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Japanese Paper and Paper Conservation
Get PDFWashi is a Japanese handmade paper which has very long traditions. There are many types of washi in Japan but there are three main types of paper which are the kozo, mitsumata, and gampi paper. Kozo paper is made of mulberry fibers and the most well-known and has the highest production in Japan. Mitsumata and Gampi paper are made of tree of daphne fibers but the process of these two papers are different and Gampi paper is the highest quality of paper compared to the other two types papers. Before washi was created, the handmade paper originally came from China. China made Mashi, is a paper made of hemp. Then, the culture of papermaking was exported to Japan and Japanese papermakers created their own style of paper which is the washi. At first, Japanese papermakers used hemp, but it is difficult to handle it so during Heian period from 794 to 1192, they tried to use mulberry fibers and created kozo paper that became the most well-known paper in Japan. After that, papermakers tried to create many types of papers, There are 47 regions in Japan and there are around 35 regions that have 1 their own style and history of papermaking. The process of papermaking takes around 12 steps includes boiling, beating, arranging, squeezing, stretching, and drying and takes a very long time. These processes turns the fibers into sheets of paper. The ingredients of paper is made of three main compounds, cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. The main compound is cellulose which is the same organic compound used in cotton and rayon as well. For Japanese paper conservation, one important technique is to make a drying board is called Karibari in Japanese and is one of the tools used in the process of mounting Japanese screen and scroll paintings. Karibari have a structure similar to folding screens and consists of a wood lattice core covered with seven or eight layers of different types of papers
Soluble immune checkpoint-related proteins as predictors of tumor recurrence, survival, and T cell phenotypes in clear cell renal cell carcinoma patients
Get PDFBackground: Immune checkpoint inhibitors have achieved unprecedented success in cancer immunotherapy. With the exception of a few candidate biomarkers, the prognostic role of soluble immune checkpoint-related proteins in clear cell renal cell cancer (ccRCC) patients is largely uninvestigated. Methods: We profiled the circulating levels of 14 immune checkpoint-related proteins panel (BTLA, GITR, HVEM, IDO, LAG-3, PD-1, PD-L1, PD-L2, Tim-3, CD28, CD80, CD137, CD27 and CTLA-4) and their associations with the risk of recurrence and death in 182 ccRCC patients using a multiplex Luminex assay. Gene expression in tumors from a subset of participating patients (n = 47) and another 533 primary ccRCC from TCGA were analyzed to elucidate potential mechanisms. Our primary endpoint is overall survival; secondary endpoint is recurrence-free survival. Multivariate Cox proportional hazard model, unconditional logistic regression model, and Kaplan-Meier analysis were applied in the study. Results: sTIM3 and sLAG3 were significantly associated with advanced (stage III) disease (P \u3c 0.05). sPD-L2 was the strongest predictor of recurrence (HR 2.51, 95%CI 1.46-4.34, P = 9.33E-04), whereas high sBTLA and sTIM3 was associated with decreased survival (HR 6.02, 95%CI 2.0-18.1, P = 1.39E-03 and HR 3.12, 95%CI 1.44-6.75, P = 3.94E-03, respectively). Risk scores based on sTIM3 and sBTLA indicated that the soluble immune checkpoint-related proteins jointly predicted recurrence and death risks of ccRCC (P = 0.01 and 4.44E-04, respectively). Moreover, sLAG3 and sCD28 were found negatively correlated with cytolytic activity of T cells in tumors (rho = -0.31 and - 0.33, respectively). Conclusions: Our study provides evidence that soluble immune checkpoint-related proteins may associate with advanced disease, recurrence and survival in ccRCC patients, which highlights the prognostic values of soluble immune checkpoint-related proteins. Future independent validation in prospective studies is warranted
Efficient Computation of Collisional ℓ-mixing Rate Coefficients in Astrophysical Plasmas
Get PDFWe present analytical expressions for direct evaluation of ℓ-mixing rate coefficients in proton-excited hydrogen atom collisions and describe a software package for efficient numerical evaluation of the collisional rate coefficients. Comparisons between rate coefficients calculated with various levels of approximation are discussed, highlighting their range of validity. These rate coefficients are benchmarked for radio recombination lines for hydrogen, evaluating the corresponding departure coefficients from local thermal equilibrium
Cellular effects of butyrate on vascular smooth muscle cells are mediated through disparate actions on dual targets, histone deacetylase (HDAC) activity and Pi3k/Akt signaling network
Get PDFVascular remodeling is a characteristic feature of cardiovascular diseases. Altered cellular processes of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) is a crucial component in vascular remodeling. Histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACI), butyrate, arrests VSMC proliferation and promotes cell growth. The objective of the study is to determine the mechanism of butyrate-induced VSMC growth. Using proliferating VSMCs exposed to 5 mM butyrate, immunoblotting studies are performed to determine whether PI3K/Akt pathway that regulates different cellular effects is a target of butyrate-induced VSMC growth. Butyrate inhibits phosphorylation-dependent activation of PI3K, PDK1, and Akt, eliciting differential effects on downstream targets of Akt. Along with previously reported Ser9 phosphorylation-mediated GSK3 inactivation leading to stability, increased expression and accumulation of cyclin D1, and epigenetic histone modifications, inactivation of Akt by butyrate results in: transcriptional activation of FOXO1 and FOXO3 promoting G1 arrest through p21Cip1/Waf1 and p15INK4B upregulation; inactivation of mTOR inhibiting activation of its targets p70S6K and 4E-BP1 impeding protein synthesis; inhibition of caspase 3 cleavage and downregulation of PARP preventing apoptosis. Our findings imply butyrate abrogates Akt activation, causing differential effects on Akt targets promoting convergence of cross-talk between their complimentary actions leading to VSMC growth by arresting proliferation and inhibiting apoptosis through its effect on dual targets, HDAC activity and PI3K/Akt pathway network
Bond-slip monitoring of concrete structures using smart sensors—A review
Get PDFConcrete structures with various reinforcements, such as steel bars, composite material tendons, and recently steel plates, are commonly used in civil infrastructures. When an external force overcomes the strength of the bond between the reinforcement and the concrete, bond-slip will occur, resulting in a relative displacement between the reinforcing materials and the concrete. Monitoring bond health plays an important role in guaranteeing structural safety. Recently, researchers have recognized the importance of bond-slip monitoring and performed many related investigations. In this paper, a state-of-the-art review on various smart sensors based on piezoelectric effect and fiber optic technology, as well as corresponding techniques for bond-slip monitoring is presented. Since piezoelectric sensors and fiber-optic sensors are widely used in bond-slip monitoring, their principles and relevant monitoring methods are also introduced in this paper. Particularly, the piezoelectric-based bond-slip monitoring methods including the active sensing method, the electro-mechanical impedance (EMI) method and the passive sensing using acoustic emission (AE) method, and the fiber-optic-based bond-slip detecting approaches including the fiber Bragg grating (FBG) and the distributed fiber optic sensing are highlighted. This paper provides guidance for practical applications and future development of bond-slip monitoring
The Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) translational research network: Building and sustaining capacity for multi-site basic biomedical, clinical and behavioral research
No full textThe Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) program was established by the US Congress to support the development of biomedical research infrastructure at minority-serving institutions granting doctoral degrees in the health professions or in a health-related science. RCMI institutions also conduct research on diseases that disproportionately affect racial and ethnic minorities (ie, African Americans/Blacks, American Indians and Alaska Natives, Hispanics, Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders), those of low socioeconomic status, and rural persons. Quantitative metrics, including the numbers of doctoral science degrees granted to underrepresented students, NIH peer-reviewed research funding, peer-reviewed publications, and numbers of racial and ethnic minorities participating in sponsored research, demonstrate that RCMI grantee institutions have made substantial progress toward the intent of the Congressional legislation, as well as the NIH/NIMHD-linked goals of addressing workforce diversity and health disparities. Despite this progress, nationally, many challenges remain, including persistent disparities in research and career development awards to minority investigators. The continuing underrepresentation of minority investigators in NIH-sponsored research across multiple disease areas is of concern, in the face of unrelenting national health inequities. With the collaborative network support by the RCMI Translational Research Network (RTRN), the RCMI community is uniquely positioned to address these challenges through its community engagement and strategic partnerships with non-RCMI institutions. Funding agencies can play an important role by incentivizing such collaborations, and incorporating metrics for research funding that address underrepresented populations, workforce diversity and health equity
Pharmacological countermeasures to spaceflight-induced alterations of the immune system
No full textHuman bioastronautic programs have grown during the last 50 years. Medical and physiological findings from these missions have demonstrated that spaceflight impacts almost all physiological systems, including bone demineralization and reduced immunological competence. These adaptive responses can affect crew health and performance. Indeed, about half of the astronauts encountered immune dysregulations during space travels. Developing efficient countermeasures to preserve the astronaut’s immune system is therefore a prerequisite before undertaking future long-duration space missions. In this chapter, we present promising pharmacological countermeasures to mitigate that risk
The impacts of light rail on residential property values in a nonzoning city: A new test on the Houston METRORail transit line
No full textThe impacts of rail transit system on residential property values have been examined for many metropolitan areas in the U.S. But there are few studies on the effects of light rail in a non-zoning city. As the rail transit in the largest non-zoning city, Houston\u27s light rail transit line, or the so-called METRORail, has not received much attention from the planning research society since it opened to the public in 2004. A previous study by the author utilized 2007 household data to analyze the impacts of Houston\u27s METRORail line and found the net effects of the rail transit line change significantly at different distances from the rail stations. One limitation of that study was that the physical environment and neighborhood characteristics of the station areas may not have had notable changes over a relatively short time span, i.e., three years after the opening of the light rail. This study employs 2010 InfoUSA household data to re-examine the effects of Houston\u27s METRORail line. Similar to the previous studies, the author adopts a traditional ordinary linear regression (OLS) to investigate the contribution of a set of variables representing the physical, neighborhood, and accessibility characteristics of properties, and also employs a multi-level regression model (MLR) to examine the hierarchical structures of spatial data explicitly. In addition, this study tests the spatial autocorrelation in the modeling process and analyzes its effects on the results. The modeling results suggest that the METRORail line has had significant net positive effects on residential property values. The MLS model captures the difference of these effects with more spatial details. The spatial regression model improves model fit, but spatial autocorrelation is not completely eliminated
An Optimal Dynamic Admission Control Policy and Upper Bound Analysis in Wireless Sensor Networks
Get PDFData admission control is an important issue in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) because of the limited transmission coverage area and the limited battery capability of each sensor node. To achieve the optimum benefit of the sensor network, a reward when a data package arriving at a sensor is accepted (not rejected) for transmission is considered, but a holding cost per unit time for the accepted data package waiting in the sensor for transmission is also incurred. For the sensor with sleep and active phases, a dynamic data admission control model is developed in this paper. By constructing a suitable Markov decision process (MDP), we verify that the optimal admission control policy of when to admit or reject an arriving data packet is a control limit policy, in order to achieve the maximum expected a discounted reward in the sleep and active phase, respectively. Furthermore, we provide a formula for how to calculate the upper bound of these threshold values. For the identified model with the optimal expected discount reward, the energy consumption of the sensors in active and sleep phases, as well as the energy consumption switching from active to sleep per unit time and vice versa is investigated. Extensive simulation is implemented. The results show that the problem is effectively solved by an optimal scheme with high energy efficiency. The results of this paper can be applied to designing optimal sensor nodes in wireless sensor networks
Undergraduate Research Experiences Reports on Acne Treatment, Heavy Metal In Water, and Measurement of the Heat Reaction of Isosorbide Methacrylate
Get PDFThis thesis reports on three significant science projects I have done during my undergraduate years. The first part is on the effect of Benzoyl Peroxide and Salicylic, two active ingredients in face wash for acne control, on MCF-7, epithelial cells. My assays suggested that salicylic acid lowered the viability of the MCF-7 cells, meaning it is more likely to decrease the viability of acne cells, while benzoyl peroxide did not seem to have any effect at all, meaning it is safer to use on the skin. My second research involved measurement of heavy metals, such as aluminum, nickel, cadmium, lead, and chromium in commercial drinking water. Heavy metals are in each bottle of water someone drinks and the long term effects go unnoticed because the percentage is so small. The final research involved Isosorbide Methacrylate (IM). The heat of the reaction for Isosorbide Methacrylate is about 40 kJ/mol, for Isobomyl Acrylate (IBOA) the heat of reaction is about 80 kJ/mol, for IA it is about 65 kJ/mol and BP AM had a heat of reaction from 50 kJ/mol to 79 kJ/mol. Mixtures ofIM and IBOA had higher heats of reaction than IM and a lower heat of reaction than IBOA