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This paper discusses the problem of human motion analysis from inertial sensor (accelerometer and gyroscope) data, which is the time sequence data obtained from human motion. The inertial sensors are widely used in the wearable sensing field for understanding human activities. Human motion can be divided into simple movements, such as swinging the arms or legs. These simple movements are fundamentally periodic, and they can be modeled with dynamical systems having periodic attractors. On the other hand, more complex motion like walking can be represented as a sequence of simple movements. To address the problem of analyzing human motion data, we propose a new framework based on a dynamical system. The human motions observed by the inertial sensors are divided into simple movements, and they can be often described as periodical signals. The periodical signals are described by a dynamical system, which can store the periodical or transitional trajectory in a state space by using basin of attraction. The attractors abstract a kind of proto-symbol. The dynamical system having periodical attractors is shown to characterize human motion effectively by exploiting spatiotemporal continuity, because it describes the flow of its transitions into the state space. Moreover, in the designed symbol space from the attractors, the information of human motion dynamics is described in the placement of the points. Thus, each point or transition between points in the symbol space corresponds to a specific type of motion; it can act as a notation method of motion characteristics.

Allergic asthma is a common inflammatory disease of the airways characterized by reversible airflow obstruction and airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) to bronchoconstrictor stimuli. The pathophysiology in asthma mainly occurs as a consequence of overexpression of the TH2 cytokines. These inflammatory factors are tightly regulated by a transcriptional network system. Nuclear factor kappaB (NFkB) and STAT6 are well known to regulate a set of gene associated with inflammatory and immune responses, and is thought to play an important role in the induction of allergic asthma. Therefore, we focused on the simultaneous inhibition of these important transcription factors using a decoy strategy to develop a novel therapeutic approach for treating asthma. For increased efficacy of decoy oligodeoxynucleotides (ODN) in vivo, we employed chimeric decoy ODN containing consensus sequences of both NFkB and STAT6 binding sites. In addition, two strands of decoy ODN were combined by the chemical spacer to increase its resistance to endonuclease for intratracheal administration. The therapeutic effect of chimeric decoy ODN was investigated using OVA-induced experimental asthma in mice. Mice were sensitized by intraperitoneal injections of 20 ug of ovalbumin (OVA) and 2 mg aluminum hydroxide constituted in 0.1 ml of saline on days 0 and 14. On days 21, 22 and 23, mice were challenged with 1% OVA aerosol for 20 min. At 24 hours after the last challenge, AHR was measured by methacholine-induced airflow obstruction. Intratracheal administration of decoy ODN was performed in OVA-sensitized mice at 3 days before the first challenge with aerosolized OVA. FITC-labeled chimeric decoy ODN could be detected in macrophages and monocytes migrating into the lung and airway, and NFkB and STAT6 activity were simultaneously inhibited by chimeric decoy ODN. Twenty-four hours after the last OVA challenge, treatment with chimeric or single transfection of NFkB decoy ODN was protected from methacholine-induced AHR, while mice treated with scrambled decoy ODN or saline developed a significantly increase in airway reactivity to methacholine. Importantly, this inhibitory effect of chimeric decoy ODN on airway hyperresponsiveness was significantly greater than that of NFkB decoy ODN. Treatment with chimeric decoy ODN markedly suppressed airway inflammation after OVA sensitization and challenge as compared with control and scrambled decoy ODN treatment. Inflammatory infiltrate, such as macrophage, was significantly inhibited by chimeric decoy ODN through suppression of ICAM-1 and eotaxin expression. In addition, secretion of Th2 cytokines including IL-4, IL-5 and IL-13 in BALF, and histamine in the whole lung were reduced by chimeric decoy ODN. Furthermore, a significant reduction of mucin secretion was observed by chimeric decoy ODN treatment accompanied by a suppression of MUC5AC gene expression. However, intratracheal administration of chimeric decoy ODN did not affected IgE synthesis. The present study provides a novel strategy for treating bronchial asthma by the simultaneous inhibition of both NFkB and STAT6 using chimeric decoy ODN. Further modification of chimeric decoy ODN would be useful to treat asthma as a decoy-based therapy.

The isoleucine-23 residue of human epidermal growth factor (hEGF) was substituted by a variety of amino acid residues and the receptor-binding activities of variant hEGFs were determined by the use of human KB cell. Tight receptor binding was found of variants with hydrophobic amino acid residues in position 23. The size of the isoleucine residue was nearly optimum for the receptor binding as compared with other hydrophobic residues. The structure analysis by two-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy showed that the substitution at position 23 only slightly affected the tertiary structure of hEGF. These indicate that the side chain of isoleucine residue in position 23, which is exposed on the protein surface, directly binds to a hydrophobic pocket of the receptor.

A gene coding for human secretin elongated at the C-terminus by Gly-Lys-Arg was chemically synthesized and fused to the downstream of an artifical gene encoding [Leu 14 ]human growth hormone (hGH) which had a leucine residue instead of methionine at position 14 in the wild type hGH protein. The fusion gene was efficiently expressed under the control of the Escherichia coli trp promoter including the consensus Shine-Dalgarno sequence. After the fusion protein was cleaved in two parts with cyanogen bromide, the desired secretin-Gly-Lys-Arg (SecGKR) was finally purified to homogeneity using high-performance liquid chromatography, yielding 11 mg protein from 16 g of wet cells. The biological activities of secretin-Gly-Lys (SecGK) and secretin-Gly (SecG) obtained by digestion of SecGKR with carboxypeptidase B were compared with SecGKR and the mature human secretin. The activities of SecGKR and SecGK were 25–30% higher than that of the mature human secretin amidated at the carboxy-terminal amino acid, but that of SecG was 25% lower.

An artificial gene encoding [Leu 14 ]human growth hormone(hGH), which had a leucine residue at position 14 instead of methionine as in the wild type hGH protein, was constructed and expressed in Escherichia coli at a high level, as well as the [Met 14 ]hGH gene, under the control of the trp promoter including a consensus SD sequence. A human transforming growth factor α (TGFα) gene, which had a methionine codon attached to the 5′-terminal region, was chemically synthesized and fused to the [Leu 14 ]hGH gene. The fusion gene was efficiently expressed in E. coli , yielding 48 mg per gram of the wet cell weight. After the fusion protein was cleaved into two parts at the single methionine site by treatment with cyanogen bromide, the desired TGFα was made to form disulfide bonds by a refolding reaction, and then purified by HPLC. The structure of the TGHα was confirmed by amino acid sequence analysis. The biological activity of the purified TGFα was assessed.