although meta-analyses of gene expression data are frequently performed using microarray data, meta-analyses using RNA-Seq data are still rare.

Mouthwitch: A Novel Head Mount Type Hands-Free Input Device that Uses the Movement of the Temple to Control a Camera.

We have developed an interface (mouthwitch) for a head-mounted type camera with which pictures can be taken with a head-mounted camera, hands-free, simply by "opening your mouth continuously for approximately one second and then closing it again". This mouthwitch uses a sensor equipped with an LED and photo transistor on the temple to optically measure the changes in the form of the temple that occur when the mouth is opened and closed. Eight test subjects (males and females aged between 21 and 44 years old) performed evaluation tests using this mouthwitch when resting, speaking, chewing, walking, and running.

Optimization of neural networks via finite-value quantum fluctuations.

We numerically test an optimization method for deep neural networks (DNNs) using quantum fluctuations inspired by quantum annealing. For efficient optimization, our method utilizes the quantum tunneling effect beyond the potential barriers. The path integral formulation of the DNN optimization generates an attracting force to simulate the quantum tunneling effect.

Encoding the local connectivity patterns of fMRI for cognitive task and state classification.

In this work, we propose a novel framework to encode the local connectivity patterns of brain, using Fisher vectors (FV), vector of locally aggregated descriptors (VLAD) and bag-of-words (BoW) methods. We first obtain local descriptors, called mesh arc descriptors (MADs) from fMRI data, by forming local meshes around anatomical regions, and estimating their relationship within a neighborhood. Then, we extract a dictionary of relationships, called brain connectivity dictionary by fitting a generative Gaussian mixture model (GMM) to a set of MADs, and selecting codewords at the mean of each component of the mixture.

Quality prediction of synthesized speech based on tensor structured EEG signals.

This study investigates quality prediction methods for synthesized speech using EEG. Training a predictive model using EEG is challenging due to a small number of training trials, a low signal-to-noise ratio, and a high correlation among independent variables. When a predictive model is trained with a machine learning algorithm, the features extracted from multi-channel EEG signals are usually organized as a vector and their structures are ignored even though they are highly structured signals.

Direct Observation of Hydrangea Blue-Complex Composed of 3--Glucosyldelphinidin, Al and 5--Acylquinic Acid by ESI-Mass Spectrometry.

The blue sepal color of hydrangea is due to a metal complex anthocyanin composed of 3--glucosyldelphinidin () and an aluminum ion with the co-pigments 5--caffeoylquinic acid () and/or 5---coumaroylquinic acid (). The three components, namely anthocyanin, Al and 5--acylquinic acids, are essential for blue color development, but the complex is unstable and only exists in an aqueous solution. Furthermore, the complex did not give analyzable NMR spectra or crystals.