Real-Time Monitoring the Effect of Cytopathic Hypoxia on Retinal Pigment Epithelial Barrier Functionality Using Electric Cell-Substrate Impedance Sensing (ECIS) Biosensor Technology

Disruption of retinal pigment epithelial (RPE barrier integrity is a hallmark feature of various retinal blinding diseases, including diabetic macular edema and age-related macular degeneration, but the underlying causes and pathophysiology are not completely well-defined. One of the most conserved phenomena in biology is the progressive decline in mitochondrial function with aging leading to cytopathic hypoxia, where cells are unable to use oxygen for energy production. Therefore, this study aimed to thoroughly investigate the role of cytopathic hypoxia in compromising the barrier functionality of RPE cells. We used Electric Cell-Substrate Impedance Sensing (ECIS) system to monitor precisely in real time the barrier integrity of RPE cell line (ARPE-19) after treatment with various concentrations of cytopathic hypoxia-inducing agent, Cobalt(II) chloride (CoCl₂). We further investigated how the resistance across ARPE-19 cells changes across three separate parameters: R_b (the electrical resistance between ARPE-19 cells), α (the resistance between the ARPE-19 and its substrate), and C_m (the capacitance of the ARPE-19 cell membrane). The viability of the ARPE-19 cells and mitochondrial bioenergetics were quantified with 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl-2H-tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay and seahorse technology, respectively. ECIS measurement showed that CoCl₂ reduced the total impedance of ARPE-19 cells in a dose dependent manner across all tested frequencies. Specifically, the ECIS program’s modelling demonstrated that CoCl₂ affected R_b as it begins to drastically decrease earlier than α or C_m, although ARPE-19 cells’ viability was not compromised. Using seahorse technology, all three concentrations of CoCl₂ significantly impaired basal, maximal, and ATP-linked respirations of ARPE-19 cells but did not affect proton leak and non-mitochondrial bioenergetic. Concordantly, the expression of a major paracellular tight junction protein (ZO-1) was reduced significantly with CoCl_2-treatment in a dose-dependent manner. Our data demonstrate that the ARPE-19 cells have distinct dielectric properties in response to cytopathic hypoxia in which disruption of barrier integrity between ARPE-19 cells precedes any changes in cells’ viability, cell-substrate contacts, and cell membrane permeability. Such differences can be used in screening of selective agents that improve the assembly of RPE tight junction without compromising other RPE barrier parameters.     

Surface integrity in finish hard turning of case-hardened steels

Highly stressed steel components, e.g., gears and bearing parts, are appropriate applications for hard turning. Therefore, the process effects on significant engineering properties of work materials have to be carefully analyzed. Roughness, residual stresses, and white layers as parts of surface integrity, are functions of the machining parameters and of the cuttability of the cutting edge, i.e. of the tool wear.The aim of this work was to study the influence of feed rate, cutting speed, and tool wear on the effects induced by hard turning on case-hardened 27MnCr5 gear conebrakes and to point out the technical limitations in mass production.     

Spatial and temporal scaling of nitrous oxide emissions from the field to the regional scale in Scotland

Nitrous oxide (N₂O) is a powerful greenhouse gas. As the UK government is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it is important to know not only how much of these gases are released but also where and when. Targeted measurements of emissions in relation to crop growth cycles, soil wetness and fertiliser applications were used to derive annual emission rates for specific combinations of soil type, land management and fertiliser practices. These annual emission rates were then spatially scaled to derive regional figures through the development of a Geographic Information System (GIS) based model framework. Digital soil and land use maps at a scale of 1:25000 for two test areas of approximately 200000 ha each (Lothians and the Ayrshire Basin) were overlain with a climate map within the GIS, deriving unique combinations of soil wetness and land use. The calculated annual emission rates (kg N ha^–1 yr^–1) were then applied to these and multiplied by the total area of each soil/land use type to derive annual emission losses for each area. The annual emission of nitrous oxide from the Lothians was determined as approximately 381000 kg N yr^–1, while the emissions from the Ayrshire Basin were predicted to be 794000 kg N yr^–1. This indicates the increased emissions associated with both the wetter soils of Ayrshire and the greater extent of grazed pasture systems in this area. Due to the detailed scale of the input data, localised areas with large emissions were identified. Abatement strategies would be concentrated on areas of high emissions that include a change to crops with lower emission potential, reducing fertiliser and manure inputs, reducing grazing intensity and improving soil drainage.Supplementary material to this paper is available in electronic form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1024422604493     

Exploiting temporal information in Web search

Time plays important roles in Web search, because most Web pages contain temporal information and a lot of Web queries are time-related. How to integrate temporal information in Web search engines has been a research focus in recent years. However, traditional search engines have little support in processing temporal-textual Web queries. Aiming at solving this problem, in this paper, we concentrate on the extraction of the focused time for Web pages, which refers to the most appropriate time associated with Web pages, and then we used focused time to improve the search efficiency for time-sensitive queries. In particular, three critical issues are deeply studied in this paper. The first issue is to extract implicit temporal expressions from Web pages. The second one is to determine the focused time among all the extracted temporal information, and the last issue is to integrate focused time into a search engine. For the first issue, we propose a new dynamic approach to resolve the implicit temporal expressions in Web pages. For the second issue, we present a score model to determine the focused time for Web pages. Our score model takes into account both the frequency of temporal information in Web pages and the containment relationship among temporal information. For the third issue, we combine the textual similarity and the temporal similarity between queries and documents in the ranking process. To evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed approaches, we build a prototype system called Time-Aware Search Engine (TASE). TASE is able to extract both the explicit and implicit temporal expressions for Web pages, and calculate the relevant score between Web pages and each temporal expression, and re-rank search results based on the temporal-textual relevance between Web pages and queries. Finally, we conduct experiments on real data sets. The results show that our approach has high accuracy in resolving implicit temporal expressions and extracting focused time, and has better ranking effectiveness for time-sensitive Web queries than its competitor algorithms.     

一种基于同态标签的动态云存储数据完整性验证方法

在云存储服务中,为使用户可以随时验证存储在云存储服务器上数据的完整性,提出一种基于同态标签的动态数据完整性验证方法。通过引入同态标签和用户随机选择待检测数据块,可以无限次验证数据是否完好无损,并支持数据动态更新;可信第三方的引入解决了云用户与云存储服务供应商因数据完整性问题产生的纠纷,实现数据完整性的公开验证;然后给出该方法的正确性和安全性分析,以及该方法的性能分析;最后通过实验验证了该方法是高效可行的。     

一种基于固件的云系统策略文件完整性安全机制

针对云系统服务器之间共享策略文件所面临的完整性安全威胁,提出一种新的基于固件的策略安全机制。该机制可在云系统服务器平台之间安全且快速地进行共享策略文件交互,并可对共享策略文件进行完整性校验,进而提高协同工作的服务器所共享策略文件的安全性。实验结果表明,该机制有效实现了云系统环境下共享策略文件的完整性安全,同时提高了云系统管理员的管理效率。     

Branching-time logics with path relativisation

We define extensions of the full branching-time temporal logic CTL^? in which the path quantifiers are relativised by formal languages of infinite words, and consider its natural fragments obtained by extending the logics CTL and CTL⁺ in the same way. This yields a small and two-dimensional hierarchy of temporal logics parametrised by the class of languages used for the path restriction on one hand, and the use of temporal operators on the other. We motivate the study of such logics through two application scenarios: in abstraction and refinement they offer more precise means for the exclusion of spurious traces; and they may be useful in software synthesis where decidable logics without the finite model property are required. We study the relative expressive power of these logics as well as the complexities of their satisfiability and model-checking problems.     

基于MHT的云环境下数据完整性检验方案

云计算环境下数据量十分庞大,传统的基于MHT的数据完整性检验方案在快速和低开销2个优点上不能较好地兼备。提出的MHB-Tree方案增加了树中节点包含的信息量,缩小了检验大量数据时所需要构建的树的规模,结合平衡二叉树特性保证树的结构不变,有利于数据节点的增加和删除。结果证明方案可以在保证安全性能的情况下提高完整性检验的效率,并节省了较大的时间和空间开销。     

关于图像反走样的理论及应用

图像反走样是用于提升图像质量的一个重要环节。导致图像失真的主要原因是由于采样频率过低及重建过滤器的质量低下。在实时渲染的应用中,随着硬件的发展及渲染架构的改变,主流反走样技术逐渐从硬件加速模式发展到后处理模式。纯后处理算法由于缺失子像素信息,无法生成高质量的反走样图像。针对这一问题,混合反走样在保留了后处理反走样效率的同时,通过结合多重采样能提供更精确的边缘处理,并保证图像在时序上的稳定性。     

面向云存储的多副本文件完整性验证方案

文件完整性验证是云存储服务的一项重要安全需求.研究者已经提出多项针对云存储文件完整性验证的机制,例如数据持有性验证(prove of data possession,PDP)或者数据可恢复证明(proof of retrievability,POR)机制.但是,现有方案只能够证明远程云存储持有一份正确的数据,不能检验其是否保存多份冗余存储.在云存储场景中,用户需要验证云存储确实持有一定副本数的正确文件,以防止部分文件意外损坏时无法通过正确的副本进行恢复.提出的多副本文件完整性验证方案,能够帮助用户确定服务器正确持有的文件副本数目,并能够定位出错的文件块位置,从而指导用户进行数据恢复.实验证明,充分利用了多服务器分布式计算的优势,在验证效率上优于单副本验证方案.