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Chloroplast ribonucleoproteins (cpRNPs) are nuclear-encoded and highly abundant proteins that are proposed to function in chloroplast RNA metabolism. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the regulation of chloroplast RNAs involved in stress tolerance are poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that CHLOROPLAST RNA-BINDING PROTEIN 1 (OsCRP1), a rice (Oryza sativa) cpRNP gene, is essential for stabilization of RNAs from the NAD(P)H dehydrogenase (NDH) complex, which in turn enhances drought and cold stress tolerance. An RNA-immunoprecipitation assay revealed that OsCRP1 is associated with a set of chloroplast RNAs. Transcript profiling indicated that the mRNA levels of genes from the NDH complex significantly increased in the OsCRP1 overexpressing compared to non-transgenic plants, whereas the pattern in OsCRP1 RNAi plants were opposite. Importantly, the OsCRP1 overexpressing plants showed a higher cyclic electron transport (CET) activity, which is essential for elevated levels of ATP for photosynthesis. Additionally, overexpression of OsCRP1 resulted in significantly enhanced drought and cold stress tolerance with higher ATP levels compared to wild type. Thus, our findings suggest that overexpression of OsCRP1 stabilizes a set of mRNAs from genes of the NDH complex involved in increasing CET activity and production of ATP, which consequently confers enhanced drought and cold tolerance.

Abusive text (indiscriminate slang, abusive language, and profanity) on the Internet is not just a message but rather a tool for very serious and brutal cyber violence. It has become an important problem to devise a method for detecting and preventing abusive text online. However, the intentional obfuscation of words and phrases makes this task very difficult and challenging. We design a decision system that successfully detects (obfuscated) abusive text using an unsupervised learning of abusive words based on word2vec's skip-gram and the cosine similarity. The system also deploys several efficient gadgets for filtering abusive text such as blacklists, n-grams, edit-distance metrics, mixed languages, abbreviations, punctuation, and words with special characters to detect the intentional obfuscation of abusive words. We integrate both an unsupervised learning method and efficient gadgets into a single system that enhances abusive and non-abusive word lists. The integrated decision system based on the enhanced word lists shows a precision of 94.08%, a recall of 80.79%, and an f-score of 86.93% in malicious word detection for news article comments, a precision of 89.97%, a recall of 80.55%, and an f-score 85.00% for online community comments, and a precision of 90.65%, a recall of 93.57%, and an f-score 92.09% for Twitter tweets. We expect that our approach can help to improve the current abusive word detection system, which is crucial for several web-based services including social networking services and online games.

RNA sequencing measures the quantitative change in gene expression over the whole transcriptome, but it lacks spatial context. On the other hand, in situ hybridization provides the location of gene expression, but only for a small number of genes. Here we detail a protocol for genome-wide profiling of gene expression in situ in fixed cells and tissues, in which RNA is converted into cross-linked cDNA amplicons and sequenced manually on a confocal microscope. Unlike traditional RNA-seq our method enriches for context-specific transcripts over house-keeping and/or structural RNA, and it preserves the tissue architecture for RNA localization studies. Our protocol is written for researchers experienced in cell microscopy with minimal computing skills. Library construction and sequencing can be completed within 14 d, with image analysis requiring an additional 2 d.

This article describes a study to investigate the intensified liquid–liquid extraction by a novel, millistructured, stirred-pulsed column. The column has an inner diameter of 15 mm and is modularly designed with sections of 220 mm height consisting of 10 stirred cells. Experimental investigations were carried out in a column with five sections. The stirred cells enable high energy input, and therefore high specific surface and good extraction efficiencies. The backflow was minimized with narrow plates between the cells. Hence, the dispersed phase coalesces at the plates that separate the stirred cells. The coalescence area is destroyed by continuous pulsation of the fluid column, which transports the dispersed phase into the next stirred cell. The hydrodynamic and mass transfer inside the column was characterized with the EFCE – test system water (continuous)/acetone/ n -butylacetate (dispersed). We achieved a dispersed phase hold up inside the active extraction part up to 50%, and a specific surface of over 3000 m 2 /m 3 . The extraction efficiency was measured to 17 and 25 stages per meter for the mass transfer direction (d → c) and (c → d), respectively. The comparison with other conventional pilot plant columns shows high extraction efficiency, but also a loss in total throughput.

Cholangiocarcinoma is a relatively rare neoplasm in animals and humans. A four-year-old, neutered male ferret presented with depression, anorexia, cachexia, diarrhea, and icterus. Necropsy findings included ascites, multiple white nodules on the surface of the liver, stomach, and duodenum, gross enlargement of the bile duct and right atrium, hemorrhage of the gastric and duodenal mucosa, and icterus of the mesenteric fat. Infiltrative well-differentiated neoplastic biliary epithelial cells forming ducts and acini with a prominent collagenous stroma were observed on microscopic examination of neoplastic lesions within the liver, mesentery, and the serosa of the stomach and duodenum. This is a report on a rare case of obstructive jaundice due to cholangiocarcinoma in a ferret.

The surface of light scattering TiO 2 particles in the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) was dual-coated with Al 2 O 3 and SiO 2 nanoparticles. The surface modification of the light scattering TiO 2 particles was performed by a modified sol–gel method using the colloidal alumina and the colloidal silica as surface coating precursors. It was revealed that the dual-coated light scattering TiO 2 particles leads to an increase in short-circuit photocurrent of DSSC device, resulting in an increase in energy conversion efficiency. This seems to be due to the increase of the light scattering by a combination of the light scattering TiO 2 particles and the oxide nanoparticles such as Al 2 O 3 and SiO 2 .

A light scattering TiO2 layer was investigated in dye-sensitized solar cells. To enhance the efficiency by light scattering layer in DSSCs, surfaces of the light scattering TiO2 particles were modified by thin oxide layer such as Al2O3. The surface of the TiO2 powder was coated with Al2O3 nanoparticles using simple methods, which was a kind of the modified sol-gel method. The Al2O3-coated TiO2 powder was characterized by SEM and XRF. The overall conversion efficiency of the DSSCs with the Al2O3-coated TiO2 light scattering layer increased from 5.07% to 6.46% compared to the DSSCs with the non-coated one.

Multi-layered light scattering layer has been designed to improve the energy conversion efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) by scattering of the incident light. To enhance the light scattering properties, the surface of light scattering TiO2 particle was dual-coated with nano-sized Al2O3 and SiO2 particles by using a modified sol-gel method. Four kinds of the TiO2 electrodes with different thicknesses were fabricated and their photovoltaic effects on DSSCs were investigated. By increasing the thickness of light scattering layer, the total reflectance of working electrodes increased to 37%, resulting in an increase in the energy conversion efficiency up to 6.76%.

Laparoscopic resection for colorectal cancer has become popular. However, no previous studies have compared the laparoscopic and open approaches for colorectal cancer adherent to adjacent organs. This study analyzed the short- and long-term survival outcomes after laparoscopic multivisceral resection of the locally advanced primary colorectal cancer compared with open procedure in an effort to address appropriate patient selection. From a prospectively collected database, 54 patients with locally advanced primary colorectal cancer who had undergone multivisceral resection from March 2001 to September 2009 were identified. Laparoscopic and open surgeries were selectively performed for 38 and 16 patients, respectively. The two groups had similar demographics, with no differences in age, sex, and comorbidity. However, five emergency or urgency operations were included in the open group. No differences existed between the two groups in terms of tumor node metastasis (TNM) staging, histologic tumor infiltration rates, or curative resection rates. Three patients (7.9%) in the laparoscopic group required conversion to open procedure. In the laparoscopic group, the operation time was longer (330 vs. 257 min; p = 0.018), the volume of blood loss was less (269 vs. 638 ml; p = 0.000), and the time until return of bowel movement was shorter (3.7 vs. 4.7 days; p = 0.029) than in the open group. The perioperative morbidity rates were similar in the two groups (21.1% vs. 43.7%; p = 0.107), and no perioperative mortality occurred in either group. The mean follow-up period after curative resection was 40 months in the laparoscopic group and 35 months in the open group. The two groups showed similar rates for local recurrence (7.7% vs. 27.3%; p = 0.144) and distant metastasis (15.4% vs. 45.5%; p = 0.091). The overall 5-year survival rate was 60.5% for the laparoscopic group and 47.7% for the open group (p = 0.044, log-rank test). In terms of TNM stages, the overall 5-year survival rate for pathologic stage 3 disease was 58.3% for the laparoscopic group and 25% for the open group (p = 0.022, log rank test), but no difference was noted for the stage 2 patients (p = 0.384). No adverse long-term oncologic outcomes of laparoscopic resection were observed in this study. Although inherent limitations exist in this nonrandomized study, laparoscopic multivisceral resection seems to be a feasible and effective treatment option for colorectal cancer for carefully selected patients. Patients with colon cancer should be much more carefully selected for laparoscopic multivisceral resection than patients with rectal cancer because anatomic uncertainty can make oncologic en bloc resection incomplete.

Porphyrin derivatives contain pyrrole rings, five membered heterocycles. These compounds have properties of a conjugated diene and of an amine. Delocalization of π electrons stabilizes the ring and their ultra-violet absorption maximum peak shifts to a longer wavelength. They can easily absorb visible light, and thus can utilize sunlight directly as a good photosensitizer. Re-cently, photodynamic therapy has been used in the management of various malignant tumors, including cancers of the skin, gas-trointestinal tract, lung and uterus.

particles, Photocatalyst, HydrazineAmmonia is produced in huge quantities worldwide notonly by commercial chemical factories but by decayingvegetation, garbage, even deco mposition of the other proteinmaterials. Ammonia with foul odor causes a serious environ-mental pollution in the atmosphere. Therefore, the de-composition of ammonia has attr acted considerable attentionin respect to environmental pollution of the atmosphere. Earlier investigation on the decomposition of ammoniausing a light was performed by means of radiolysis

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been used for diagnosis and treatment of patients with various malignant tumors, including cancers of the skin, gastrointestinal tract, lung and uterus. Recently, PDT with using 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA) for cutaneous diseases has been attracted considerable attentions, because skin is easily accessible to light and drugs. Since ALA was used as a pre-drug of the photosensitizer in PDT research by Kenedy et al. in 1990, a number of ALA ester derivatives have been synthesized and applied to PDT. ALA and its ester derivatives are precursors of protoporphyrin IX (PpIX) in the biosynthetic pathway of heme. They are normally biosynthesized in vivo from glycine and succinyl-coenzyme A in mitochondria and then converted into the actual photosensitizer, PpIX. PpIX produced through the heme biosynthetic pathway emits fluorescence strongly and photobleaches rapidly under production of singlet oxygen. The amount of ALA-induced porphyrins can be generally determined by measuring the fluorescence under various experimental conditions. Most papers have reported that the amount of fluorescence was determined by the measurement of fluorescence intensity at the maximum emission wavelength. Fluorescence spectra were measured by single-beam operation in which a sample is examined to determine the amount of light emitted at a given wavelength. Unstable light source and uneven intensities can cause the false peaks in the spectrum. Equally serious is the variation of the sensitivity of the photomultiplier tubes with regard to wavelength. Moreover, the analytical method for the determination of the fluorescence intensity at a particular wavelength is less sensitive than that of fluorescence spectrum area. The aim of this study is to present a highly sensitive and convenient spectrofluorometric method using an internal standard for the determination of the amount of PpIX produced by ALA in the various tumor and normal cells.

We propose a novel still image compression system, which is superior in its function than the JPEG2000 system developed by David Taubman. The system shows 40 : 1 high compression ratio using bitmatrix subblock coding. The bitmatrix subblock is constructed in the bitplanes by organizing the bits into subblocks composing of matrices. The arithmetic coding performs the high compression by the bitmatrices in the subblock. The input of the system consists of a segmentation mode and a ROI(Region Of Interest) mode. In segmentation mode, the input image is segmented into a foreground consisting of letters and a background consisting of the remaining region. In ROI mode, the input image is represented by the region of interest window. The high compression ratio shows that the proposed system is competent among the JPEG2000 products currently in the market. This system also uses gray coding to improve the compression ratio.

When using boundary element methods for problems with domain effects such as initial/residual stresses, body forces and heating, domain integrals are usually involved. Different numerical algorithms have been developed in the past to deal with these domain integrals, such as interior cell mapping, DRM, MRM, etc., which require considerable code development efforts. To take advantage of the boundary element method (BEM) for simulating fracturing processes, but without additional effort for domain integral calculations or transformations, a hybrid approach is suggested in this paper to simulate the excavation and thermo-mechanical process of rock structures. Equivalent boundary tractions reflecting the combined effects of the initial and redistributed thermo-mechanical stresses in the domain of interest at multiple excavation and heating steps are produced by an algorithm of inverse stress reconstruction, in a sense of least-square optimization. The algorithm utilizes resultant stress fields at each excavation and heating step, either measured or produced by other numerical methods of domain-types such as finite element method/finite difference method (FEM/FDM), and calculates the equivalent boundary tractions for further fracturing analysis. In this paper, the inverse stress reconstruction algorithm developed for this purpose, using a truncated singular value decomposition (SVD) technique, is presented. Three examples of verification, two closed-form solutions of problems of elasticity with simple geometry and one example from a predictive modeling of a planned in situ heating experiment in a rock pillar at the Aspo Hard Rock Laboratory (HRL), Southern Sweden, are presented.

In this study, we prepared ZnO nanorods by a sonochemical method using a zinc acetate dihydrate as a new precursor. Well-aligned high-quality ZnO nanorods were synthesized on FTO glass by the sonochemical decomposition of zinc acetate dihydrate using a ZnO thin-film as the catalytic layer. The ZnO thin-films were deposited on the FTO glass by a sputtering method. To investigate their catalytic effects on the ZnO nanorods, catalytic ZnO thin-films of 20 nm, 40 nm, and 60 nm thickness were prepared by adjusting the sputtering time. The ZnO nanorods grown on catalytic layers with different thicknesses were characterized by SEM, XRD, and PL. The ZnO nanorods grown on the catalytic layer of 40 nm thickness show the best crystal and spatial orientation and as a result display the best optical properties. It was found that a catalytic ZnO thin-film of 40 nm in thickness yields well-aligned high-quality ZnO nanorods, due to its small surface roughness and structural strain.

Summary form only given. The frame processing and video segmentation for real-time and high compression MPEG-4 are demonstrated. A real-time camera image input and motion detection algorithm is designed for practical MPEG-4 coding, and a video object segmentation technique to extract VOP for binary shape coding is described. This newly developed MPEG-4 encoding system can be used in a variety of multimedia applications.

The effect of light scattering TiO2 particles surface-modified by Al2O3 coating on the characteristics of a dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) has been studied in this paper. The surface of the light scattering TiO2 particles was coated with Al2O3 by a modified sol–gel method as a function of the pH and the concentration of colloidal Al2O3. It was revealed that the uniform distribution of Al2O3 nanoparticles leads to an increase in short-circuit photocurrent of the DSSC device, resulting in an increase in energy conversion efficiency. This seems to be due to the increase in light scattering by the combination of the light scattering TiO2 particles and Al2O3 nanoparticles.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the risk factors for clinical anastomotic leakage after laparoscopic resection for rectal cancer. Methods: From March 2001 and February 2006 in Seoul Veterans’ Hospital, the prospective laparoscopic colorectal resection database identified 101 patients who a had laparoscopic rectal resection with colorectal or coloanal anastomosis. The associations between clinical anastomotic leakage and patient-, tumor-, surgery- and laparoscopic-related variables were studied. Results: The rate of clinical anastomotic leakage was 4 percent (4 of 101). The patient-related variable significantly associated with clinical anastomotic leakage was preoperative radiotherapy. The surgery-related factor that turned out to be significant was anastomosis situated less than 5 cm from the anal verge. No tumor- or laparoscopic-related variables were significantly associated with clinical anastomotic leakage. Conclusions: A protective ileostomy should be considered after a laparoscopic rectal resection for an rectal cancer for anastomosis situated less than 5 cm from the anal verge, particularly when preoperative radiotherapy is being used.

In order to clarify the CT findings of lethal midline granuloma(LMG) diagnosed clinically or histopathologically, the authors retrospectively analyzed 12 patients who were ween at Kyungpook National University Hospital from February 1985 to August 1989. CT showed nasal mucosal thickening and/or soft tissue mass( 9 cases), spreading of the lesions along the facial subcutaneous fat plane(8 cases), invasion into the paranasal sinuses(5 cases), bone destruction(5 cases) nasopharyngeal mass lesion(2 cases), and extension of the lesion into the infratemporal fossa(1 case). In spite of the fact that CT does not make definitive diagnosis of LMG, it permits evaluation of the extent of the lesion, detection of the combined lesion, differential diagnosis, and close monitoring of its evolution under treatment.