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Abstract. OC-108 is a novel sclerosing agent for hemorrhoids, containing aluminum potassium sulfate (alum) and tannic acid as its main ingredients. In clinical studies, OC-108 injection therapy for severe internal hemorrhoids proved to be highly effective, not only on bleeding but also for prolapse, and the effects were comparable to hemorrhoidectomy. The aim of this study was to elucidate the mode of action by administrating the agent s.c. to mice and rats. In response to OC-108 injection, inflammation with necrosis developed at an early stage followed by granuloma formation with fibrosis at the injection site. Necrotic debris with aluminum was observed in the granuloma for a long period. Alum, as well as OC-108, induced vascular permeability, leukocyte infiltration, and granuloma formation; however, tannic acid did not. On the other hand, tannic acid inhibited leukocyte infiltration induced by alum but did not inhibit granuloma formation. These results indicate that OC-108 causes sclerosis and retraction of hemorrhoids through fibrosis associated with granulomatous chronic inflammation induced by the main active ingredient alum and that the adjunct ingredient tannic acid reduces excessive acute inflammation induced by alum.

We previously demonstrated that high-fat diet (HFD)-induced hepatic lipid accumulation is more severe in BALB/c mice than in C57BL/ 6J (B6) mice. To understand the changes in liver metabolism, we studied blood chemistry, gene expression, and histopathological changes of the liver in nine-week HFD-fed BALB/c and B6 mice and one-or four-week HFD-fed BALB/c mice. Serum total cholesterol and triglyceride levels were significantly increased in all HFD-fed groups, and one-and four-week HFD-fed BALB/c groups, respectively. Histopathology revealed that vacuolation of hepatocytes was severe in nine-week HFD-fed BALB/c mice, although it was less severe in the other groups. Microarray analysis of mRNA expression of nine-week HFD-fed BALB/c mice showed up-regulation of genes involved in fatty acid uptake and biosynthesis, such as Cd36, Acaca, Acly, and Fasn. Some changes were observed in the one-and four-week HFD-fed BALB/c groups and the nine-week HFD-fed B6 group, however these changes in mRNA expression were not so marked. In conclusion, the fatty accumulation observed in BALB/c mice may be caused, at least in part, by up-regulation of fatty acid uptake and biosynthesis. Cd36, Acaca, Acly and Fasn may be involved in these metabolic processes.

Palm carotene was successfully concentrated from crude palm oil by a single-stage chromatographic process on a synthetic porous polymer. Carotene was concentrated to about 10 5 ppm solution, which is about 160 times the original concentration in crude palm oil. Carotene recovery varied from 40 to 65% depending upon chromatographic conditions. The fatty acid composition of the palm oil did not change during the carotene recovery process, and the carotene composition was also almost the same as that in palm oil. Adsorption isotherms of the adsorbent differed from other adsorbents. This new recovery method for palm carotene may be suitable as an edible palm oil pretreatment process due to its efficient mass recovery of a valuable bioresource. JAOCS 75, 399-404 (1998).

[1] Recent numerical experiments [Hibiya et al., 1996[Hibiya et al., , 1998[Hibiya et al., , 2002 predicted that the energy cascade across the internal wave spectrum down to small dissipation scales was under strong control by parametric subharmonic instabilities that transfer energy from the low vertical wave number, double-inertial frequency wave band to a high vertical wave number, near-inertial frequency wave band. To test whether or not the numerically predicted energy cascade process is actually dominant in the real deep ocean, we deployed a total of 106 expendable current profilers over a large area in the North Pacific to examine the spatial distribution of high vertical wave number (vertical wavelength $25 m) shear. At midlatitudes, significant enhancement of the 25 m vertical shear was found over prominent generation regions of semidiurnal internal tides such as the Hawaiian Ridge and the Izu-Ogasawara Ridge where the semidiurnal tidal frequency exceeds twice the local inertial frequency. At high latitudes, in contrast, no significant enhancement of the 25 m vertical shear was found to occur even over another prominent generation region of semidiurnal internal tides, the Aleutian Ridge, where the semidiurnal tidal frequency is less than twice the local inertial frequency. We find that the spatial distribution of the intensity of the 25 m vertical shear correlates very well with that of the low vertical wave number, double-inertial frequency internal wave energy numerically predicted by Nagasawa et al. [2000] and Hibiya [2001a, 2001b]. This is the first in situ evidence for the dominant role of parametric subharmonic instability in transferring deep ocean internal wave energy down to small dissipation scales. This study provides a theoretical framework for future attempts to determine the large-scale structure of mixing over the world's oceans.