Angiogenic and Neurotrophic Effects of Human Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cell-Derived Conditioned Medium for Erectile Dysfunction

Department of Biomedical EngineeringA three-dimensional spheroid culture system to harvest conditioned medium (CM) from human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hBM-MSCs) with high efficiency were introduced and investigated the therapeutic effects of hBM-MSC-CM on erectile dysfunction (ED). In order to harvest CM with higher protein concentration than CM harvested by conventional method in 2D culture system, a variable parameter study considering the culture conditions such as spheroid diameter and centrifugation time was performed. As a result, it was confirmed that CM harvested from 3D spheroid culture system had much more proteins than those cultured in 2D environment. In addition, the total protein concentration in CM increased in proportion to the centrifugation time using a centrifugal filter. Additionally, ELISA and secretome assay showed that CM contained growth factors that help in angiogenesis such as angiogenin (ANG) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and in nerve regeneration like glial cell-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), nerve growth factor (NGF), and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Also, it was identified that angiogenic effects of CM contributing to tube, node and mesh formation of endothelial cells was proportional to the concentration of CM in vitro tube formation assay. Then, histomorphometric studies such as immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence were performed using the cavernous nerve (CN) injury rat model. In result, histomorphometric analysis showed that neural regeneration and vascular regeneration increased along with CM concentration. To sum up, we established an efficient method to obtain hBM-MSC-CM containing high concentration of growth factors, which is expected to be one of the promising methods of regenerative medicine for treating ED disease.clos

Technology innovation & green policy in Korea

The new growth engine in the 21stcentury depends on an innovative system to create, distribute and apply knowledge to industrialization processes. The industrial technology has been developed rapidly with the progress of knowledge based information in the last decade. In this point of view a cooperative partnership between industry and academy becomes much more important and necessary. Strategically fostering such cooperations and promoting rapid technology development have been reached with industrial clusterization in the last 20 years in Korea. --

D0 dimuon charge asymmetry from B_s system with Z' couplings and the recent LHCb result

The D0 collaboration has announced the observation of the like-sign dimuon charge asymmetry since 2010, which has more than 3\sigma deviation from the Standard Model prediction. One of the promising explanation is considering the existence of flavor changing Z' couplings to the b and s quarks which can contribute to the off-diagonal decay width in the B_s - \bar{B}_s mixing. Model construction is highly constrained by the recent LHCb data of 1fb^{-1} integrated luminosity . In this paper, we analyze the experimental constraints in constructing new physics models to explain the dimuon charge asymmetry from the CP violation of the B_s system. We present limits on Z' couplings and show that it is impossible to obtain the 1\sigma range of the dimuon charge asymmetry without the new contribution in the B_d system. Even with arbitrary contribution in the B_d system, the new couplings must be in the fine tuned region.Comment: 34 pages, 12 figures, Additional analyses and references are updated. (Conclusion unchanged.

Who Is Caring for the Caregiver? The Role of Cybercoping for Dementia Caregivers

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between dementia caregivers’ communication behaviors (information seeking and forwarding) and their outcomes (coping outcomes: e.g., dealing better with negative feelings or improved medical outcomes). A survey data set of dementia patients’ caregivers substantiates the effects of communication behaviors about dementia illness on coping outcomes, as well as the mediating role of emotion-focused and problem-focused coping processes. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), this study found positive effects of communication behaviors on outcomes through coping processes. Further, the results indicate that communication behaviors in cyberspace are crucial for caregivers to cope with dementia, both affectively (improvement of caregivers’ emotional control) and physically (health improvement of patients). The implications for the improvement of public health through online health communication behaviors are discussed

New Vector Boson Near the Z-pole and the Puzzle in Precision Electroweak Data

We show that a Z' with suppressed couplings to the electron compared to the Z-boson, with couplings to the b-quark, and with a mass close to the mass of the Z-boson, provides an excellent fit to forward-backward asymmetry of the b-quark and R_b measured on the Z-pole and $\pm 2$ GeV off the Z-pole, and to A_e obtained from the measurement of left-right asymmetry for hadronic final states. It also leads to a significant improvement in the total hadronic cross section on the Z-pole and R_b measured at energies above the Z-pole. In addition, with a proper mass, it can explain the excess of $Zb\bar b$ events at LEP in the 90-105 GeV region of the $b\bar b$ invariant mass.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur

Z' near the Z-pole

We present a fit to precision electroweak data in the standard model extended by an additional vector boson, Z', with suppressed couplings to the electron compared to the Z boson, with couplings to the b-quark, and with mass close to the mass of the Z boson. This scenario provides an excellent fit to forward-backward asymmetry of the b-quark measured on the Z-pole and \pm 2 GeV off the Z-pole, and to lepton asymmetry, A_e, obtained from the measurement of left-right asymmetry for hadronic final states, and thus it removes the tension in the determination of the weak mixing angle from these two measurements. It also leads to a significant improvement in the total hadronic cross section on the Z-pole and R_b measured at energies above the Z-pole. We explore in detail properties of the Z' needed to explain the data and present a model for Z' with required couplings. The model preserves standard model Yukawa couplings, it is anomaly free and can be embedded into grand unified theories. It allows a choice of parameters that does not generate any flavor violating couplings of the Z' to standard model fermions. Out of standard model couplings, it only negligibly modifies the left-handed bottom quark coupling to the Z boson and the 3rd column of the CKM matrix. Modifications of standard model couplings in the charged lepton sector are also negligible. It predicts an additional down type quark, D, with mass in a few hundred GeV range, and an extra lepton doublet, L, possibly much heavier than the D quark. We discuss signatures of the Z' at the Large Hadron Collider and calculate the Z'b production cross section which is the dominant production mechanism for the Z'.Comment: 26 pages, 18 figures, minor modifications, one fig. added, results unchange

Highly tunable repetition-rate multiplication of mode-locked lasers using all-fibre harmonic injection locking

Higher repetition-rate optical pulse trains have been desired for various applications such as high-bit-rate optical communication, photonic analogue-to-digital conversion, and multi- photon imaging. Generation of multi GHz and higher repetition-rate optical pulse trains directly from mode-locked oscillators is often challenging. As an alternative, harmonic injection locking can be applied for extra-cavity repetition-rate multiplication (RRM). Here we have investigated the operation conditions and achievable performances of all-fibre, highly tunable harmonic injection locking-based pulse RRM. We show that, with slight tuning of slave laser length, highly tunable RRM is possible from a multiplication factor of 2 to >100. The resulting maximum SMSR is 41 dB when multiplied by a factor of two. We further characterize the noise properties of the multiplied signal in terms of phase noise and relative intensity noise. The resulting absolute rms timing jitter of the multiplied signal is in the range of 20 fs to 60 fs (10 kHz - 1 MHz) for different multiplication factors. With its high tunability, simple and robust all-fibre implementation, and low excess noise, the demonstrated RRM system may find diverse applications in microwave photonics, optical communications, photonic analogue-to-digital conversion, and clock distribution networks.Comment: 25 pages, 9 figure