Synthesis of Branch-Type 3-Allylindoles from N-Alkyl-N-cinnamyl-2-ethynylaniline Derivatives Using π-Allylpalladium Chloride Complex as a Catalyst.

The reaction of N-alkyl-N-cinnamyl-2-ethynylaniline derivatives 1 via annulation and aza-Claisen-type rearrangement easily afforded corresponding branch-type 3-allylindoles 2 with high regioselectivities in good yields using π-allylpalladium chloride complex as a catalyst.

Cognitive function, treatment response to lithium, and social functioning in Japanese patients with bipolar disorder.

OBJECTIVES: Patients with bipolar disorder often suffer from cognitive impairment that significantly influences their functional outcome. However, it remains unknown whether lithium has a central role in cognition and functional outcome. We examined whether cognition and functional outcome were predicted by demographic and clinical variables, including the response to lithium, in lithium-treated patients with bipolar disorder. METHODS: We evaluated 96 lithium-treated euthymic patients with bipolar disorder and 196 age- and-gender-matched healthy controls, using the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS). The patients were also assessed using the Social Functioning Scale (SFS) and "The Retrospective Criteria of Long-Term Treatment Response in Research Subjects with Bipolar Disorder" (Alda) scale, which was evaluated as either a continuous measure of the total scale or a dichotomous criterion. RESULTS: Multiple regression analysis revealed two key findings: first, that the premorbid intelligence quotient, age, and number of mood episodes were predictors of the BACS composite score; and, second, that the BACS composite score, negative symptoms, and continuous measure on the total Alda scale (but not its dichotomy) predicted the total SFS score. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to confirm these findings, and additionally revealed that the Alda scale was significantly associated with negative symptoms and also the number of mood episodes, regardless of how it was evaluated. CONCLUSIONS: SEM delineated how demographic and clinical variables, cognitive performance, and response to lithium treatment were causally associated with, and converged on, social function. The putative role of the Alda scale for social function warrants further study.

Biosynthetic Study of Amphidinin A and Amphidinolide P.

The biogenetic origins of amphidinin A (1) and amphidinolide P (2) were investigated by feeding experiments with (13)C-labeled acetates. (13)C-NMR data of (13)C-enriched samples revealed that the all carbons of 1 and 2 were derived from acetates. The polyketide chain of 1 was formed from one triketide chain, two diketide chains, and three unusual isolated C1 units derived from C-2 of cleaved acetates, while the polyketide chain of 2 was formed from one pentaketide chain, two acetate units, and three unusual isolated C1 units derived from C-2 of cleaved acetates. The all branched C1 units of 1 and 2 were derived from C-2 of cleaved acetates.

Prevalence of elevated serum anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antibody titers in patients presenting exclusively with psychiatric symptoms: a comparative follow-up study.

BACKGROUND: Increasing numbers of patients with elevated anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antibody titers presenting exclusively with psychiatric symptoms have been reported. The aim of the present study was to clarify the prevalence of elevated serum anti-NMDA receptor antibody titers in patients with new-onset or acute exacerbations of psychiatric symptoms. In addition, the present study aimed to investigate the association between elevated anti-NMDA receptor titers and psychiatric symptoms. METHODS: The present collaborative study included 59 inpatients (23 male, 36 female) presenting with new-onset or exacerbations of schizophrenia-like symptoms at involved institutions from June 2012 to March 2014. Patient information was collected using questionnaires. Anti-NMDA receptor antibody titers were measured using NMDAR NR1 and NR2B co-transfected human embryonic kidney (HEK) 293 cells as an antigen (cell-based assay). Statistical analyses were performed for each questionnaire item. RESULTS: The mean age of participants was 42.0 ± 13.7 years. Six cases had elevated serum anti-NMDA antibody titers (10.2 %), four cases were first onset, and two cases with disease duration >10 years presented with third and fifth recurrences. No statistically significant difference in vital signs or major symptoms was observed between antibody-positive and antibody-negative groups. However, a trend toward an increased frequency of schizophrenia-like symptoms was observed in the antibody-positive group. CONCLUSION: Serum anti-NMDA receptor antibody titers may be associated with psychiatric conditions. However, an association with specific psychiatric symptoms was not observed in the present study. Further studies are required to validate the utility of serum anti-NMDA receptor antibody titer measurements at the time of symptom onset.

Possible practical utility of an enzyme cocktail produced by sludge-degrading microbes for methane and hydrogen production from digested sludge.

Digested sludge (DS) is a major waste product of anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge and is resistant to biodegradation. In this study, we examined suitability of the hydrolases produced by DS-degrading fungal strains (DS-hydrolases) for methane and hydrogen fermentation from DS. Although the strains are mesophilic, DS-hydrolases showed strong chitinase and keratinase activity at ∼50°C. SDS-PAGE analysis suggested that the strains possess a multienzyme system, which allows the hydrolases of some strains to be stable in a wide range of temperatures. Addition of the DS-hydrolases to a vial-scale anaerobic digester enhanced methane and hydrogen production from DS at pH 9.0 and 5.0, respectively. The hydrogen production was also enhanced by the use of methacrylate ester-precipitated DS as a substrate. Further improvement of culture and reaction conditions may make these hydrolases suitable for production of renewable fuels.

Relationship between listening difficulty rating and objective measures in reverberant and noisy sound fields for young adults and elderly persons.

Listening difficulty ratings [Morimoto et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 116, 1607-1613 (2004)] were obtained for 20 young adult listeners and 34 elderly listeners in reverberant and noisy sound fields simulated in an anechoic room. The listening difficulty ratings were compared with acoustical objective measures. The results and analyses showed the following: (i) The correlation between listening difficulty ratings and the revised speech transmission index (STI(r)), and that for the useful-detrimental ratio (U(50)) were high, regardless of the age of the listeners. (ii) STI(r) and U(50) need to be increased by 0.12 and 4.2 dB, respectively, to equalize the listening difficulty ratings for the elderly listeners with those for the young listeners. (iii) The estimation accuracies for STI(r) and U(50) can be improved by calculating them with the L(eq) of background noise linearly increased by 4 to 10 dB, which depends on the age of the listeners and the objective measures. However, the improvement was not statistically significant for the elderly listeners.

Acceptable range of speech level in noisy sound fields for young adults and elderly persons.

The acceptable range of speech level as a function of background noise level was investigated on the basis of word intelligibility scores and listening difficulty ratings. In the present study, the acceptable range is defined as the range that maximizes word intelligibility scores and simultaneously does not cause a significant increase in listening difficulty ratings from the minimum ratings. Listening tests with young adult and elderly listeners demonstrated the following. (1) The acceptable range of speech level for elderly listeners overlapped that for young listeners. (2) The lower limit of the acceptable speech level for both young and elderly listeners was 65 dB (A-weighted) for noise levels of 40 and 45 dB (A-weighted), a level with a speech-to-noise ratio of +15 dB for noise levels of 50 and 55 dB, and a level with a speech-to-noise ratio of +10 dB for noise levels from 60 to 70 dB. (3) The upper limit of the acceptable speech level for both young and elderly listeners was 80 dB for noise levels from 40 to 55 dB and 85 dB or above for noise levels from 55 to 70 dB.

Relationship between listening difficulty and acoustical objective measures in reverberant sound fields.

The previous work [Morimoto et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 116, 1607-1613] showed that listening difficulty ratings can be used to evaluate speech transmission performance more exactly and sensitively than intelligibility. Meanwhile, speech transmission performance is usually evaluated using acoustical objective measures, which are directly associated with physical parameters of room acoustic design. However, the relationship between listening difficulty ratings and acoustical objective measures was not minutely investigated. In the present study, a total of 96 impulse responses were used to investigate the relationship between listening difficulty ratings and several objective measures in unidirectional sound fields. The result of the listening test showed that (1) the correlation between listening difficulty ratings and speech transmission index (STI) is the strongest of all tested objective measures, and (2) A-weighted D(50), C(50), and center time, which are obtained from the impulse responses passed through an A-weighted filter, also strongly correlate with listening difficulty ratings, and their correlations with listening difficulty ratings are not statistically different from the correlation between listening difficulty ratings and STI.

Acceptable range of speech level for both young and aged listeners in reverberant and quiet sound fields.

The speech level of verbal information in public spaces should be determined to make it acceptable to as many listeners as possible, while simultaneously maintaining maximum intelligibility and considering the variation in the hearing levels of listeners. In the present study, the universally acceptable range of speech level in reverberant and quiet sound fields for both young listeners with normal hearing and aged listeners with hearing loss due to aging was investigated. Word intelligibility scores and listening difficulty ratings as a function of speech level were obtained by listening tests. The results of the listening tests clarified that (1) the universally acceptable ranges of speech level are from 60 to 70 dBA, from 56 to 61 dBA, from 52 to 67 dBA and from 58 to 63 dBA for the test sound fields with the reverberation times of 0.0, 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 s, respectively, and (2) there is a speech level that falls within all of the universally acceptable ranges of speech level obtained in the present study; that speech level is around 60 dBA.

Effects of aging on word intelligibility and listening difficulty in various reverberant fields.

Listening difficulty ratings is a new measure to evaluate speech transmission performance in public spaces. The advantage is that it can evaluate sound fields with higher speech transmission performance more accurately and sensitively than intelligibility scores. The effect of aging, or hearing level on listening difficulty ratings has not been clarified yet. In this paper, the results of the listening tests demonstrated that hearing levels above 2 kHz significantly affect both word intelligibility scores and listening difficulty ratings for the aged. For the aged, both of them can be estimated from the results for the young plus the average of hearing levels at 2 and 4 kHz. The equations for estimating the word intelligibility scores and the listening difficulty ratings for the aged are obtained from the multiple linear regression analyses. The estimated scores and ratings generally coincide with the measured scores and ratings, and the averaged difference between them is 5.2% for the word intelligibility scores and 3.8% for the listening difficulty ratings, in the range of listening tests performed in this paper.

Optimum speech level to minimize listening difficulty in public spaces.

For ideal speech communication in public spaces, it is important to determine the optimum speech level for various background noise levels. However, speech intelligibility scores, which is conventionally used as the subjective listening test to measure the quality of speech communication, is near perfect in most everyday situations. For this reason, it is proposed to determine optimum speech levels for speech communication in public spaces by using listening difficulty ratings. Two kinds of listening test were carried out in this work. The results of the tests and our previous work [M. Morimoto, H. Sato, and M. Kobayashi, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 116, 1607-1613 (2004)] are jointly discussed for suggesting the relation between the optimum speech level and background noise level. The results demonstrate that: (1) optimum speech level is constant when background noise level is lower than 40 dBA, (2) optimum speech level appears to be the level, which maintains around 15 dBA of SN ratio when the background noise level is more than 40 dBA, and (3) listening difficulty increases as speech level increases under the condition where SN ratio is good enough to keep intelligibility near perfect.