Functional diversity and pharmacological profiles of the FKBPs and their complexes with small natural ligands

From 5 to 12 FK506-binding proteins (FKBPs) are encoded in the genomes of disparate marine organisms, which appeared at the dawn of evolutionary events giving rise to primordial multicellular organisms with elaborated internal body plan. Fifteen FKBPs, several FKBP-like proteins and some splicing variants of them are expressed in humans. Human FKBP12 and some of its paralogues bind to different macrocyclic antibiotics such as FK506 or rapamycin and their derivatives. FKBP12/(macrocyclic antibiotic) complexes induce diverse pharmacological activities such as immunosuppression in humans, anticancerous actions and as sustainers of quiescence in certain organisms. Since the FKBPs bind to various assemblies of proteins and other intracellular components, their complexes with the immunosuppressive drugs may differentially perturb miscellaneous cellular functions. Sequence–structure relationships and pharmacological profiles of diverse FKBPs and their involvement in crucial intracellular signalization pathways and modulation of cryptic intercellular communication networks were discussed.     

The importance of multimedia principle and emergence principle for the knowledge civilisation age

The paper discusses two basic principles derived from results of studies concerning foundations of micro-theories of knowledge creation; these are Multimedia Principle and Emergence Principle. Their epistemic, systemic and metaphysical importance is discussed, together with their relations to the episteme of technology treated as a separate cultural sphere. A spiral of evolutionary knowledge creation is presented, in which an extended Falsification Principle plays the role of an objectifying feedback; this spiral is related to an episteme of Evolutionary Constructive Objectivism proposed earlier for the coming knowledge civilisation age.     

EEG-based asynchronous BCI control of a car in 3D virtual reality environments

Brain computer interface (BCI) aims at creating new communication channels without depending on brain’s normal output channels of peripheral nerves and muscles. However, natural and sophisticated interactions manner between brain and computer still remain challenging. In this paper, we investigate how the duration of event-related desynchronization/synchronization (ERD/ERS) caused by motor imagery (MI) can be modulated and used as an additional control parameter beyond simple binary decisions. Furthermore, using the non-time-locked properties of sustained (de)synchronization, we have developed an asynchronous BCI system for driving a car in 3D virtual reality environment (VRE) based on cumulative incremental control strategy. The extensive real time experiments confirmed that our new approach is able to drive smoothly a virtual car within challenging VRE only by the MI tasks without involving any muscular activities. Supported by the National High-Tech Research Program of China (Grant No. 2006AA01Z125) and the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2005CB724301)     

Electronic support for knowledge creation in a research institute

This paper focuses on the question how to build an electronic support environment for knowledge creation in a research institute （JAIST）. In order to assess the importance of diverse conditions of scientific creativity, we performed a survey in JAIST, and extracted useful knowledge from the database of survey results. Following the analysis of the theory of academic processes of knowledge creation and the survey findings in JAIST, a computer-based integrated system is proposed. In the aspect of the system design, we postulate that an electronic support environment for academic creativity can be achieved through a seamless integration with Internet, Application Server, Middle Ware, Database and Data Warehouse. The paper addresses issues of knowledge representation in the Electronic Support System for academic research, testing and evaluation issues and conclusions.     

A rough granular computing in discovery of process models from data and domain knowledge

The rapid expansion of the Internet has resulted not only in the ever growing amount of data therein stored, but also in the burgeoning complexity of the concepts and phenomena pertaining to those data. This issue has been vividly compared by the renowned statistician, prof. Friedman of Stanford University, to the advances in human mobility from the period of walking afoot to the era of jet travel. These essential changes in data have brought new challenges to the development of new data mining methods, especially that the treatment of these data increasingly involves complex processes that elude classic modeling paradigms. “Hot” datasets like biomedical, financial or net user behavior data are just a few examples. Mining such temporal or stream data is on the agenda of many research centers and companies worldwide. In the data mining community, there is a rapidly growing interest in developing methods for process mining, e.g〖DK〗., for discovery of structures of temporal processes from data. Works on process mining have recently been undertaken by many renowned centers worldwide. This research is also related to functional data analysis , cognitive networks , and dynamical system modeling, e.g., in biology. In the lecture, we outline an approach to discovery of processes from data and domain knowledge which is based on the roughgranular computing.     

三维虚拟现实环境中基于EEG的异步BCI小车导航系统

脑机交互(BCI)目的是为了建立一种全新的对外信息交流通路, 它不依赖于常规大脑输出通道(外周神经系统及肌肉组织). 但是, 在大脑与计算机之间建立一种自然的、功能复杂的交互方式仍是一种挑战. 本文研究了如何使运动想象(MI)引起的事件相关去同步/同步(ERD/ERS)的持续时间可以被思维任务调制, 并提供一种额外的连续控制参数, 从而超越了传统的二值控制问题. 另外, 采用持续去同步的非锁时性, 开发了基于累积增量控制策略的异步BCI系统, 即三维虚拟现实中小车导航系统. 实时实验结果表明, 本文所提出的方法能够使受试者采用运动想象EEG在复杂的三维虚拟现实环境中平稳地驾驶小车.     

Bacteriophages targeting intestinal epithelial cells: a potential novel form of immunotherapy

In addition to their established role as a physical barrier to invading pathogens and other harmful agents, intestinal epithelial cells (IEC) are actively involved in local immune reactions. In the past years, evidence has accumulated suggesting the role of IEC in the immunopathology of intestinal inflammatory disorders (IBD). Recent advances in research on bacteriophages strongly suggest that—in addition to their established antibacterial activity—they have immunomodulating properties that are potentially useful in the clinic. We suggest that these immunomodulating phage activities targeting IEC may open novel treatment perspectives in disorders of the alimentary tract, particularly IBD.     

A receptor for the immunosuppressant FK506 is a cis-trans peptidyl-prolyl isomerase

The structurally novel macrolide FK506 (refs 1,2) has recently been demonstrated to have potent immunosuppressive activity at concentrations several hundredfold lower than cyclosporin A (CsA). Cyclosporin A, a cyclic peptide, has found widespread clinical use in the prevention of graft rejection following bone marrow and organ transplantation. The mechanisms of immunosuppression mediated by FK506 and CsA appear to be remarkably similar, suggesting that these unrelated structures act on a common receptor or on similar molecular targets, perhaps the CsA receptor, cyclophilin, which has recently been shown by Fischer et al. and Takahashi et al. to have cis-trans peptidyl-prolyl isomerase activity. We have prepared an FK506 affinity matrix and purified a binding protein for FK506 from bovine thymus and from human spleen. This FK506-binding protein (FKBP) has a relative molecular mass (Mr) of approximately 14,000(14K), a pI of 8.8-8.9, and does not cross-react with antisera against cyclophilin. The first 40 N-terminal residues of the bovine and 16 residues of the human FKBP were determined; the 16-residue fragments are identical to each other and unrelated to any known sequences. This protein catalyses the cis-trans isomerization of the proline amide in a tetrapeptide substrate and FK506 inhibits the action of this new isomerase. The FKBP and cyclophilin appear to be members of an emerging class of novel proteins that regulate T cell activation and other metabolic processes, perhaps by the recognition (and possibly the isomerization) of proline-containing epitopes in target proteins.     

结合代数的表示理论基础：第1卷：表示理论的技术

一个复杂的数学对象通过另一个较简单的对象表示出来，是一个基本的数学思想，它在分类问题中特别有用。本书从箭图及同调代数的线性表示的观点给出代数闭域上有限维结合代数的表示理论的现代结果。全书分两卷，本书为第1卷，论述表示理论的基本技术，如箭图理论技术、殆分裂序列、标题理论、整二次型等，其中不少材料第一次由原始论文改写为专著的形式。[第一段]