Assessment of Ionizing Radiation Induced Dicentric Chromosome and Micronuclei in Human Peripheral Blood Lymphocytes for Preliminary Reconstruction of Cytogenetic Biodosimetry

Cytological biodosimetry methodology has been widely used for determining and estimating the precise irradiation dose received by victims in the situation of emergency irradiation exposure. The aim of this study was to assess the gamma-ray induced dicentric chromosomes and micronuclei (MN) in peripheral blood lymphocytes for preliminary reconstruction of cytogenetic biodosimetry. The study was performed by exposing blood samples taken from seven healthy donors to gamma rays at dose range of 0.1 to 4.0 Gy, followed by culturing them for 48-72 hours at 37 °C by the standard technique. After being harvested, the chromosome spread at metaphase and MN were stained with Giemsa's solution. The results showed that the frequency of both dicentrics and MN of samples were increased with the increase of radiation dose. Considerable increases of both cytologic damages were found in the samples exposed to higher doses (>2 Gy). Significant differences (p>0.05) only found in mean frequencies of MN for all doses tested. Reconstruction of the relationship of these frequencies with doses was found to follow linear-quadratic curve lines and was consistent with that of other studies. Due to the aforementioned advantages namely the dependence of radiation dose and dose rate on the frequency of of both dicentric and MN, despite some limitations, these assays have been found to be suitable to be used as biological dosimetry.  It is concluded that in order for this cytogenetic biodosimety method by means of scoring/assessing the radiation-induced dicentrics and MN could be used in radiation emergency and protection, and further studies with larger numbers of samples need to be done.Received: 12 November 2015; Revised: 18 Mei 2016; Accepted: 08 December 201

Project-based pedagogy in interdisciplinary building design adopting BIM

Purpose – This study aims to present a pedagogical practice in the project-based assessment of AEC students’ interdisciplinary building design work adopting BIM. This pedagogical practice emphasizes the impacts of BIM, as the digital collaboration platform, on the cross-disciplinary teamwork design through information sharing. This study also focuses on collecting students’ perceptions of BIM effects in integrated project design. Challenges in BIM adoption from AEC students’ perspective were identified and discussed, and could spark further research needs. Design/Methodology/Approach – Based on a thorough review of previous pedagogical practices of applying BIM in multiple AEC disciplines, this study adopted a case study of the Solar Decathlon residential building design as the group project for AEC students to deliver the design work and construction planning. In total 13 different teams within the University of Nottingham Ningbo China, each group consisting of final year undergraduate students with backgrounds in architecture, civil engineering, and architectural environmental engineering, worked to deliver the detailed design of the solar-powered residential house meeting pre-specified project objectives in terms of architectural aesthetics, structural integrity, energy efficiency, prefabrication construction techniques, and other issues such as budget and scheduling. Each team presented the cross-disciplinary design plan with cost estimate and construction scheduling together with group reports. This pedagogical study collected students’ reflective thinking on how BIM affected their design work, and compared their feedback on BIM to that from AEC industry professionals in previous studies. Findings – The case study of the Solar Decathlon building project showed the capacity of BIM in enabling interdisciplinary collaboration through information exchange and in enhancing communication across different AEC fields. More sustainable design options were considered in the early architectural design stages through the cross-disciplinary cooperation between architecture and building services engineering. BIM motivated AEC student teams to have a more comprehensive design and construction plan by considering multiple criteria including energy efficiency, budget, and construction activities. Students’ reflections indicated both positive effects of BIM (e.g., facilitating information sharing) as well as challenges for further BIM implementation, such as some architecture students’ resistance to BIM, and the lack of existing family types in the BIM library, etc. Research limitations/implications – Some limitations of the current BIM pedagogy were identified through the student group work. For example, students revealed the problem of interoperability between BIM (i.e., Autodesk Revit) and building energy simulation tools. To further integrate the university education and AEC industry practice, future BIM pedagogical work could recruit professionals and project stakeholders in the adopted case studies, for the purpose of providing professional advice on improving the constructability of the BIM-based design from student work. Originality/value – This work provides insights into the information technology applied in the AEC interdisciplinary pedagogy. Students gained the experience of a project-based collaboration and were equipped with BIM capabilities for future employment within the AEC job market. The integrated design approach was embedded throughout the team project process. Overall, this BIM pedagogical practice emphasized the link between academic activities and real-world industrial practice. The pedagogical experience gained in this BIM course could be expanded to future BIM education and research in other themes such as interoperability of building information exchange among different digital tools

Co-refining interactive systems with older adults from function, form and interaction

Designing interactive systems that are pragmatic, attractive and easy to use for older adults is challenging. Participatory design, as an approach to enhance the mutual understanding between designers and end users, has been proved to be useful to improve the quality of design for older people. However, PD research has long been criticized for extensively dealing with the early-phase design while putting less emphasis on the later stages. In this paper, we argue for the importance of collaborative refinement when designing interactive systems for older adults. Through a case study, we describe our experience of co-refining the preliminary design of an interactive system with older participants from three perspectives: function, form and interaction. We also explored to adopt some potential PD methods and conclude by discussing the effectiveness of the chosen approach and methods

Beam Dynamics of Qi Storage Rings

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY-931478

The effects of a 12-Month weight loss intervention on cognitive outcomes in adults with overweight and obesity

Obesity is associated with poorer executive functioning and reward sensitivity. Yet, we know very little about whether weight loss through diet and/or increased exercise engagement improves cognitive function. This study evaluated whether weight loss following a dietary and exercise intervention was associated with improved cognitive performance. We enrolled 125 middle-aged adults with overweight and obesity (98 female) into a 12-month behavioral weight loss intervention. Participants were assigned to one of three groups: energy-restricted diet alone, an energy-restricted diet plus 150 min of moderate intensity exercise per week or an energy restricted diet plus 250 min of exercise per week. All participants completed tests measuring executive functioning and/or reward sensitivity, including the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). Following the intervention, weight significantly decreased in all groups. A MANCOVA controlling for age, sex and race revealed a significant multivariate effect of group on cognitive changes. Post-hoc ANCOVAs revealed a Group x Time interaction only on IGT reward sensitivity, such that the high exercise group improved their performance relative to the other two intervention groups. Post-hoc ANCOVAs also revealed a main effect of Time, independent of intervention group, on IGT net payoff score. Changes in weight were not associated with other changes in cognitive performance. Engaging in a high amount of exercise improved reward sensitivity above and beyond weight loss alone. This suggests that there is additional benefit to adding exercise into behavioral weight loss regimens on executive functioning, even without additional benefit to weight loss

CFD analysis of liquid stream going through the wire-screen mesh

Paper presented at the 5th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, South Africa, 1-4 July, 2007.Wire-screen mesh is normally used for the removal of particles from a liquid stream. Here we consider a system where fluid passes wire-screen mesh perpendicularly. The configurations of wire-screen mesh such as diameter and shape factor of wire affect the stream of fluid going through the screen. In this study, we performed a theoretical approach to the relation between wire mesh and fluid stream with computational fluid dynamics (CFD). FLUENT is used for the simulation. Head loss can be estimated by Rose equation when the stream passes through the wire-mesh (Rose 1945). The drag coefficient (CD) varies with the stream types. The other parameters depend on a specific mesh, velocity and pressure. In the experiment we used a screen of 50 mesh-size and water as a fluid. The pressure drop during water flow was determined. The average and maximum velocities of water were calculated. On the basis of these values, we derived a proportional factor between the velocity of fluid and head loss that can estimate CD.cs201

Diffusive and localization behavior of electromagnetic waves in a two-dimensional random medium

In this paper, we discuss the transport phenomena of electromagnetic waves in a two-dimensional random system which is composed of arrays of electrical dipoles, following the model presented earlier by Erdogan, et al. (J. Opt. Soc. Am. B {\bf 10}, 391 (1993)). A set of self-consistent equations is presented, accounting for the multiple scattering in the system, and is then solved numerically. A strong localization regime is discovered in the frequency domain. The transport properties within, near the edge of and nearly outside the localization regime are investigated for different parameters such as filling factor and system size. The results show that within the localization regime, waves are trapped near the transmitting source. Meanwhile, the diffusive waves follow an intuitive but expected picture. That is, they increase with travelling path as more and more random scattering incurs, followed by a saturation, then start to decay exponentially when the travelling path is large enough, signifying the localization effect. For the cases that the frequencies are near the boundary of or outside the localization regime, the results of diffusive waves are compared with the diffusion approximation, showing less encouraging agreement as in other systems (Asatryan, et al., Phys. Rev. E {\bf 67}, 036605 (2003).)Comment: 8 pages 9 figure

Intelligent tracking control of a DC motor driver using self-organizing TSK type fuzzy neural networks

[[abstract]]In this paper, a self-organizing Takagi–Sugeno–Kang (TSK) type fuzzy neural network (STFNN) is proposed. The self-organizing approach demonstrates the property of automatically generating and pruning the fuzzy rules of STFNN without the preliminary knowledge. The learning algorithms not only extract the fuzzy rule of STFNN but also adjust the parameters of STFNN. Then, an adaptive self-organizing TSK-type fuzzy network controller (ASTFNC) system which is composed of a neural controller and a robust compensator is proposed. The neural controller uses an STFNN to approximate an ideal controller, and the robust compensator is designed to eliminate the approximation error in the Lyapunov stability sense without occurring chattering phenomena. Moreover, a proportional-integral (PI) type parameter tuning mechanism is derived to speed up the convergence rates of the tracking error. Finally, the proposed ASTFNC system is applied to a DC motor driver on a field-programmable gate array chip for low-cost and high-performance industrial applications. The experimental results verify the system stabilization and favorable tracking performance, and no chattering phenomena can be achieved by the proposed ASTFNC scheme.[[notice]]補正完畢[[incitationindex]]SCI[[booktype]]紙本[[booktype]]電子

An angle-resolved photoemission spectral function analysis of the electron doped cuprate Nd_1.85Ce_0.15CuO_4

Using methods made possible by recent advances in photoemission technology, we perform an indepth line-shape analysis of the angle-resolved photoemission spectra of the electron doped (n-type) cuprate superconductor Nd_1.85Ce_0.15CuO_4. Unlike for the p-type materials, we only observe weak mass renormalizations near 50-70 meV. This may be indicative of smaller electron-phonon coupling or due to the masking effects of other interactions that make the electron-phonon coupling harder to detect. This latter scenario may suggest limitations of the spectral function analysis in extracting electronic self-energies when some of the interactions are highly momentum dependent.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure