Pectic Galactan Polysaccharide-Based Gene Delivery System for Targeting Neuroinflammation

Treating neuroinflammation-related injuries and disorders through manipulation of neuroinflammation functions is being heralded as a new therapeutic strategy. In this study, a novel pectic galactan (PG) polysaccharide based gene therapy approach is developed for targeting reactive gliosis in neuroinflammation. Galectin-3 (Gal-3) is a cell protein with a high affinity to β-galactoside sugars and is highly expressed in reactive gliosis. Since PG carries galactans, it can target reactive gliosis via specific carbohydrate interaction between galactan and Gal-3 on the cell membrane, and therefore can be utilized as a carrier for delivering genes to these cells. The carrier is synthesized by modifying quaternary ammonium groups on the PG. The resulting quaternized PG (QPG) is found to form complexes with plasmid DNA with a mean diameter of 100 nm and have the characteristics required for targeted gene therapy. The complexes efficiently condense large amounts of plasmid per particle and successfully bind to Gal-3. The in vivo study shows that the complexes are biocompatible and safe for administration and can selectively transfect reactive glial cells of an induced cortical lesion. The results confirm that this PG-based delivery system is a promising platform for targeting Gal-3 overexpressing neuroinflammation cells for treating neuroinflammation-related injuries and neurodegenerative diseases.     

Analysis of external latch-up protection test structure design using numerical simulation

With each new CMOS technology the latch-up sensitivity and effects of prevention strategies change. Products built in these technologies must adhere to stringent guidelines for latch-up ‘Hardness’, and for this reason characterisation of new technologies is needed through the use of test structures. This paper shows a numerical simulation approach which can determine the relative effectiveness of guard-rings in ESD protection device test structures. In this work, time taken to characterise latch-up protection test structures and to chose a protection strategy is greatly reduced by using numerical simulations to design the test structures. The results presented are for variations to the guard-rings for two technologies. Included in these are the typical simulation times and resources required. The technique outlined has the joint advantages of providing accurately representative simulations of the technology and test structure layout in a practical time frame.     

VE-mobicast: a variant-egg-based mobicast routing protocol for sensornets

In this paper, we present a new “spatiotemporal multicast”, called a “mobicast”, protocol for supporting applications which require spatiotemporal coordination in sensornets. The spatiotemporal character of a mobicast is to forward a mobicast message to all sensor nodes that will be present at time t in some geographic zone (called the forwarding zone) Z, where both the location and shape of the forwarding zone are a function of time over some interval (t _start ,t _end ). The mobicast is constructed of a series of forwarding zones over different intervals (t _start ,t _end ), and only sensor nodes located in the forwarding zone in the time interval (t _start ,t _end ) should be awake in order to save power and extend the network lifetime. Existing protocols for a spatiotemporal variant of a multicast system were designed to support a forwarding zone that moves at a constant velocity, , in sensornets. To consider the path of a mobile entity which includes turns, this work mainly develops a new mobicast routing protocol, called the variant-egg-based mobicast (VE-mobicast) routing protocol, by utilizing the adaptive variant-egg shape of the forwarding zone to achieve high predictive accuracy. To illustrate the performance achievement, a mathematical analysis is conducted and simulation results are examined. Yuh-Shyan Chen received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science and Information Engineering from the National Central University, Taiwan, Republic of China, in June 1991 and Jan. 1996, respectively. He joined the faculty of Department of CSIE, Chung-Hua University, Taiwan, in 1996. He joined the Department of Statistic, National Taipei University in Aug. 2000, and joined the Department of CSIE, National Chung Cheng University in Aug. 2002. Dr. Chen is an associate Professor from Aug. 2003. Since 2006, he has been a Professor at the Department of CSIE, National Taipei University, Taiwan. Dr. Chen served as Co-Editors-in-Chief of International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing (IJAHUC); Editorial Board Member of Telecommunication System; Guest Editor of Telecommunication Systems, special issue on “Wireless Sensor Networks” (2004). He was a Vice Co-Chair, Wireless IP Symposium of WirelressCOM, USA (2005); Workshop Co-Chair, IEEE AHUC06, Taiwan (2006); Program Co-Chairs, IFIP NCUS06, Korea (2006). Dr. Chen also served as Program Committee Member of ICPP’03, ICDCS’04, ICCCN’01–06, MSN’05, CCN’02–06, CSA’04 06, NCS’06, MSEAT’03–06, WASN06, USN06, MHNET06, PESYS06, ML06, IWWN06, UIC06, ICWMC06, and HWN-RMQ06; IASTED Technical Committee on Telecommunications (2002–2005); WSEAS International Scientific Committee Member (from 2004). His paper wins the 2001 IEEE 15th ICOIN-15 Best Paper Award. Dr. Chen was a recipient of the 2005 Young Scholar Research Award given by National Chung Cheng University to four young faculty members, 2005. His recent research topics include mobile ad-hoc network, wireless sensor network, and 4G system. Dr. Chen is a member of the IEEE Computer Society and Phi Tau Phi Society. Shin-Yi Ann received the B.S. degree in computer science and engineering from the National Taiwan Ocean University, Taiwan, Republic of China, in June 2002 and the M.S. degree in computer science and information engineering from National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan, Republic of China, in July 2004. His research interest includes wireless sensor network. Yun-Wei Lin received the B.S. degree in computer and information science from the Aletheia University, Taiwan, Republic of China, in June 2003 and the M.S. degree in computer science and information engineering from National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan, Republic of China, in July 2005. His research interests include mobile ad hoc network and wireless sensor network.     

Judge Nonverbal Communication on Trial: Do Mock Trial Jurors Notice?

This study investigated jurors' reactions to judges' nonverbal communication in mock trials. Participants in 80 mock juries viewed taped segments of direct and cross examination that varied the judges' level of nonverbal involvement. Comments about the judge were solicited in predeliberation questionnaires and unsolicited comments obtained from dialogue that occurred during mock jury deliberations. The investigation found that jurors are aware of nonverbal cues from judges, particularly negative behaviors. Although the high- and low-involved judges solicited roughly the same number of comments, more negative comments were made about the judge displaying low than high nonverbal involvement. The results also revealed that jurors made more negative comments than positive ones. Overall, jurors are most aware of a judge's lack of involvement and apparent bias. Discussion focuses on ways to minimize the influence of judge nonverbal communication on jurors.     

Performance Analysis of Downlink W-CDMA Systems in Weibull and Lognormal Fading Channels Using Chaotic Codes

In this paper, a subspace based blind channel estimation scheme for downlink W-CDMA systems using chaotic codes under Weibull and Lognormal fading channel conditions is proposed and compared with W-CDMA system using PN codes. The algorithm provides estimates of multiuser channels by exploiting the structural information of the data output. The subspace of the (data + noise) matrix contains sufficient information for unique determination of channels and, hence, the signature waveforms and signal constellations. The proposed channel estimation algorithm is also implemented for multiuser—orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system. Performance measures like bit error rate (BER) and root mean square error (RMSE) are plotted for Weibull and Lognormal fading channels. Signal constellations under Weibull and Lognormal channels are also plotted. Analytical and Simulation results for BER and RMSE are compared for W-CDMA system using PN codes and chaotic codes. Simulation results show that, chaos-based W-CDMA outperforms the PN-based W-CDMA in terms BER and RMSE. Simulation results of multiuser-OFDM system shows that performance is further improved when compared to the W-CDMA system.     

Shape statistics variational approach for the outer contour segmentation of left ventricle MR images.

Segmentation of left ventricles is one of the important research topics in cardiac magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. The segmentation precision influences the authenticity of ventricular motion reconstruction. In left ventricle MR images, the weak and broken boundary increases the difficulty of segmenting the outer contour precisely. In this paper, we present an improved shape statistics variational approach for the outer contour segmentation of left ventricle MR images. We use the Mumford-Shah model in an object feature space and incorporate the shape statistics and an edge image to the variational framework. The introduction of shape statistics can improve the segmentation with broken boundaries. The edge image can enhance the weak boundary and thus improve the segmentation precision. The generation of the object feature image, which has homogenous "intensities" in the left ventricle, facilitates the application of the Mumford-Shah model. A comparison of mean absolute distance analysis between different contours generated with our algorithm and that generated by hand demonstrated that our method can achieve a higher segmentation precision and a better stability than various approaches. It is a semiautomatic way for the segmentation of the outer contour of the left ventricle in clinical applications.     

Combined RLS-LMS initialization for per tone equalizers in DMT-receivers

In discrete multitone receivers, the classical equalizer structure consists of a (real) time domain equalizer (TEQ) combined with complex one-tap frequency domain equalizers. An alternative receiver is based on a per tone equalization (PTEQ), which optimizes the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) on each tone separately and, hence, the total bitrate. In this paper, a new initialization scheme for the PTEQ is introduced, based on a combination of least mean squares (LMS) and recursive least squares (RLS) adaptive filtering. It is shown that the proposed method has only slightly slower convergence than full square-root RLS (SR-RLS) while complexity as well as memory cost are reduced considerably. Hence, in terms of complexity and convergence speed, the proposed algorithm is in between LMS and RLS.     

Glyphosate Adsorption from Water Using Hierarchically Porous Metal–Organic Frameworks

The selective removal of one ligand in mixed-ligand MOFs upon thermolysis provides a powerful strategy to introduce additional mesopores without affecting the overall MOF structure. By varying the initial ligand ratio, MOFs of the MIL-125-Ti family with two distinct hierarchical pore architectures are synthesized, resembling either large cavities or branching fractures. The performance of the resulting hierarchically porous MOFs is evaluated toward the adsorptive removal of glyphosate (N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine) from water, and the adsorption kinetics and mechanism are examined. Due to their strong affinity for phosphoric groups, the numerous Ti–OH groups resulting from the selective ligand removal act as natural anchor points for effective glyphosate uptake. The relationships between contact duration, glyphosate concentration, and adsorbent dosage are investigated, and the impact of these parameters on the effectiveness of glyphosate removal from contaminated water samples is examined. The introduction of additional mesopores has increased the adsorption capacities by nearly 3 times with record values exceeding 440.9 mg g⁻¹, which ranks these MOFs among the best-reported adsorbents.     

Automatic quantification of changes in bone in serial MR images of joints

Recent innovations in drug therapies have made it highly desirable to obtain sensitive biomarkers of disease progression that can be used to quantify the performance of candidate disease modifying drugs. In order to measure potential image-based biomarkers of disease progression in an experimental model of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), we present two different methods to automatically quantify changes in a bone in in-vivo serial magnetic resonance (MR) images from the model. Both methods are based on rigid and nonrigid image registration to perform the analysis. The first method uses segmentation propagation to delineate a bone from the serial MR images giving a global measure of temporal changes in bone volume. The second method uses rigid body registration to determine intensity change within a bone, and then maps these into a reference coordinate system using nonrigid registration. This gives a local measure of temporal changes in bone lesion volume. We detected significant temporal changes in local bone lesion volume in five out of eight identified candidate bone lesion regions, and significant difference in local bone lesion volume between male and female subjects in three out of eight candidate bone lesion regions. But the global bone volume was found to be fluctuating over time. Finally, we compare our findings with histology of the subjects and the manual segmentation of bone lesions.     

Structural and Spectroscopic Studies of Sm3+/CdS Nanocrystallites in Sol–Gel TiO2-ZrO2 Matrix

A sol–gel method was used to prepare titania-zirconia matrices doped with Sm³⁺/CdS nanocrystallites. The structural properties of the matrices were characterized using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential thermal analysis (DTA), and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy studies. The thermal stability of the material was determined by TGA/DTA analysis. The absorption spectrum shows the characteristic peaks of the Sm³⁺ ions and the absorption peak corresponding to the CdS nanocrystallites. The optical bandgap and size of the CdS nanoparticles were calculated from the absorption spectrum. From TEM, the interplanar distance (d) was estimated to be 3.533 Å, which matches with the (1 0 0) plane of bulk CdS. The measurements yield a nanocrystallite size of around 7.8 nm. The optical absorption and emission spectra confirmed the formation of CdS nanoparticles along with samarium ions in the titania-zirconia matrices. The fluorescence intensity of the samarium ions was found to be greatly enhanced by codoping with CdS nanocrystallites.