[Survey on the Current Advertising and Sales of Mucuna pruriens in Consumer-to-consumer Internet Trading in Japan].

Mucuna pruriens (MP) is leguminous plant which contains 5% of L-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (levodopa) in its seeds. It may have a potential to be used as an alternative therapy for Parkinson's disease (PD). Meanwhile, there is a concern in terms of public health that MP products can be overused by patients with PD. As an entry for patients with PD to acquire MP products in Japan, they are often purchased via internet auctions or free markets. MP products are not reagrded as 'pharmatheutical' by Japanese law as long as the specific legal requirements on advertisements are met, so that the MP products can be advertised or sold without any permission from the authorities. In this study, we aimed to conduct internet survey as to the complianse status of these legal requirements. Several major internet auction or free market websites in Japan were surveyed in May-June 2023 by the authors, and 1157 MP product pages were examined. We found approximately 30-40% of the MP products were suspected to have potential legal risks in terms of their advertisements in their website descriptions, such as claiming pharmatheutical efficacy or describing pharmatheutical-like dosages. In addition, approximately 30-40% of the MP products also did not refer to cautions not to take MP products excessively because of the levodopa ingredients. Current study suggested the need of careful description of the MP products in the auction or free market websites for the MP products exhibitors or sellers, in order to fullfill legal requirements as well as to prevent MP abuse.

Evaluation of the antithrombotic abilities of non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants using the Total Thrombus-formation Analysis System®.

The Total Thrombus-formation Analysis System (T-TAS®) is a novel automated microchip flow-chamber system for the quantitative evaluation of thrombus formation under blood flow conditions. T-TAS® uses two types of microchip to evaluate thrombus formation: the AR-chip quantifies white thrombus formation and the PL-chip quantifies platelet thrombus formation. We assessed the antithrombotic abilities of various non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants (NOACs) using T-TAS®. One hundred and three consecutive patients who were hospitalized with cardiovascular diseases were enrolled. We divided the patients into 2 groups; a control group that did not receive an anticoagulant (non-AC group) and an anticoagulant group (AC group). The AC group was further divided into warfarin, dabigatran, rivaroxaban and apixaban groups. We performed common coagulation tests and evaluated the area under the flow pressure curve (AR-AUC and PL-AUC) to quantify antithrombotic ability using T-TAS® at the trough. There were no significant differences in patient characteristics between the non-AC and AC groups. Only 55.1 % of patients in the AC group achieved the target blood pressure (BP) of less than 130/80 mmHg. Compared with the non-AC group, AR-AUC was significantly decreased in the AC, warfarin, dabigatran and apixaban groups. Only the rivaroxaban group did not show a significant decrease in AR-AUC. NOACs showed a significant decrease in PL-AUC compared with the non-AC group. In conclusion, T-TAS® was a useful tool for evaluating anticoagulation activity. NOACs was significantly effective as an antiplatelet agent. BP control should be a higher priority than the selection of an anticoagulant drug, especially NOACs.

Wide-dynamic-range APS-based silicon retina with brightness constancy.

A silicon retina is an intelligent vision sensor that can execute real-time image preprocessing by using a parallel analog circuit that mimics the structure of the neuronal circuits in the vertebrate retina. For enhancing the sensor's robustness to changes in illumination in a practical environment, we have designed and fabricated a silicon retina on the basis of a computational model of brightness constancy. The chip has a wide-dynamic-range and shows a constant response against changes in the illumination intensity. The photosensor in the present chip approximates logarithmic illumination-to-voltage transfer characteristics as a result of the application of a time-modulated reset voltage technique. Two types of image processing, namely, Laplacian-Gaussian-like spatial filtering and computing the frame difference, are carried out by using resistive networks and sample/hold circuits in the chip. As a result of these processings, the chip exhibits brightness constancy over a wide range of illumination. The chip is fabricated by using the 0.25- µm complementary metal-oxide semiconductor image sensor technology. The number of pixels is 64 × 64, and the power consumption is 32 mW at the frame rate of 30 fps. We show that our chip not only has a wide-dynamic-range but also shows a constant response to the changes in illumination.