Consequences of the partial restoration of chiral symmetry in AdS/QCD

Chiral symmetry is an essential concept in understanding QCD at low energy. We treat the chiral condensate, which measures the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry, as a free parameter to investigate the effect of partially restored chiral symmetry on the physical quantities in the frame work of an AdS/QCD model. We observe an interesting scaling behavior among the nucleon mass, pion decay constant and chiral condensate. We propose a phenomenological way to introduce the temperature dependence of a physical quantity in the AdS/QCD model with the thermal AdS metric.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure

Mesons and nucleons from holographic QCD in a unified approach

We investigate masses and coupling constants of mesons and nucleons within a hard wall model of holographic QCD in a unified approach. We first examine an appropriate form of fermionic solutions by restricting the mass coupling for the five dimensional bulk fermions and bosons. We then derive approximated analytic solutions for the nucleons and the corresponding masses in a small mass coupling region. In order to treat meson and nucleon properties on the same footing, we introduce the same infrared (IR) cut in such a way that the meson-nucleon coupling constants, i.e., g_{pi NN} and g_{rho NN} are uniquely determined. The first order approximation with respect to a dimensionless expansion parameter, which is valid in the small mass coupling region, explicitly shows difficulties to avoid the IR scale problem of the hard wall model. We discuss possible ways of circumventing these problems.Comment: 15 pages, No figure. Several typos have been remove

LaughTalk: Expressive 3D Talking Head Generation with Laughter

Laughter is a unique expression, essential to affirmative social interactions of humans. Although current 3D talking head generation methods produce convincing verbal articulations, they often fail to capture the vitality and subtleties of laughter and smiles despite their importance in social context. In this paper, we introduce a novel task to generate 3D talking heads capable of both articulate speech and authentic laughter. Our newly curated dataset comprises 2D laughing videos paired with pseudo-annotated and human-validated 3D FLAME parameters and vertices. Given our proposed dataset, we present a strong baseline with a two-stage training scheme: the model first learns to talk and then acquires the ability to express laughter. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our method performs favorably compared to existing approaches in both talking head generation and expressing laughter signals. We further explore potential applications on top of our proposed method for rigging realistic avatars.Comment: Accepted to WACV202

Bioprinting of three-dimensional dentin-pulp complex with local differentiation of human dental pulp stem cells

Numerous approaches have been introduced to regenerate artificial dental tissues. However, conventional approaches are limited when producing a construct with three-dimensional patient-specific shapes and compositions of heterogeneous dental tissue. In this research, bioprinting technology was applied to produce a three-dimensional dentin-pulp complex with patient-specific shapes by inducing localized differentiation of human dental pulp stem cells within a single structure. A fibrin-based bio-ink was designed for bioprinting with the human dental pulp stem cells. The effects of fibrinogen concentration within the bio-ink were investigated in terms of printability, human dental pulp stem cell compatibility, and differentiation. The results show that micro-patterns with human dental pulp stem cells could be achieved with more than 88% viability. Its odontogenic differentiation was also regulated according to the fibrinogen concentration. Based on these results, a dentin-pulp complex having patient-specific shape was produced by co-printing the human dental pulp stem cell-laden bio-inks with polycaprolactone, which is a bio-thermoplastic used for producing the overall shape. After culturing with differentiation medium for 15 days, localized differentiation of human dental pulp stem cells in the outer region of the three-dimensional cellular construct was successfully achieved with localized mineralization. This result demonstrates the possibility to produce patient-specific composite tissues for tooth tissue engineering using three-dimensional bioprinting technology

Biosynthesis of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyhexanoate) (P(HB-co-HHx)) from butyrate using engineered Ralstonia eutropha

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), a promising family of bio-based polymers, are considered to be alternatives to traditional petroleum-based plastics. Copolymers like poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyhexanoate) (P(HB-co-HHx)) have been shown to exhibit favorable physical and mechanical properties, due to decreased crystallinity resulting from the presence of medium-chain-length 3-hydroxyhexanoate (3HHx) monomers. In this study, we produced P(HB-co-HHx) using engineered Ralstonia eutropha strains containing deletions of the acetoacetyl-CoA reductase (phaB) genes and replacing the native PHA synthase with phaC2 from Rhodococcus aetherivorans I24 and by using butyrate, a short-chain organic acid, as the carbon source. Although the wild-type R. eutropha did not produce P(HB-co-HHx) when grown on mixed acids or on butyrate as the sole carbon source, we are able to produce polymer containing up to 40 wt% 3HHx monomer with the aforementioned engineered R. eutropha strains using various concentrations of just butyrate as the sole carbon source. This is the first report for the production of P(HB-co-HHx) copolymer in R. eutropha using butyrate.Korea Polar Research Institute. Polar Academic Program (PAP, PD13010)Korea (South). Rural Development Administration (Project No. 010205022014

The Protein Kinase C Inhibitor Aeb071 (Sotrastaurin) Modulates Migration and Superoxide Anion Production by Human Neutrophils In Vitro

We examined the effect of the protein kinase C-selective inhibitor AEB071 (sotrastaurin) on neutrophil functions in vitro. Pre-incubation with AEB071 at concentrations similar to those reached during in vivo therapy significantly reduced cell capacity to migrate toward three different chemo-attractants and to produce superoxide anions (O2) in response to phorbol myristate acetate (PMA) or to iV-formyl-methionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine (fMLP). AEB071 also significantly inhibited the O−2 "overproduction induced by fMLP in neutrophils primed with tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) or granulocyte/macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF). This inhibition was not linked to fMLP-receptor down-regulation since the drug had no effect on either fMLP-receptors or fMLP-induced CD11b membrane expression. When the activity of AEB071 was compared to that of the conventional protein kinase C (PKC) inhibitor Gö6850 (which, like sotrastaurin, inhibits classical and novel PKC isoforms), Gö6976 (an inhibitor of α and β PKC isoforms) and rottlerin (a prevailing δ PKC isoform inhibitor), AEB071 at an equimolar concentration of 3 μM (close to the maximum drug concentration reached in patients treated with AEB071) caused significantly more inhibition on both chemotactic response and superoxide production. These in vitro findings suggest that neutrophils may offer a cellular target for AEB071 activity in vivo

Proteomics-based dissection of biotic stress responsive proteins in bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

Proteomic techniques that allow the identification and quantification of stress-related proteins, mapping dynamics of their expression and post translational modifications represent an important approach in the research of plant stresses. Biotic stress is one of the major stresses limiting crop productivity and the geographical distribution of many important crops worldwide. Two hundred and seventeen protein spots reproducibly were detected from six gels by using two-dimensional electrophoresis. After tryptic digestion, MALDI-TOF/MS analysis and database searching of some of the identified proteins indicated that the proteins are known to be involved in several biotic stress related functions as disease associate with pathogens. Mass spectrometry analysis allowed the identification of 185 differential expressed proteins with isoforms including well known biotic stress  esponsive proteins. Keumgang (13%), Jinpum (8%), China-108 (14%), Yeonnon-67 (11%), Norin-61 (22%) and Kantou-107 (32%) were identified as biotic stress responses proteins directly coupled to disease and pathogen infection on wheat. Nevertheless, our studies provides new insights into identification of biotic stress responses protein in disease infected wheat grain by natural condition, the post-translational modification in  protein sequences, verify eventual differences among the genotypes in relation to them, and demonstrates the advantages of proteomic analysis.Key words: Biotic stress, matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight, proteomics, posttranslational modification, two-dimensional electrophoresis, wheat

Hybrid exotic meson with J^{PC}=1^{-+} in AdS/QCD

We investigate the hybrid exotic meson with $J^{PC}=1^{-+}$ within the framework of an AdS/QCD model. Introducing a holographic field dual to the operator for hybrid exotic meson, we obtain the eigen-value equation for its mass. Fixing all free parameters by QCD observables such as the $\rho$-meson mass, we predict the masses of the hybrid exotic meson. The results turn out to be $1476 \mathrm{MeV}$ for the ground state, and $2611 \mathrm{MeV}$ for the first excited one. Being compared with the existing experimental data for the $\pi_1(1400)$, which is known to be $m_{\pi_1} = 1351\pm30 \mathrm{MeV}$, the present result seems to be qualitative in agreement with it. We also predict the decay constant of $\pi_1$(1400): $F_{\pi_1}= 10.6$ MeV.Comment: 10 pages, 1 Tabl

Schisandrae Fructus ethanol extract ameliorates inflammatory responses and articular cartilage damage in monosodium iodoacetate-induced osteoarthritis in rats

Schisandrae Fructus, the fruit of Schisandra chinensis (Turcz.) Baill., is widely used in traditional medicine for the treatment of a number of chronic diseases. Although, Schisandrae Fructus was recently reported to attenuate the interleukin (IL)-1β-induced inflammatory response in chondrocytes in vitro, its protective and therapeutic potential against osteoarthritis (OA) in an animal model remains unclear. Therefore, we investigated the effects of the ethanol extract of Schisandrae Fructus (SF) on inflammatory responses and cartilage degradation in a monosodium iodoacetate (MIA)-induced OA rat model. Our results demonstrated that administration with SF had a tendency to attenuate MIA-induced damage of articular cartilage as determined by a histological grade of OA. SF significantly suppressed the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor-α in MIA-induced OA rats. SF also effectively inhibited expression of inducible nitric oxide (NO) synthase and cyclooxygenase-2, thereby inhibiting the release of NO and prostaglandin E2. In addition, the elevated levels of matrix metalloproteinases-13 and two biomarkers for diagnosis and progression of OA, such as cartilage oligomeric matrix protein and C-telopeptide of type II collagen, were markedly ameliorated by SF administration. These findings indicate that SF could be a potential candidate for the treatment of OA