293 research outputs found
Semantically describing urban historical buildings across different levels of granularity
No full textArchitectural, built heritage and historical buildings embody cultural heritage value and-as known-they need to be studied, documented, persevered and represented. Although there are many fields involved in these activities, none of these considered individually can fully represent the heritage with a complete level of detail and information. The present work aims to investigate the different levels of detail and granularity among different communities involved in historical buildings tasks to semantically define different concepts. In this context, ontologies are considered as an effective solution for the formal conceptualization of the domains involved, providing a common language for knowledge sharing and reuse. The study starts from existing knowledge (standards, vocabularies, thesauri, classifications) and conceptualisations for regional, urban and architectural heritage and geographic information for various tasks (restoration, documentation and heritage studies, risk prevention, heritage asset and facility management, education and tourism, urban planning and energy refurbishment/performance). A specific use case involving historical buildings in fortified centres across different levels of detail is described to show how existing knowledge and standards conceptualisation need to be integrated and extended. Urban Data Scienc
Nano-targeted drug delivery approaches for bacterial infections
No full textMicroorganisms, such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi, can cause infectious diseases. Among these, bacteria are the most important cause of infection-associated death in children, the elderly, and immunocompromised patients. The advent of antibiotics in the 1940s has led to the treatment of many bacterial diseases. However, conventional antibiotics still face limitations, such as low bioavailability and antibiotic resistance. Recently, nano-targeted drug delivery systems have been used to increase the therapeutic efficacy of antibiotics. These systems can be used for this purpose through passive or active targeting by size-induced selective extravasation at the infected site or the presence of specific ligands on the surface of designed nanoparticles. The present book chapter aims to highlight the nano-targeted drug delivery system applications in bacterial infections. It is hoped that this chapter opens new prospects for the use of nanoparticles towards bacterial infections.</p
Monoclonal antibodies for diagnostic and therapeutic systems to combat microbial infections
No full textDiagnosis and effective therapy of microbial infections are often complicated processes. Antibodies can be used for rapid, specific diagnosis and therapy of those infections because of target selectivity and specificity. Monoclonal antibodies show higher target specificity compared to polyclonal antibodies. Single epitopes specificity of monoclonal antibodies makes them the leading therapeutic and diagnostic tool against microbial infections by lowering the potential of off-target reactions and misleading diagnosis. Employing monoclonal antibodies to diagnose and treat microbial infections has been attracting significant attention despite some economic obstacles. This chapter focuses on the potential diagnostic and therapeutic use of monoclonal antibodies to combat different microbial infections, including bacterial infections, viral infections, and some other infections in vivo and in vitro. The recent advances made in monoclonal antibody development against various microbial diseases for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes are discussed. Finally, some key challenges in designing, manufacturing, and developing monoclonal antibodies for diagnostic and therapeutic systems and their limitations and future trends are explained
Ontology-based semantic conceptualisation of historical built heritage to generate parametric structured models from point clouds
No full textNowadays, cultural and historical built heritage can be more effectively preserved, val-orised and documented using advanced geospatial technologies. In such a context, there is a major issue concerning the automation of the process and the extraction of useful information from a huge amount of spatial information acquired by means of advanced survey techniques (i.e., highly detailed LiDAR point clouds). In particular, in the case of historical built heritage (HBH) there are very few effective efforts. Therefore, in this paper, the focus is on establishing the connections between semantic and geometrical information in order to generate a parametric, structured model from point clouds using ontology as an effective approach for the formal conceptualisation of application domains. Hence, in this paper, an ontological schema is proposed to structure HBH representations, starting with international standards, vocabularies, and ontologies (CityGML-Geography Markup Language, International Committee for Documentation conceptual reference model (CIDOC-CRM), Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT), as well as reasoning about morphology of historical centres by analysis of real case studies) to represent the built and architecture domain. The validation of such schema is carried out by means of its use to guide the segmentation of a LiDAR point cloud from a castle, which is later used to generate parametric geometries to be used in a historical building information model (HBIM).Urban Data Scienc
Building Resilient Communities Over Time
No full textCommunity resilience entails the community’s ongoing and developing capacity to account for its vulnerabilities and function amid and recover from disturbance. A holistic and systematic approach of the community on how it uses material and energy resources or how a society educates the members’ over time is required to learn from the past and adapt to the present and future opportunities and threads. Community resilience has a long history in the local communities, which is embedded in their culture and history around shared values and local knowledge based on a dedicated and robust collaboration among diverse groups of the community and the various actors from different backgrounds. The innovative partnership between various actors such as stakeholders, research entities, local communities, and third sector parties is required to overcome the complexities of resiliency building. Using local knowledge to understand the local needs better is crucial in developing local, sustainable solutions and building community resilience over time.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.History, Form & AestheticsArchitectural Engineerin
Comparative Study of Microtubule-associated Protein-2 and Glial Fibrillary Acidic Proteins during Neural Induction of Human Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells and Adipose-Derived Stem Cells
No full textBackground: In recent years, adipose tissue, due to the stem cells contained within, has found a new special place in laboratory and clinical applications. These adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) have the same characteristics of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs). Although bone marrow (BM) is not easily accessible and its procurements may be painful, most patients possess excess fat which can be obtained by less invasive methods; this makes adipose tissue ubiquitous, available and an ideal large-scale source for research on clinical applications.
Methods: BMSCs and ADSCs were harvested from three healthy human and were characterized using flow-cytometry. After they were treated for neurosphere formation using basic fibroblast growth factor, epidermal growth factor, B 27 ; terminal differentiation was performed. In this study, we used immunocytochemistry, real time-polymerase chain reaction and western blotting techniques for detection and comparison of Nestin, microtubule-associated protein-2 (MAP-2) and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) markers in human ADSCs and BMSCs.
Results: Under appropriate conditions ADSCs can differentiate into neuron-like cells and express neural markers the same as BMSCs, also the expression of GFAP marker in differentiated cells derived from ADSCs was significantly lower than the cells derived from BMSCs (P < 0.05). While the expression of MAP-2 marker in both groups was the same.
Conclusions: However, due to its advantages and according to our results based on the expression levels of GFAP and MAP-2, adipose tissue rather than BM could represent a more appropriate stem cell source for investigating the application of these cells in understanding the pathophysiology and in treatment of neurodegenerative disorders
Hybrid Intelligence in Architectural Robotic Materialization (HI-ARM): Computational, Fabrication and Material Intelligence for Multi-Mode Robotic Production of Multi-Scale and Multi-Material Systems
No full textWith increasing advancements in information and manufacturing technologies, there is an ever‑growing need for innovative integration and application of computational design and robotic fabrication in architecture. Hybrid Intelligence in Architectural Robotic Materialization (HI-ARM) provides methods and frameworks that target this need. HI-ARM introduces methodologies and technologies that incorporate computational, fabrication and material intelligence in integrated design-to-robotic-production workflows. The intelligence is explored at multiple architectural scales (Macro, Meso, Micro) through hybridization of building processes or multi-mode robotic production and multi-materiality.Porosity, Hybridity, and Assembly are introduced as main constituents for materialization frameworks relying on computational design and robotic production. These are tested in a series of original experiments that are presented in this thesis together with four peer-reviewed published papers discussing the process of developing integrated design-to-production methodologies in detail. The contributions show how both architectural materialization processes and building products can be customized in different phases and scales. Moreover, the developed discourse and definitions address the impacts of this research through the lenses of computation and automation in research, education, and practice in the fields of Architecture, Engineering, and Construction
Laser-induced radial birefringence and spin-to-orbital optical angular momentum conversion isilver-doped glasses
No full textSamples of Ag+/Na+ ion-exchanged glass that have been subject to intense laser irradiation may develop novel optical properties, as a consequence of the formation of patterns of silver nanoparticles and other structures. Here, we report the observation of a laser-induced permanent transverse birefringence, with the optical axis forming a radial pattern, as revealed by the spin-to-orbital angular momentum conversion occurring in a probe light beam. The birefringence pattern can be modeled well as resulting from thermally-induced stresses arising in the silver-doped glass during laser exposure, although the actual mechanism leading to the permanent anisotropy is probably more comple
Mulberry Leaf Extract Attenuates Oxidative Stress-Mediated Testosterone Depletion in Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetic Rats
No full textBackground: It has been proposed that oxidative stress may contribute to the development of testicular abnormalities in diabetes. Morus alba leaf extract (MAE) has hypoglycemic and antioxidant properties. We, therefore, explored the impact of the administration of MAE on steroidogenesis in diabetic rats.
Methods: To address this hypothesis, we measured the serum level of glucose, insulin, and free testosterone (Ts) as well as oxidative stress parameters (including glutathione peroxidase, glutathione reductase, total antioxidant capacity, and malondialdehyde) in the testis of control, untreated and MAE-treated (1 g/day/kg) diabetic rats. In order to determine the likely mechanism of MAE action on Ts levels, we analyzed the quantitative mRNA expression level of the two key steroidogenic proteins, namely steroid acute regulatory protein (StAR) and P450 cholesterol side-chain cleavage enzyme (P450scc), by real-time PCR.
Results: The MAE-treated diabetic rats had significantly decreased glucose levels and on the other hand increased insulin and free Ts levels than the untreated diabetic rats. In addition, the administration of MAE to the diabetic rats restored the oxidative stress parameters toward control. Induction of diabetes decreased testicular StAR mRNA expression by 66% and MAE treatment enhanced mRNA expression to the same level of the control group. However, the expression of P540scc was not significantly decreased in the diabetic group as compared to the control group.
Conclusion: Our findings indicated that MAE significantly increased Ts production in the diabetic rats, probably through the induction of StAR mRNA expression levels. Administration of MAE to experimental models of diabetes can effectively attenuate oxidative stress-mediated testosterone depletion.
Please cite this article as: Hajizadeh MR, Eftekhar E, Zal F, Jaffarian A, Mostafavi-Pour Z. Mulberry Leaf Extract Attenuates Oxidative Stress-Mediated Testosterone Depletion in Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetic Rats. Iran J Med Sci. 2014;39(2):123-129
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