C-phycocyanin, which is a major biliprotein of the blue-green algae, has been shown to possess cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitory activity. We have studied the effect of phycocyanin on a rat histiocytic tumor line. AK-5 cells are induced into apoptotic death program when treated with phycocyanin, which involves the activation of caspase-3. Phycocyanin-mediated apoptotic death is induced through the ge...

Acanthamoeba keratitis (AK) is a severe infectious corneal ulcer that usually occurs in contact lens wearers. Although the number of AK cases in Japan has been increasing, many of these cases are diagnosed in the early stage and are treated adequately. This is probably because of the increased availability of various diagnostic techniques and the ever-increasing knowledge about AK among ophthal...

The classical Herglotz theorem states that a sequence (ak) ∞ k=−∞ of complex numbers is the sequence of the Fourier-Stieltjes coefficients of a non-decreasing function g defined on the interval 〈0, 2π〉 if and only if the sequence (ak)k=−∞ is positive definite. Recall that ak = ∫ 2π 0 e dg(t) is said to be the kth FourierStieltjes coefficient of a function g (with bounded variation defined on th...

Hypotaurocyamine kinase (HTK) is a member of the highly conserved family of phosphagen kinases that includes creatine kinase (CK) and arginine kinase (AK). HTK is found only in sipunculid worms, and it shows activities for both the substrates hypotaurocyamine and taurocyamine. Determining how HTK evolved in sipunculids is particularly insightful because all sipunculid-allied animals have AK and...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The empirical use of antibiotic therapy is widely accepted for patients with fever and neutropenia during cancer chemotherapy. The use of intravenous monotherapy with broad-spectrum antibiotics in patients at high risk for complications is an appropriate alternative. However, few data are available for pediatric patients. The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy ...

Three new species of Streptochilus, a biserial planktic foraminiferal genus, were recognized in the lower Miocene of the eastern Atlantic and western Indian Oceans. These species had been formerly thought to be benthic species of the genus Bolivina, but evidence on their apertural morphology and stable isotopic composition indicates that they lived as plankton and should be assigned to the genu...

Let a1, a2, . . . , ak be positive and pairwise coprime integers with product P . For each i, 1 ≤ i ≤ k, set Ai = P/ai. We find closed form expressions for the functions g(A1, A2, . . . , Ak) and n(A1, A2, . . . , Ak) that denote the largest (respectively, the number of) N such that the equation A1x1 + A2x2 + · · · + Akxk = N has no solution in nonnegative integers xi. This is a special case of...

Adaptation has long been considered as the Achilles’ heel of case-based reasoning since it requires some domain-specific knowledge that is difficult to acquire. In this paper, two strategies are combined in order to reduce the knowledge engineering cost induced by the adaptation knowledge (AK) acquisition task: AK is learned from the case base by the means of knowledge discovery techniques, and...

floodplain: patterns of recruitment, disease and succession Dana R. Nossov*, Teresa N. Hollingsworth, Roger W. Ruess and Knut Kielland Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, PO Box 757000, Fairbanks, AK 99775, USA; Boreal Ecology Cooperative Research Unit, University of Alaska Fairbanks, PO Box 756780, Fairbanks, AK 99775, USA; and Boreal Ecology Cooperative Research Unit,...

Bernhardt, E. L. ([email protected]) & Chapin, F. S. III. ([email protected]): Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK 99775, USA Hollingsworth, T. N. (corresponding author, [email protected]): USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Boreal Ecology Cooperative Research Unit, P.O. Box 756780, University Of Alaska Fairbanks, Fai...