GSM-Based Electricity Conservation Outlets (ECO) for Power Management and Monitoring System

© 2019 IEEE. The design, implementation and testing of an advanced version of a typical household outlet that aims to promote awareness among the users about the power consumption of different household appliances is presented in this paper. The whole project consists of the three (3) subsystems, the ECO power switches, the ECO power box and the ECO mobile application. The system operates by providing a wireless control and monitor functionalities on the two ECO power switches (outlets). The development of the system involved the design and implementation of the hardware (ECO power box) and the software (ECO mobile application) which manages data acquisition and transmission from the outlets. ECO power box is a control and monitoring panel that can be mounted at home using Wi-Fi technology. ECO mobile application, on the other hand, is an android-based application using GSM technology. The users can control the system manually and automatically using the timer-based capability. It can also monitor the power consumption in daily, weekly and monthly basis, in kilowatt-hour (kWh) and Peso format. Performance tests showed that the developed prototype can provide measurements with 99.92% accuracy and served all its functionalities with 100% reliability

Neural stem cells for disease modeling of Wolman disease and evaluation of therapeutics

Abstract Background Wolman disease (WD) is a rare lysosomal storage disorder that is caused by mutations in the LIPA gene encoding lysosomal acid lipase (LAL). Deficiency in LAL function causes accumulation of cholesteryl esters and triglycerides in lysosomes. Fatality usually occurs within the first year of life. While an enzyme replacement therapy has recently become available, there is currently no small-molecule drug treatment for WD. Results We have generated induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from two WD patient dermal fibroblast lines and subsequently differentiated them into neural stem cells (NSCs). The WD NSCs exhibited the hallmark disease phenotypes of neutral lipid accumulation, severely deficient LAL activity, and increased LysoTracker dye staining. Enzyme replacement treatment dramatically reduced the WD phenotype in these cells. In addition, δ-tocopherol (DT) and hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin (HPBCD) significantly reduced lysosomal size in WD NSCs, and an enhanced effect was observed in DT/HPBCD combination therapy. Conclusion The results demonstrate that these WD NSCs are valid cell-based disease models with characteristic disease phenotypes that can be used to evaluate drug efficacy and screen compounds. DT and HPBCD both reduce LysoTracker dye staining in WD cells. The cells may be used to further dissect the pathology of WD, evaluate compound efficacy, and serve as a platform for high-throughput drug screening to identify new compounds for therapeutic development

Additional file 1: Supplemental figures. of Neural stem cells for disease modeling of Wolman disease and evaluation of therapeutics

Figure S1. Immunocytochemical characterization of WD iPSCs. Figure S2. STR DNA analysis of WD fibroblasts, iPSCs, and NSCs. Figure S3. LysoTracker staining and Nile red staining of LDL loaded NSCs. Figure S4. HT144B NSCs show increased LysoTracker staining. Figure S5. Chemical structures. Figure S6. DT and HPBCD treatment reduces lysosomal staining in HT144B NSCs. Figure S7. DT and HPBCD do not significantly reduce neutral lipid accumulation in WD NSCs. Figure S8. High concentrations of DT and HPBCD affect cell viability. Figure S9. DT and HPBCD combination treatment have an additive effect on reducing lysosomal staining in HT144B NSCs. (PDF 652 kb

Inflammatory Cytokine TNFα Promotes the Long-Term Expansion of Primary Hepatocytes in 3D Culture

In the healthy adult liver, most hepatocytes proliferate minimally. However, upon physical or chemical injury to the liver, hepatocytes proliferate extensively in vivo under the direction of multiple extracellular cues, including Wnt and pro-inflammatory signals. Currently, liver organoids can be generated readily in vitro from bile-duct epithelial cells, but not hepatocytes. Here, we show that TNFα, an injury-induced inflammatory cytokine, promotes the expansion of hepatocytes in 3D culture and enables serial passaging and long-term culture for more than 6 months. Single-cell RNA sequencing reveals broad expression of hepatocyte markers. Strikingly, in vitro-expanded hepatocytes engrafted, and significantly repopulated, the injured livers of Fah-/- mice. We anticipate that tissue repair signals can be harnessed to promote the expansion of otherwise hard-to-culture cell-types, with broad implications