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Non-linear partial differential equations are presented for two dimensional heat and mass transfer within a single grain kernel during drying. In this model, the moisture evaporation inside the kernel is considered. The moisture is assumed to diffuse to the outer boundary of the kernel in liquid form and evaporate on the surface of the kernel. The influence of temperature and moisture content on grain properties is also considered in the simulation. The Non-linear partial differential equations are solved using the finite element method and simulation data is verified on a thin layer dryer for wheat kernels. The comparison shows that the simulated results have a high accuracy with average relative error of about 5%. The results of the finite element analysis can be used for grain quality evaluation, drying simulation studies and stress analysis of grain kernel.

Thermal stress and hydro stress within a single com kernel during drying are analysed with the mechanics of elasticity and material. The mathematical model of the stress within a single com kernel during drying is given. A finite element method is developed in details to simulate the maximum principal stress and shear stress within a single com at 75°C and 50°C drying air temperatures. The locations of the predicted maximum stresses are described and stress fields at different drying time are obtained. The result shows that the predicted locations of the maximum stresses agree with published materials on stress-crack or burst of com kernels.

A two-dimensional finite element model of nonlinear heat transfer was developed to predict temperature distributions of wheat in a cylindrical stored grain bin. An electric heater was used at the bin centre to produce internal heat. With this model the temperature distributions in a storage bin ( 310 mm diameter ×400 mm depth) containing dried wheat were simulated during 7 h storage period. Predicted temperatures were in good agreement with measured temperatures. This study may be served as a basis for optimum design of storage bins.

This paper devoted to report the design and the achievement of an optical communication subsystem with 12 parallel channels in one chip. The system is capable of transmitting 10 Gbps bidirectional date over hundreds of meters. It can provide error detection and correction by using 8B/10B encoding and Cyclical Redundancy Checking (CRC) encoding when only single-channel fails. The design scheme has already passed the simulation in FPGA. This technique is useful to enhance the capability and the reliability of the very short reach (VSR) transmission systems.

This paper presents and approach to calculate dispersion penalty for VSR-1 optical links. Based on parameters of a specific VSR-1 link, dispersion penalties are computed for various modal dispersion bandwidths respectively. The worst-case eye closure is expressed numerically by using the signal waveform at time 0, and the signal waveform is obtained in frequency domain through FFT algorithm. By this approach, the dispersion penalty is determined by the shape of transfer functions of the various components in the links. To simplify the derivation of multimode fiber link transfer function, a Gaussian form of normalized impulse response is used. This calculation approach can be used to estimate the worst-case dispersion penalty of VSR-1 links in the link budget analysis.

LM23, a gene expressed specifically in the testis in a stage-specific manner, has a diverse range of functions that are important in both the life and death of spermatogenic cells. The aim of this study was to further investigate the expression of LM23 in the developing rat testis and the biological function of LM23 in proliferation and antiapoptosis in vitro. Semiquantitative reverse transcription (RT)-PCR and real-time PCR were used to examine the expression of LM23 in testis at different developmental stages. The results suggested that LM23 mRNA levels in the testis increased progressively after birth. The role of LM23 in proliferation was analyzed with cell counting kit-8 (CCK8), colony-forming efficiency (CFE) and flow cytometry assays. The results indicated that ectopic expression of LM23 in 293T cells significantly promoted cell proliferation by increasing cell numbers in S phase. Several methods were used, including CCK8, annexin V and propidium iodide staining and western blotting, to determine the role of LM23 in apoptosis. The results showed that LM23 played a protective role in H2O2-induced apoptosis of 293T cells, mediated at least in part through the Akt/PI3K signal pathway. Taken together, these results provide new insights into the role of LM23 in the development of the testes and spermatogenesis.

Detailed characterization of the gene expression patterns in spermatogonia and primary spermatocytes is critical to understand the processes which occur prior to meiosis during normal spermatogenesis. The genome-wide expression profiles of mouse type B spermatogonia and primary spermatocytes were investigated using the Solexa/Illumina digital gene expression (DGE) system, a tag based high-throughput transcriptome sequencing method, and the developmental processes which occur during early spermatogenesis were systematically analyzed. Gene expression patterns vary significantly between mouse type B spermatogonia and primary spermatocytes. The functional analysis revealed that genes related to junction assembly, regulation of the actin cytoskeleton and pluripotency were most significantly differently expressed. Pathway analysis indicated that the Wnt non-canonical signaling pathway played a central role and interacted with the actin filament organization pathway during the development of spermatogonia. This study provides a foundation for further analysis of the gene expression patterns and signaling pathways which regulate the molecular mechanisms of early spermatogenesis.

The c-kit protooncogene is a transmembrane tyrosine kinase receptor expressed during gametogenesis. Using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), we have identified the c-kit receptor mRNA transcripts in the rat testis and studied their expression during postnatal development of the testis. Five different transcripts were identified using sets of primers encoding within the extracellular domain. Two transcripts were obtained from primer sets encoding regions within the cytoplasmic domain and the primer set encoding the entire length of the c-kit receptor. We have compared the levels of expression of these transcripts on different days during postnatal development. The level of expression of a particular transcript varied depending upon the developmental stage of the testis. In summary, our results suggest that multiple forms of mRNAs exist for the c-kit receptor in the rat testis, and they are regulated differentially during postnatal development.

Cloud computing is becoming a popular and important platform for web service applications. With the advent of more and more service resources in cloud, it is a crucial challenge to build an effective diagnostic mechanism. To improve the diagnosis capability for composite web service, we propose an automatic diagnostic framework and a hybrid diagnosis method for diagnosing the faulty activities. Our diagnostic framework can improve the scalability of diagnostic system and add the diagnostic capability of diagnosis service by decoupling the diagnostic service components. Our diagnosis method identifies the differences between successful and failed executions for finding the incorrect activities of the composite service and provides faulty causes by considering the structured activities in the process of diagnosis. Experimental results show that our method is effective to the composite web service in the fault diagnosis.

This paper is concerned with sampled-data stabilization for Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy systems by using the property of membership function deviations. A new lemma is presented to obtain an explicit estimate for the bounds of membership function deviations in sampled-data fuzzy control systems and to establish the quantitative relationship between the deviation bounds and the upper bound of sampling intervals. By using a piecewise Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional and a generalized Jensen integral inequality, a stability criterion is derived. Based on the stability criterion, a membership function deviation approach for designing a sampled-data fuzzy controller is proposed. Compared with some existing ones, the obtained results can reduce the conservativeness, which are confirmed by a numerical example.

This paper studies H ∞ filtering problem for T-S fuzzy systems in network environment. Considering the limitations of network communication bandwidth, a new discrete event-triggered communication scheme is introduced to avoid the transmission of unnecessary information. Whether or not the measured output is sent depends on the sampled output of the recent transmission and the error between the current sampled output and the sampled output of the recent transmission. By Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional approach, a sufficient condition for the existence of the delay-dependent networked H ∞ filter is established in terms of linear matrix inequalities for filtering error systems. The proposed event-triggered communication scheme not only reduces the use of communication bandwidth, but also ensures the desired system performance. Moreover, a co-design method of the filter and event-triggered communication scheme is provided. Finally, a numerical example is given to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

An once-a-week transdermal (monophasic) contraceptive delivery system (TCDS), intended to be marketed in Asian countries, was developed at the Controlled Drug-Delivery Research Center, Rutgers, College of Pharmacy under the sponsorship of Sintong Chemical Industrial Co. Ltd. in Taiwan. This TCDS was designed to simultaneously deliver a low dose combination of levonorgestrel (LNG) and 17B-estradiol (E2) through the skin for the fertility regulation in female. In-vitro permeation study using human cadaver skin shows that 60.0 ± 9.42 mcg/day/10 cm2 of LNG and 28.8 ± 4.96 mcg/day/10 cm2 of E2 can be delivered from this system. The result of the one-week dermal toxicity study on 6 rabbits indicated the minimal potential of this TCDS to cause skin irritation. Histopathological examination revealed that this system causes only mild to moderate inflammation to the test animal which also showed no significant body weight change and sign of toxicity.A phase I bioavailability-dose proportionality clinical st...

Mammalian spermatogenesis is a highly complex cell division and differentiation process occurring in the seminiferous tubules of the testis. This processes are regulated at both transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels, any mistake in this process can lead to infertility. Unveiling the molecular mechanisms of spermatogenesis has important implications for exploring novel contraceptive approach and treatment of infertility. This review addresses recent progress towards understanding the regulation of androgen, estrogen and their receptors, transcription factors and chromatin-associated factors for spermatogenesis at transcriptional level.

To investigate the risk factors of worsening renal function (WRF) in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) and WRF influence on prognosis.A case-control study were undertaken to analyze independent risk factor statistically related to incidence of WRF, and to assess the influence of WRF on prognosis.The independent predictors of WRF were creatinine level at admission (OR 2.248, 95%CI 1.088 - 4.647, P = 0.029) and NYHA class on admission (OR 2.485, 95%CI 1.385 - 4.459, P = 0.002). The mortality of patient with WRF was obviously higher than that of control group during hospitalization (OR 3.824, 95%CI 2.452 - 5.637, P0.015).WRF is a common complication among patients hospitalized for CHF, and is obviously associated with mortality during hospitalization. Higher creatinine level and weak heart function are independent risk factors for incidence of WRF of patients with CHF.

This paper proposes a new membership function deviation approach to investigate network-based H ∞ fuzzy static output feedback control for Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy systems, where the bilateral network channels with network-induced delays and data-packet dropouts are considered. A novel lemma about the deviations of membership functions in a network environment is first established, which presents a method of determining such deviations and formulates explicitly the quantitative relationship between the deviation bounds and the maximum allowable equivalent delay bound of such a system. Then by combining the above lemma and a matrix decoupling technique, a shape-dependent design approach of H ∞ fuzzy controller is proposed in term of linear matrix inequalities. Finally, an example is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

To observe the incidence of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) in patients received unfractionated heparin (UFH) treatment, and explore the feasibility of monitoring HIT by platelet counts, as well as the significance of HIT-antibody test in HIT diagnosis.145 patients received UFH treatment in Vascular Surgery Department were studied. Before and after the UFH treatment, platelet counts, HIT-antibody ELISA test and heparin-induced platelet aggregation (HIPA) were tested.Among the 145 patients, thrombocytopenia occurred in 40 (27.6%) cases, HIT-antibody ELISA test positive in 59 (40.7%) cases, HIPA test positive in 26 (17.9%) cases. The HIT was diagnosed in 24 (16.5%) cases, and heparin-induced thrombocytopenia and thrombosis (HITTS) occurred in 5 (3.4% in all cases, and 20.8% in HIT patients). In HIT patients, 15 patients (62.5%) were thrombocytopenia, HIT-antibody positive and HIPA test positive. Platelet counts in all of the 24 patients recovered to normal or level before UFH treatment in 3-6 days after heparin withdrawal therapy.HIT can be early diagnosed by monitoring platelet counts, HIT-antibody ELISA test and HIPA test. Withdrawal of heparin therapy in time and use of alternative anticoagulant, HITTS rate might be expected to decline further.

A novel method is presented for predicting β-hairpin motifs in protein sequences. That is Random Forest algorithm on the basis of the multi-characteristic parameters, which include amino acids component of position, hydropathy component of position, predicted secondary structure information and value of auto-correlation function. Firstly, the method is trained and tested on a set of 8,291 β-hairpin motifs and 6,865 non-β-hairpin motifs. The overall accuracy and Matthew's correlation coefficient achieve 82.2% and 0.64 using 5-fold cross-validation, while they achieve 81.7% and 0.63 using the independent test. Secondly, the method is also tested on a set of 4,884 β-hairpin motifs and 4,310 non-β-hairpin motifs which is used in previous studies. The overall accuracy and Matthew's correlation coefficient achieve 80.9% and 0.61 for 5-fold cross-validation, while they achieve 80.6% and 0.60 for the independent test. Compared with the previous, the present result is better. Thirdly, 4,884 β-hairpin motifs and 4,310 non-β-hairpin motifs selected as the training set, and 8,291 β-hairpin motifs and 6,865 non-β-hairpin motifs selected as the independent testing set, the overall accuracy and Matthew's correlation coefficient achieve 81.5% and 0.63 with the independent test.

In order to facilitate optical polishing of silicon carbide space telescope, in the present paper, silicon film, which has similar coefficient of thermal expansion with silicon carbide, was fabricated on SiC substrate by radio frequency magnetron sputtering. The effect of substrate temperature, radio frequency power, and substrate bias voltage was investigated by Raman scattering. The results indicate that at lower substrate temperature, the crystalline volume fraction of Si films increases with the increase in deposition temperature. Exceeding a certain temperature, the crystalline volume fraction decreases with further increasing deposition temperature; the increase in substrate bias voltage is bad for forming crystalline structure; the effect of radio power on microstructure of silicon film is comparatively complicated. As the rf power increases, the cluster size and crystallite volume fraction decrease, and both of them increase with further increasing the rf power. But when the rf power is too high, the crystallite volume fraction of the silicon film will decrease slightly.

This paper is concerned with the H ∞ output tracking control problem for a class of nonlinear discrete-time networked control systems via a state-feedback controller, where the nonlinear plant is approximated by a discrete-time Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy model, and the nonlinear plant and the tracked plant are distributed in a wide area. Considering the random characteristics of network transmission, data packet dropout is modeled as a Bernoulli sequence. Then, a new model with stochastic parameters is established for such tracking control problem. Based on parallel distributed compensation (PDC) scheme and stochastic stability theory, a design procedure for the fuzzy tracking controller, which guarantees that the output of the nonlinear plant tracks that of a tracked plant in the modified H ∞ sense, is presented in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). A simulation example is given to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

LM23 is a gene with testis-specific expression in Rattus norvegicus. To reveal the function of LM23 in the testis, we used lentivirus-mediated RNA interference (RNAi) to knock down LM23 expression in a tissue-specific manner in vivo. A lentiviral vector expressing a short hairpin RNA (shRNA) targeting LM23 was microinjected into the efferent ducts of R. norvegicus testes. The expression of LM23 in the treated testes was significantly knocked down compared with controls. These LM23-shRNA testes contained germ cells arrested at the spermatocyte stage, and showed increased apoptosis and disregulation of some meiotic genes. The results demonstrate the validity of the RNAi approach for targeting LM23 and reveal that LM23 expression in the testis is crucial for meiosis during spermatogenesis in R. norvegicus.

To study the risk factors on anemia among elderly women in rural areas of Xiuning county, Anhui province, China.Xiuning county was selected as working field and elderly women aged 50-75 y were selected as subjects. Finger hemoglobin (Hb) was measured and basic health survey was face-to-face interviewed. 220 elderly women with anemia entered into the case group; and matched by age, another 220 women with normal Hb concentration entered the control group. Survey on diet, questionnaire regarding health and lifestyle and related blood indexes were studied and tested.When comparing the data from both case and control groups, weight was (49.4 +/- 7.3) kg vs. (52.5 +/- 8.4) kg (t = 3.97, P0.01), waist circumference was (75.8 +/- 7.8) cm vs. (79.1 +/- 9.3) cm (t = 3.85, P0.01), BMI was (21.8 +/- 2.6) kg/m2 vs. (22.9 +/- 3.2) kg/m2 (t = 3.775, P0.01), respectively. The total protein was (76.4 +/- 5.0) g/L vs. (78.4 +/- 5.6)g/L (t = 3.83, P0.01), albumin was (45.7 +/- 3.1) g/L vs. (47.3 +/- 2.9)g/L (t = 5.24, P0.01), serum iron was ( 10.3 +/- 4.1) micromol/L vs. (12.7 +/- 4.6) micromol/L (t = 5.48, P0.01), and saturation of transferrin was (19.0 +/- 7.6)% vs. (23.1 +/- 9.1) % (t = 4.90, P0.01), respectively. Results from multifactor conditioned logistic regression analysis showed that the odd ratios (OR) for anemia with staple food, BMI and vitamin A were 1.54, 1.89, 1.69, and the OR for anemia with BMI, staple food, animal food, carbohydrate and vitamin A were 2.0, 1.6, 1.6, 1.4, 1.6, with their confidence intervals (CI) as 1.3-2.9, 1.1-2.3, 1.0-2.3, 1.0-2.1, 1.1-2.4, respectively.The quality of diet, health status and related blood indexes on anemia among elderly women were lower than that in control group. Lower BMI, less staple food and animal food, less carbohydrate and vitamin A intake appeared to be risk factors of anemia.

Assembly system with MCM-41 doped with Yb3+ as a host, and Tb(aspirin) 3phen, which had been heat treated, as an active optical guest, was synthesized at room temperature. The structure and physical properties of the composites were characterized by a combination of different techniques such as XRD, N2 adsorption-desorption and IR, while the photoluminescence properties of the composites were analyzed by PL. Excitation and emission spectra were examined to explore the PL properties of the prepared samples and the relationship between the optical guest and the inorganic host. The present paper reports a new synthesis method called "Direct-Calcination" to avoid the loss of rare earth ions in the process of synthesis. Strong reflections at 2theta = 2.6 attributed to (100) reflection were presented in XRD patterns of both Yb/MCM-41 and Tb(aspirin) 3phen-Yb/MCM-41, which always can be observed for regular, spherical structure of MCM-41 materials, and the inorganic framework order increased after Tb(aspirin) 3phen being incorporated into the channels of Yb/MCM-41. The intensity of the band at 963 cm(-1) decreased in IR spectrum of Yb/MCM-41, relative to that in IR spectrum of MCM-41, implying that Yb3+ had been banded with the framwork. And a sharp band at 1 384 cm(-1) in IR spectrum of Tb(aspirin) 3phen-Yb/MCM-41 also gives the characteristic information about the bands in Tb(aspirin) 3phen-MCM-41. The results from the characterization of PL show that the wide excitation band over 240-375 nm of Tb(aspirin) 3phen is assigned to the carbonyl group n --pi* transition absorption, benzene ring pi --pi* transition absorption of aspirin, and phenanthrene absorption of phen. The luminescence intensity of Tb(aspirin) 3phen incorporated into the channels of MCM-41 can be enhanced by heat treating in the synthesis process of Tb(aspirin) 3phen, while the intensity also can further increases by doping Yb3+ in the silicon framework of MCM-41. The luminescence intensity of the assembly system gets to maximum when Yb/Si ratio is 7.579 x 10(-3).

Highly ordered mesoporous material MCM-41A(after calcination) and MCM-41B (before calcination) were synthesized in ethylenediamine (EDA) medium at room temperature, and the rare earth complexes Tb(aspirin)3phen which had been heat treated as an active optical guest was incorporated into the one-dimensional channels of MCM-41A(B). The photoluminescence properties of the organic/inorganic composites Tb(aspirin)3phen-MCM-41A(B) were investigated based on the analyses of excitation and emission spectra to provide information about the relationship between the organic host and the inorganic optical guest. The results from the characterization of PL show that the wide excitation band in the range of 240-375 nm of Tb(aspirin)3 phen is assigned to the carbonyl group n --pi* transition absorption, benzene ring pi --pi* transition absorption of aspirin, and phenanthrene absorption of phen. As no excitation band appears in ultraviolet ranges, the characteristic emission peaks of Tb3+ in the emission spectra are related to antenna effect Relative to the excitation band of Tb(aspirin)3phen, the excitation band of Tb(aspirin)3phen-MCM-41B and Tb(aspirin)3phen/MCM-41A splits obviously, and only one narrow excitation peak at 353 nm appears in the excitation spectrum of Tb(aspirin)3 phen-MCM-41A. The excitation bands of Tb(aspirin)3 phen-MCM-41B and Tb (aspirin)3 phen/MCM-41A at short wavelength weakens and disappears gradually, while excitation peaks at long wavelengths is enhanced gradually, and the IL/ILn ratio I, where IL is the emission intensity at 405 nm under 335 nm excitation, and I(Ln) is the emission intensity at 544 nm under 335 nm excitation, also decreases correspondingly. It is suggested that the triplet states and single states of aspirin and phen reduce with different degree after Tb(aspirin)3phen is banded with MCM-41 framework, and the effect of silicon framework on the states of phen is more than that of aspirin. The degree of the effect on the states of organic ligands is in the order of: MCM-41B external surfaceMCM-41A external surfaceMCM-41A inside surface. In addition, the ratio I also could indicates the degree of the effect of MCM-41 surface lattice field on the ligand energy level and the content of Tb (aspirin)3phen on the MCM-41 surface.

On a basement membrane substrate, Sertoli cells in culture have been shown to assume a phenotype similar to that of the in vivo differentiated cells. Sertoli cells from 10-day-old rats were cultured on plastic and on different extracellular matrix substrates [laminin, a reconstituted basement membrane (Matrigel), and a synthetic laminin peptide containing the arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (RGD) tripeptide sequence] to investigate the effects of the extracellular matrix on FSH responsiveness. Both laminin and Matrigel markedly enhanced the cAMP response to FSH and cholera toxin, indicating modifications at the level of guanine nucleotide-binding regulatory (G) proteins. Furthermore, Sertoli cell grown on either of these two substrates responded to physiological levels of FSH (25-50 ng/ml), whereas pharmacological levels of FSH (500 ng/ml) were required for cells grown on either plastic or on the RGD-containing laminin peptide. Immunoblotting of Sertoli cell plasma membranes with antibodies directed against the alpha-subunit of the stimulatory G-protein (Gs alpha) of adenylyl cyclase indicated that Sertoli cell culture on either laminin or Matrigel increased the amounts of Gs alpha. These results were further confirmed by immunoprecipitating the Gs alpha protein from the particulate fraction of [35S]methionine metabolically labeled Sertoli cells. However, Northern blot analysis using a cDNA probe for Gs alpha did not demonstrate changes in gene expression when Sertoli cells were grown on the various substrates. Immunofluorescent studies revealed that the Gs complex of adenylyl cyclase was preferentially located at the base of the Sertoli cells at the site of contact with the extracellular matrix. These data suggest that culture of epithelial Sertoli cells on basement membrane substrates enhances the Gs complex of adenylyl cyclase and the cAMP response to FSH, consistent with the more differentiated morphology and function of the cells.

To determine the sperm mtDNA content, mtDNA4977bp deletion and ROS in the seminal plasma of normal and leukocytospermia men, and to investigate the correlation of the changes of sperm mtDNA with the increase of leukocytes and reactive oxgygen species (ROS) in the seminal plasma.Seventy-eight semen samples from leukocytospermia patients and 31 from healthy donors were divided into 3 layers, supernatant fluid, 30% sperm and 80% sperm, by Percoll gradient centrifugation, their sperm mtDNA content and mtDNA4977bp deletion quantitatively analyzed by real-time PCR, and the level of ROS determined by flow cytometry.The ROS in the seminal plasma and the sperm mtDNA contents of the three layers were all significantly higher in the leukocytospermia group than in the healthy control (P0.01). In the supernatant fluid and 80% layers, mtDNA4977bp deletion showed no obvious difference between the control and the leukocytospermia group, but was significantly higher in the 30% layer of the latter (P0.01). The ROS level was found positively correlated with the mtDNA content in the 30% (r = 0.347, P0.01) and the 80% layer (r = 0.456, P0.01), but not in the supernatant layer.The increase of leukocytes and ROS may be one of the causes of the enhanced sperm mtDNA content, but has no significant impact on the mtDNA4977bp deletion.

A gene that could be potentially involved in spermatogenesis was identified and characterized by using suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) and rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) with total RNA from type A spermatogonia and pachytene spermatocytes of rat. This gene consists of 3 433 base pairs (bp) with a complete open reading frame (ORF) of 3 171 bp and encodes a putative protein containing 1057 amino acids. The nucleotide sequence displays a 93% identity to mouse ubiquitin-activating enzyme E1, Chr Y 1 (Ube1y1) and an 82% identity to human ubiquitin-activating enzyme E1 (UBE1). The putative protein of this gene contains an ubiquitin-activating enzyme signature 1 and an ubiquitin-activating enzyme active site, which are also existed in mouse ubiquitin-activating enzyme E1, human ubiquitin-activating enzyme E1 et al. So we named this gene as Rattus norvegicus ubiquitin-activating enzyme E1 (Ube1). The sequence of Ube1 was submitted to GenBank and the accession number is EF690356. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis showed that Ube1 was specifically expressed in testis, while its expression was not detected in heart, brain, spleen, lung, liver, muscle, kidney and ovary. Comparison of the expression of Ube1 in different developmental stages of testis and Sertoli cells (real-time PCR) indicated that Ube1 was expressed more highly in spermatogonia than in spermatocytes, spermatids and Sertoli cells. In conclusion, Ube1 is a gene encoding rat ubiquitin-activating enzyme E1 and specifically expressed in testis, which might play a key role in ubiquitin system and influence spermatogenesis.

Key requirements of effective distance learning are interactivity among participants and the student's sense of presence in the classroom. This system meets those requirements, letting the instructor perceive remote students' body language and facial expressions as they listen and speak, and letting remote students participate in the on-campus classroom.

The delay-dependent robust H infin control problem for a class of nonlinear time-delay system is investigated in this paper. An uncertain Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy model is adopted for representing a nonlinear system with time-varying delay, in which the modeling errors are absorbed in the uncertain part. The design method of delay-dependent robust H infin controller is firstly established via the parallel distributed compensation (PDC) technique. Meanwhile, a stabilization method is developed in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Two examples are provided to prove the effectiveness of the present results.

This paper reports results from comprehensive pressure measurements of a circular cone-cylinder model in a low-turbulence 3:0 1:6 m low-speed wind tunnel. The semi-apex angle of the cone is 10 . The results consist of detailed pressure distributions over nine stations on the cone at 35 angle of attack and Reynolds number of 0:9 10 6 based on the diameter of the cone base. The tests encompassed a complete coverage of roll angles in 9 intervals. The test conditions are chosen to be the same as those of a known test in the literature for validation purpose. Local and overall forces and moments are calculated from the measured pressures. The variation of local side-force coecien t normalized by the local diameter of the cone, with roll angle is nearly a square-wave curve. The primary state of the boundary layer is inferred from the measured pressures to study the origin of asymmetries. The association of local side force with a characteristic pressure at a given pressure station is shown independent of roll angle for various local side force and various pressure measuring stations. The conicity of the o w is examined. The complete measured pressures are documented in the Appendix for public use.

We propose an image-based method for real-time modeling of seated humans using upper-body video sprites, which is suitable for applications such as teleconferencing and distance learning. A database of representative video sprite sequences is pre-acquired and pre-uploaded to each remote rendering site. At run-time, for each input sprite, a closely matching sprite is located in the database and the index of the matching sprite is sent to the rendering site, which drastically reduces the data rate. Unlike other data compression methods, our method takes advantage of the limited number of significant body positions a participant assumes during a session. Exploiting redundancy between frames with distant time stamps enables aggressive compression rates with high visual and semantic fidelity.

Cai, Liu, and Luo developed a vortex stability theory (J. of Fluid Mech., vol. 480, 2003, pp. 65-94) for slender conical bodies and predicted that vortices over a at-plate delta wing at high angles of attack with zero sideslip were conical, symmetric, and stable but adding a low dorsal n to the wing would destabilize the vortices and therefore render the originally symmetric vortices asymmetric. The wing is assumed slender so that no vortex breakdown occurs on the wing. An experimental study using a six-component internal strain-gage balance is conducted to verify the validity of the theoretical predictions and shows the force development versus angle of attack. A sharp-edged at-plate delta wing of 82:5 sweep angle is tested in a low-speed wind tunnel at angles of attack up to 32 and sideslip within 10 . The same tests are performed on an identical delta wing model but with a low dorsal n mounted vertically in the incidence plane of the wing. Two n heights are tested. The ratios of the local n height to the local wing semi-span are 0:3 and 0:6. The measurement of the aerodynamic forces and moments clearly indicates that a force-asymmetry onset occurs over the wing-n models at zero sideslip, providing for the rst time force measurement evidence of the theoretical predictions and depicts that the force-asymmetry onset can be followed by a force-unsteadiness onset.

To screen differentially expressed genes involved in osteogenic differentiation of human bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) at defined stages, subtractive cDNA library was established by means of suppression subtractive hybridization. The BMSCs cultured for 12 and 21 d were used as driver and tester, respectively. A subtract library was successfully constructed and five positive clones were selected from the library. Sequencing analysis and homology comparison showed that the five clones differentially expressed in BMSCs cultured for 21 d were at least 90% homologous with the known genes in human GenBank. It was interestingly found that the osteogenic BMSCs cultured for 21 d differentially expressed decorin and Bax inhibitor 1. RT-PCR was performed to confirm the differentially expressed genes. The results showed that the expression of Bax inhibitor 1 was significantly higher in the cells of 21-day than that of 12-day, while the expression of decorin was only detected in the cells of 21-day.

This paper deals with the design problem of adaptive robust reliable control for uncertain time-delay systems with actuator failures. A more practical model of actuator failures characterized by the average factor and the failure degree is adopted. A sufficient criterion for the existence of the adaptive robust reliable controller is derived in linear matrix inequality (LMI) framework and a design procedure of such controllers is presented. The designed reliable controller can tolerate such failures and guarantee the state variables of the closed-loop system to converge, globally, uniformly and exponentially, to a ball in the state space. The efficiency of our design method is finally verified by simulation on the river pollution control problem.

To screen the stage-specific expression proteins during rats spermatogenesis, and to investigate the beta-actin expression and localization in the tissues of rat testicular.Highly enriched type A spermatogonia, pachytene spermatocytes and round spermatids were isolated by STAPUT method (sedimentation velocity at unit gravity, with 2% - 4% BSA gradient in DMEM/F12 medium) respectively to get the total proteins. The difference of protein expression between the three kinds of cells was analyzed by two-dimensional electrophoresis. Then the distribution of beta-actin in rat testicular tissues was investigated using specific anti-beta-actin antibodies by immunohistochemical method.beta-actin was identified as a stage-specific expression protein by two-dimensional electrophoresis. beta-actin protein was more strongly expressed in type A spermatogonia and pachytene spermatocytes, but not in round spermatids. The immunohistochemical results showed that beta-actin was mainly located in the cytoplasm of type A spermatogonia and pachytene spermatocytes and in the nuclei of nearly mature spermatids.beta-actin protein is a stage-specific expressed protein and may play an important role in spermatogenesis.

VSR4 links use graded index multimode fibers (GIMMFs) as the transmission medium with operation wavelength 850nm. For cost reasons, VCSEL has been selected as the optical source to VSR4. The minimum bandwidth specification for 62.5um GIMMF in VSR4 is only 400 MHz(.)km for over-filled-launch (OFL) condition. The distance of 300 meters is limited over transmission rates of 1.25Gbit/s on the basis of this specification. In order to overcome the OFL bandwidth limit by selective excitation of a limited number of modes, conditioned launch technique is investigated. In this paper, based on a comprehensive dispersion theory of GIMMF, a model is built to simulate the transmission of optical signal in GIMMFs and a comparison between OFL and conditioned launch is analyzed. The result can be the guidelines for the best choice of techniques for various LAN and interconnect systems also.

This paper proposes a novel and innovative scheme for 10Gb/s parallel Very Short Reach (VSR) optical communication system. The optimized scheme properly manages the SDH/SONET redundant bytes and adjusts the position of error detecting bytes and error correction bytes. Compared with the OIF-VSR4-01.0 proposal, the scheme has a coding process module. The SDH/SONET frames in transmission direction are disposed as follows: (1) The Framer-Serdes Interface (FSI) gets 16x622.08Mb/s STM-64 frame. (2) The STM-64 frame is byte-wise stripped across 12 channels, all channels are data channels. During this process, the parity bytes and CRC bytes are generated in the similar way as OIF-VSR4-01.0 and stored in the code process module. (3) The code process module will regularly convey the additional parity bytes and CRC bytes to all 12 data channels. (4) After the 8B/10B coding, the 12 channels is transmitted to the parallel VCSEL array. The receive process approximately in reverse order of transmission process. By applying this scheme to 10Gb/s VSR system, the frame size in VSR system is reduced from 15552x12 bytes to 14040x12 bytes, the system redundancy is reduced obviously.