Utilizing an Animal Model to Identify Brain Neurodegeneration-Related Biomarkers in Aging

Glycine N-methyltransferase (GNMT) regulates S-adenosylmethionine (SAMe), a methyl donor in methylation. Over-expressed SAMe may cause neurogenic capacity reduction and memory impairment. GNMT knockout mice (GNMT-KO) was applied as an experimental model to evaluate its effect on neurons. In this study, proteins from brain tissues were studied using proteomic approaches, Haemotoxylin and Eosin staining, immunohistochemistry, Western blotting, and ingenuity pathway analysis. The expression of Receptor-interacting protein 1(RIPK1) and Caspase 3 were up-regulated and activity-dependent neuroprotective protein (ADNP) was down-regulated in GNMT-KO mice regardless of the age. Besides, proteins related to neuropathology, such as excitatory amino acid transporter 2, calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase type II subunit alpha, and Cu-Zn superoxide dismutase were found only in the group of aged wild-type mice; 4-aminobutyrate amino transferase, limbic system-associated membrane protein, sodium- and chloride-dependent GABA transporter 3 and ProSAAS were found only in the group of young GNMT-KO mice and are related to function of neurons; serum albumin and Rho GDP dissociation inhibitor 1 were found only in the group of aged GNMT-KO mice and are connected to neurodegenerative disorders. With proteomic analyses, a pathway involving Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) signal was found to be associated with aging. The GnRH pathway could provide additional information on the mechanism of aging and non-aging related neurodegeneration, and these protein markers may be served in developing future therapeutic treatments to ameliorate aging and prevent diseases.     

Preparation of fluoroacrylate nanocopolymer by miniemulsion polymerization used in textile finishing

Latex based on fluoroacrylate (TAN) and other comonomers was prepared via miniemulsion polymerization in the presence of stearyl trimethyl ammonium chloride (STAC) and 2, 2′‐azobis (2‐amidinopropane) dihydrochloride (ABAP) as a water soluble initiator. Light transmittance studies demonstrated that the light transmittance of prepared emulsions increases with the amount of TAN, STAC, cosolvent DPM, and hydrophobe DM. Given suitable reaction temperature and quantities of TAN, STAC, DPM, and DM, a copolymer emulsion of fluoroacylate with a particle size of 50 nm was produced. The water repellency tested on polyester fabrics displayed greater effectiveness than that of commercial products with higher fluorine content. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 94: 1466–1472, 2004     

Image processing acceleration for intelligent unmanned aerial vehicle on mobile GPU

In this paper, we present an algorithm for providing visually-guided unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) control using visual information that is processed on a mobile graphic processing unit (GPU). Most real-time machine vision applications for UAVs exploit low-resolution images because the shortage of computational resources comes from size, weight and power issue. This leads to the limitation that the data are insufficient to provide the UAV with intelligent behavior. However, GPUs have emerged as inexpensive parallel processors that are capable of providing high computational power in mobile environments. We present an approach for detecting and tracking lines that use a mobile GPU. Hough transform and clustering techniques were used for robust and fast tracking. We achieved accurate line detection and faster tracking performance using the mobile GPU as compared with an x86 i5 CPU. Moreover, the average results showed that the GPU provided approximately five times speedup as compared to an ARM quad-core Cortex-A15. We conducted a detailed analysis of the performance of proposed tracking and detection algorithm and obtained meaningful results that could be utilized in real flight.     

Analysis of General Ideal Proportional Navigation Guidance Laws

In this work, the capture region of the general ideal proportional navigation guidance law is analyzed with the following constraints: (i) the target's input acceleration is subject to independent or magnitude saturation, and (ii) the missile's input acceleration is subject to magnitude saturation. In addition to the case of unbounded maneuverability of missile with or without knowing the target acceleration, the necessary and sufficient condition for a bounded maneuvering missile that captures a nonmaneuvering target is also derived. Furthermore, the conditions that result in zero impact velocity are discovered and discussed in some of the cases. The capture regions that cannot be obtained analytically are determined numerically by a powerful classifier, the least square support vector machines. To have the capture region ready for least square support vector machines, all the state variables are transformed into modified polar variables and non‐dimensionalized to reduce the number of independent variables. In order to make the implementation possible in real time, an approximation of the Gaussian radial basis function is adopted to obtain the corresponding nonlinear feature mapping function. Through numerous numerical experiments, the proposed technique is found to be adequate for storing the capture region in an onboard fire control computer.     

Terabit optical local area networks for multiprocessing systems

The design of a scalable optical local area network formultiprocessing systems is described. Each workstation has aparallel-fiber-ribbon optical link to a centralized complementarymetal-oxide silicon (CMOS) switch core, implemented on a singlecompact printed circuit board (PCB). When the Motorola Optobusfiber technology is used, each workstation has a data bandwidth of 6.4Gbits/s to the core. A centralized switch core interconnecting 32workstations supports a 204-Gbit/s aggregate data bandwidth. Theswitch core is based on a conventional broadcast-and-selectarchitecture, implemented with parallel CMOS integrated circuits(IC's). The switch core scales well; by incorporation of theCMOS optoelectronic IC's with optical input-output, the electricalcore can be reduced to a single-chip optoelectronic IC with terabitcapacities. A prototype of an optoelectronic switch core has been fabricated and is described. The appeal of the architectureincludes its reliance on commercially available parallel-fibertechnology, its reliance on the well-developed markets of local areanetworks and networks of workstations, and its smooth scalability from the electrical to optical domains as technology matures.     

Improved arsenic doping in metalorganic chemical vapor deposition of HgCdTe andin situ growth of high performance long wavelength infrared photodiodes

Controlled and effective p-type doping is a key ingredient forin situ growth of high performance HgCdTe photodiode detectors. In this paper, we present a detailed study of p-type doping with two arsenic precursors in metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) of HgCdTe. Doping results from a new precursortris-dimethylaminoarsenic (DMAAs), are reported and compared to those obtained from tertiarybutylarsine (TBAs). Excellent doping control has been achieved using both precursors in the concentration range of 3 × 1015-5 × 10¹⁷ cm⁻³ which is sufficient for a wide variety of devices. Arsenic incorporation efficiency for the same growth temperature and partial pressure is found to be higher with DMAAs than with TBAs. For doping levels up to 1 × 10₁₇ cm⁻³, the alloy composition is not significantly affected by DMAAs. However, at higher doping levels, an increase in the x-value is observed, possibly as a result of surface adduct formation of DMAAs dissociative products with dimethylcadmium. The activation of the arsenic as acceptors is found to be in the 152–50% range for films grown with DMAAs following a stoichiometric anneal. However, a site transfer anneal increases the acceptor activation to near 100%. Detailed temperature dependent Hall measurements and modeling calculations show that two shallow acceptor levels are involved with ionization energies of 11.9 and 3.2 meV. Overall, the data indicate that DMAAs results in more classically behaved acceptor doping. This is most likely because DMAAs has a more favorable surface dissociation chemistry than TBAs. Long wavelength infrared photodiode arrays were fabricated on P-on-n heterojunctions, grownin situ with iodine doping from ethyl iodide and arsenic from DMAAs on near lattice matched CdZnTe (100) substrates. At 77K, for photodiodes with 10.1 and 11.1 (im cutoff wavelengths, the average (for 100 elements 60 × 60 μm² in size) zero-bias resistance-area product, R₀A are 434 and 130 ohm-cm², respectively. Quantum efficiencies are ≥50% at 77K. These are the highest R₀A data reported for MOCVDin situ grown photodiodes and are comparable to state-of-the-art LPE grown photodiodes processed and tested under identical conditions.     

Properties of osteoconductive biomaterials: Calcium phosphate cement with different ratios of platelet-rich plasma as identifiers

This study aims to evaluate further the performance of a platelet-rich plasma (PRP) additive incorporated with calcium phosphate bone cement (CPC) in vitro to prove its efficiency as bone graft substitutes and its compatibility to be incorporated into the CPC with other techniques in clinical restoration in vivo. The growth factor release ability and the osteogenic evaluation of PRP, CPC, and PRP/CPC testing groups with 5, 10, and 15 wt.% PRP were compared in vitro. Four groups were measured using non-decalcified staining methods in vivo, which include the testing group of 10 wt.% PRP/CPC selected from the evaluation in vitro, by using both the autograft with rabbit trabecular and CPC-only as comparison groups and the group without grafting material as the control sample. The results obtained through specimen immersion show that growth factor release and alkaline phosphatase activities after osteoprogenitor cell culture had a significantly better effect on 10 and 15 wt.% PRP/CPC than on the other groups in vitro. Analysis results suggest that PRP was still retained in the CPC matrix even after 32 days of immersion. The results in vivo show that the histology of the autograft bone and the control group without grafting material exhibited fibrous connective and adipose tissues, which obviously filled the created cavity even at nine weeks after the operation. Osteoregeneration was more successful in the PRP-additive group, which accumulated bone remodeling than in the other groups. In conclusion, CPC could be a potential carrier with adequate PRP additives that bear a therapeutic potential for enhanced bone tissue regeneration.     

A motion-tolerant dissolve detection algorithm

Gradual shot change detection is one of the most important research issues in the field of video indexing/retrieval. Among the numerous types of gradual transitions, the dissolve-type gradual transition is considered the most common one, but it is also the most difficult one to detect. In most of the existing dissolve detection algorithms, the false/miss detection problem caused by motion is very serious. In this paper, we present a novel dissolve-type transition detection algorithm that can correctly distinguish dissolves from disturbance caused by motion. We carefully model a dissolve based on its nature and then use the model to filter out possible confusion caused by the effect of motion. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is indeed powerful.     

Ultrashort pulse propagation in near-field periodic diffractive structures by use of rigorous coupled-wave analysis

We present a method for near-field analysis of ultrashort optical pulse propagation in periodic structures-including subwavelength and resonant grating structures-based on the integration of Fourier spectrum decomposition and rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA). We discuss the spectral decomposition, including considerations for computational efficiency, the application of the RCWA method to compute the internal and external fields of the structure, and the synthesis of the resulting fields to obtain the time-domain solution. We apply this tool to the analysis of two photonic structures: (1) a nanostructured polarization-selective mirror that exhibits the desired broadband performance characteristics when operated at the design wavelength but yields strongly diminished polarization selectivity and modulation of the pulse envelope at an offset wave-length and (2) a two-mode coupled waveguide structure that produces from one incident pulse two transmitted pulses whose temporal separation depends on the waveguide geometry. In both examples, we apply our new modeling tool to investigate the near fields and find that near-field effects are critical in determining the performance characteristics of nanostructured devices. Furthermore, detailed observation and understanding of near-field phenomena in nanostructures may be applied to the design of novel photonic devices.     

Programming squat wall strengths and tuning associated codes with pruned modular neural network

This study designed a four-layer modular neural network (MNN) to predict and program squat wall strength values. Results generated by the proposed MNN include predictions and programmed formulas that are similar in form to modular polynomials, which permit MNN programming to interpret training results in a meaningful way that offers significant advantages over famous neural networks. This study employed particle swarm optimization for MNN parameter learning and structure learning in order to prune MNN to avoid overfitting and increase programmed formula concision. To extend the uses of MNN programming, this paper further employed MNN tuning to refine existing analytical methods and codes. Case studies focused on squat wall strength analyses. Study results demonstrated that MNN programming uniquely uses a programmed formula to deliver good prediction accuracy. MNN tuning further improved the studied methods. Programmed formulas also provided insights into input parameter impacts and significant modular functions.