Two GCC boxes and AP2/ERF-domain transcription factor ORA59 in jasmonate/ethylene-mediated activation of the PDF1.2 promoter in Arabidopsis

Plant defense against microbial pathogens depends on the action of several endogenously produced hormones, including jasmonic acid (JA) and ethylene (ET). In defense against necrotrophic pathogens, the JA and ET signaling pathways synergize to activate a specific set of defense genes including PLANT DEFENSIN1.2 (PDF1.2). The APETALA2/Ethylene Response Factor (AP2/ERF)-domain transcription factor ORA59 acts as the integrator of the JA and ET signaling pathways and is the key regulator of JA- and ET-responsive PDF1.2 expression. The present study was aimed at the identification of elements in the PDF1.2 promoter conferring the synergistic response to JA/ET and interacting with ORA59. We show that the PDF1.2 promoter was activated synergistically by JA and the ET-releasing agent ethephon due to the activity of two GCC boxes. ORA59 bound in vitro to these GCC boxes and trans-activated the PDF1.2 promoter in transient assays via these two boxes. Using the chromatin immunoprecipitation technique we were able to show that ORA59 bound the PDF1.2 promoter in vivo. Finally, we show that a tetramer of a single GCC box conferred JA/ethephon-responsive expression, demonstrating that the JA and ET signaling pathways converge to a single type of GCC box. Therefore ORA59 and two functionally equivalent GCC box binding sites form the module that enables the PDF1.2 gene to respond synergistically to simultaneous activation of the JA and ET signaling pathways

Designing and Constructing Blood Flow Monitoring System to Predict Pressure Ulcers on Heel

Background: A pressure ulcer is a complication related to the need for the care and treatment of primarily disabled and elderly people. With the decrease of the blood flow caused by the pressure loaded, ulcers are formed and the tissue will be wasted with the passage of time. Objective: The aim of this study was to construct blood flow monitoring system on the heel tissue which was under external pressure in order to evaluate the tissue treatment in the ulcer. Methods: To measure the blood flow changes, three infrared optical transmitters were used at the distances of 5, 10, and 15 mm to the receiver. Blood flow changes in heels were assessed in pressures 0, 30, and 60 mmHg. The time features were extracted for analysis from the recorded signal by MATLAB software. Changes of the time features under different pressures were evaluated at the three distances by ANOVA in SPSS software. The level of significance was considered at 0.05. Results: In this study, 15 subjects, including both male and female, with the mean age of 54±7 participated. The results showed that the signal amplitude, power and absolute signal decreased significantly when pressure on the tissue increased in different layers (p<0.05). Heart rate only decreased significantly in pressures more than 30 mmHg (p=0.02). In pressures more than 30 mmHg, in addition to a decrease in the time features, the pattern of blood flow signal changed and it wasn’t the same as noload signal. Conclusion: By detecting the time features, we can reach an early diagnosis to prognosticate the degeneration of the tissue under pressure and it can be recommended as a method to predict bedsores in the heel

Continuous and Cuffless Blood Pressure Monitoring Based on ECG and SpO2 Signals By Using Microsoft Visual C Sharp

Background: One of the main problems especially in operating room and monitoring devices is measurement of Blood Pressure (BP) by sphygmomanometer cuff. Objective: In this study we designed a new method to measure BP changes continuously for detecting information between cuff inflation times by using vital signals in monitoring devices. This will be achieved by extraction of the time difference between each cardiac cycle and a relative pulse wave. Methods: Finger pulse and ECG signals in lead I were recorded by a monitoring device. The output of monitoring device was inserted in a computer by serial network communication. A software interface (Microsoft Visual C#.NET ) was used to display and process the signals in the computer. Time difference between each cardiac cycle and pulse signal was calculated throughout R wave detection in ECG and peak of pulse signal by the software. The relation between time difference in two waves and BP was determined then the coefficients of equation were obtained in different physical situations. The results of estimating BP were compared with the results of sphygmomanometer method and the error rate was calculated. Results: In this study, 25 subjects participated among them 15 were male and 10 were female. The results showed that BP was linearly related to time difference. Average of coefficient correlation was 0.9±0.03 for systolic and 0.82±0.04 for diastolic blood pressure. The highest error percentage was calculated 8% for male and 11% for female group. Significant difference was observed between the different physical situation and arm movement changes. The relationship between time difference and age was estimated in a linear relationship with a correlation coefficient of 0.76. Conclusion: By determining linear relation values with high accuracy, BP can be measured with insignificant error. Therefore it can be suggested as a new method to measure the blood pressure continuously

Eliminating redundancy and singularity in robot path planning based on masking

Path tracking in industrial robotics studies has been widely studied by researchers. In this paper, a new method for planning the path is proposed. Squares which called mask are used to build the path based on the desired path. Petri net modeling is used to coordinate joints movement. The size of squares is the same and presets. The robot moves along the diagonal. To track the path correctly the size of the mask has to be set based on variation of the path. The best square size is achieved if there is no more than on path in each mask. The big advantage of this method is eliminating the redundancy and singularity. All joint in a mask are moving and stopping simultaneously. This method guarantee the fast moving as the path is inside the pre build mask and the robot moving is simultaneous with path planning. This is other advantage of this method. The third advantage of this method is eliminating the backlash of actuators. Reducing the inverse kinematic calculations is the last advantage of the method

Experimental and numerical investigation of the effect of inner and outer boundary dimensions on collapse of the sample in thick-walled cylinder test

© 2017 ARMA, American Rock Mechanics Association. It is well-known that the risk of sanding varies for different completion systems, i.e. open hole versus cased and perforation, in a given wellbore and reservoir. Part of this difference comes from the scale effect of the borehole. Pragmatic approaches are usually taken to consider the borehole scale effect in the sand production prediction analysis. A more rigorous approach is needed to take this effect into account. Experiments have been conducted by researchers on thick-walled cylinder (TWC) samples with different inner to outer diameter ratios (ID/OD) for samples of standard dimensions (1.5 in ID, and 3 in length) to investigate the scale effect on the borehole failure. However, the results partially suffer from the outer boundary effect of the tests and may not purely represent the effects of the inner borehole scale. Here in this paper, the outer boundary effects of TWC experiments were distinguished from the inner borehole scale effect using analytical approaches followed by extensive laboratory experiments. The methodology involves computation and comparison of failure from different criteria (i.e. Mohr-Coulomb, Drucker-Prager, Mogi and Modified Lade) from Tehrani's results (2016). Then, the volumetric strain was formulated against confining pressure to explain the elastic, elastic-plastic, and plastic behaviour of the rock. Variation of the TWC strength of samples with different inner borehole sizes may not be fully captured by the analytical approach, which only considers the effect of the ID/OD. Hence, the differences between the analytical and experimental approaches can be considered as the inner borehole scale effect. As expected, the analysis showed that the size of the inner borehole and the outer boundaries significantly change the TWC strength. Surprisingly, the effect of the samples' OD was obvious, regardless of the corresponding ID. After distinguishing the outer boundary effects, the results show a decreasing trend between the inner borehole size and the TWC strength of the sample, which can be considered as the borehole scale effect. A numerical model was generated to simulate the lab experiments. The discrete element method (DEM) was selected to capture the highly discontinuous nature of the rock samples and the failure mechanisms. The model was built using the commercial Particle Flow Code in Three Dimensions (PFC3D) from Itasca. This study has also broadened the understanding of the effect of the borehole and boundaries dimensions in TWC tests, which may be generalized to real scale cases, i.e. wellbores and perforations

Systematic rationale for assessing energy flow across the entire vessel operation

There is an increasing need to monitor and operate ships at an acceptable energy efficient level. In order to narrow down specific areas within which to innovate energy savings, a set of criteria is used to map out ship systems architecture and the impact of the system on the energy efficiency of the entire ship. An holistic energy consumption analysis for ships and a specific survey procedure have been developed to enable owners and operators to undertake effective actions to achieve increased energy efficiency.</p