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

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 $N\times N \times R$ vector operations, where $N$ is the number of entities and $R$ 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. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

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 $uv$ 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 $5c$. This constrains the lower limits of the intrinsic component velocities to $\sim0.98c$ and the upper limits of the angle between jet and line of sight to $\sim$20$\deg$. In agreement with global jet expansion, jet components show systematically larger diameters $d$ at larger core distances $r$, following the global relation $d\approx0.2r$, 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