55 research outputs found
Elucidation of interactors of the pro-fusion proteins MFN1 and MFN2 sheds light on novel pathways regulating mitochondrial morphology in apoptosis
No full textLarge-scale proteomics analysis provide information on the proteomic signatures including interacting partners and post-translational modification. In the first part of the thesis, we identified a novel keratin-binding protein, Trichoplein (TpMs) that requires MFN2 to modulate mitochondrial shape and tethering. In the second part, we show that the pleiotropic mitogen activated protein (MAP) kinase phosphorylate the pro-fusion protein mitofusin (MFN) 1, switching its functions in apoptosis and mitochondrial fusion. A phosphoproteomic analysis revealed that MFN1 is phosphorylated at an atypical ERK1 site (T562) of its HR1 domain. This site proved essential to mediate the MFN1-dependent mitochondrial elongation and regulation of apoptosis by the MEK/ERK pathway. A T562 mutant mimicking constitutive phosphorylation of MFN1 triggered mitochondrial fragmentation, increased susceptibility to apoptosis, bound more avidly to the proapoptotic BCL-2 family member BAK and facilitated its activation. Our data identify a role for phosphorylation of MFN1 in mitochondrial shape and apoptosis
Trichoplein/mitostatin regulates endoplasmic reticulum-mitochondria juxtaposition.
No full textTrichoplein/mitostatin (TpMs) is a keratin-binding protein that partly colocalizes with mitochondria and is often downregulated in epithelial cancers, but its function remains unclear. In this study, we report that TpMs regulates the tethering between mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) in a Mitofusin 2 (Mfn2)-dependent manner. Subcellular fractionation and immunostaining show that TpMs is present at the interface between mitochondria and ER. The expression of TpMs leads to mitochondrial fragmentation and loosens tethering with ER, whereas its silencing has opposite effects. Functionally, the reduced tethering by TpMs inhibits apoptosis by Ca(2+)-dependent stimuli that require ER-mitochondria juxtaposition. Biochemical and genetic evidence support a model in which TpMs requires Mfn2 to modulate mitochondrial shape and tethering. Thus, TpMs is a new regulator of mitochondria-ER juxtaposition
Human centric object perception for service robots
No full textThe research interests and applicability of robotics have diversified and seen atremendous growth in recent years. There has been a shift from industrial robots operating in constrained settings to consumer robots working in dynamic environments associated closely with everyday human activities. Personal service robots to assist elderly, compliant robots with advanced perception skills for flexible manufacturing and autonomous driving vehicles for safe transportation are among the promising directions. In all these cases, robots have to work in close cooperation with human users and an intuitive higher level interaction between robots and layman users is essential for its widespread acceptability. Hence in this thesis, development of cognitive and perceptual skills in humans is studied and applied to the development of robot’s perceptual skills, especially based on visual information from a user interaction point of view.A physical robot is developed from scratch considering the aspects of affordability and user acceptability. A 9 DoF robot, LEA which incorporates a differential drive base, 4 DoF arm with a gripper and a pan-tilt neck supporting the robot’s head. The entire mechanics and control electronics are custom developed leading to decreased mechanical complexity and increased flexibility in physical dimensions. All the components are well integrated with a socially appealing industrial design which has been well received by the public and media. The limitations arising from simplified mechanics and affordable hardware are compensated by advanced adaptive vision algorithms to achieve the required functionalities of a service robot. A generic human centric architecture for highly autonomous and interactive robots is proposed to integrate various capabilities of a robot that are triggered by user interaction. A specific case of object recognition is investigated, as many tasks faced by such robots involve perception and manipulation of different household objects.An intuitive non-verbal interaction between a user and a robot for conveying objects of interest to the robot is developed. The developed spatial grounding model can detect the object of user interest independent of the relative position between the robot, the user and the object and without any prior training. This is achieved by a hybrid attention system combining bottom-up color saliency with depth image and top-down cues comprising user’s pointing direction and gaze. Robustness of gaze based attention system is improved by automatically switching between a keypoint based and a color based approach depending on objects’ texture.The recognition of these objects is achieved with a three layered semantic recognition framework that can incorporate multiple modalities of information. Developed based on studies of human perception, this method achieves recognition robustness in unconstrained domestic environments while providing semantic grounding with human users. Modalities of color, shape and object location have been incorporated into this recognition model while maintaining flexibility to include additional modalities. The first layer consists of semantic grounding modules that abstract raw sensory information into a probability distribution over meaningful semantic concepts familiar to humans. A second layer operates on these semantic features to obtain an object hypothesis based on every individual modality. The last layer performs knowledge association to estimate combined probability over known objects to obtain the final inference.A novel algorithm to track contours of objects and persons to allow exploration from different viewpoints is developed. Visual model of the target is refined by considering only the dominant 3D cluster within the initial bounding box. A tracking-by detection algorithm constrains the search space in the image by removing regions based on metric size constancy of the object and other structural patterns like perpendicular planes. A feature based on Color Naming System has been used with an online learning classifier to obtain a color probability map while the depth probability map is obtained by using a Gaussian model of the object’s depth distribution. An optimal fusion of different object modalities using a target-background dissimilarity measure is developed and is used in a graphcut framework to continuously obtain contours of the target object.The reliability of recognition of these objects in challenging domestic environments is enhanced using visual appearances from multiple views while incorporating the spatial relations between these viewpoints as well. A Sequence Alignment algorithm has been used with vector quantized features from each view to achieve view point correlation in object recognition. A fast Visual Odometry estimation has been used to obtain viewpoint relations in an unsupervised manner and this has been incorporated with segmentation to provide a standalone system that can be used in real world scenario. This system is made generic to be used with different feature vectors and a benchmark is created to compare the performance improvement achieved by the developed system with respect to single view object recognition using different feature vectors.Object recognition in service robots can be augmented by incorporating the context of objects’ use within the developed semantic recognition framework. The utility of an object can be understood by the actions performed by the user on the object and hence an Action Recognition system based on human skeletal tracking with a novelty detection method is developed to facilitate the incremental learning of new actions. Compact representations of skeletal structure are obtained using a Torso-PCA transform and are used as observations for a HMM based system to recognize user actions. Uncertainty in predictions, quantified as confidence measures are thresholded to detect unknown actions. These confidence measures are obtained through background models and different methods are evaluated with respect to sensitivity and specificity of recognition performance.Various algorithms are developed to enhance the reliability of object perception overcoming challenges posed by dynamic environments and affordable hardware by incorporating different modalities of information available to a robot. The development of algorithms in this direction is significant as these concepts can be readily extended to incorporate user and environment recognition to complete the perceptual capabilities of robots
In-vitro cardiovascular flow measurements using particle image velocimetry: A patient specific validation study
No full textChemical Engineerin
Exploring laser-induced cavitation for primary nucleation control: An experimental study
No full textCrystallization is one of the most sought after separation and purification technique in the process industries. However, the fundamental understanding on the formation of crystals poses quite a challenge due to the inherent complexity and stochasticity associated with the process. In the past, several attempts put forth to control crystal nucleation have been anything but successful. But, more recently, the use of lasers to control primary nucleation have led to promising prospects.In the current study, efforts were made to explore the phenomena behind Non-Photochemical Laser Induced Nucleation (NPLIN). Experiments were carried out starting with a confined microfluidic system for both supersaturated aqueous potassium permanganate and potassium chloride solutions and later extended to unconfined geometry with potassium chloride solutions. A single nanosecond laser pulse of 532 nm wavelength was employed to create vapour bubbles and the resulting crystal formation was quantified.To begin with, a quadratic relationship between the laser energy supplied and the maximum radius of the bubble formed was observed. By systematically varying both the supplied laser energy and the solution supersaturation, the probability of crystal formation for various energy–supersaturation combinations were studied. A minimum laser energy threshold for crystal formation was observed to be a function of solution supersaturation. The results obtained in this study will aid in developing a numerical model that can apriori predict the minimum necessary laser and supersaturation conditions required for any given salt to undergo NPLIN.Mechanical Engineering | Energy, Flow and Process Technolog
Efforts to Improve Village Government Performance in the Village Empowerment Program in Medan Tuntungan District, Medan City
No full text60 HalamanKesimpulan
Pada bab-bab terdahulu pehulis telah mengemukakan dan menguraikan materi
tentang permasalahan dan pembahasan mengenai peranan Cam.at dan swadaya
masyarakat dalam meningkatkan pembangunan Kecamatan Tuntungan.
Selanjutnya pada bab ini penulis akan mengemuk3.kan beberapa kesimpulan sesuai
dengan ha-,il penelitian, yakni sebagai berikut:
1. Swadaya masyarakat adalah merupakan kegiatan yang mengerahkan segala
kemampuan dari suatu kelompok masyarakat yang tumbuh secara sukarela
didasarkan atas kesadaran sendiri dalam rangka memenuhi kebutuhan
hidupnya, jangka pendek maupun jangka panjang.
2. Sekalipun swadaya masyarakat itu tumbuh dari kesadaran dari dalam diri
sendiri, namun untuk tumbuh dan berkembangnya swadaya tersebut perlu
adanya daya kekliatan yang dapat merangsang kekuatan masyarakat tersebut
dapat muncul.
3. Pelaksanaan swadaya masyarakat di Kecamatan Tuntungan cukup baik, namun
untuk menyalurkan swadaya masyarakat ke dalam suatu organisasi ekonomi
masyarakat sangat sulit sekali dilaksanakan.
4. Bentuk organisasi ekonomi masyarakat' yang ada di Kecamatan Tuntungan
Medan dikelola oleh Badan-badan Usaha Swasta seperti bank-bank yang ada
di wilayahnya.
5. Swadaya masyarakat di Kecamatan Tuntungan diwujudkan dalam bentuk
sumbangan pikiran berupa saran, pendapat dan gagasan tentang langkahlangkah
yang perlu diambil atau dilaksar:iakan.
6. Usaha-usaha yang diambii untuk meningkatkan musyawarah swadaya
masyarakat adalah :
a. Mengikut sertakan masyarakat dalam musyawarah yang diadakan oleh
Pemerintah Kecamatan baik itu musyawarah tentang kegiatan yang akan
dilaksanakan dalam meningkatkan perekonomian masyarakat maupun
dalam bentuk kegiatan mengisi pembangunan itu sendiri.
b. Adanya pembinaan-:-pembinaan terhadap organisasi/kelembagan
kemasyarakatan Karang Taruna, PKK dan organisasi kepemudaan lainnya.
Conclusion
In the previous chapters the author has presented and described the material
about the problems and discussion regarding the role of Cam.at and self-help
community in improving the development of Tuntungan District.
Furthermore, in this chapter the author will propose some appropriate conclusions
with research results, namely as follows:
1. Community self-help is an activity that mobilizes everything
the ability of a group of people who grow voluntarily
based on self-awareness in order to meet needs
life, both short term and long term.
2. Even if the self-help community grows from self-awareness
own, but for the growth and development of self-help is necessary
existence of plasticity power that can stimulate the power of the community
can appear.
3. The implementation of community self-help in Tuntungan District is quite good, however
to channel community self-help into an economic organization
society is very difficult to implement.
4. The form of community economic organization in Tuntungan District
Medan is managed by Private Business Entities like the existing banks
in his territory.
5. Community self-help in the Tuntungan District is realized in the form
Contribution of thoughts in the form of suggestions, opinions and ideas about steps
that need to be taken or carried out: fish.
6. Efforts taken to improve self-help deliberations
society is:
a. Involve the community in deliberations held by
The sub-district government is good at deliberations about the activities to be carried out
implemented in improving the economy of the community as well as
in the form of activities to fill the development itself.
b. There is coaching-:-coaching of organizations/institutions
Karang Taruna society, PKK and other youth organizations
Evaluating Macroscopic DTA Models – For Who, When and How?
No full textOver the past few decades, transport authorities globally have resorted to transport models for testing policy interventions and simulating the results as part of the ex-ante analysis. Within the domains of traffic assignment, there is a greater focus on the dynamic representation of traffic, which has proved to be more accurate when compared to their static counterparts. This has put Dynamic Traffic Assignment (DTA) Models at the forefront of development. Departing from the classical traffic flow theories Macroscopic DTA’s simulates aggregated traffic analogous to the flow of fluids or gases. This aggregation enables high-speed computation with the ability to achieve a stable equilibrium state within feasible model run times. Due to the large number of Macroscopic DTA models developed worldwide, the model user is posed with the problem of using the correct model for the correct application. The current research aims to provide an answer to this problem through the design, development, and validation of an evaluation framework for Macroscopic DTA’s. The objective evaluation of the DTA’s is performed through certain Measures of Performances (MoPs). The subjective side of evaluation showcases the differences in importance associated with model features which vary from model users to application domains. Three macroscopic DTA models popular in the Netherlands are used for the application of the framework: the MARPLE (Model for Assignment and Regional Policy Evaluation), StreamLine: MaDAM (Macroscopic Dynamic Assignment Model), and StreamLine: eGLTM (event-based Generalized Link Transmission Model). From the results, it is observed that For a Strategic Planning application, both MARPLE and StreamLine: eGLTM proved to be better alternatives, as they performed exceedingly better in achieving a stable state of convergence. However, as the time horizons of application became smaller as is the case with Tactical and Operational planning, the final score for StreamLine: MaDAM improved substantially due to its accuracy involved in link-level propagation and queuing. The evaluation scores also showcase the fundamental trade-off between model complexity and computational speed was visible from the results. We can observe variations across model users, which validates our original hypothesis that the right choice of a model primary depends on the person using it and the application it is deployed for.Civil Engineering | Transport and Plannin
Study Di Kantor Camat Lut Tawar Kabupaten Aceh Tengah
No full textPengamatan ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui bagaimana peranan camat dalam pelaksanaan pengawasan melekat terhadap disiplin pegawai negeri sipil di kantor camat lut tawar kabupaten aceh tengah Metode yang digunakan dalam pengamatan ini adalah deskriptif dengan pendekatan induktif dalam mengumpulkan data, penulis menggunakan teknik wawancara dan dokumentasi. Dari hasil pengamatan menunjukkan bahwa pelaksanaan Pengawasan Melekat oleh Camat sudah baik yang dibuktikan melalui tiga indikator yaitu pemantauan, pemeriksaan, dan evaluasi. Baiknya pelaksanaan pengawasan melekat Camat berpengaruh kepada kondisi disiplin kerja pegawai/ aparat kecamatan yang masuk dalam kategori cukup, dilihat dari tiga sub indikator yaitu ketaatan terhadap jam kerja, ketepatan waktu dalam menyelesaikan tugas, dan tingkat pelanggaran terhadap peraturan. Selafu itu, melalui fungsi pengawasan melekatnya, Camat melakukan beberapa upaya untuk meningkatkan disiplin kerja pegawai/aparatnya, yakni dengan pemberian bimbingan, pengarahan, dan petunjuk; memberi kepercayaan dan tanggung jawab; menciptakan suasana kondusif dalam bekerja mensosialisasikan prosedur kerja; pemberian penghargaan dan pemberian sanksi kepada pegawai/ aparat yang melakukan pelanggaran. This observation aims to find out how the role of the sub-district head in the implementation of inherent supervision of civil servant discipline in the sub-district office of Lutawar, Central Aceh district. The method used in this observation is descriptive with an inductive approach in collecting data, the author uses interview and documentation techniques. The results of the observations indicate that the implementation of Inherent Supervision by the sub-district head has been good as evidenced by three indicators, namely monitoring, examination and evaluation. The good implementation of the Camat's inherent supervision has an effect on the conditions of work discipline of employees / sub-district officials who are in the sufficient category, seen from three sub indicators, namely adherence to working hours, timeliness in completing tasks, and the level of violation of regulations. In addition, through his inherent supervisory function, the sub-district head has made several efforts to improve the work discipline of his employees / apparatus, namely by providing guidance, direction and directions; give trust and responsibility; create a conducive atmosphere in working to socialize work procedures; giving awards and giving sanctions to employees / officers who commit violations
Iron sand - ZnO based materials of natural origin for dye decolorization under sunlight irradiation
No full textEffect of Inventory Change in a Liquid - Solid Circulating Fluidized Bed (LSCFB)
No full textCirculating fluidized beds (CFB) play a major role in the chemical industry especially as heterogeneous catalytic reactors. Research on hydrodynamic properties of Liquid - Solid CFBs (LSCFB) is significantly under-reported as compared to Gas - Solid CFBs (GSCFB). Steadily, prominent research is being established in fields like food industry (whey protein recovery), waste management (removal of heavy metals from radioactive wastes) and others, which use LSCFBs. In this context, it is important to have significant knowledge about the changes occurring in hydrodynamic properties like solid hold-up, rate of solid circulation etc., on changing certain critical physical properties such as inventory height. An LSCFB of height 2.95m and riser outer diameter 0.1m was chosen and the effect of inventory height on the properties was studied by taking the initial inventory heights as 15cm, 25cm and 35cm. The hydrodynamic studies concentrated on axial solid holdup, average solid holdup, solid circulation rate and slip velocity. On increasing the inventory, uniformity of axial solid holdup was confirmed along with studying holdup patterns. Solid flux was seen to follow an inverse relationship to holdup, as expected. The change in slip velocity with varying inventory was also checked, and was found to decrease with inventory. The distribution parameter, Co of the drift flux model was used to determine the extent of non-uniformity in solid distribution. Co was calculated to be less than unity in the range of 0.983-0.994, suggesting non-uniformity in solid distribution, with higher solid concentration by the walls compared to the core.ChemE/Chemical Engineerin
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