BMP4 inhibits myogenic differentiation of bone marrow–derived mesenchymal stromal cells in mdx mice

AbstractBackground aimsBone marrow–derived mesenchymal stromal cells (BMSCs) are a promising therapeutic option for treating Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). Myogenic differentiation occurs in the skeletal muscle of the mdx mouse (a mouse model of DMD) after BMSC transplantation. The transcription factor bone morphogenic protein 4 (BMP4) plays a crucial role in growth regulation, differentiation and survival of many cell types, including BMSCs. We treated BMSCs with BMP4 or the BMP antagonist noggin to examine the effects of BMP signaling on the myogenic potential of BMSCs in mdx mice.MethodsWe added BMP4 or noggin to cultured BMSCs under myogenic differentiation conditions. We then injected BMP4- or noggin-treated BMSCs into the muscles of mdx mice to determine their myogenic potential.ResultsWe found that the expression levels of desmin and myosin heavy chain decreased after treating BMSCs with BMP4, whereas the expression levels of phosphorylated Smad, a downstream target of BMP4, were higher in these BMSCs than in the controls. Mdx mouse muscles injected with BMSCs pretreated with BMP4 showed decreased dystrophin expression and increased phosphorylated Smad levels compared with muscles injected with non-treated BMSCs. The opposite effects were seen after pretreatment with noggin, as expected.ConclusionsOur results identified BMP/Smad signaling as an essential negative regulator of promyogenic BMSC activity; inhibition of this pathway improved the efficiency of BMSC myogenic differentiation, which suggests that this pathway might serve as a target to regulate BMSC function for better myogenic differentiation during treatment of DMD and degenerative skeletal muscle diseases

Serum Creatinine Level: A Supplemental Index to Distinguish Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy from Becker Muscular Dystrophy

Background. To improve assessment of dystrophinopathy, the aim of this study was to identify whether serum creatinine (Crn) level reflects disease severity. Methods. Biochemical, Vignos score, and genetic data were collected on 212 boys with dystrophinopathy. Results. Serum Crn level had a strong inverse correlation with Vignos score by simple correlation ( = −0.793) and partial correlation analysis after adjustment for age, height, and weight ( = −0.791; both < 0.01). Serum Crn level was significantly higher in patients with in-frame than out-of-frame mutations ( = −4.716, < 0.01) and in Becker muscular dystrophy (BMD) patients than Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) patients at ages 4, 5, 7, and 9 yr (all < 0.0125). After adjusting for age, height, and weight, BMD patients still had a significantly higher serum Crn level than DMD patients ( = 7.140, = 6.277, < 0.01). Conclusions. Serum Crn level reflected disease severity and may serve as a supplemental index to distinguish DMD from BMD in clinical practice

Waveform dissimilarity factor-based protection for main transformers in wind farms

Current differential protection (CDP) is widely used as main protection for transformers due to its high reliability and selectivity. Owing to non-fundamental frequency current, magnetizing inrush and current transformer (CT) saturation, CDP may undergo slow operating speed when the internal fault occurs. When the external fault occurs, CDP may false operate. Furthermore, given the disadvantage of Hausdorff distance being extremely sensitive to abnormal data, a new metric that reveals the dissimilarity degree of two waveforms is presented, namely waveform dissimilarity factor (WDF). WDF has inherent immunity to abnormal data. Subsequently, WDF-based protection for main transformer is proposed herein. In order to reduce the adverse effects of magnetizing inrush and CT saturation and accurately identify internal faults, the reward and punishment mechanism is designed. The protection principle is elaborated and its operating characteristics are analyzed under various conditions. Finally, by constructing the DFIG-based wind farm, PSCAD is used to verify the advantages of the novel protection algorithm based on WDF. Its performance is widely assessed in various scenarios in detail, including magnetizing inrushes, minor and server internal faults, inter-turn fault, turn-to-ground fault, internal fault with CT saturation and external fault with CT saturation, data loss, abnormal data, and CT error. The results show that the novel protection scheme has the characteristics of fast, secure, and robust

Rice Kernel Shape Description Using an Improved Fourier Descriptor

Part 1: Decision Support Systems, Intelligent Systems and Artificial Intelligence ApplicationsInternational audienceA Fourier descriptor is one of the best methods for describing object boundaries, but there are limitations in describing the boundary of rice kernels using traditional Fourier descriptors. An innovative approach was developed to describe rice kernel boundaries by improving a traditional Fourier descriptor. This radius Fourier descriptor (RFD) uses a radius set for rice kernel images as its basis function, and uses amplitude spectrum of Fourier transform for the radius set as its descriptor. This method only retains the first 9 components of RFD, which is simple and the dimension of the feature vector can be reduced greatly without concern for the initial starting point on the contour. The method was validated in terms of area computation, variety distance calculation, shape description, and detection of broken kernels using a backpropagation (BP) neural network for several varieties of rice kernels. The detection accuracy for whole rice kernels of different samples was 96%-100% and for broken rice kernels was 96.5%

Application Research of “Field” Theory in the Problem of Colleges and Universities Innovation Team Aggregation

Based on the field theory in physics, the thesis applies model construction and other methods to apply the research on the agglomeration problem of colleges’ and universities’ innovation teams and constructs the growth field model of colleges’ and universities’ innovation teams. The conclusions show that the “growth field” of the colleges’ and universities’ innovation team is composed of two elements: “hidden growth factor” and “dominant growth factor,” which have the directional and force acting; if the growth force is more powerful than the resistance, the team growth will move forward along the growth path; if the resultant force is greater than the power, it will enter the recession or be stagnant in advance. The growth path is different in the magnitude and direction of the force at each stage, and the growth path of the individual members of the team and the team as a whole is also different; there is agglomeration in the growth field, and the excellent academic leaders are particularly important. It is a process in which the field forces overlap each other, which will form a situation of continuous agglomeration and a virtuous cycle of interaction and find out the ways to integrate and enhance the ability of colleges’ and universities’ innovation teams under the field effect, in order to achieve the goal of attracting talents to join, optimizing and integrating within the team, improving the overall ability of the team, and increasing outputs

Experimental Investigation Of The Real Contact Arc Length Measurement In The Cylindrical Plunge Grinding

The real contact arc length in grinding is one of the most important indicators in investigating of the material removal mechanism for precision machining. It is generally affected by a combination of plastic and thermal deformations in the machining process. This paper will provide a systematic investigation of the contact arc length in the cylindrical grinding of titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V. A series of single grit experiments and grinding temperature measurements, together with FEM simulation, will be utilized to determine the real contact arc length. The contact behavior between a grinding wheel and the workpiece was investigated by the contact time in the workpice surface temperature curves. It was found that in FEM simulation, the real contact length was about 2 times of the geometric length. With the experimental results of the different grinding parameters, the real contact lengths calculated by temperature curves were about 1.5 - 2 times of the geometric length