Targeted Overexpression of Osteoactivin in Cells of Osteoclastic Lineage Promotes Osteoclastic Resorption and Bone Loss in Mice

This study sought to test whether targeted overexpression of osteoactivin (OA) in cells of osteoclastic lineage, using the tartrate-resistant acid phosphase (TRAP) exon 1B/C promoter to drive OA expression, would increase bone resorption and bone loss in vivo. OA transgenic osteoclasts showed ∼2-fold increases in OA mRNA and proteins compared wild-type (WT) osteoclasts. However, the OA expression in transgenic osteoblasts was not different. At 4, 8, and 15.3 week-old, transgenic mice showed significant bone loss determined by pQCT and confirmed by μ-CT. In vitro, transgenic osteoclasts were twice as large, had twice as much TRAP activity, resorbed twice as much bone matrix, and expressed twice as much osteoclastic genes (MMP9, calciton receptor, and ADAM12), as WT osteoclasts. The siRNA-mediated suppression of OA expression in RAW264.7-derived osteoclasts reduced cell size and osteoclastic gene expression. Bone histomorphometry revealed that transgenic mice had more osteoclasts and osteoclast surface. Plasma c-telopeptide (a resorption biomarker) measurements confirmed an increase in bone resorption in transgenic mice in vivo. In contrast, histomorphometric bone formation parameters and plasma levels of bone formation biomarkers (osteocalcin and pro-collagen type I N-terminal peptide) were not different between transgenic mice and WT littermates, indicating the lack of bone formation effects. In conclusion, this study provides compelling in vivo evidence that osteoclast-derived OA is a novel stimulator of osteoclast activity and bone resorption

FPGA'de altera OpenCL SDK kullanılarak geliştirilen yoğun optik akış uygulaması

Thesis (M.A.)--Özyeğin University, Graduate School of Sciences and Engineering, Department of Computer Science, August 2017.FPGA acceleration of compute-intensive algorithms is usually not regarded feasible because of the long Verilog or VHDL RTL design efforts they require. Data-parallel algorithms have an alternative platform for acceleration, namely, GPU. Two languages are widely used for GPU programming, CUDA and OpenCL. OpenCL is the choice of many coders due to its portability to most multi-core CPUs and most GPUs. OpenCL SDK for FPGAs and High-Level Synthesis (HLS) in general make FPGA acceleration truly feasible. In data-parallel applications, OpenCL based synthesis is preferred over traditional HLS as it can be seamlessly targeted to both GPUs and FPGAs. This thesis shares our experiences in targeting a demanding optical flow algorithm to a high-end FPGA as well as a high-end GPU using OpenCL. Throughput and power consumption results on both platforms are presented.Yoğun hesaplama gerektiren algoritmaların FPGA üzerinde geliştirilmesi, gerektirdikleri uzun Verilog veya VHDL RTL tasarım sürelerinden ötürü genellikle çok makul değildir. Paralel hesaplama yapılınabilir algoritmaların hız için alternatif bir platformu vardır: GPU. GPU programlama için CUDA ve OpenCL dilleri yaygın şekilde kullanılmaktadır. OpenCL çoğu çok çekirdekli işlemci ve çoğu GPU'ya taşınabilir olması nedeniyle bir çok programcının seçeneğidir. FPGA'ler için OpenCL SDK ve Yüksek Seviyeli Sentez (YSS) genel olarak FPGA hızlandırmasını gerçekten mümkün kılmaktadır. Paralel programlanabilir uygulamalarda, geleneksel YSS'ye göre OpenCL tabanlı sentez tercih edilir çünkü sonuç hem GPU'ları hem de FPGA'leri sorunsuz bir şekilde hedef alabilir. Bu tezde, yoğun hesaplama gerektiren bir optik akış algoritmasını OpenCL kullanarak yüksek düzey bir GPU'da ve yüksek düzey bir FPGA'de çalıştırarak ulaşılan sonuçlar paylaşılmıştır. Her iki platformda da hız ve güç tüketimi sonuçları sunulmuştur

Body Actions Change the Appearance of Facial Expressions

Perception, cognition, and emotion do not operate along segregated pathways; rather, their adaptive interaction is supported by various sources of evidence. For instance, the aesthetic appraisal of powerful mood inducers like music can bias the facial expression of emotions towards mood congruency. In four experiments we showed similar mood-congruency effects elicited by the comfort/discomfort of body actions. Using a novel Motor Action Mood Induction Procedure, we let participants perform comfortable/uncomfortable visually-guided reaches and tested them in a facial emotion identification task. Through the alleged mediation of motor action induced mood, action comfort enhanced the quality of the participant\u2019s global experience (a neutral face appeared happy and a slightly angry face neutral), while action discomfort made a neutral face appear angry and a slightly happy face neutral. Furthermore, uncomfortable (but not comfortable) reaching improved the sensitivity for the identification of emotional faces and reduced the identification time of facial expressions, as a possible effect of hyper-arousal from an unpleasant bodily experience