KINEMATIC FACTORS AFFECTING THE SCORE IN ARCHERY: USING SEM

INTRODUCTION: The shooting movements of Archery are paths of continuous and causal movements. Structural equation modeling (SEM) grows out of and serves purposes similar to multiple regression and may be used as a more powerful alternative to multiple regression, path analysis, factor analysis, time series analysis, and analysis of covariance. Some reachers in marketing have used SEM to analyze data deprived from experiments (e.g.,Mackenzie,Lutz, and Belch,1986; Ryan,1982). The purpose of this study was to investigate the structural equations between kinematic factors affecting score during backtension which was basic and important in archer

Characterization of the ATP transporter in the reconstituted rough endoplasmic reticulum proteoliposomes

AbstractAdenosine triphosphate (ATP) transporter from rat liver rough endoplasmic reticulum (RER) was solubilized and reconstituted into phosphatidylcholine liposomes. The RER proteoliposomes, resulting from optimizing some reconstitution parameters, had an apparent Km value of 1.5 μM and a Vmax of 286 pmol min−1 (mg protein)−1 and showed higher affinity for ATP and a lower Vmax value than intact RER (Km of 6.5 μM and Vmax of 1 nmol). ATP transport was time- and temperature-dependent, inhibited by 4,4′-diisothiocyanostilbene-2,2′-disulfonic acid, which is known as an inhibitor of anion transporters including ATP transporter, but was not affected by atractyloside, a specific inhibitor of mitochondrial ADP/ATP carrier. The internal and external effects of various nucleotides on the ATP transport were examined. ATP transport was cis-inhibited strongly by ADP and weakly by AMP. ADP-preloaded RER proteoliposomes showed a specific increase of ATP transport activity while AMP-preloaded RER proteoliposomes did not show the enhanced overshoot peak in the ATP uptake plot. These results demonstrate the ADP/ATP antiport mechanism of ATP transport in rat liver RER

Monte Carlo Few-Group Constant Generation for CANDU 6 Core Analysis

The current neutronics design methodology of CANDU-PHWRs based on the two-step calculations requires determining not only homogenized two-group constants for ordinary fuel bundle lattice cells by the WIMS-AECL lattice cell code but also incremental two-group constants arising from the penetration of control devices into the fuel bundle cells by a supercell analysis code like MULTICELL or DRAGON. As an alternative way to generate the two-group constants necessary for the CANDU-PHWR core analysis, this paper proposes utilizing a B1 theory augmented Monte Carlo (MC) few-group constant generation method (B1 MC method) which has been devised for the PWR fuel assembly analysis method. To examine the applicability of the B1 MC method for the CANDU 6 core analysis, the fuel bundle cell and supercell calculations are performed using it to obtain the two-group constants. By showing that the two-group constants from the B1 MC method agree well with those from WIMS-AECL and that core neutronics calculations for hypothetical CANDU 6 cores by a deterministic diffusion theory code SCAN with B1 MC method generated two-group constants also agree well with whole core MC analyses, it is concluded that the B1 MC method is well qualified for both fuel bundle cell and supercell analyses

Antiasthmatic Effects of Herbal Complex MA and Its Fermented Product MA128

This study was conducted to determine if oral administration of the novel herbal medicine, MA, and its Lactobacillus acidophilus fermented product, MA128, have therapeutic properties for the treatment of asthma. Asthma was induced in BALB/c mice by systemic sensitization to ovalbumin (OVA) followed by intratracheal, intraperitoneal, and aerosol allergen challenges. MA and MA128 were orally administered 6 times a week for 4 weeks. At 1 day after the last ovalbumin exposure, airway hyperresponsiveness was assessed and samples of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, lung cells, and serum were collected for further analysis. We investigated the effect of MA and MA128 on airway hyperresponsiveness, pulmonary eosinophilic infiltration, various immune cell phenotypes, Th2 cytokine production, OVA-specific IgE production, and Th1/Th2 cytokine production in this mouse model of asthma. In BALB/c mice, we found that MA and MA128 treatment suppressed eosinophil infiltration into airways and blood, allergic airway inflammation and AHR by suppressing the production of IL-5, IL-13, IL-17, Eotaxin, and OVA-specific IgE, by upregulating the production of OVA-specific Th1 cytokine (IFN-γ), and by downregulating OVA-specific Th2 cytokine (IL-4) in the culture supernatant of spleen cells. The effectiveness of MA was increased by fermentation with Lactobacillus acidophilus

Percutaneous Needle Decompression during Laparoscopic Gastric Surgery: A Simple Alternative to Nasogastric Decompression

Laparoscopic gastric surgeries are routinely performed with use of a nasogastric tube to decompress the upper gastrointestinal tract. A distended upper gastrointestinal tract can complicate successful laparoscopic gastric surgery as the distention compromises not only the visual field but also the laparoscopic manipulation of the stomach. Since nasogastric intubation is not without risks, we have attempted laparoscopic-assisted gastric cancer surgeries without nasogastric tubes. In this article we describe a simple method of aspirating gastric contents using a 9 cm long 19-gauge needle inserted percutaneously during laparoscopic-assisted gastrectomy. First, a 9 cm long 19-gauge disposable needle was introduced through the abdominal wall. This needle was then introduced to the stomach through the anterior wall and the stomach gases and fluids were aspirated by connecting the needle to suction. Thus, a collapsed upper gastrointestinal tract was easily obtained. We performed this procedure instead of nasogastric decompression on twenty-two patients with gastric cancer who underwent laparoscopic-assisted distal subtotal gastrectomy with lymph node dissection. The results were good with only one patient experiencing wound infection (4.5%) and one patient with postoperative acalculus cholecystitis (4.5%). There were no patients with either intraabdominal infection or anastomotic leakage and none of the patients needed postoperative nasogastric decompression, except the patient who experienced acaculus cholecystitis. Percutaneous needle aspiration is a very simple and efficient technique with little risk of postoperative complications. It can be used as an alternative to nasogastric tube decompression of the gastrointestinal tract for laparoscopic-assisted gastrectomy

Indoor formaldehyde removal over CMK-3

The removal of formaldehyde at low concentrations is important in indoor air pollution research. In this study, mesoporous carbon with a large specific surface area was used for the adsorption of low-concentration indoor formaldehyde. A mesoporous carbon material, CMK-3, was synthesized using the nano-replication method. SBA-15 was used as a mesoporous template. The surface of CMK-3 was activated using a 2N H2SO4 solution and NH3 gas to prepare CMK-3-H2SO4 and CMK-3-NH3, respectively. The activated samples were characterized by N2 adsorption-desorption, X-ray diffraction, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The formaldehyde adsorption performance of the mesoporous carbons was in the order of CMK-3-NH3 > CMK-3-H2SO4 > CMK-3. The difference in the adsorption performance was explained by oxygen and nitrogen functional groups formed during the activation process and by the specific surface area and pore structure of mesoporous carbon

Scale-up study for ex-vivo expansion of allogeneic natural killer cells in stirred-tank bioreactor

Natural killer (NK) cells are a type of lymphocyte in the blood that are responsible for innate and adaptive immune response, and they mature in the liver and bone marrow. Being a key role in host defense system with direct and indirect killing of virus-infected cells or cancer cells, NK cell has been considered an attractive candidate for cancer therapy. Peripheral blood shows the low frequency of NK cells, so ex vivo expansion method is important to obtain sufficient NK cells for therapeutic use. Currently, we successfully developed bioreactor process for NK cell expansion on lab-scale. Stirred-tank bioreactor could be considered as optimal alternative system for large-scale NK cell expansion compared with other ones because it is automated, less labor intensive, scalable, well-controlled and cost-effective. In bioreactor process, agitation is one of important parameters for NK cell expansion because it is necessary to provide homogenous culture conditions. So we defined effects of agitation in bioreactor and figured out an optimum condition. After that scale-up studies were carried out with manufacturing-scale bioreactor based on these results. The results in terms of growth rate, viability cytotoxicity and purity, were comparable with lab-scale

Heterologous gene expression using self-assembled supra-molecules with high affinity for HSP70 chaperone

Contrary to the results of direct expression, various human proteins (ferritin light-chain, epithermal growth factor, interleukin-2, prepro-ghrelin, deletion mutants of glutamate decarboxylase and arginine deiminase, and mini-proinsulin) were all soluble in Escherichia coli cytoplasm when expressed with the N-terminus fusion of ferritin heavy-chain (FTN-H). Through systematic investigations, we have found that a specific peptide motif within FTN-H has a high affinity to HSP70 chaperone DnaK, and that the peptide motif was composed of a hydrophobic core of three residues (Ile, Phe and Leu) and two flanking regions enriched with polar residues (Gly, Gln and Arg). It was also observed that all the recombinant proteins expressed with the fusion of FTN-H formed spherical nanoparticles with diameters of 10–15 nm, as confirmed by the transmission electron microscopy image. The protein nanoparticles are non-covalently cross-linked supra-molecules formed by the self-assembly function of FTN-H. Upon the formation of the supra-molecule, its size is likely to be limited by the assembly properties of FTN-H, thereby keeping the self-assembled particles soluble. This study reports on the dual function of FTN-H for fusion expression and solubility enhancement of heterologous proteins: (i) high-affinity interaction with DnaK and (ii) formation of self-assembled supra-molecules with limited and constant sizes, thereby avoiding the undesirable formation of insoluble macro-aggregates of heterologous proteins

A STUDY ON THE GRIP FORCE DURING PUTTING STROKE

There are lots of variables to affect the control of ball movement during golf putting. Among several variables, it is believed that grip force during putting stroke is one of the important variables. However, there is not much quantitative evidence from published literature (Delay 1997, Gwyn 1993). Therefore, the purpose of this study was to quantify the grip force by comparing putts performed by elite and novice golfers and to identify the relationship between kinematic parameters and the grip force at 16 different parts of subjects’ right and left hand at each putting phase