FURTHERING PHARMACOLOGICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT OF THE GLUTAMATERGIC RECEPTORS AT THE DROSOPHILA NEUROMUSCULAR JUNCTION

Drosophila larval neuromuscular junctions (NMJs) serve as a model for synaptic physiology. The molecular sequence of the postsynaptic glutamate receptors has been described; however, the pharmacological profile has not been fully elucidated. Despite the postsynaptic molecular sequence used to classify the receptors as a kainate subtype, they do not respond pharmacologically as such. Kainate does not depolarize the muscle, but dampens evoked EPSP amplitudes. Quantal responses show a decreased amplitude and area under the voltage curve indicative of reduced postsynaptic receptor sensitivity to glutamate transmission. ATPA, a kainate receptor agonist, did not mimic kainate’s action. The metabotropic glutamate receptor agonist t-ACPD had no effect. Domoic acid, a quisqualate receptor antagonist, blocks the postsynaptic receptors without depolarizing the muscle, which supports the presence of quisqualate subtype receptors. The results suggest a direct postsynaptic action of kainate due to partial antagonist action on the quisqualate receptors. There does not appear to be presynaptic auto-regulation via a kainate receptor subtype or a metabotropic auto-receptor. A complete pharmacological profiling of the known receptor subtypes at this NMJ has not yet occurred; however, this study aids in furthering the ongoing investigations to provide a clearer picture of pharmokinetic profile and specificity of the receptor subtypes

Numerical Simulations for Ground Motion Amplifications on the Gentle Hill during the 2017 ML5.4 Pohang Earthquake

Department of Urban and Environmental Engineering (Urban Infrastructure Engineering)The November, 15, 2017, Pohang, South Korea, earthquake with a local magnitude (ML) of 5.4 caused diverse damage to buildings near the epicenter. This study focuses on the correlation between ground motion amplifications by topographic effects and damage pattern at the town of Gokgang-ri. Severe damage such as cracks and collapses occurred in a northern part of the town located on slopes, plateaus, or ridges facing the epicenter, whereas only minor damage occurred to buildings located on the opposite side of the slope. Northern part and southern part of the town have similar geological and soil condition. Two aftershocks were recorded at temporary seismic stations. A series of numerical simulations were conducted using the recorded ground motions and soil properties were measured in Gokgang-ri. It turned out that there are large ground motion amplifications at the slopes and ridges facing the epicenter. The ground motion amplificationss are influenced by incidence angle. In this study, amplifications for input motions with incidence angles of 10?? and 15?? are relatively lager than those for input motions with 0?? and 20??.clos

MIDMs: Matching Interleaved Diffusion Models for Exemplar-based Image Translation

We present a novel method for exemplar-based image translation, called matching interleaved diffusion models (MIDMs). Most existing methods for this task were formulated as GAN-based matching-then-generation framework. However, in this framework, matching errors induced by the difficulty of semantic matching across cross-domain, e.g., sketch and photo, can be easily propagated to the generation step, which in turn leads to degenerated results. Motivated by the recent success of diffusion models overcoming the shortcomings of GANs, we incorporate the diffusion models to overcome these limitations. Specifically, we formulate a diffusion-based matching-and-generation framework that interleaves cross-domain matching and diffusion steps in the latent space by iteratively feeding the intermediate warp into the noising process and denoising it to generate a translated image. In addition, to improve the reliability of the diffusion process, we design a confidence-aware process using cycle-consistency to consider only confident regions during translation. Experimental results show that our MIDMs generate more plausible images than state-of-the-art methods

The Effect of Herbal Diet on Skeletal Muscle Mass After Resistance Training in Rats

Resistance training has been well established as an effective strategy for muscle hypertrophy, increase in skeletal muscle mass and strength. Herbal diet has been introduced as an alternative treatment to alleviate muscle atrophy and therapeutic intervention. However, there is little evidence on the effect of herbal diet on skeletal muscle mass. To investigate whether herbal diet affects skeletal muscle mass after resistance training in rats. Twenty-four rats were randomly divided into 3 groups: 1) Control (CON, N=8), 2) Resistance training (RT, N=8), 3) RT+Herb (RTH, N=8). Resistance training was performed every other day for 8 weeks using ladder climbing. The ladder climbing exercise consisted of 3 sets of 5 repetitions with a 1 min rest interval between the repetitions and a 2 min rest between the sets. Huang Qi (Radix Astragali Membranceus) was given via oral gavage once a day for 8 weeks (1 ml mixed with water based on concentration of 368 mg/kg). All rats received sham treatment, same as treatment groups. All data were analyzed using One-way ANOVA. After 8 weeks of interventions, muscle mass of Gastrocnemius, Plantaris, and Flexor hallucis longus showed significant increases in RT and RTH groups compared to CON (

Development of a Sensitive Electrochemical Enzymatic Reaction-Based Cholesterol Biosensor Using Nano-Sized Carbon Interdigitated Electrodes Decorated with Gold Nanoparticles

We developed a versatile and highly sensitive biosensor platform. The platform is based on electrochemical-enzymatic redox cycling induced by selective enzyme immobilization on nano-sized carbon interdigitated electrodes (IDEs) decorated with gold nanoparticles (AuNPs). Without resorting to sophisticated nanofabrication technologies, we used batch wafer-level carbon microelectromechanical systems (C-MEMS) processes to fabricate 3D carbon IDEs reproducibly, simply, and cost effectively. In addition, AuNPs were selectively electrodeposited on specific carbon nanoelectrodes; the high surface-to-volume ratio and fast electron transfer ability of AuNPs enhanced the electrochemical signal across these carbon IDEs. Gold nanoparticle characteristics such as size and morphology were reproducibly controlled by modulating the step-potential and time period in the electrodeposition processes. To detect cholesterol selectively using AuNP/carbon IDEs, cholesterol oxidase (ChOx) was selectively immobilized via the electrochemical reduction of the diazonium cation. The sensitivity of the AuNP/carbon IDE-based biosensor was ensured by efficient amplification of the redox mediators, ferricyanide and ferrocyanide, between selectively immobilized enzyme sites and both of the combs of AuNP/carbon IDEs. The presented AuNP/carbon IDE-based cholesterol biosensor exhibited a wide sensing range (0.005-10 mM) and high sensitivity (similar to 993.91 mu A mM(-1) cm(-2); limit of detection (LOD) similar to 1.28 mu M). In addition, the proposed cholesterol biosensor was found to be highly selective for the cholesterol detection