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Amygdala and serotonergic system abnormalities have been documented in major depressive disorder (MDD). However, most studies have been conducted on recurrent MDD, and only a few have assessed their interaction. This study aimed to concurrently examine both the amygdala and serotonergic systems and their clinical relevance in first-episode, drug-naïve MDD. This study included 27 patients with first-episode, drug-naïve MDD and 27 age- and gender-matched healthy controls (HCs). The amygdala substructure volumes were performed with Freesurfer from a 1.5 T magnetic resonance image. Serotonin transporter (SERT) availability was detected by single-photon emission computed tomography with 123I-ADAM. The Benjamini-Hochberg method was applied to adjust for multiple comparisons. No significant difference was found in the amygdala substructure volume and SERT availability between the two groups, respectively. Within MDD patients, the right medial, cortical nucleus, and centromedial volumes were positively associated with caudate SERT availability, respectively. Moreover, the right lateral nucleus volume in the amygdala was positively correlated with depression severity. However, these significances did not survive correction for multiple testing. There were no significant abnormalities in the amygdala substructure volumes and SERT availability in patients with first-episode, drug-naïve MDD. We did not observe an association between amygdala substructure volume and serotonergic dysregulation and their correlations with depression severity in patients with MDD. A larger sample size is warranted to elucidate the actual correlation. • The MDD group vs. controls showed no significant differences in the amygdala substructure volumes and SERT availability. • Amygdala substructure volumes were not associated with SERT availability in patients with MDD. • Neither amygdala nucleus volume nor SERT availability was associated with depression severity in MDD patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the reactions and mechanisms of H8Si8O12 (T8H8) molecules with n‐propanol, acetone, allyl alcohol, n‐butylamine, allylamine, acetic acid, and 1‐octene in air, at room temperature, and without catalysts. The reaction between T8H8 and n‐propanol involves both the highly polarized SiO and SiH bonds and results in cage breakage and forming Q4 and Q3 structures with OC3H7 in the reaction product. T8H8 also reacts with acetone, and the resultant product possesses SiOCH(CH3)2. Allyl alcohol is less reactive to cause T8H8 decomposition, and the resultant product contains SiOCH2CHCH2 and SiOCH2(CH2)3CHCH2. However, it is found that basically T8H8 does not react with acetic acid and 1‐octene. In the reactions of T8H8 with n‐butylamine and allylamine, the resultant products contain SiNH(CH2)3CH3 and SiNHCH2CHCH2, respectively. For the reaction with T8H8, allylamine is less active than n‐butylamine. Possible mechanisms for the T8H8 reactions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Surface energies described by Hansen solubility parameters (HSP) of a synthetic organophilic fluoromica (MAE), molybdenum disulfide (MoS 2 ), and graphene are used to predict their delamination properties in a cyclic olefin copolymer (COC). This prediction suggests MAE as the most appropriate filler for COC, followed by MoS 2 and graphene. Nanocomposites are prepared via solution process and have been investigated on their delamination state using X-ray-diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and angle-resolved light scattering (ARS). Nanocomposites based on MAE shown morphologies close to complete delamination. Agglomerations are detected in the case of MoS 2 and graphene. For a potential barrier application, water vapor transmission rates (WVTR) are experimentally determined. In such nanocomposites, inorganic fillers increase the diffusion length of water, known as tortuous path model, which enhances the barrier properties. Highest barrier enhancements are obtained using MAE based nanocomposites reducing the WVTR down to 40% of the initial value. The prediction of delamination based on Hansen solubility parameters is found to be a very helpful tool for selecting fillers in composites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of different surface energies described by Hansen solubility parameters (HSP) on the exfoliation of organophilic fluoromicas is investigated. HSP values of four synthetic organophilic fluoromica with different surfactants have been predetermined. Those surfactants change the fluoromica surface energies described by HSP. The HSP are used to calculate the dispersibility of the various organophilic fluoromica in chloroform via Flory-Huggins (F-H) theory. The F-H parameter (χ) describes the effective difference in HSP related surface energies of particles and chloroform molecules, which is related to the energy cost of exfoliation. An influence of F-H parameter is detected on the delamination state of organophilic fluoromica. The delamination state is evaluated quantitatively using atomic force microscopy (AFM). In the case of a high F-H parameter (χ > 0.15), aggregated and unstable fluoromica dispersions are obtained. Whereas in the case of F-H parameters near zero, exfoliated and stable fluoromica dispersions are achieved. The presence of surfactant on the surface of exfoliated fluoromica flakes is proven by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and density functional theory (DFT) calculation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In multicore processors, a cache coherence protocol is used for maintaining the data coherence in private caches. Traditional snoop-based protocols used broadcasting messages for maintaining data coherence to result in many tag comparisons in private caches. However, the use of broadcasting messages consumes a considerable amount of energy as well as execution time because of tag comparisons. In this paper, an energy-efficient hybrid coherence protocol (EEHCP) is proposed to reduce energy consumption for maintaining the data coherence of private caches by reducing the amount of broadcasting messages and tag comparisons. According to the simulation results, the proposed EEHCP consumes 27, 18, and 46% less energy than the SFT (snoop filter table) protocol, the snoop-based protocol with the hybrid write strategy, and the traditional snoop-based protocol with MESI, and 18, 17, and 32% less execution time than these three protocols, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A method to measure Hansen solubility parameters for organophilic fluoromica is developed. For this purpose, fluoromica with four different intercalated molecules (surfactants) have been dispersed in various solvents. These surfactants change the fluoromica surface energies described by Hansen solubility parameters (HSP). The three Hansen solubility parameters (dispersion, polar and hydrogen bonding) of different organophilic fluoromicas have been obtained by using gravimetric analysis. The dispersion parameters for all four organophilic fluoromicas are almost identical, with a value around 17 MPa . Whereas polar and H-bonding parameters are varying with the used surfactants. Surprisingly the polar and hydrogen bonding values for hydrophobic alkyl chain tailored surfactants are higher than those for a hydrophilic surfactant with poly(ethylene glycol) chains. The determined HSP values allow calculating the dispersibility of the organophilic fluoromica in solvents via the Flory-Huggins (F-H) parameter. These F-H parameters describes the effective difference in HSP related surface energies of particles and solvent molecules and are used to identify potential solvents for an exfoliation process. With this approach, beside known solvents such as chloroform, also new potential candidates such as trichloroethylene, and benzyl ethyl ether are identified for dispersing/exfoliating modified organophilic fluoromica. This work is accompanied by X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements to gain knowledge about the interlayer space of the different organophilic fluoromicas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cache memory consumes a large proportion of the energy used by a processor. In the on-chip cache, the translation lookaside buffer (TLB) accounts for 20–50% of energy consumption of the on-chip cache. To reduce energy consumption caused by TLB accesses, a virtual cache can be accessed by virtual addresses which are issued by a processor directly. However, a virtual cache may result in the synonym problem. In this paper, we propose low-cost synonym detection hardware and a synonym data coherence mechanism. These reduce the energy consumption incurred by TLB lookups, and maintain synonym data consistency in the virtual cache. The proposed synonym detection hardware efficiently reduces the number of blocks that must be looked up in a virtual cache for saving energy. In addition, the proposed synonym data coherence mechanism also reduces the number of invalidated blocks in the virtual cache to prevent the destruction of cache locality. The simulation results show that our proposed energy-aware virtual cache consumes 51%, 27%, and 20% less energy than the traditional physical cache, traditional virtual cache, and synonym lookaside buffer (SLB), respectively. In addition, our proposed design shows almost the same static energy consumption as SLB, and reduces static energy consumption by about 20% compared with the traditional physical cache and virtual cache. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper accelerates the critically important least-squares Monte Carlo method (LSM) in financial derivatives pricing with parallel computing. We parallelize LSM with space decomposition, turning it into an embarrassingly parallel algorithm. The program is implemented with Parallel Virtual Machine and ALGLIB. Our method gives accurate option prices with excellent speedup. Although this paper focuses on the pricing of options, the methodology is applicable to much more complex financial derivatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infectious diseases were one of the major causes of mortality until now because drug-resistant bacteria have arisen under broad use and abuse of antibacterial drugs. These multidrug-resistant bacteria pose a major challenge to the effective control of bacterial infections and this threat has prompted the development of alternative strategies to treat bacterial diseases. Recently, use of metallic nanoparticles (NPs) as antibacterial agents is one of the promising strategies against bacterial drug resistance. This review first describes mechanisms of bacterial drug resistance and then focuses on the properties and applications of metallic NPs as antibiotic agents to deal with antibiotic-sensitive and -resistant bacteria. We also provide an overview of metallic NPs as bactericidal agents combating antibiotic-resistant bacteria and their potential in vivo toxicology for further drug development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The power consumed by memory systems accounts for 45% of the total power consumed by an embedded system, and the power consumed during a memory access is 10 times higher than during a cache access. Thus, increasing the cache hit rate can effectively reduce the power consumption of the memory system and improve system performance. In this study, we increased the cache hit rate and reduced the cache-access power consumption by developing a new cache architecture known as a single linked cache (SLC) that stores frequently executed instructions. SLC has the features of low power consumption and low access delay, similar to a direct mapping cache, and a high cache hit rate similar to a two way-set associative cache by adding a new link field. In addition, we developed another design known as a multiple linked caches (MLC) to further reduce the power consumption during each cache access and avoid unnecessary cache accesses when the requested data is absent from the cache. In MLC, the linked cache is split into several small linked caches that store frequently executed instructions to reduce the power consumption during each access. To avoid unnecessary cache accesses when a requested instruction is not in the linked caches, the addresses of the frequently executed blocks are recorded in the branch target buffer (BTB). By consulting the BTB, a processor can access the memory to obtain the requested instruction directly if the instruction is not in the cache. In the simulation results, our method performed better than selective compression, traditional cache, and filter cache in terms of the cache hit rate, power consumption, and execution time. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is an innovative method for cancer treatment that involves the administration of a photosensitizing agent followed by exposure to visible light. An appreciable amount of a particular light source is a key to activate photosensitizers in PDT. However, the external excitation light source is a problem for clinical application because of the limitation of tissue-penetrating properties. Additionally, the wavelength of laser emission should match the absorption wavelength of each photosensitizer for efficient generation of reactive oxygen species and cell killing. In this study, Renilla luciferase-immobilized quantum dots-655 (QD-RLuc8) was used for bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET)-mediated PDT to resolve these problems. The bioluminescent QD-RLuc8 conjugate exhibits self-illumination at 655 nm after coelenterazine addition, which can activate the photosensitizer, Foscan®-loaded micelles for PDT. Our results show that BRET-mediated PDT by QD-RLuc8 plus coelenterazine (20 μg/mL) successfully generated reactive oxygen species (40.8%), killed ∼ 50% A549 cells at 2 μg/mL equivalent Foscan® in vitro and significantly delayed tumor growth in vivo due to cell apoptosis under TUNEL analysis without obvious weight loss. Based on immunohistochemical observations, the proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA)-negative area of tumor sections after BRET-mediated PDT was obviously increased compared to the PDT-untreated groups without an external light source. We conclude that this nanotechnology-based PDT possesses several clinical benefits, such as overcoming light penetration issues and treating deeper lesions that are intractable by PDT alone. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In embedded systems, cache is commonly used to improve system performance. However, the cache consumes a large amount of power, and among the components of the cache memory, tag comparisons consume the most amount of power. Therefore, how to design a cache that does not consume so much power when comparing tags and that has a high hit ratio is an important challenge. In this paper, we propose a Tagless Instruction Cache, called TL-IC, that does not perform tag comparisons in order to save power in embedded systems. To guarantee that an instruction fetched from TL-IC is the desired instruction, instead of cache lines being used, the basic blocks of programs are placed into TL-IC. In addition, to utilize TL-IC as much as possible in order to save the most amount of power and to take into account the general-purpose and special-purpose applications, both the static allocation and the dynamic allocation of basic blocks are used to select the frequently executed basic blocks of programs in TL-IC. With a high utilization of TL-IC that does not perform tag comparisons, the power consumed in fetching instructions can be efficiently reduced. In the simulation results, we show and compare the power consumption of our proposed TL-IC, L0 cache, Linebuffer, and TH-IC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Salvianolic acid B (Sal B), a bioactive compound from Salvia miltiorrhiza, widely used to treat cardiovascular diseases, and stromal cell-derived factor-1α (SDF-1α)/CXCR4 pathway has been correlated with balloon angioplasty-induced neointimal formation. The purposes of the present study were to investigate whether Sal B can inhibit SDF-1α/CXCR4-mediated effects on the cell proliferation and migration of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) and to examine its possible molecular mechanisms. Under 0.5% FBS medium, all of the cellular studies were investigated on VSMCs (A10 cells) stimulated with 10ng/ml SDF-1α alone or co-treated with 0.075mg/ml Sal B. Our results showed that SDF-1α markedly stimulated the cell growth and migration of A10 cells, whose effects can be significantly reversed by co-incubation of Sal B. Similarly, Sal B also obviously down-regulated the SDF-1α-stimulated up-regulation of CXCR4 (total and cell-surface levels), Raf-1, MEK, ERK1/2, phospho-ERK1/2, FAK and phospho-FAK as well as an increase of the promoter activity of NF-κB. Besides, Sal B also effectively attenuated balloon angioplasty-induced neointimal hyperplasia. In conclusion, suppressing the expression levels of CXCR4 receptor and downstream molecules of SDF-1α/CXCR4 axis could possibly explain one of the pharmacological mechanisms of Sal B on prevention of cell proliferation, migration and subsequently neointimal hyperplasia. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

3.84 um monodisperse poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) microsphere was prepared by dispersion polymerization in methanol (MeOH)/water (HO) media. 2,2′-azobis(isobutyronitrile) (AIBN) and poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) were utilized as initiator and steric stabilizer, respectively. The effects of the PAA stabilizer, AIBN initiator, HO solvent and MMA monomer on PMMA particle size and size distribution were reviewed in the first section. The optical properties including total transmittance (T%) and transmittance haze (H%) were performed when the monodisperse PMMA microsphere was applied as a diffusive agent. The result was examined in terms of total interface area in system, and to compare with the performance of three polystyrene (PSt) microspheres with 1.10 um, 3.13 um and 5.21 um in diameter under the same condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a high performance routing protocol and a long lifetime routing protocol by considering the fact that the bandwidth between two mobile nodes should be different when distances are different. In the high performance routing protocol, to reduce the number of rerouting times, we take the bandwidth issue into account to choose the path with the capability to transmit the maximum amount of data with the help of the GPS. With exchanging the moving vectors and the coordinates of two adjacent mobile nodes, the possible link lifetime of two adjacent mobile nodes can be predicted. Subsequently, a path with the maximal amount of data transmission can be found. With regard to our proposed long lifetime routing protocol, to maximize the overall network lifetime, we find a path with the maximal remaining power after data transmission. With the link bandwidth and the desired amount of data transmitted, the consumption power is computed to obtain the remaining power of a mobile node. Accordingly, we can choose the path with the maximal predicted remaining power to maximize the overall network lifetime. In the simulation, we compare our high performance routing protocol with the AODV and LAWS in terms of throughput, rerouting (path breakage), and route lifetime. With respect to power consumption, we compare our proposed power-aware routing protocol with the POAD and PAMP in terms of the overall network lifetime and the ration of survival nodes to the all nodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), the IEEE 802.11 DCF protocol is commonly used at the medium access control (MAC) layer to reduce collision and contention. However, mobile nodes, before send out data, need to wait for other in-process data transmission in the same range to be completed. In this paper, we address this performance degradation problem in the DCF mechanism and propose an overlapping and pipelining data transmission MAC protocol to enhance throughput. The protocol regulates the actions of the neighboring nodes of both the sender and the receiver and enables the utilization of the same channel simultaneously by these neighboring nodes. A multiple sub-channel technique is proposed to avoid the interference problem caused by the control and data signals of different communication mobile node pairs. With the regulated actions and the multiple channel technique, multiple pairs of mobile nodes are provided with the desired feature of utilizing the same data sub-channel simultaneously without interfering with one another. Although the overlapping data transmission technique can increase the number of simultaneous communication pairs, an efficient bandwidth allocation of the control and data sub-channels to maximize utilization is critically important. Therefore, we further propose a bandwidth allocation strategy in which the control signals and data signals are pipelined. Performance simulation results prove the efficiency of the proposed bandwidth allocation strategy with better channel utilization. In addition, the proposed MAC protocol with the bandwidth allocation strategy, combined with the overlapping and pipelining data sub-channel technique, outperforms the IEEE 802.11 DCF in throughput (kB/s) by about 43.76%. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Weblog is a good paradigm of online social network which constitutes web-based regularly updated journals with reverse chronological sequences of dated entries, usually with blogrolls on the sidebars, allowing bloggers link to favorite site which they are frequently visited. In this study we propose a blog recommendation mechanism that combines trust model, social relation and semantic analysis and illustrates how it can be applied to a prestigious online blogging system – wretch in Taiwan. By the results of experimental study, we found a number of implications from the Weblog network and several important theories in domain of social networking were empirically justified. The experimental evaluation reveals that the proposed recommendation mechanism is quite feasible and promising. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A method of preparing a polymer-supported catalyst for hydrogen generation is introduced in this article. This polymer-supported catalyst is the structure of ruthenium (Ru) nanoparticle immobilized on a monodisperse polystyrene (PSt) microsphere. The diameter of the Ru nanoparticle is around 16nm, and the diameter of the PSt microsphere is 2.65um. This preparation method is accomplished by two unique techniques: one is sodium lauryl sulfate/sodium formaldehyde sulfoxylate (SLS/SFS) interface-initiated system, the other is 2-methacrylic acid 3-(bis-carboxymethylamino)-2-hydroxy-propyl ester (GMA-IDA) chelating monomer. By taking advantage of these two techniques, Ru3+ ion will be chelated and then reduced to Ru(0) nanoparticle over PSt surface predominantly. The hydrolysis of alkaline sodium borohydride (NaBH4) solution catalyzed by this Ru-immobilized polymer-supported catalyst is also examined in this article. It reveals that the hydrogen generation rate is 215.9ml/ming-cat. in a diluted solution containing 1wt.% NaBH4 and 1wt.% NaOH, and this Ru-immobilized polymer-supported catalyst could be recycled during the reaction. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This study presents a new approach in developing an expert system to assess financial quality of an enterprise. In dealing with the complexity of financial statement analysis, this approach separates knowledge content into domain knowledge of financial statements and operational knowledge of analysts’ analytical process. The former represents the well defined relationships of accounting items of financial statements. The latter represents the reasoning processes that use the domain knowledge to appraise the quality of given financial statements. We apply ontology to model the content of domain knowledge, and use decision rules to represent operational knowledge. This system integrates Protégé, as domain knowledge base, and JESS, as operational knowledge base, into one complete expert system. The performance validity of the system was verified with financial statements from Taiwanese stock market. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

To track moving targets undergoing unknown translational and rotational motions, a tracking controller is developed for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The main challenges are to control both the relative position and orientation between the target and the UAV to within desired values, and to guarantee that the generated control input to the UAV is feasible (i.e., below its motion capability). Moreover, the UAV is controlled to ensure that the target always remains within the field of view of the onboard camera. These control objectives were achieved by developing a nonlinear-model predictive controller, in which the future motion of the target is predicted by quadratic programming (QP). Since constraints of the feature vector and the control input are considered when solving the optimal control problem, the control inputs can be bounded and the target can remain inside the image. Three simulations were performed to compare the efficacy and performance of the developed controller with a traditional image-based visual servoing controller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In fault-tolerant multistage interconnection design, the method of providing disjoint paths can tolerate faults, but it is complicated and hard to choose a collision-free path in disjoint paths networks. A network with disjoint paths can concurrently send more identical packets from the source node to increase the arrival ratio or backtrack a packet to the source and take the other disjoint path, but these two methods might increase the collision ratio. In contrast, a dynamic rerouting method finds an alternative path that tolerates faults or prevents collisions. In this paper, we present methods of designing dynamic rerouting networks. This paper presents (1) three design schemes of dynamic rerouting networks to tolerate faults and prevent collisions; (2) design schemes that enable a dynamic rerouting network to use destination tag routing to save hardware cost in switches for computing rerouting tags; (3) a method to prevent a packet from re-encountering the faulty element again after rerouting to reduce the number of rerouting hops and improve the arrival ratio; and (4) simulation results of related dynamic rerouting networks to realize the factors which influence the arrival ratio including the fault tolerant capability and the number of rerouting hops. According to our proposed design schemes and according to our analysis and simulation results, a designer can choose an applicable dynamic rerouting network by using cost-efficient considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Very often, in industry, discounted cash flow techniques are applied for analyzing and selecting investment alternatives under consideration. These techniques are usually based on the data under certainty or risk. In reality, however, the decision makers are often facing the situation of vague cash flows and discount rates, or even uncertain durations, when evaluating and selecting potential investments. Fuzzy set theory has the capability of capturing vague data and allows mathematical operations. This article proposes a fuzzy equivalent uniform annual worth (fuzzy EUAW) method to assist practitioners in evaluating investment alternatives utilizing the theory of fuzzy sets. Triangular fuzzy numbers (TFNs) are used throughout the analysis to represent the uncertain cash flows and discount rates. Further, fuzzy capital recovery factors and fuzzy sinking fund factor are derived. Using these two factors, the fuzzy equivalent annual worth of each investment alternative can be found. By ranking these fuzzy numbers with the integral value, the optimal investment alternative is selected. A numerical example is provided to illustrate the results of the alternative selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In fault-tolerant interconnection designs, many prior researches suggest good use of disjoint paths to improve the reliability of interconnection networks. Although disjoint paths increase reliability, they always cost the throughput penalty. To address the problems of both performance and fault-tolerant capability, the following issues should be carefully considered: (1) guarantee of at least two disjoint paths, (2) easy rerouting between disjoint paths, (3) keep low rerouting hops, (4) solve the occurrences of packets’ collision. In this paper, we consider these issues to design a fault-tolerant network called CSMIN (Combining Switches Multistage Interconnection Network). CSMIN provides two disjoint paths to guarantee one fault-tolerant and can dynamically reroute packets between these two paths to solve the collision situation. In other words, to switch packets between these two disjoint paths easily, CSMIN causes these two disjoint paths to have regular distances at each stage. Accordingly, a packet can be dynamically sent to the other disjoint path if it encounters a faulty or busy element. In addition, CSMIN presents low rerouting hops (an average of one rerouting hop) to maintain a low collision ratio. From the simulation result, CSMIN performs with a better arrival ratio than Gamma and other related disjoint paths networks do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The pulverized coal injection (PCI) system was modified from single lance injection into double lance injection at No. 3 Blast Furnace of CSC. It is beneficial to reduce the cost of coke. However, the injected coal was found very close to the inner wall of the tuyere during the operation, such as to cause the possibility of erosion for the tuyere. In this study a three-dimensional mathematical model has been developed based on a computational fluid dynamics software PHOENICS to simulate the fluid flow phenomena inside blast furnace tuyere. The model was capable of handling steady-state, three-dimensional multi-phase flow of pulverized coal injection. The model was applied to simulate the flow patterns of the injection coal inside the tuyere with two kinds of lance design for the PCI system. The distribution of injection coal was simulated such as to estimate the possibility of erosion for the tuyere. The calculated results agreed with the operating experience of CSC plant and the optimum design of double lance was suggested. The model was also applied to simulate the oxygen concentration distribution with these different oxygen enrichments for the coal/oxygen lance system. The calculated results agreed with the experimental measurement. These test results demonstrate that the model is both reasonably reliable and efficient. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In the design of fault-tolerant interconnection networks, disjoint paths and dynamic rerouting are often used to tolerate faults. Although providing two more disjoint paths between any source and destination pair could increase reliability, it might not help to decrease collision rate. Rather than using disjoint paths, the method of dynamic rerouting finds an alternative path to the destination when a packet encounters a faulty or busy element. To look after both sides of fault-tolerance and performance, the following items must be carefully concerned to design a dynamic rerouting network. The issues including fault-tolerant capability, low collision rate (throughput) and rerouting hops should be considered. In this paper, we propose a dynamic rerouting network, which can provide an alternative path when a packet meets a faulty or busy element. Besides, the network costs 0-rerouting hops to find the alternative path and performs better static characteristics than other related networks. From the simulation results, the simulation results show that our network has less collision rate and a better throughput than other fault-tolerant networks. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Our previous study has shown that lipophilic 3-hydroxy-3-methyl-glutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitors of statins can inhibit interferon-γ-induced inducible nitric oxide synthase gene expression in RAW264.7 macrophages. In this study, we showed that lovastatin and fluvastatin are able to upregulate the mRNA expression of the suppressor of cytokine signaling-3 (SOCS-3) gene. This effect is specific for SOCS-3 and could be blocked by mevalonate, farnesyl pyrophosphate and geranylgeranyl pyrophosphate, while it was not affected by inhibitors of protein kinase C and A, mitogen-activated protein/extracellular signal-regulated kinase kinase, p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase, c-Jun N-terminal kinase, Src, Raf and Rho kinase. SOCS-3 expression results in the inhibition of interferon-γ-, interleukin-6- and macrophage colony-stimulating factor-elicited signal transducer and activator of transcription phosphorylation, suggesting a novel anti-inflammatory mechanism of statins to down-modulate the functions of interferon-γ-activated macrophages. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

CD43 is a large transmembrane protein involved in T cell activation. Previous studies of CD43-/- mice in viral models have demonstrated a role for CD43 in Th1/Th2 skewing, activation of Foxp3+ Treg, and T cell apoptosis. However, the role of CD43 during sepsis has never been tested. Thus, we interrogated the role of CD43 during sepsis using a murine cecal ligation and puncture (CLP) model, and found that CD43-/- mice demonstrated significantly worsened mortality compared to B6 mice following CLP. Phenotypic analysis of splenocytes isolated 24 h after septic insult revealed significantly increased apoptosis of central memory cells in both CD4+ and CD8+ T cell compartments in CD43-/- septic mice compared to WT septic mice. Furthermore, CD43-/-septic mice exhibited a prominent Th2 skewing following sepsis relative to WT septic mice, as evidenced by a significant decrease in the frequency of IL-2+ CXCR3+ TH1 cells as a significant increase in the frequency of IL-4+ CCR4+ TH2 cells. Finally, septic CD43-/- animals contained significantly fewer CD25+ Foxp3+ TReg cells as compared to WT septic animals. Importantly, depleting CD25+ Treg eliminated the increased mortality observed in CD43-/- mice. Taken together, these data demonstrate an important role of CD43 in modulating immune dysregulation and mortality following sepsis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The presence of pre-existing malignancy in murine hosts results in increased immune dysregulation and risk of mortality following a septic insult. Based on the known systemic immunologic changes that occur in cancer hosts, we hypothesized that the presence of pre-existing malignancy would result in phenotypic and functional changes in CD4+ T cell responses following sepsis. In order to conduct a non-biased, unsupervised analysis of phenotypic differences between CD4+ T cell compartments, cohorts of mice were injected with LLC1 tumor cells and tumors were allowed to grow for 3 weeks. These cancer hosts and age-matched non-cancer controls were then subjected to CLP. Splenocytes were harvested at 24h post CLP and flow cytometry and SPADE (Spanning-tree Progression Analysis of Density-normalized Events) were used to analyze populations of CD4+ cells most different between the two groups. Results indicated that relative to non-cancer controls, cancer mice contained more resting memory CD4+ T cells, more activated CD4+ effectors, and fewer naïve CD4+ T cells during sepsis, suggesting that the CD4+ T cell compartment in cancer septic hosts is one of increased activation and differentiation. Moreover, cancer septic animals exhibited expansion of two distinct subsets of CD4+ T cells relative to previously healthy septic controls. Specifically, we identified increases in both a PD-1hi population and a distinct 2B4hi BTLAhi LAG-3hi population in cancer septic animals. By combining phenotypic analysis of exhaustion markers with functional analysis of cytokine production, we found that PD-1+ CD4+ cells in cancer hosts failed to make any cytokines following CLP, while the 2B4+ PD-1lo cells in cancer mice secreted increased TNF during sepsis. In sum, the immunophenotypic landscape of cancer septic animals is characterized by both increased CD4+ T cell activation and exhaustion, findings that may underlie the observed increased mortality in mice with pre-existing malignancy following sepsis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The geometric-Poisson exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) chart has been shown to be more effective than the Poisson EWMA chart in monitoring the number of defects in the production processes. In these applications, it is assumed that the process parameters are known or have been accurately estimated. However, in practice, the process parameters are rarely known and must be estimated from reference sample to construct the geometric-Poisson EWMA chart. The performance of the given chart, due to variability in the parameter estimation, might differ from known parameters' case. This article explored the effect of estimated parameters on the conditional and marginal performance of the geometric-Poisson EWMA chart. The run length characteristics are calculated using a Markov chain approach and the effect of estimation on the performance of the given chart is shown to be significant. Recommendations about the proposer choice of sample size, smoothing constant, and dispersion parameter are made. Results of this study highlight the practical implications of estimation error, and to offer advice to practitioners when constructing/analyzing a phase-I sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this study, we have prepared surfactant templated mesoporous silica thin films as the ultralow-k dielectrics and a TaN X thin film deposited by plasma enhanced atomic layer chemical vapor deposition (PE-ALCVD) using TaCl5 as the gas precursor was used as the diffusion barrier. Without any surface modification for the dielectric layer, Ta atoms could easily diffuse into the mesoporous layer seriously degrading dielectric properties. O2 and Ar plasmas have been used to modify the surface of the mesoporous dielectric in a high density plasma chemical vapor deposition (HDP-CVD) system, and both of the treatments produced a densified oxide layer a few nanometer thick. According to transmission electron microscopy and Auger electron spectroscopy, the pore sealing treatment could effectively prevent Ta atoms from diffusing into the mesoporous dielectric during the PE-ALCVD process. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Tumor necrosis factor-α stimulates fractalkine production by mesangial cells and regulates monocyte transmigration: Down-regulation by cAMP. Background. Fractalkine is a CX3 C chemokine for mononuclear cells that has been implicated in the recruitment and accumulation of monocytes seen in glomerular diseases. We investigated the mechanisms by which tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α stimulates mesangial cell (MC) fractalkine expression, and the effects of MC-derived fractalkine on monocyte transmigration. Methods. Cultured rat MCs were incubated with TNF-α, with or without pretreatment with pharmacologic inhibitors of protein kinases or transcriptional factors downstream to TNF-α. Fractalkine mRNA and protein were analyzed by Northern and Western blotting. Translocation of nuclear factor (NF)-κB was evaluated by immunocytochemical staining. Monocyte transmigration was determined by in vitro chemotaxis assay. Results. TNF-α stimulated MC fractalkine mRNA as well as cell-bound and soluble protein expression in a dose- and time-dependent manner. The soluble fractalkine was shed from the cell-bound form via metalloproteinase-dependent cleavage, and mediated in part TNF-α–induced monocyte transmigration in vitro. The incubation of MCs with calphostin C [a selective inhibitor of protein kinase C (PKC)] or PD98059 [a selective inhibitor of p42/44 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) kinase] attenuated TNF-α–stimulated fractalkine mRNA and protein expression. Coincubation of MCs with calphostin C and PD98059 resulted in a synergistic inhibition of TNF-α–stimulated fractalkine mRNA and protein expression. Incubation of MCs with phorbol myristate acetate (PMA) for four hours resulted in an increase in fractalkine mRNA expression that could be suppressed by calphostin C or depletion of PKC by pretreatment with PMA for 24 hours. Further, activation of PKC-depleted MCs with TNF-α stimulated... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sepsis is a dysregulated systemic response to infection involving many inflammatory pathways and the induction of counter-regulatory anti-inflammatory processes that results in a state of immune incompetence and can lead to multi-organ failure. CXCR4 is a chemokine receptor that, following ligation by CXCL12, directs cells to bone marrow niches and also plays an important role in T cell cosignaling and formation of the immunological synapse. Here, we investigated the expression and function of CXCR4 in a murine model of polymicrobial sepsis. Results indicate that CXCR4 is selectively upregulated on naïve CD4+ and CD8+ T cells and CD4+ central memory T cells following the induction of sepsis, and that CXCR4 antagonism resulted in a significant decrease in sepsis-induced mortality. We probed the mechanistic basis for these findings and found that CXCR4 antagonism significantly increased the number of peripheral CD4+ and CD8+ T cells following sepsis. Moreover, mice treated with the CXCR4 antagonist contained fewer PD-1+ LAG-3+ 2B4+ cells, suggesting that blockade of CXCR4 mitigates CD4+ T cell exhaustion during sepsis. Taken together, these results characterize CXCR4 as an important pathway that modulates immune dysfunction and mortality following sepsis, which may hold promise as a target for future therapeutic intervention in septic patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

β-thalassemia is associated with multiple hematological and cerebrovascular symptoms linked to a hypercoagulable state that has not been fully replicated in animal models for the development of stroke treatments. Herein we compared the physiological properties and responses to transient cerebral hypoxia-ischemia (tHI) between six-month-old wildtype and heterozygous Th3/+ mice, a model of non-transfusion-dependent β-thalassemia intermedia (β-TI). We found that Th3/+ mice developed microcytic anemia, splenomegaly, higher platelet counts, and increased platelet-erythrocyte plus erythrocyte-leukocyte aggregates. Furthermore, Th3/+ mice showed diminished cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) and cortical oxygen saturation under repetitive hypercapnic challenges. When subjected to a sub-threshold tHI insult, platelets and leukocytes in Th3/+ mice adhered to the cerebrovascular wall or formed aggregates, while their counterparts flew through smoothly in wildtype mice. Subsequently, Th3/+ mice showed increased fibrin deposition around cerebral blood vessels and larger infarction than wildtype mice, especially in female Th3/+ mice. Collectively these results showed that Th3/+ mice mimic key clinical features and a propensity to thromboembolism in β-TI patients. The hypercoagulable state in Th3/+ mice is likely caused by multiple hematological and CVR anomalies that are similar, but are not identical to those in the mouse model of sickle cell anemia. As such, we suggest that Th3/+ mice are a useful model to study the pathological mechanisms and prophylactic stroke treatments in thalassemia patients. • Th3/+ mice show platelet- and erythrocyte-aggregation and a hypercoagulable state. • Th3/+ mice show hematological anomalies typical for β-thalassemia intermedia. • Th3/+ mice show accelerated cerebral blood flow and impaired CVR to hypercapnia. • Th3/+ mice show increased sensitive to cerebral hypoxia/ischemia-induced thrombosis. • Th3/+ mice are a useful model to develop therapies of thrombosis in thalassemia patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores a new way to integrate advanced display technology into educational activities for children with different disabilities. A free interactive mobile augmented reality (AR) application was developed to facilitate the learning of geometry. Twenty-one elementary school children participated in an experiment. The results show that the AR system could help the school children to finish puzzle game activities independent of teacher’s assistance. With the use of AR display technology, the participants demonstrated improved ability to complete puzzle game tasks when compared to the use of traditional paper-based methods. Performance data indicated that the use of AR technology could enhance learning motivation and frustration tolerance in children with special needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Mortality is significantly higher in septic patients with cancer than in septic patients without a history of cancer. We have previously described a model of pancreatic cancer followed by sepsis from Pseudomonas aeruginosa pneumonia in which cancer septic mice have higher mortality than previously healthy septic mice, associated with increased gut epithelial apoptosis and decreased T cell apoptosis. The purpose of this study was to determine whether this represents a common host response by creating a new model in which both the type of cancer and the model of sepsis are altered. Methods: C57Bl/6 mice received an injection of 250,000 cells of the lung cancer line LLC-1 into their right thigh and were followed three weeks for development of palpable tumors. Mice with cancer and mice without cancer were then subjected to cecal ligation and puncture and sacrificed 24 hours after the onset of sepsis or followed 7 days for survival. Results: Cancer septic mice had a higher mortality than previously healthy septic mice (60% vs. 18%, p = 0.003). Cancer septic mice had decreased number and frequency of splenic CD4+ lymphocytes secondary to increased apoptosis without changes in splenic CD8+ numbers. Intestinal proliferation was also decreased in cancer septic mice. Cancer septic mice had a higher bacterial burden in the peritoneal cavity, but this was not associated with alterations in local cytokine, neutrophil or dendritic cell responses. Cancer septic mice had biochemical evidence of worsened renal function, but there was no histologic evidence of renal injury. Conclusions: Animals with cancer have a significantly higher mortality than previously healthy animals following sepsis. The potential mechanisms associated with this elevated mortality differ significantly based upon the model of cancer and sepsis utilized. While lymphocyte apoptosis and intestinal integrity are both altered by the combination of cancer and sepsis, the patterns of these alterations vary greatly depending on the models used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The many-core SoC is a future trend technology, and the process yield will face many unpredictable challenges. Nonuniform cache architecture (NUCA) can improve the performance of many-core SoC for embedded systems. It embeds a NoC into the cache memory to enhance the data access by distributing traffic loads to several banks in parallel. Providing fault-tolerant mechanism in NUCA is very important because the chip can still work efficiently when some memory banks are unusable. In this paper, we design a specific router working with static and dynamic cache remapping policies to support faulty banks in NUCA. When a L2 cache bank in NUCA is unusable, static remapping policy (SRP) selects a suitable neighbor cache bank according to the collected remapping cost to assist with the cache access by considering cache status and traffic status of the router. We also propose a dynamic remapping policy (DRP) to select the suitable cache bank dynamically at runtime to fit the real loading status of neighbor nodes around the faulty bank. The experimental results show that the average improvement of the SRP is approximated to 26 %, and the average improvement of the DRP is approximated to 28 %. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CD8+ T cells play important roles in anti-tumor immunity but distribution profile or functional characteristics of effector memory subsets during tumor progression are unclear. We found that, in oral squamous carcinoma patients, circulating CD8+ T cell pools skewed toward effector memory subsets with the distribution frequency of CCR7−CD45RA−CD8+ T cells and CCR7− CD45RA+CD8+ T cells negatively correlated with each other. A significantly higher frequency of CD127lo CCR7−CD45RA−CD8+ T cells or CCR7−CD45RA+CD8+ T cells among total CD8+ T cells was found in peripheral blood or tumor infiltrating lymphocytes, but not in regional lymph nodes. The CD127hi CCR7−CD45RA−CD8+ T cells or CCR7−CD45RA+CD8+ T cells maintained significantly higher IFN-γ, IL-2 productivity and ex vivo proliferative capacity, while the CD127lo CCR7−CD45RA−CD8+ T cells or CCR7−CD45RA+CD8+ T cells exhibited higher granzyme B productivity and susceptibility to activation induced cell death. A higher ratio of CCR7−CD45RA+CD8+ T cells to CCR7−CD45RA−CD8+ T cells was associated with advanced cancer staging and poor differentiation of tumor cells. Therefore, the CD127lo CCR7−CD45RA−CD8+ T cells and CCR7−CD45RA+CD8+ T cells are functionally similar CD8+ T cell subsets which exhibit late differentiated effector phenotypes and the shift of peripheral CD8+ effector memory balance toward CCR7−CD45RA+CD8+ T cells is associated with OSCC progression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1. Inducible nitric oxide (iNOS) is thought to involve in host defence and tissue damage in inflammatory loci. In previous study, we have found that the endonuclease inhibitor aurintricarboxylic acid (ATA) can protect macrophages from cell death induced by bacterial lipopolysaccharide. This action is through the interruption with signalling pathways for NF-kappa B and AP-1 activation, and thus iNOS expression. In this study we have addressed the effects of ATA on JAK-STAT signalling pathways. 2. In murine RAW 264.7 macrophages, IFN-gamma-mediated NO production and iNOS expression were concentration-dependently reduced by the presence of 3-100 micro M ATA. 3. IFN-gamma-induced STAT1 activation, as assessed from its tyrosine phosphorylation, nuclear translocation, binding to specific DNA response element and evoked IRF-1 reporter gene assay, were concomitantly inhibited by ATA. However, ATA did not alter IFN-gamma binding to RAW 264.7 cells. 4. The activities of JAK1 and JAK2, the upstream kinases essential for STAT1 signalling in response to IFN-gamma, were also reduced by ATA. 5. Moreover, IL-4, IL-10, GM-CSF and M-CSF elicited tyrosine phosphorylation of STAT3, STAT5 and/or STAT6 in macrophages were diminished by the presence of ATA. 6. Taken together, we conclude that ATA can interfere JAK-STAT signalling pathways in response to cytokines. This action contributes to the inhibition of IFN-gamma-induced iNOS expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF1α) is a major regulator of cellular adaptation to hypoxia and oxidative stress, and recent advances of prolyl-4-hydroxylase (P4H) inhibitors have produced powerful tools to stabilize HIF1α for clinical applications. However, whether HIF1α provokes or resists neonatal hypoxic-ischemic (HI) brain injury has not been established in previous studies. We hypothesize that systemic and brain-targeted HIF1α stabilization may have divergent effects. To test this notion, herein we compared the effects of GSK360A, a potent P4H inhibitor, in in-vitro oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD) and in in-vivo neonatal HI via intracerebroventricular (ICV), intraperitoneal (IP), and intranasal (IN) drug-application routes. We found that GSK360A increased the erythropoietin (EPO), heme oxygenase-1 (HO1) and glucose transporter 1 (Glut1) transcripts, all HIF1α target-genes, and promoted the survival of neurons and oligodendrocytes after OGD. Neonatal HI insult stabilized HIF1α in the ipsilateral hemisphere for up to 24 h, and either ICV or IN delivery of GSK360A after HI increased the HIF1α target-gene transcripts and decreased brain damage. In contrast, IP-injection of GSK360A failed to reduce HI brain damage, but elevated the risk of mortality at high doses, which may relate to an increase of the kidney and plasma EPO, leukocytosis, and abundant vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) mRNAs in the brain. These results suggest that brain-targeted HIF1α-stabilization is a potential treatment of neonatal HI brain injury, while systemic P4H-inhibition may provoke unwanted adverse effects. Unlabelled Image • GSK360A stabilizes HIF1α and protects neurons and oligodendrocytes in vitro. • Systemic GSK360A application cause adverse effects and lacks brain protection. • Intranasal GSK360A induces HIF1α-target genes against neonatal HI brain injury. • Brain-targeted HIF1α-stabilization is a safer treatment of neonatal encephalopathy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]