Production of the Blood Pressure Lowing Peptides from Brown Alga （ Undaria pinnatifida ）

Brown alga （ Undaria pinnatifida） was treated with alginate lyase and hydrolyzed using 17 kinds of proteases and the inhibitory activity of the hydrolysates for the angiotensin-I-converting enzyme （ACE） was measured. Four hydrolysates with potent ACE-inhibitory activity were administered singly and orally to spontaneously hypertensive rats （SHRs）. The systolic blood pressure of SHRs decreases significantly after single oral administration of the brown alga hydrolysates by pro- tease S ＇ Amano＇ （from Bacillus stearothermophilus） at the concentration of 10 （mg protein） （kg body weight）^ - 1. In the 17 weeks of feeding experiment, 7-week-old SHRs were fed standard diet supplemented with the brown alga hydrolysates for 10 weeks. In SHRs fed 1.0 and 0.1% brown alga hydrolysates, elevating of systolic bloodpressure was significantly suppressed for 7 weeks. To elucidate the active components, the brown alga hydrolysates were fractionated by 1-butanol extraction and HPLC on a reverse-phase column. Seven kinds of ACE-inhibitory peptides were isolated and identified by amino acid composition analysis, sequence analysis, and LC-MS with the results Val-Tyr, Ile-Tyr, Ala-Trp, Phe-Tyr, Val-Trp, Ile-Trp, and Leu-Trp. Each peptide was determined to have an antihypertensive effect after a single oral administration in SHRs. The brown alga hydrolysates were also confirmed to decrease the blood pressure in humans.     

Consistency Analysis of Subsurface Fracture Characterization Using Different Polarimetry Techniques by a Borehole Radar

We present a fully polarimetric borehole radar in conjunction with radar polarimetry, Pauli decomposition, and H-alpha decomposition techniques to carry out physical characterization of subsurface fractures. Further tests are needed to validate the applicability of radar polarimetry analysis for physical characterization of subsurface targets. Toward this goal, we present the implementation of two other decomposition techniques, namely: (1) the Durden-Freeman decomposition and (2) polarimetric anisotropy parameter methods, in the context of previous research and examine the consistency of results using various polarimetric decomposition techniques. While results from the radar polarimetry decomposition were found to depend greatly upon the kind of physical or mathematical models, these techniques seem to provide comparable performances in terms of fracture characterization and classification.     

Discovery of Jurassic ammonoids from the Shyok suture zone to the northeast of Chang La Pass, Ladakh, northwest India and its tectonic significance

Abstract   Callovian (late Middle Jurassic) ammonoids Macrocephalites and Jeanneticeras were recovered from the Shyok suture zone, northeast of Chang La Pass, Ladakh, northwest India. They are the first reliable Jurassic fossils and the oldest chronologic data from the Shyok suture zone. The ammonoid-bearing Jurassic strata, newly defined as the Tsoltak Formation, consist largely of terrigenous mudstone with thin sandstone beds and were probably a part of the continental basement to the Cretaceous Ladakh Arc.     

Expulsion of geopressured hydrothermal system along active faults and its relation to the occurrence of earthquakes in the Shinanogawa seismic belt,Japan

The 1995 Northern Niigata Earthquake (M 6.0) occurred at a shallow depth in the Niigata seismic gap. The anomaly areas in temperature, electrical conductivity and Cl- concentration of groundwater trend northeast as linear distribution in the epicentral area and are approximately coincident with the area of the seismic intensity 6 (JMA scale). The distributions of seismic intensity 6 and groundwater anomalies convincingly imaged the presence of a buried active fault beneath the epicentral area. The occurrence of this earthquake and the anomalies of groundwater were related to the expulsion of geopressured hydrothermal system (GHS). All epicenters of the destructive earthquakes along the Shinanogawa seismic belt are actually located in the buried active fault zones characterized by the areas of temperature and geochemical anomalies of groundwater. These earthquakes might have been triggered by the activity of GHS. The expulsion of GHS along an active fault in combination with the thermal softening of fault     

Observational studies of 12 DD Lacertae

Astrophysics and Space Science - Analysis of the radial velocity curves of 12 DD Lacertae showns that the primary period is decreasing and the secondary is almost constant, confirming the...     

Influence of water saturation on horizontal and vertical motion at a porous soil interface induced by incident SV wave

Recent field observations have indicated that water saturation of soils may strongly affect the vertical ground motion. A study is therefore carried out to investigate the effect of saturation on horizontal and vertical motion at an interface of porous soils with potential contributions directed to site evaluation based on field observations of both the horizontal and vertical motion. The problem described in this paper corresponds to an SV wave incident at the interface between the overlying soil and the underlying rock formation. The soils are modeled as partially water-saturated porous material with a small amount of air inclusions, while the rock are approximately regarded as ordinary one-phase solid. Theoretical formulation is developed for the computation of amplitudes of horizontal and vertical interface motion, which are expressed as functions of the degree of saturation, the angle of incidence as well as the frequency. Numerical results are given for a typical sand to illustrate the influence of saturation on the interface motion in two directions and their ratios. The present study demonstrates that the effect of water saturation may be substantial on both the horizontal and vertical motion as well as on their ratios, implying the importance of such effects in the interpretation of field observations.