Earticle

c-Jun N-terminal kinase-3 (JNK3) is a member of the mitogen-activated protein kinase family (MAPK), and plays an important role in neurological disorders. Therefore, identification of selective JNK3 inhibitor may contribute towards neuroprotection therapies. In this work, we performed hologram quantitative structure-activity relationship (HQSAR) on a series of thiophene trisubstituted derivatives. The best predictions were obtained for HQSAR model with q2 = 0.628 and r2 = 0.986. Statistical parameters from the generated QSAR models indicated the data is well fitted and have high predictive ability. HQSAR result showed that atom, bond and chirality descriptors play an important role in JNK3 activity and also shows that electronegative groups is highly favourble to enhance the biological activity. Our results could be useful to design novel and selective JNK3 inhibitors.

Chemoattractant receptor homologous molecule expressed on Th2 cells (CRTh2) is a G-protein coupled receptor targeted for inflammatory diseases such as asthma, allergic rhinitis and atopic dermatitis. In this study, pharmacophore modeling and comparative molecular field analysis (CoMFA) were performed on the series of 2-(2- (benzylthio)-1Hbenzo[ d]imidazol-1-yl) acetic acids derivatives. Five highly active compounds were used for generation of pharmacophore models using GASP module. The best pharmacophore model was selected and used as template for the alignment of compounds which was used for CoMFA analysis. The best predictions obtained for CoMFA was q2= 0.545, r2= 0.756. The predictive ability of the model was investigated using 15 test set compounds. Contour maps suggested that presence of bulky substituents at 5th position of benzene ring connected to suphur atoms attached to imidazol ring will increase the activity of the compounds. The results obtained from this study will be useful to design more potent CRTh2 antagonists.

Novel 2'(β)-fluoro-3'(α)-hydroxy-threose nucleosides (iso-FMAU) as antiviral agents were designed and racemically synthesized from Solketal. Condensation successfully proceeded from a glycosyl donor 9 under Vorbrüggen conditions yielded the nucleoside analogues. Ammonolysis and hydrolysis of isopropylidene protection group gave the desired nucleoside analogues 12, 15, 18, and 19. The antiviral activities of the synthesized compounds were evaluated against the HIV-1, HSV-1, HSV-2 and HCMV. Compound 12 displayed some anti-HCMV activity (EC50=24.7 μg/ml) without exhibiting any cytotoxicity up to 100 μM.

Amino acid-catalyzed directed asymmetric aldol reactions showed enhanced enantioselectivity when conducted in ionic liquids. Optically active products were afforded in better yields (up to 23% higher) and enantiomeric excess (up to 21% higher) in ionic liquids than in conventional organic solvents.

Liquid chromatographic enantiomer separation of α-amino acid esters as nitrobenzoxadiazole (NBD) derivatives was performed using several chiral stationary phases (CSPs) based on polysaccharide derivatives under fluorescence detection. For enantiomer separation by normal HPLC, the non-aqueous derivatization method of α-amino acid esters for NBD analytes was introduced. Among the six CSPs used in this study, the performance of Chiralpak IA was superior for enantiomer resolution of NBD derivatives of several α-amino acid methyl esters. Also the convenient analytical method using polysaccharide-derived CSPs developed in this study was applied to determine the optical purity of α-amino acids esters. It was investigated that the enantiomeric impurity levels of 0.02-1.73% were found after determination of enantiomeric purities of several commercially available L-amino acid methyl esters. It is expected to be quite useful for enantiomer separation of other α-amino acid esters as NBD derivatives by normal HPLC.

Lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) is one of the important legumes and cheaper source of protein in Bangladesh that displays great biological diversity. Isozyme, one of the most important protein markers to detect genetic polymorphism in lentil, whereas we considered thirteen- isozyme in six varieties viz., BARI masur-1, BARI masur-2, BARI masur-3, BARI masur- 4, BARI masur-5 and BARI masur-6. The highest polymorphism was found in tyrosinase isozyme system. UPGMA analysis revealed that the highest similarity between BARI masur-5 and BARI masur-6 whereas, the highest genetic distance between BARI masur-1 and BARI masur-5 reflecting higher intervarietal variation. Principal component analysis (PCA) also revealed the similar results that of unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA). The first, second and third PCs contributed 81.58%, 11.19% and 4.94% variation respectively, with cumulative variation of the first three PCs was 75.45%. Consequently, Isozyme could clearly assed the genetic diversity at intervarietal levels and these two varieties can be considered as valuable gene resources for future breeding and conservation programs.

This paper focuses on the applicability of a continuous monitoring method on trace sulfur compounds in the ambient air by TD and GC/PFPD. The target compounds for monitoring include H2S(hydrogen sulfide), Methyl mercaptan, Dimethyl Sulfide, and Dimethyl disulfide. The result of QA/QC on monitoring instruments satisfies all the standards of Odor Measurement and Analysis Method, showing that the reproductivity of the compounds by concentration is within 10%, linearity is above 0.98 of a correlation efficient, method detection limit is 0.16 ppb by MM standard, and recovery rate is over 70%. Monitoring was conducted for two years from March 2006 to February 2008. As a result of the monitoring, the average concentration of H2S was 0.08 ppb, with the maximum concentration at 16.15 ppb. The result indicates that it is reasonable to do continuous monitoring as there appears a spontaneous event of high concentration by the condition of the site during monitoring odor-causing substances. Therefore, it is suggested that the continuous monitoring method used in this paper is appropriate to identify the characteristics of sudden occurrence and concentration variations of sulfur compounds.

Climate change which occuring the recent abrupt fluctuations in meteorological and climatological elements is bound, brings about more significant impacts and changes in human life One of the most important problems due to the impacts of climate change tends to have been decreased the food production, which is expected to make crop resources more and more important. Accordingly, agricultural meteorology should also become more important. In this study, the correlation between meteorological elements and root and tuber crops (potatoes and sweet potatoes), which are emergency crops, and meteorological elements were analyzed, and the impacts of climate changes on the production of such crops were examined. This study concludes that agriculture and food resources are important, and suggests that we should prepare for changes in crops, the weaponization of food, and the lack of water resources in the future. The meteorological element and crops element correlation analysis results. Sweet potatoes, which are negatively influenced by climate change, need breeding improvement and cultivation method development, and potatoes, which are positively influenced by climate change, require preparations for climate changes that exceed the climatic limit. The variations of agricultural production contributed to changes in crop production. Therefore, the importance of agricultural meteorology and the food crop industry should be fully recognized to prepare for climate change.

As the visual quality of X-ray images is a critical reference for the accuracy of the clinical diagnosis, the methods to improve the quality of X-ray images have been investigated. Among many existing methods, using frequency domain filter is a very powerful method to improve the visual quality of images. In this paper, the inherent noises of the input images are suppressed by adding the Laplacian image to the subjected image. The medical X-ray images using the optimal high pass filter has shown improved edges. Further, the optimal high frequency emphasis filter has shown the improved contrast of flat areas by using the result image from the optimal high pass filter. Also the resulting images of the global contrast have improved by the histogram equalization. As a result, the proposed methods have shown enhanced contrast and edges of the images with noise canceling effect.

In this note, we provide some examples of polynomials zn−p(z), where , and , ak ≥ 0 for each k such that p(z) has all its zeros on |z| = c < 1, and zn−p(z) has all its zeros on two circles |z| = 1 and |z| = d < 1.