Cholesterol is critical to the integrity of neuronal porosome/fusion pore

Secretion is one of the most fundamental cellular processes. Porosomes have been demonstrated as the universal secretory machinery in cells. Earlier studies determine the presence of a number of proteins in porosomes, among them the N- and P/Q-type calcium channels, actin, syntaxin-1, synaptotagmin-1, vimentin, the N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor (NSF), the chloride channel CLC-3, and the alpha subunit of the heterotrimeric GTP-binding protein G(o). Studies demonstrate that t-SNAREs localize at the base of porosomes, and directly interact with calcium channels. In the present study, we demonstrate that Syntaxin-1 co-localizes with cholesterol in solubilized synaptosomal membrane preparations. Depletion of cholesterol, results in the dissociation of both Syntaxin-1 and N-type calcium channel from neuronal porosomes. Thus, cholesterol participates as an integral component of the neuronal porosome complex, and is required for its stability.     

A MODIFIED METHOD FOR SUPERVISOR SPECIFICATION AND SYNTHESIS OF A CLASS OF DISCRETE EVENT SYSTEMS

In this paper, a model‐refining method is proposed to alleviate the complexity involved in specification interpretation of DES control problems. The legal constraint language is defined in terms of illegal states and events in contrast with constructing the automaton of the specification language. This method could provide a more intuitive view of the DES control problem and would be suitable for practical implementation. Two examples, which have commonly been used in the literature, are employed to show the efficiency of the proposed method. Further, under this framework, it is shown that the supremal controllable sublanguage can take a simpler form based on the concept of an illegal state set. A state‐based supervisor synthesis procedure is presented, and a simple example is provided.     

有机混合物渗透汽化分离膜材料及成膜技术的研究进展

本文综述了近年来国内外有机溶剂混合物渗透汽化分离膜材料及成膜技术的最新研究进展。指出了制备超薄而致密的复合型渗透汽化膜是提高膜性能的重要途径。     

Preparation of bao-pbo-nd2o3-tio2 powders by hydrothermal synthesis

Homogeneous and nano-sized BPNT [(Ba_1-xPb_x)Nd₂Ti₅O₁₄] powders were prepared under various hydrothermal conditions. Crystallinity and homogeneity of the synthetic powders were investigated. The microwave dielectric properties of the filters prepared with hydrothermal powders were compared with those of the filters prepared with conventional powders. The microwave dielectric properties of the filter prepared with the hydrothermal powders were also better than those of the filter manufactured with the conventional powders. The dielectric constant, quality constant and temperature coefficient of resonance frequency of hydrothermally prepared filter under optimum condition and measured at 3.5 GHz around were about 93, 6067 and 0 ppm/°C, respectively.     

Workload-based yard-planning system in container terminals

Traditionally, the yard-planning problem has been considered to be the assignment of yard spaces to arriving vessels in practices of container terminals. This study proposes an integrated decision-making framework for the yard-planning that simultaneously considers various resources such as storage space, yard cranes, and traffic area in container terminals for planning. The decision-making framework in this study is based on a mathematical model, which supports intelligent yard-planning activities considering work-loads on various related resources. Further, it is shown that the decision-making framework for the yard-planning can be extended to that for simultaneous decisions on yard plans and handling capacity of yard cranes per block. A heuristic algorithm is also proposed in order to reduce the computational time for planning. Numerical experiments are conducted to validate the models and algorithms proposed in this study.     

Removal efficiencies of endocrine disrupting chemicals by coagulation/flocculation, ozonation, powdered/granular activated carbon adsorption, and chlorination

Removal efficiencies of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), bisphenol A and nonylphenol, during various types of water treatment processes were evaluated extensively using laboratory- and pilot-scale experiments. The specific processes of interest were coagulation/flocculation sedimentation/filtration (conventional water treatment process), powdered activated carbon (PAC), granular activated carbon (GAC), ozonation and chlorination. Batch sorption tests, coagulation tests, and ozone oxidation tests were also performed at higher concentrations with 14 EDCs including bisphenol A. The conventional water treatment process had very low removal efficiencies (0 to 7%) for all the EDCs except DEHP, DBP and DEP that were removed by 53%, 49%, and 46%, respectively. Ozonation at 1 mgO₃/ L removed 60% of bisphenol A and 89% of nonylphenol, while chlorination at 1 mg/L removed 58% and 5%, respectively. When ozone and chlorine doses were 4 and 5 mg/L, respectively, both EDCs were not detected. PAC removal efficiencies ranged from 15% to 40% at 3 to 10 mg/L of PAC with a contact time of 15 minutes. In the high concentration batch sorption tests, EDC removal efficiencies by PAC were closely related to octanol-water partition coefficient (K_ow). GAC adsorption was very effective water treatment process. The type and service time of GAC did not affect EDC removal efficiencies. The combination of ozonation and GAC in series appears to remove EDCs effectively to safe levels while conventional water treatment could not.     

Temperature dependence of the dielectric dispersion and ferroelectric properties of neodymium doped bismuth titanate ceramics

Nd-doped bismuth titanate Bi_{4 − x} Nd _x Ti₃O₁₂ ceramics (x = 0–1.0) were prepared by the solid state reaction method. The temperature dependence of the dielectric dispersion and ferroelectric properties were investigated. With the increase of the Nd substitution for Bi ion, the Curie temperature decreased and the corresponding dielectric constant peak broadened. In addition, the strong low-frequency dielectric dispersions were exhibited. The Nd doping decreases the temperature dependence of the ac conductivity and increases the temperature dependence of the remanent polarization, which is caused by the induced polarization by defects, such as bismuth and oxygen vacancies.     

Pyroelectric properties and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic study of R.F. magnetron-sputtering-derived PZT thin films deposited on various interlayers

PZT thin films and interlayers were fabricated by the radio frequency (r.f.) Magnetron-sputtering from the Pb_1.1Zr_0.53Ti_0.47O₃, PbO and TiO₂ target. As a result of the XPS depth profile analysis, we can confirm that the substrate temperature affects the oxidation condition of each element of interlayers and the PZT film. Compared to the PZT/Pt structure, the dielectric and pyroelectric properties of PZT thin films inserted by interlayers were measured to a relatively high value. In particular, the PZT/PbO structure had the highest pyroelectric properties (P = 189.4 μC/cm²K; F _D = 12.7×10⁻⁶ Pa^−1/2; F _V = 0.018 m²/C).     

惯性圆锥破碎机的非线性振动分析

通过对惯性圆锥破碎机工作时的滞回力特性和主振动的分析,建立了破碎机动力学模型,并利用非线性振动理论中的解析方法对其进行了求解和分析,从而得出了物料、弹簧等对振动系统的影响.     

Edge‐adaptive color interpolation for complementary color filter array

Complementary color filter array (CCFA) is widely used in consumer‐level digital video cameras, since it not only has high sensitivity and good signal‐to‐noise ratio in low‐light condition but also is compatible with the interlaced scanning used in broadcast systems. However, the full‐color images obtained from CCFA suffer from the color artifacts such as false color and zipper effects. These artifacts can be removed with edge‐adaptive color interpolation (ECI) approaches which are generally used in primary color filter array (PCFA). Unfortunately, the unique array pattern of CCFA makes it difficult that CCFA adopts ECI approaches. Therefore, to apply ECI approaches suitable for CCFA to color interpolation is one of the major issues to reconstruct the full‐color images. In this paper, we propose a new ECI algorithm for CCFA. To estimate an edge direction precisely and enhance the quality of the reconstructed image, a function of spatial variances is used as a weight, and new color conversion matrices are presented for considering various edge directions. Experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm outperforms the conventional method with respect to both objective and subjective criteria. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 16, 92–102, 2006