Estimation of wrist angle from sonomyography using support vector machine and artificial neural network models

2008-2009 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalAccepted ManuscriptPublishe

A simple method for estimating the convectiondispersion equation parameters of solute transport in agricultural ecosystem

The convection-dispersion equation (CDE) is the classical approach for modeling solute transport in porous media. So, estimating parameters became a key problem in CDE. For statistical method, some problems such as parameter uniqueness are still unsolved because of more factors. Due to the advantage of clear physical concept and unique parameter values, the simple deterministic method became very useful alternatives. In this paper, a simple method was proposed to estimate both D and R, and the validity was verified by experiment, which can be applied in agriculture and environmental fields for predicting soil quality property.Key words: Convection-dispersion equation (CDE), parameters estimation, agricultural system

Simulation of multilevel cell spin transfer switching in a full-Heusler alloy spin-valve nanopillar

Author name used in this publication: Shi, S. Q.2012-2013 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

'Choosing shoes': a preliminary study into the challenges facing clinicians in assessing footwear for rheumatoid patients

Background: Footwear has been accepted as a therapeutic intervention for the foot affected by rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Evidence relating to the objective assessment of footwear in patients with RA is limited. The aims of this study were to identify current footwear styles, footwear characteristics, and factors that influence footwear choice experienced by patients with RA. Methods: Eighty patients with RA were recruited from rheumatology clinics during the summer months. Clinical characteristics, global function, and foot impairment and disability measures were recorded. Current footwear, footwear characteristics and the factors associated with choice of footwear were identified. Suitability of footwear was recorded using pre-determined criteria for assessing footwear type, based on a previous study of foot pain. Results: The patients had longstanding RA with moderate-to severe disability and impairment. The foot and ankle assessment demonstrated a low-arch profile with both forefoot and rearfoot structural deformities. Over 50% of shoes worn by patients were opentype footwear. More than 70% of patients’ footwear was defined as being poor. Poor footwear characteristics such as heel rigidity and sole hardness were observed. Patients reported comfort (17%) and fit (14%) as important factors in choosing their own footwear. Only five percent (5%) of patients wore therapeutic footwear. Conclusions: The majority of patients with RA wear footwear that has been previously described as poor. Future work needs to aim to define and justify the specific features of footwear that may be of benefit to foot health for people with RA

Spin qubits with electrically gated polyoxometalate molecules

Spin qubits offer one of the most promising routes to the implementation of quantum computers. Very recent results in semiconductor quantum dots show that electrically-controlled gating schemes are particularly well-suited for the realization of a universal set of quantum logical gates. Scalability to a larger number of qubits, however, remains an issue for such semiconductor quantum dots. In contrast, a chemical bottom-up approach allows one to produce identical units in which localized spins represent the qubits. Molecular magnetism has produced a wide range of systems with tailored properties, but molecules permitting electrical gating have been lacking. Here we propose to use the polyoxometalate [PMo12O40(VO)2]q-, where two localized spins-1/2 can be coupled through the electrons of the central core. Via electrical manipulation of the molecular redox potential, the charge of the core can be changed. With this setup, two-qubit gates and qubit readout can be implemented.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Nature Nanotechnolog

High-speed Packet Capture Mechanism Based on Zero-copy in Linux

The development of gigabit-network demand higher standard of the packet capture's efficiency. Traditional network packet capture mechanisms get poor performance when used in gigabit-network. So we proposed a new network packet capture mechanism using zero-copy and POLLING. Through the modification to the bottom-layer, we achieve the packet capture in user space, and bypass the intervention of operating system's kernel. The efficiency of data processing is improved We achieve wire-speed capture rate, and the CPU usage rate is below 10%

Coupled down-regulation of mTOR and telomerase activity during fluorouracil-induced apoptosis of hepatocarcinoma Cells

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most invasive and frequently diagnosed malignancy and the second leading cause of cancer death in many regions of Asia. The PI3K/Akt/mTOR signal pathway is involved in multiple cellular functions including proliferation, differentiation, tumorigenesis, and apoptosis. Up-regulation of telomerase activity is thought to be a critical step leading to cell transformation.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This study investigated changes in mTOR pathway and telomerase activity in hepatocarcinoma cell line SMMC-7721 treated with chemotherapeutic agent 5-fluorouracil (5-Fu). We detected apoptosis of hepatocarcinoma cells by TUNEL assay. Telomerase activity, hTERT transcription level and p- p70 S6k was demonstrated by the telomeric repeat amplification protocol and silver staining assay, Dual-Luciferase Reporter Assay and Western blot analysis respectively.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Treating SMMC-7721 cells with 5-Fu leads to apoptosis of the cells, and reduction in telomerase activity, as well as a dramatic reduction in the activated form of p70 S6 kinase, a mTOR substrate. The 5-Fu treatment nearly abolishes transcription of hTERT (the major component of telomerase) mRNA. Treating SMMC-7721 cells with Rapamycin, a specific mTOR inhibitor, significantly reduce hTERT protein level but did not affect hTERT transcription. 5-Fu and rapamycin were synergistic in regards to down-regulation of telomerase activity in hepatocarcinoma cells.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These results suggest that chemotherapeutic agent 5-Fu may down-regulate telomerase activity at both transcriptional level and PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway-dependent post-transcriptional level to facilitate hepatocellular carcinoma cell apoptosis.</p

Counter-current chromatography for the separation of terpenoids: A comprehensive review with respect to the solvent systems employed

Copyright @ 2014 The Authors.This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited.Natural products extracts are commonly highly complex mixtures of active compounds and consequently their purification becomes a particularly challenging task. The development of a purification protocol to extract a single active component from the many hundreds that are often present in the mixture is something that can take months or even years to achieve, thus it is important for the natural product chemist to have, at their disposal, a broad range of diverse purification techniques. Counter-current chromatography (CCC) is one such separation technique utilising two immiscible phases, one as the stationary phase (retained in a spinning coil by centrifugal forces) and the second as the mobile phase. The method benefits from a number of advantages when compared with the more traditional liquid-solid separation methods, such as no irreversible adsorption, total recovery of the injected sample, minimal tailing of peaks, low risk of sample denaturation, the ability to accept particulates, and a low solvent consumption. The selection of an appropriate two-phase solvent system is critical to the running of CCC since this is both the mobile and the stationary phase of the system. However, this is also by far the most time consuming aspect of the technique and the one that most inhibits its general take-up. In recent years, numerous natural product purifications have been published using CCC from almost every country across the globe. Many of these papers are devoted to terpenoids-one of the most diverse groups. Naturally occurring terpenoids provide opportunities to discover new drugs but many of them are available at very low levels in nature and a huge number of them still remain unexplored. The collective knowledge on performing successful CCC separations of terpenoids has been gathered and reviewed by the authors, in order to create a comprehensive document that will be of great assistance in performing future purifications. © 2014 The Author(s)

Application of amino acid occurrence for discriminating different folding types of globular proteins

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Predicting the three-dimensional structure of a protein from its amino acid sequence is a long-standing goal in computational/molecular biology. The discrimination of different structural classes and folding types are intermediate steps in protein structure prediction.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this work, we have proposed a method based on linear discriminant analysis (LDA) for discriminating 30 different folding types of globular proteins using amino acid occurrence. Our method was tested with a non-redundant set of 1612 proteins and it discriminated them with the accuracy of 38%, which is comparable to or better than other methods in the literature. A web server has been developed for discriminating the folding type of a query protein from its amino acid sequence and it is available at http://granular.com/PROLDA/.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Amino acid occurrence has been successfully used to discriminate different folding types of globular proteins. The discrimination accuracy obtained with amino acid occurrence is better than that obtained with amino acid composition and/or amino acid properties. In addition, the method is very fast to obtain the results.</p