Relaxin and progesterone secretion from aging corpora lutea and relaxin\u27s action on the uterine cervix of the pig

Relaxin and progesterone are produced in the corpora lutea of the pig. In hysterectomized gilts, insulin-like growth factor I, luteinizing hormone; and prolactin alone or in combination increase progesterone production by aging luteal tissue from day 110 post-estrus, but they are ineffective at days 113 and 116. In contrast, the same hormone treatments increase relaxin production by these luteal tissues from days 110 and 113 compared with those tissues from the animals on day 116. Insulin-like growth factor I augments the ability of luteinizing hormone and prolactin to increase progesterone and relaxin production by aging corpora lutea;The primary physiological actions of relaxin are to prepare the birth canal for the accommodation of developing the conceptus(es) and to facilitate delivery of the fetus(es). The growth and modification of the uterine cervix are important events during pregnancy. In the presence of estrogen, relaxin accelerates the growth and development of the uterus and cervix of prepubertal gilts. A treatment of six relaxin injections (every other day with total 1 mg relaxin) induces a 4- to 5-fold increase in the wet weight, dry weight of the uterus and cervix compared with that in vehicle-treated animals. The contents, but not the concentrations, of DNA, protein, and hydroxyproline (collagen index) of the uterine cervix are significantly increased by relaxin plus estrogen treatments; this implies that growth and development of the uterine cervix can be accelerated by an appropriate hormone combination of relaxin and estrogen;In a time- and dose-dependent manner, estrogen increases the number of relaxin binding sites on the cultured porcine uterine cervical cells. The Scatchard plot exhibits downward curvilinearity which implies that there are two classes of relaxin binding sites on these cells. The secretion of hydroxyproline from these cervical cells is synergistically stimulated by relaxin and estrogen, and this stimulation is blocked by co-incubation with actinomycin D or cycloheximide. The incorporation of [superscript]3H-proline into the collagen of cervical cells is enhanced by relaxin and progesterone, but RU 486 counteracts the stimulatory action of progesterone

Sludge Digestion By Anaerobic Fluidized Beds. I: Lab Performance Data

This study was undertaken to evaluate the laboratory performance of the anaerobic fluidized bed digesting secondary biological sludge at 35° C with four hydraulic-retention times (HRTs): 1, 2.5, 5, and 10 days. In addition, the effects of both operating temperature (15° C, 25° C and 35° C) and the initial sludge solubilization on the digester performance were also examined. It was found that at 35° C, an adequate degree of sludge digestion was obtainable with an HRT of only 1-2 days if the influent biological sludge was presolubilized by treatment with 17.5 meq/L of sodium hydroxide. If no presolubilization was used, the necessary HRT was increased to 10 days. When the temperature was decreased to 25° C and the sludge was presolubilized, the required HRT was 2.5-3 days. However, as the temperature was further decreased to 15° C, the system was unable to achieve adequate digestion in as long as 10 days, even with presolubilization. It was also observed that the fluidized-bed system was able to accept abrupt increases of loading without a corresponding buildup of excessive organic acids. © ASCE

Biofilm Growths With Sucrose As Substrate

This study was conducted to: (1) Evaluate the effect of DO on cell yield in a fixed film reactor using 1,000 mg/L sucrose as a substrate; (2) evaluate the correlations of the biofilm thickness and density with DO and their resultant substrate stabilization rates; and (3) examine the response of biofilm communities as a result of DO and biofilm thickness changes. Data obtained from this study indicate that DO has only a minor effect on the cell yield. However, the thickness of aerobic biofilm is definitely related to DO, or thickness (mm) = (2.08 x DO)/(9.2 + DO). The biofilm density is also related to its thickness. At a DO of 5 mg/L or lower, the biofilm texture is firm and has a wet density of 27-48 mg/cm3. At a higher DO (5-16 mg/L), the biofilm becomes porous and filled with air pockets, with its density being reduced to 25 mg/cm3. The biological community in biofilm at a high DO environment (16 mg/L) is predominantly short rods grouped in a chain structure. At a low DO environment (0.5 mg/L), however, the prevalent forms are large rods, none of which are in chain grouping. © ASCE

On compression rate of quantum autoencoders: Control design, numerical and experimental realization

Quantum autoencoders which aim at compressing quantum information in a low-dimensional latent space lie in the heart of automatic data compression in the field of quantum information. In this paper, we establish an upper bound of the compression rate for a given quantum autoencoder and present a learning control approach for training the autoencoder to achieve the maximal compression rate. The upper bound of the compression rate is theoretically proven using eigen-decomposition and matrix differentiation, which is determined by the eigenvalues of the density matrix representation of the input states. Numerical results on 2-qubit and 3-qubit systems are presented to demonstrate how to train the quantum autoencoder to achieve the theoretically maximal compression, and the training performance using different machine learning algorithms is compared. Experimental results of a quantum autoencoder using quantum optical systems are illustrated for compressing two 2-qubit states into two 1-qubit states

A micromachined flow shear-stress sensor based on thermal transfer principles

Microhot-film shear-stress sensors have been developed by using surface micromachining techniques. The sensor consists of a suspended silicon-nitride diaphragm located on top of a vacuum-sealed cavity. A heating and heat-sensing element, made of polycrystalline silicon material, resides on top of the diaphragm. The underlying vacuum cavity greatly reduces conductive heat loss to the substrate and therefore increases the sensitivity of the sensor. Testing of the sensor has been conducted in a wind tunnel under three operation modes-constant current, constant voltage, and constant temperature. Under the constant-temperature mode, a typical shear-stress sensor exhibits a time constant of 72 μs