Effects of detraining on functional fitness and lymphocyte subsets in postmenopausal females

Introduction: Aging leads to declines of functional fitness and regular exercise has been recognized to be beneficial for keeping health and preventing degenerative diseases in older adults. Limited evidences connect the relationships among detraining, functional fitness, immunosenescence, and vascular integrity in aged individuals. Thus, the aims of this study was to inspect: How training and detraining influence functional fitness, mobilization of circulating leukocytes and lymphocyte subsets? Method: Twenty-two female volunteers aged 50 to 65 years were recruited as participants in this study. Participants were assigned into training group (TG, n=13) and control group (CG, n=9). The participants in TG were asked to attend exercise program, including aerobic exercise at 70% HRR for 60 min twice per week and resistance training at 60-70% 1RM, 3 sets and 9 exercises for 60 min per week for 16 weeks and subsequently avoid exercise for 6 weeks to investigate detraining effects. CG were asked to stay in their regular lifestyles. A six-items measurement of functional fitness and resting (at fasting status) venous blood samples were collected at before training program (Pre-training), 8th week of training (Mid-training), after training program (Post-training), and 6th week of detraining 6 weeks (Detraining). Blood cell counts (WBC, RBC, HCT, LYM) were measured using an automated cell counter and lymphocyte subsets (CD4, CD8, CD19, CD56) were analyzed by flow cytometry. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistic, mixed two-factors (time × group) measures ANOVA or ACOVA and the significance was set at pResult: Functional fitness of TG was not significantly improved following the training program although it was significantly better than CG in Pre-training. Blood cell counts were not changed and all in normal range. A significant difference in CD19 counts were observed between TG and CG (71.23±32.05 vs. 116.45±67.95 103/mL) in Post-training. CD19 counts in TG were increased at Detraining compared with Mid-training and Post-training (138.08±50.22 vs. 74.92±31.20, 71.23±32.05 103/mL). No alterations in quantity and percentage of CD4, CD8, and CD56 were observed in this study. Conclusion: Findings of this study suggest that both a 16-week moderate exercise program and a 6-week detraining did not significantly change the functional fitness and lymphocyte subsets in postmenopausal females

Rainfall variations in central Indo-Pacific over the past 2,700 y

Tropical rainfall variability is closely linked to meridional shifts of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and zonal movements of the Walker circulation. The characteristics and mechanisms of tropical rainfall variations on centennial to decadal scales are, however, still unclear. Here, we reconstruct a replicated stalagmite-based 2,700-y-long, continuous record of rainfall for the deeply convective northern central Indo-Pacific (NCIP) region. Our record reveals decreasing rainfall in the NCIP over the past 2,700 y, similar to other records from the northern tropics. Notable centennial- to decadal-scale dry climate episodes occurred in both the NCIP and the southern central Indo-Pacific (SCIP) during the 20th century [Current Warm Period (CWP)] and the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), resembling enhanced El Niño-like conditions. Further, we developed a 2,000-y-long ITCZ shift index record that supports an overall southward ITCZ shift in the central Indo-Pacific and indicates southward mean ITCZ positions during the early MWP and the CWP. As a result, the drying trend since the 20th century in the northern tropics is similar to that observed during the past warm period, suggesting that a possible anthropogenic forcing of rainfall remains indistinguishable from natural variability

Inhibition of yes-associated protein suppresses brain metastasis of human lung adenocarcinoma in a murine model.

Yes-associated protein (YAP) is a main mediator of the Hippo pathway and promotes cancer development and progression in human lung cancer. We sought to determine whether inhibition of YAP suppresses metastasis of human lung adenocarcinoma in a murine model. We found that metastatic NSCLC cell lines H2030-BrM3(K-rasG12C mutation) and PC9-BrM3 (EGFRΔexon19 mutation) had a significantly decreased p-YAP(S127)/YAP ratio compared to parental H2030 (K-rasG12C mutation) and PC9 (EGFRΔexon19 mutation) cells (P < .05). H2030-BrM3 cells had significantly increased YAP mRNA and expression of Hippo downstream genes CTGF and CYR61 compared to parental H2030 cells (P < .05). Inhibition of YAP by short hairpin RNA (shRNA) and small interfering RNA (siRNA) significantly decreased mRNA expression in downstream genes CTGF and CYR61 in H2030-BrM3 cells (P < .05). In addition, inhibiting YAP by YAP shRNA significantly decreased migration and invasion abilities of H2030-BrM3 cells (P < .05). We are first to show that mice inoculated with YAP shRNA-transfected H2030-BrM3 cells had significantly decreased metastatic tumour burden and survived longer than control mice (P < .05). Collectively, our results suggest that YAP plays an important role in promoting lung adenocarcinoma brain metastasis and that direct inhibition of YAP by shRNA suppresses H2030-BrM3 cell brain metastasis in a murine model

Sustainabilitas Arsitektur Masjid: Evaluasi Konsep “Simple Architecture” sebagai Implementasi Desain Arsitektur Berkelanjutan suatu Kawasan

Makalah ini membahas aspek-aspek “kesederhanaan” (simplicity) sebagai konsep desain bangunan masjid secara berkelanjutan (sustainable) sesuai konteks dengan mengambil studi kasus masjid kawasan Al-Irsyad Satya Kota Baru Parahyangan, Bandung. Masjid sebagai subyek arsitektur dan pusat ibadah menjadi ruang publik yang didesain dari elemen-elemen yang secara ideal mengandung nilai-nilai Islam dan bertujuan mendukung fungsinya. Desain masjid berkonsep simple atau “sederhana” digunakan sebagai alternatif kontemporer untuk mengoptimalisasi fungsi tersebut, meliputi struktur bangunan hingga biaya pemeliharaan (maintenance) sesuai prinsip keberlanjutan. Keterkaitan erat bangunan masjid dengan aktivitas masyarakat berpotensi melibatkan partisipasi masyarakat dan pengelola dalam menerapkan program sustainabilitas sesuai konteks lingkungannya. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini berbasis pendekatan Grounded Theory secara kualitatif melalui pengumpulan data dari kegiatan observasi, interview dan analisis program keberlanjutan kawasan. Penelitian menemukan keterkaitan konsep “sederhana” yang mendukung sustainabilitas desain sekaligus menggarisbawahi evaluasi konsep desain “sederhana” yang hadir serta faktor pemeliharaan/pengembangan masjid dan kawasan

First Principles Molecular Dynamics Computation on Ionic Transport Properties in Molten Salt Materials

Based on the Hellmann-Feynman theorem, which integrates the molecular dynamics simulation with computational quantum mechanics, this research simulates the ionic transport in the LiCl-KCl molten salt materials using so called “first principles molecular dynamics (FPMD)” technique without employing an empirical potential model. The main purpose of this computational FPMD focuses on the evaluation of important transport properties, such as diffusion coefficient, ionic conductivity, shear viscosity, and thermal conductivity, using the Green-Kubo relationship. All simulation results agree well with experimental data published in existing literatures within an acceptable range. FPMD calculations are proved to be a powerful tool for prediction of the molecular structure, transport properties, as well as ionic interactions from the microscopic aspect. It is expected to integrate further with a multi-scale simulation tool for future function expansion to macroscopic performance prediction

Resource Slack, Innovation Ambidexterity, and Quality Performance: Knowledge Heterogeneity Perspective

Abstract. Resource slack and innovation ambidexterity can both be represented and connected conceptually with heterogeneous knowledge structure. Hypothesizing with the logic of knowledge heterogeneity, the present study empirically examined ambidexterity’s mediation effect in the relationship between two forms of resource slacks (i.e., human and financial resources) and product quality. Companies in Taiwanese manufacturing industry were located based on the random inspection conducted by the Department of Budget, Accounting and Statistics of the Government in 2011, and surveyed. Our findings demonstrated that slack resource is only an indirect factor for product quality evaluated by internal developers and producers (i.e. development and delivery processes) and external customers (product-specific quality). Specifically, first, different resource slacks influence differently on ambidexterity; second, both exploration and exploitation positively influence quality of innovation; third, ambidexterity plays a significant mediator’s role that may strategically alter the relationship between slack and quality. Research has paid increasing attention to ambidexterity (i.e., exploration and exploitation) in organizational innovation. Mostly, however, focus on the influencing factors leading to possible ambidextrous design or implementation of innovation. Few have examined ambidexterity’s effects on specific dimensions of innovation as outcomes.Keywords. Resource slacks, Ambidexterity, Quality, Knowledge heterogeneity.JEL. M10; M11; M14

BlenDA: Domain Adaptive Object Detection through diffusion-based blending

Unsupervised domain adaptation (UDA) aims to transfer a model learned using labeled data from the source domain to unlabeled data in the target domain. To address the large domain gap issue between the source and target domains, we propose a novel regularization method for domain adaptive object detection, BlenDA, by generating the pseudo samples of the intermediate domains and their corresponding soft domain labels for adaptation training. The intermediate samples are generated by dynamically blending the source images with their corresponding translated images using an off-the-shelf pre-trained text-to-image diffusion model which takes the text label of the target domain as input and has demonstrated superior image-to-image translation quality. Based on experimental results from two adaptation benchmarks, our proposed approach can significantly enhance the performance of the state-of-the-art domain adaptive object detector, Adversarial Query Transformer (AQT). Particularly, in the Cityscapes to Foggy Cityscapes adaptation, we achieve an impressive 53.4% mAP on the Foggy Cityscapes dataset, surpassing the previous state-of-the-art by 1.5%. It is worth noting that our proposed method is also applicable to various paradigms of domain adaptive object detection. The code is available at:https://github.com/aiiu-lab/BlenDAComment: ICASSP(2024):2024 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processin

Optimal Work Shift Scheduling with Fatigue Minimization and Day Off Preferences

Shift work disrupts the sleep-wake cycle, leading to sleepiness, fatigue, and performance impairment, with implications for occupational health and safety. For example, aircraft maintenance crew work a 24-hour shift rotation under the job stress of sustaining the flight punctuality rate. If an error occurs during the aircraft maintenance process, this error may become a potential risk factor for flight safety. This paper focuses on optimal work shift scheduling to reduce the fatigue of shiftworkers. We proposed a conditional exponential mathematical model to represent the fatigue variation of workers. The fatigue model is integrated with the work shift scheduling problem with considerations of workers’ preferences of days off, company or government regulations, and manpower requirements. The combined problem is formulated as a mixed-integer program, in which the shift assignments are described by binary variables. Using the proposed method, we can find a feasible work shift schedule and also have a schedule that minimizes the peak fatigue of shiftworkers while satisfying their days off demands. Several examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach

De novo malignant solitary fibrous tumor of the kidney

The kidney is a relatively infrequent site for solitary fibrous tumor (SFT). Among the previously reported cases, only two cases of malignant renal SFT developing via dedifferentiation from a pre-existing benign SFT have been reported. Here we reported a case of de novo malignant renal SFT clinically diagnosed as renal cell carcinoma in a 50-year-old woman. The tumor was circumscribed but unencapsulated and showed obvious hemorrhagic necrosis. Microscopically, the tumor was composed of patternless sheets of alternating hypercellular and hypocellular areas of spindle cells displaying mild to moderate nuclear atypia, frequent mitoses up to 8 per 10 high power fields, and a 20% Ki-67 proliferative index. Immunohistochemical studies revealed reactivity for CD34, CD99 and vimentin, with no staining for all other markers, confirming the diagnosis of SFT. No areas of dedifferentiation were seen after extensive sampling. Based on the pathologic and immunohistochemical features, a diagnosis of de novo malignant renal SFT was warranted. Our report expands the spectrum of malignant progression in renal SFTs. Even though this patient has been disease-free for 30 months, long-term follow-up is still mandatory