Chitinolytic Bacteria-Assisted Conversion of Squid Pen and Its Effect on Dyes and Pigments Adsorption

[[abstract]]The aim of this work was to produce chitosanase by fermenting from squid pen, and recover the fermented squid pen for dye removal by adsorption. One chitosanase induced from squid pen powder (SPP)-containing medium by Bacillus cereus TKU034 was purified in high purification fold (441) and high yield of activity recovery (51%) by ammonium sulfate precipitation and combined column chromatography. The SDS-PAGE results showed its molecular mass to be around 43 kDa. The TKU034 chitosanase used for the chitooligomers preparation was studied. The enzyme products revealed that the chitosanase could degrade chitosan with various degrees of polymerization, ranging from 3 to 9, as well as the chitosanase in an endolytic manner. Besides, the fermented SPP was recovered and displayed a better adsorption rate (up to 99.5%) for the disperse dyes (red, yellow, blue, and black) than the water-soluble food colorants, Allura Red AC (R40) and Tartrazine (Y4). The adsorbed R40 on the unfermented SPP and the fermented SPP was eluted by distilled water and 1 M NaOH to confirm the dye adsorption mechanism. The fermented SPP had a slightly higher adsorption capacity than the unfermented, and elution of the dye from the fermented SPP was easier than from the unfermented. The main dye adsorption mechanism of fermented SPP was physical adsorption, while the adsorption mechanism of unfermented SPP was chemical adsorption.[[notice]]補正完

Joint determination of lease period and preventive maintenance policy for leased equipment with residual value

a b s t r a c t This paper investigates the influence of the length of the lease period on the maintenance policy for leased equipment with residual value. The length of the lease period increases, however, the lessor's income increases, and the maintenance cost of the equipment rises as well. Therefore, the lease payment and maintenance service of the equipment are crucial items in the lease contract for the lessor's profit. If the equipment breaks down within the lease period, minimal repairs will be performed on the equipment and the lessor may incur a penalty cost if the repair time exceeds a pre-specified tolerable time. The imperfect preventive maintenance (PM) actions are carried out when the age of the equipment reaches a controlled-limit during the lease period. Under this maintenance scheme, the mathematical model of profit is constructed and then the optimal maintenance policy and the length of the lease period are obtained such that the expected total profit is maximized. Finally, numerical examples are given to illustrate the effects of the optimal length of the lease period and the maintenance policy for profit model

Influence of Socioeconomic Factors, Gender and Indigenous Status on Smoking in Taiwan.

The indigenous Austronesian minority of Taiwan is heavily affected by health disparities which may include suffering from a greater burden of the tobacco epidemic. While a lack of representative data has historically precluded an investigation of the differences in smoking between Taiwanese ethnicities, these data have recently become available through an annual population-based telephone survey conducted by the Health Promotion Administration, Ministry of Health and Welfare (previously known as the Bureau of Health Promotion (BHP), Department of Health). We used the BHP monitoring data to observe the prevalence of smoking and environmental tobacco smoke exposure among indigenous and non-indigenous Taiwanese surrounding a tobacco welfare tax increase in 2006, investigate ethnic differences in smoking prevalence and environmental tobacco smoke exposure each year between 2005 and 2008, and perform multiple logistic regression to estimate measures of association between potential risk factors and smoking status. Despite significant ethnic and gender differences in smoking prevalence, smoking status was not found to be significantly associated with ethnicity after controlling for socioeconomic and demographic factors

Mitigating Routing Misbehavior Using Ant-Tabu-Based Routing Algorithm for Wireless Ad-Hoc

Summary Routing is a key factor in the design of modern communication networks, especially in wireless ad-hoc networks (WANs). In WANs, both selfish and malicious nodes are misbehaving nodes and cause severely routing and security problems. Selfish nodes may drop routing and data packets and malicious nodes may redirect the packets to another routing path or launch denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. In this paper, an efficient routing algorithm is proposed, Ant-Tabu-Based Routing Algorithm (ATBRA), to mitigate selfish problem and reduce routing overheads. In ATBRA, both the concepts of ant-based routing algorithm and Tabu search are applied. We compare the performance of the proposed scheme with that of DSR in terms of two performance metrics: successful delivery rate (SDR) and routing overhead (RO). By comparisons, we notice that the proposed algorithm outperforms DSR in all two categories. The simulation results also indicate that the proposed algorithm is more efficient than DSR

A balanced homodyne detector for high-rate Gaussian-modulated coherent-state quantum key distribution

We discuss excess noise contributions of a practical balanced homodyne detector in Gaussian-modulated coherent-state (GMCS) quantum key distribution (QKD). We point out the key generated from the original realistic model of GMCS QKD may not be secure. In our refined realistic model, we take into account excess noise due to the finite bandwidth of the homodyne detector and the fluctuation of the local oscillator. A high speed balanced homodyne detector suitable for GMCS QKD in the telecommunication wavelength region is built and experimentally tested. The 3dB bandwidth of the balanced homodyne detector is found to be 104MHz and its electronic noise level is 13dB below the shot noise at a local oscillator level of 8.5*10^8 photon per pulse. The secure key rate of a GMCS QKD experiment with this homodyne detector is expected to reach Mbits/s over a few kilometers.Comment: 22 pages, 11 figure

Network Biology of Tumor Stem-like Cells Identified a Regulatory Role of CBX5 in Lung Cancer

Mounting evidence links cancers possessing stem-like properties with worse prognosis. Network biology with signal processing mechanics was explored here using expression profiles of a panel of tumor stem-like cells (TSLCs). The profiles were compared to their parental tumor cells (PTCs) and the human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), for the identification of gene chromobox homolog 5, CBX5, as a potential target for lung cancer. CBX5 was found to regulate the stem-like properties of lung TSLCs and was predictive of lung cancer prognosis. The investigation was facilitated by finding target genes based on modeling epistatic signaling mechanics via a predictive and scalable network-based survival model. Topologically-weighted measurements of CBX5 were synchronized with those of BIRC5, DNMT1, E2F1, ESR1, MLH1, MSH2, RB1, SMAD1 and TAF5. We validated our findings in another Taiwanese lung cancer cohort, as well as in knockdown experiments using sh-CBX5 RNAi both in vitro and in vivo.National Science Council (China) (NSC grant 100-2325-B-010-010-MY3/98-2314-B-010-024-MY2/97-3111-B075-001-MY3/ 96-2314-075-056-MY3)National Yang-Ming University (Ministry of Education, Aim for the Top University Plan: 96ADD122, 96ADD125, 96ADT191, 97ACD113, 97ACT302, 98ACT302, 98ACD107, 98ACT192 and Brain Research Center-3T-MRI project)))Taipei Veterans General Hospital (98-C1-099/E1-003/ER3-001)Taipei Veterans General Hospital (Joint Projects of VGHUST (98-G6-6/ 98-P1-01/99-P6-39)Chi Mei Medical Center (CMYM9801)Yen-Tjing-Ling Medical Foundation (96/97/98)Taipei City Hospital (96-002-62-092)Technology Development Program for Academia (TDPA; 98-EC-17-A-19-S2-0107)Taiwan. Department of Industrial Technology, Ministry of Economic AffairsNational Science Council (China) (NSC 101-2325-B-010 -009)Taiwan. Department of Health. Cancer Research Center of Excellence (DOH101-TD-C-111-007

Prevention and early management of carotid blowout syndrome for patients receiving head and neck salvage boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT)

Background/purpose The incidence rate of oral and pharyngeal cancers in Taiwan has increased gradually over the past few decades. The standard treatment strategy for oral and pharyngeal cancers includes surgery or radiotherapy, with concurrent chemotherapy in certain types of tumors. Unfortunately, in-field recurrence is sometimes inexorable. Furthermore, re-irradiation of the recurrence site may cause severe complications due to the tolerance of normal tissue to radiation therapy. One fatal complication is carotid blowout syndrome (CBS). Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) is a new modality of radiation therapy, which is also mentioned as targeted radiotherapy. It is a feasible treatment that has the potential to spare normal tissue from being damaged by irradiation while simultaneously treating the primary tumor. In this presentation, we will share our experience with BNCT in treating recurrent head and neck cancers, as well as the prevention and management of CBS. Materials and methods We evaluated 4 patients with head and neck cancers treated by BNCT in Taiwan. All patients had undergone surgery previously and had received postoperative concurrent chemoradiotherapy. Results The 4 patients in this study were diagnosed with head and neck malignancies. The median follow-up period after the first course of BNCT was 15.1 months. After BNCT, 2 patients developed impending CBS, and 1 of them died. The remaining 3 patients survived until the last date of follow-up. Conclusion Pre-BNCT carotid artery evaluation through computed tomography angiography and early intervention if necessary is crucial when treating patients with recurrent head and neck cancers by BNCT

Switch activation of PI-PLC downstream signals in activated macrophages with wortmannin

AbstractPhosphatidylinositol (4,5)-bisphosphate (PtdIns(4,5)P2) has been known to serve as a substrate for phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) and phosphoinositide-specific phospholipase C (PI-PLC), which can produce PtdIns(3,4,5)P3 and inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (Ins(1,4,5)P3) and diacylglycerol (DAG), respectively. In this study, we elucidated the role of PI-PLC during the LPS-activated mouse macrophages RAW264.7 treated with PI3K inhibitor wortmannin. First, wortmannin treatment enhanced Ins(1,4,5)P3 production and iNOS expression in LPS-activated macrophages. Inhibition of PI3K by p85 siRNA also showed an enhancement of iNOS expression. On the other hand, overexpression of PI3K by ras-p110 expression plasmid significantly decreased iNOS expression in LPS-activated macrophages. In addition, overexpression of wild-type or dominant-negative Akt expression plasmid did not affect the iNOS expression in LPS-activated macrophages. Second, treatment of PI-PLC inhibitor U73122 reversed the enhancement of iNOS expression, the increase of phosphorylation level of ERK, JNK and p38, and the increase of AP-1-dependent gene expression in wortmannin-treated and LPS-activated macrophages. However, NF-κB activity determined by EMSA assay and reporter plasmid assay did not change during LPS-activated macrophages with or without wortmannin. We propose that the inhibition of PI3K by wortmannin in mouse macrophages enhances the PI-PLC downstream signals, and subsequently increases the LPS induction of iNOS expression independently of Akt pathway

Sibling recurrence risk ratio analysis of the metabolic syndrome and its components over time

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to estimate both cross-sectional sibling recurrence risk ratio (λ(s)) and lifetime λ(s )for the metabolic syndrome and its individual components over time among sibships in the prospectively followed-up cohorts provided by the Genetic Analysis Workshop 13. Five measures included in the operational criteria of the metabolic syndrome by the Adult Treatment Panel III were examined. A method for estimating sibling recurrence risk with correction for complete ascertainment was used to estimate the numerator, and the prevalence in the whole cohort was used as the denominator of λ(s). RESULTS: Considerable variability in the λ(s )was found in terms of different time-points for the cross-sectional definition, the times of fulfilling the criterion for lifetime definition, and different components. Obesity and hyperglycemia had the highest cross-sectional λ(s )of the five components. Both components also had the largest slopes in the linear trend of the lifetime λ(s). However, the magnitudes of the lifetime λ(s )were similar to that of the mean cross-sectional λ(s), which were <2. The results of nonparametric linkage analysis showed only suggestive evidence of linkage between one marker and lifetime diagnosis of low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and metabolic syndrome, respectively. CONCLUSION: The λ(s )of the metabolic syndrome and its components varies substantially across time, and the λ(s )of lifetime diagnosis was not necessarily larger than that of a cross-sectional diagnosis. The magnitude of λ(s )does not predict well the maximum LOD score of linkage analysis