13,477 research outputs found
The Role of Mast Cells in Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is one of the most common functional gastrointestinal disorders, but its treatment is unsatisfactory as its pathophysiology is multifactorial. The putative factors of IBS pathophysiology are visceral hypersensitivity and intestinal dysmotility, also including psychological factors, dysregulated gut-brain axis, intestinal microbiota alterations, impaired intestinal permeability, and mucosal immune alterations. Recently, mucosal immune alterations have received much attention with the role of mast cells in IBS. Mast cells are abundant in the intestines and function as intestinal gatekeepers at the interface between the luminal environment in the intestine and the internal milieu under the intestinal epithelium. As a gatekeeper at the interface, mast cells communicate with the adjacent cells such as epithelial, neuronal, and other immune cells throughout the mediators released when they themselves are activated. Many studies have suggested that mast cells play a role in the pathophysiology of IBS. This review will focus on studies of the role of mast cell in IBS and the limitations of studies and will also consider future directions
Synergistic multi-doping effects on the Li7La3Zr2O12 solid electrolyte for fast lithium ion conduction.
Here, we investigate the doping effects on the lithium ion transport behavior in garnet Li7La3Zr2O12 (LLZO) from the combined experimental and theoretical approach. The concentration of Li ion vacancy generated by the inclusion of aliovalent dopants such as Al(3+) plays a key role in stabilizing the cubic LLZO. However, it is found that the site preference of Al in 24d position hinders the three dimensionally connected Li ion movement when heavily doped according to the structural refinement and the DFT calculations. In this report, we demonstrate that the multi-doping using additional Ta dopants into the Al-doped LLZO shifts the most energetically favorable sites of Al in the crystal structure from 24d to 96 h Li site, thereby providing more open space for Li ion transport. As a result of these synergistic effects, the multi-doped LLZO shows about three times higher ionic conductivity of 6.14 × 10(-4) S cm(-1) than that of the singly-doped LLZO with a much less efforts in stabilizing cubic phases in the synthetic condition
Adaptive Accelerated Failure Time modeling with a Semiparametric Skewed Error Distribution
The accelerated failure time (AFT) model is widely used to analyze
relationships between variables in the presence of censored observations.
However, this model relies on some assumptions such as the error distribution,
which can lead to biased or inefficient estimates if these assumptions are
violated. In order to overcome this challenge, we propose a novel approach that
incorporates a semiparametric skew-normal scale mixture distribution for the
error term in the AFT model. By allowing for more flexibility and robustness,
this approach reduces the risk of misspecification and improves the accuracy of
parameter estimation. We investigate the identifiability and consistency of the
proposed model and develop a practical estimation algorithm. To evaluate the
performance of our approach, we conduct extensive simulation studies and real
data analyses. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of our method in
providing robust and accurate estimates in various scenarios
Modeling tidal current around Mokpo, the South Western coastal zone of Korea
This study provide modeling of tidal circulation around the Mokpo coastal zone (MC) using unstructured triangular horizontal grid by which high resolution is concentrated in the local region that reaches to 100 m. For this simulation, the 3D finite-volume ocean model FVCOM is applied for the numerical simulation. Only the astronomical tidal constituent M2 and its harmonic M4 are considered. By expanding open boundary to the shelf break of the East China Sea, only M2 elevation was specified on the open boundaries, and the generation of M4 tide around MC was observed, which is the representative criteria for the accuracy of the shallow water tide simulation. Around the intertidal zone of MC, wet/dry point treatment method incorporated in FVCOM was also used and tested its applicability in the level of resolution of this model
Fast Knowledge Graph Completion using Graphics Processing Units
Knowledge graphs can be used in many areas related to data semantics such as
question-answering systems, knowledge based systems. However, the currently
constructed knowledge graphs need to be complemented for better knowledge in
terms of relations. It is called knowledge graph completion. To add new
relations to the existing knowledge graph by using knowledge graph embedding
models, we have to evaluate vector operations, where
is the number of entities and is the number of relation types. It is very
costly.
In this paper, we provide an efficient knowledge graph completion framework
on GPUs to get new relations using knowledge graph embedding vectors. In the
proposed framework, we first define "transformable to a metric space" and then
provide a method to transform the knowledge graph completion problem into the
similarity join problem for a model which is "transformable to a metric space".
After that, to efficiently process the similarity join problem, we derive
formulas using the properties of a metric space. Based on the formulas, we
develop a fast knowledge graph completion algorithm. Finally, we experimentally
show that our framework can efficiently process the knowledge graph completion
problem
Molecular cloning and Biochemical properties of GH-16 β-agarase from Gilvimarinus agarolyticus JEA5
Agar is complex polysaccharide founds in the cell walls of some red algae and up to 70 % of the algal cell wall can be agar polymers. Agar was formed by a mixture of two polysaccharides named agarose and agaropectin.
Agarose can be hydrolyzed by α-agarase (E.C. 3.2.1.158) and by β-agarase (E.C. 3.2.1.81); the former cleaves the α-1, 3 linkage of agarose to generate agaro-oligosaccharides, and the latter cleaves the β-1,4 linkage to generate neoagaro-oligosaccharides. Agarases have been isolated from many sources, including seawater, marine sediments, marine algae, marine mollusks, fresh water and soil. Recently, Givimarinus chinensis, G. polysacchalyticus, G. agarilyticus were identified and their agarolytic activity also reported. However, there are no report published that molecular and functional characterization of agarase from Givimarinus genus. In this study, we first report molecular characterization and biochemical properties of agarase from Gilvimarinus genus.
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PAGaN II: The Evolution of AGN Jets on Sub-Parsec Scales
We report first results from KVN and VERA Array (KaVA) VLBI observations
obtained in the frame of our Plasma-physics of Active Galactic Nuclei (PAGaN)
project. We observed eight selected AGN at 22 and 43 GHz in single polarization
(LCP) between March 2014 and April 2015. Each source was observed for 6 to 8
hours per observing run to maximize the coverage. We obtained a total of
15 deep high-resolution images permitting the identification of individual
circular Gaussian jet components and three spectral index maps of BL Lac, 3C
111 and 3C 345 from simultaneous dual-frequency observations. The spectral
index maps show trends in agreement with general expectations -- flat core and
steep jets -- while the actual value of the spectral index for jets shows
indications for a dependence on AGN type. We analyzed the kinematics of jet
components of BL Lac and 3C 111, detecting superluminal proper motions with
maximum apparent speeds of about . This constrains the lower limits of the
intrinsic component velocities to and the upper limits of the angle
between jet and line of sight to 20. In agreement with global jet
expansion, jet components show systematically larger diameters at larger
core distances , following the global relation , albeit within
substantial scatter.Comment: 13 pages, 15 figures, 4 tables. To appear in JKAS (received 2015
August 31; accepted 2015 October 15). Note the PAGaN I companion paper by
J.-Y. Kim et a
Temperature-scaling behavior of the Hall conductivity for Hg-based superconducting thin films
The Hall conductivities of HgBa_{2}CaCu_{2}O_{6+\delta}and
HgBa_{2}Ca_{2}Cu_{3}O_{8+\delta} thin films are investigated for a magnetic
field parallel to the c axis. The mixed-state Hall conductivity for these
compounds is well described by \sigma_{xy}=C_{1}/H+C_{2}+C_{3}H. The prefactor
C_1 shows a temperature dependence of the form C_1 = A(1-t)^n near T_c, where
t=T/T_c is the reduced temperature. Contrary to the previous results, C_2 also
follows a temperature-scaling behavior similar to that of the coefficient C_1.
The observed value of n = 1.8 - 2.3 is comparable to the previously observed
values for YBa_{2}Cu_{3}O_{7-\delta} and La_{2-x}Sr_{x}CuO_{4}.Comment: 5 pages, 4 eps figure
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