The Role of Nitric Oxide in Skeletal Simulated Microgravity Response

Prolonged exposure to the space environment leads to bone loss. Using a ground-based model for microgravity (hind-limb unloading), it has been shown in rodents that proliferation and differentiation activity of osteoprogenitors are decreased with exposure to simulated microgravity (Kostenuik et al., 1997). Osteoblast mineralization activity has been shown to increase with nitric oxide supplementation (Afzal et al., 2004; Koyama et al., 2000). I hypothesized that the degenerative effects of microgravity exposure result from chronic changes in nitric oxide regulation in osteoprogenitors, and that supplementation with exogenous nitric oxide following exposure would ameliorate these changes. In 20 C57Bl/6 mice, hind-limb unloading for up to 16 days resulted in degeneration of cancellous tissue in hind-limb bones and a decrease in inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) gene expression in both bone tissue and bone marrow cells. Ex vivo analyses of osteoprogenitor cells, however, showed no changes in differentiation potential or cell count, and supplementation with sodium nitroprusside (SNP) was not able to increase mineralization activity in hind-limb unloaded mice. It is concluded that exogenous nitric oxide supplementation is ineffective as a countermeasure to the effects of simulated microgravity exposure on bone cells

The Impact of Shigeru Miyamoto on the Game Design Industry

Nintendo started as a small company in the 1970s that sold playing cards. Having seen the exemplary gift in his son, Miyamoto\u27s father arranged for an interview with the president of Nintendo Hiroshi Yamauchi. Consequently, Miyamoto got a position in 1977 as an apprentice in the planning department after showing his toy creations to the president. He became the first Nintendo artist as he helped create the art for the first original coin-operated arcade game. The approach demonstrated his innate abilities that would help him become the ultimate guru in the industry. Through individual discovery, Miyamoto has managed to produce successful works such as Ice climber, which had great applaud from the public. Miyamoto’s uniqueness and brilliance has brought about the great significance to the game design industry in terms of commercial reception, awards, and recognition (DeMattia 55)

Application of Kalman Filtering for PV Power Prediction in Short-Term Economic Dispatch

The aim of this thesis is to predict the short-term power production of PhotoVoltaic (PV) power plants for the economic dispatch problem with the help of Kalman filtering. The Economic Dispatch (ED) problem in power systems is known as an optimization problem in which the cost of producing energy to reliably supply consumers is minimized, hence the power production is assigned to all the generating units that are dispatchable. Because of the generation cost of renewable energy such as PV is relatively low, it is advantageous to utilize. However, these resources are intermittent. These renewable resources bring a lot of uncertainty into the power system, their power cannot be pre-specified due to their weather dependent properties and therefore it is a big challenge to include them in the ED problem.;For this reason, the work in this thesis will focus on developing a predictive model built on Kalman Filtering for the short-term PV prediction. The model first predicts the solar irradiance and temperature based on an initial guess at each time period. Then, the Kalman filter will refine the results using sensor measurements so that the final estimated outputs from this filter can be used for better prediction in the next period. The PV electric power is then calculated since it is a function of irradiance and temperature.;The proposed methodology has been illustrated using the IEEE 24-bus reliability test system. The real data from National Renewable Energy Laboratory is used in this thesis as the actual outputs that the outputs of the predicting model should get close to. Finally, the performance of the proposed approach is obtained by comparing its results with the results from an available method called the persistent prediction method

Minari: The Concealed Asian Aspiration Wrapped in the American Dream

After the success of the Korean film Parasite, Minari – a quasi-autobiographical drama of the Korean-American film director Lee Isaac Chung – has again turned the global public’s attention to Korean culture at large. In this review, we shed light on two themes that we capture from the movie: tensions and compromises in chasing the American dream of immigrants. Although stories about pursuing the American dream are abundant, we know less about how that dream causes tensions at the individual and family levels and how the tensions are resolved. Minari is an excellent example to probe the unfolding issues relating to the challenges of Americanization