Measuring linguistics of the wokototen chart made inductively by deciphering kunten materials.

In this paper, we focus on wokototen markings, which are a system of kunten annotations used to facilitate the reading of classical Chinese documents by Japanese readers. Using digitized data, we performed basic measurements of wokototen by using a chart that summarizes the wokototen markings of actual kunten materials described by Hiroshi Tsukishima, and we quantitatively clarified their characteristics. Kunten materials are classical Chinese books with annotations, called kunten, on the Chinese text. The wokototen is a type of kunten. In ancient East Asian countries, kunten systems were developed as a way of directly annotating Chinese documents so that they could be read and understood by non-native readers. For this reason, kunten materials and kunten are treated as historical sources for linguistic and historical research. The shape and position of a wokototen marking determines what kind of reading it indicates. The results of our basic survey quantitatively show that almost all the wokototen charts in actual kunten materials contain particles represented by "te", "ni", and "wo", the most common shapes of wokototen are dots and shapes that can be written with a single stroke, such as ｜, ─, and ＼, and that the most common places to find these markings are to the right of characters in the horizontal direction and below characters in the vertical direction.

Congenital mitral regurgitation with Down syndrome.

A 19-year-old man with Down syndrome had congenital mitral regurgitation. He had slight mental retardation and difficulty in performing independent oral drug administration. We planned mitral valve plasty to avoid postoperative anticoagulant therapy. The mitral valve lesions were complicated. A prolapsed anterior mitral leaflet, shortened posterior leaflet, abnormal cleft, abnormal papillary muscle, and enlarged annulus were observed. Successful mitral valve plasty was performed using several techniques. The postoperative course was uneventful, and no significant mitral regurgitation was found.

Endotoxin-neutralizing activity and mechanism of action of a cationic α-helical antimicrobial octadecapeptide derived from α-amylase of rice.

We have previously reported that AmyI-1-18, an octadecapeptide derived from α-amylase (AmyI-1) of rice, is a novel cationic α-helical peptide that exhibited antimicrobial activity against human pathogens, including Porphyromonas gingivalis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Propionibacterium acnes, Streptococcus mutans, and Candida albicans. In this study, to further investigate the potential functions of AmyI-1-18, we examined its inhibitory ability against the endotoxic activities of lipopolysaccharides (LPSs, smooth and Rc types) and lipid A from Escherichia coli. AmyI-1-18 inhibited the production of endotoxin-induced nitric oxide (NO), an inflammatory mediator, in mouse macrophages (RAW264) in a concentration-dependent manner. The results of a chromogenic Limulus amebocyte lysate assay illustrated that the ability [50% effective concentration (EC50): 0.17 µM] of AmyI-1-18 to neutralize lipid A was similar to its ability (EC50: 0.26 µM) to neutralize LPS, suggesting that AmyI-1-18 specifically binds to the lipid A moiety of LPS. Surface plasmon resonance analysis of the interaction between AmyI-1-18 and LPS or lipid A also suggested that AmyI-1-18 directly binds to the lipid A moiety of LPS because the dissociation constant (KD) of AmyI-1-18 with lipid A is 5.6×10(-10) M, which is similar to that (4.3×10(-10) M) of AmyI-1-18 with LPS. In addition, AmyI-1-18 could block the binding of LPS-binding protein to LPS, although its ability was less than that of polymyxin B. These results suggest that AmyI-1-18 expressing antimicrobial and endotoxin-neutralizing activities is useful as a safe and potent host defense peptide against pathogenic Gram-negative bacteria in many fields of healthcare.