Relationship between Brain Metabolic Disorders and Cognitive Impairment: LDL Receptor Defect

The low-density-lipoprotein receptor (LDLr) removes low-density lipoprotein (LDL), an endovascular transporter that carries cholesterol from the bloodstream to peripheral tissues. The maintenance of cholesterol content in the brain, which is important to protect brain function, is affected by LDLr. LDLr co-localizes with the insulin receptor and complements the internalization of LDL. In LDLr deficiency, LDL blood levels and insulin resistance increase, leading to abnormal cholesterol control and cognitive deficits in atherosclerosis. Defects in brain cholesterol metabolism lead to neuroinflammation and blood–brain-barrier (BBB) degradation. Moreover, interactions between endoplasmic reticulum stress (ER stress) and mitochondria are induced by ox-LDL accumulation, apolipoprotein E (ApoE) regulates the levels of amyloid beta (Aβ) in the brain, and hypoxia is induced by apoptosis induced by the LDLr defect. This review summarizes the association between neurodegenerative brain disease and typical cognitive deficits.     

Low-cost broadband millimetre-wave array antenna using waveguide/microstrip feed network and slot pair

A low-cost broadband millimetre-wave planar 30/spl times/30 array antenna is presented. The antenna is fed by a microstrip feed network in the H-plane to decrease fabrication costs, and a waveguide feed network in the E-plane to reduce the feed line loss. The waveguide and microstrip feed network are coupled through the proposed slot pair. The slots are placed one quarter of a guided-wavelength distance apart, so that the reflected waves from the slots cancel each other. A conductive bar is laid above the slots to increase the coupling, which increases the antenna gain by about 1 dBi. The maximum gain is 30.5 dBi at 41.5 GHz. The measured bandwidth is as broad as 7.1%.     

Statistical Characterization of Open Failures in the Fine-Pitch COG Interconnection

Chip-on-glass (COG) interconnection using anisotropic conductive film (ACF) is susceptible to open failures. Open failures can be induced by the absence of conductive particles or an insufficient contact. Experimental results as well as statistical approaches were used to understand the conditions for open failures in COG bonding. The binomial distribution was used to predict the probability of the open failure due to the deficiency of conductive particles. The probability of an open failure decreased with increasing bump area and decreasing particle size. The bump height variation was also an important factor that affected the probability of the open failure together with the bump-to-electrode gap and the particle size. The variation in bump height should be minimized to avoid open failures in fine-pitch applications where a smaller particle size is required.     

Polymeric waveguide polarization splitter with a buriedbirefringent polymer

A waveguide polarization splitter is demonstrated based on a low-loss polymer waveguide and a birefringent polyimide. Crosslinkable fluorinated polymers with an excellent stability and a low absorption loss are utilized for the device. The polyimide is buried under one branch of the Y-branch waveguide to enhance the birefringence between the TE and TM modes. By the adiabatic mode evolution, the TE mode is coupled to the branch with the polyimide strip, while the TM mode propagates through the other branch without the polyimide. For the device with a branch angle of 1/400 rad, we obtained a crosstalk less than -20 dB and a fiber-to-fiber insertion loss of 3.8 dB     

Downregulation of miR-122-5p Activates Glycolysis via PKM2 in Kupffer Cells of Rat and Mouse Models of Non-Alcoholic Steatohepatitis

Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) has pathological characteristics similar to those of alcoholic hepatitis, despite the absence of a drinking history. The greatest threat associated with NASH is its progression to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. The pathophysiology of NASH is not fully understood to date. In this study, we investigated the pathophysiology of NASH from the perspective of glycolysis and the Warburg effect, with a particular focus on microRNA regulation in liver-specific macrophages, also known as Kupffer cells. We established NASH rat and mouse models and evaluated various parameters including the liver-to-body weight ratio, blood indexes, and histopathology. A quantitative phosphoproteomic analysis of the NASH rat model livers revealed the activation of glycolysis. Western blotting and immunohistochemistry results indicated that the expression of pyruvate kinase muscle 2 (PKM2), a rate-limiting enzyme of glycolysis, was upregulated in the liver tissues of both NASH models. Moreover, increases in PKM2 and p-PKM2 were observed in the early phase of NASH. These observations were partially induced by the downregulation of microRNA122-5p (miR-122-5p) and occurred particularly in the Kupffer cells. Our results suggest that the activation of glycolysis in Kupffer cells during NASH was partially induced by the upregulation of PKM2 via miR-122-5p suppression.     

Extraction of landslide-related factors from ASTER imagery and its application to landslide susceptibility mapping

The aim of this study is to extract landslide-related factors from remote-sensing data, such as Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) satellite imagery, and to examine their applicability to landslide susceptibility near Boun, Korea, using a geographic information system (GIS). Landslide was mapped from interpretation of aerial photographs and field surveying. Factors that influence landslide occurrence were extracted from ASTER imagery. The slope, aspect and curvature were calculated from the digital elevation model (DEM) with 25.77 m root mean square error (RMSE), which was derived from ASTER imagery. Lineaments, land-cover and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) layers were also estimated from ASTER imagery. Landslide-susceptible areas were analysed and mapped using the occurrence factors by a frequency ratio and logistic regression model. Validation results were 84.78% in frequency ratio and 84.20% in logistic regression prediction accuracy for the susceptibility map with respect to ground-truth data.     

SAPPHIRE: A toolkit for building efficient stream programs for medical video analysis

This paper describes the design and implementation of SAPPHIRE – a novel middleware and software development kit for stream programing on a heterogeneous system of multi-core multi-CPUs with optional hardware accelerators such as graphics processing unit (GPU). A stream program consists of a set of tasks where the same tasks are repeated over multiple iterations of data (e.g., video frames). Examples of such programs are video analysis applications for computer-aided diagnosis and computer-assisted surgeries. Our design goal is to reduce the implementation efforts and ease collaborative software development of stream programs while supporting efficient execution of the programs on the target hardware. To validate the toolkit, we implemented EM-Automated-RT software with the toolkit and reported our experience. EM-Automated-RT performs real-time video analysis for quality of a colonoscopy procedure and provides visual feedback to assist the endoscopist to achieve optimal inspection of the colon during the procedure. The software has been deployed in a hospital setting to conduct a clinical trial.     

Open‐Ended Waveguide Antenna Using a Single Split‐Ring Resonator

This letter proposes an open‐ended waveguide antenna with a single split‐ring resonator. In contrast to the waveguide antennas incorporating multiple rings reported in a previous study, which exhibited narrow bandwidth, the proposed antenna uses only one ring to achieve broader bandwidth while keeping the aperture small. A single ring has a relatively low quality factor compared to multiple rings. The simulated and measured fractional bandwidth was 4.13% and 4.03%, respectively, which is much broader than the fractional bandwidth of about 1% demonstrated in a previous study. This simple technique can be used in many applications that require small apertures including near‐field probes and array elements.