Fibulin-4 is essential for maintaining arterial wall integrity in conduit but not muscular arteries

Homozygous or compound heterozygous mutations in fibulin-4 (FBLN4) lead to autosomal recessive cutis laxa type 1B (ARCL1B), a multisystem disorder characterized by significant cardiovascular abnormalities, including abnormal elastin assembly, arterial tortuosity, and aortic aneurysms. We sought to determine the consequences of a human disease-causing mutation in FBLN4 (E57K) on the cardiovascular system and vascular elastic fibers in a mouse model of ARCL1B. Fbln4E57K/E57K mice were hypertensive and developed arterial elongation, tortuosity, and ascending aortic aneurysms. Smooth muscle cell organization within the arterial wall of large conducting vessels was abnormal, and elastic fibers were fragmented and had a moth-eaten appearance. In contrast, vessel wall structure and elastic fiber integrity were normal in resistance/muscular arteries (renal, mesenteric, and saphenous). Elastin cross-linking and total elastin content were unchanged in large or small arteries, whereas elastic fiber architecture was abnormal in large vessels. While the E57K mutation did not affect Fbln4 mRNA levels, FBLN4 protein was lower in the ascending aorta of mutant animals compared to wild-type arteries but equivalent in mesenteric arteries. We found a differential role of FBLN4 in elastic fiber assembly, where it functions mainly in large conduit arteries. These results suggest that elastin assembly has different requirements depending on vessel type. Normal levels of elastin cross-links in mutant tissue call into question FBLN4\u27s suggested role in mediating lysyl oxidase-elastin interactions. Future studies investigating tissuespecific elastic fiber assembly may lead to novel therapeutic interventions for ARCL1B and other disorders of elastic fiber assembly. 2017 © The Authors, some rights reserved

The Observed Building Damage Associated with Fault Movement in 1999 Chi-Chi (Taiwan) Earthquake

The Chi-Chi earthquake caused severe damage of many buildings primarily due to surface faulting and ground shaking. It has been reported that about 10,000 buildings collapsed and 8000 buildings suffered varying degrees of damage. The observed damage to buildings resulted from many factors that include ground movement, acceleration, design code, and construction quality. The damage to buildings near the fault was attributed primarily to the ground movement. One observed phenomenon is that the damage in the up-lifted side (east side) of the rupture fault was much more severe than the opposing side (west side) of the fault mainly due to upward movement, surface tension, and surface faulting. This paper will summarize the raw data of observed damage along both sides-of the ruptured fault based upon assessment work performed on site in the Wu-Fong Township area to compare the damage quantitatively on the up-lifted side and the opposing side of the fault. The results of this study will provide insight into the building failures along the fault line

Gravitational Waves from Phase-Transition Induced Collapses of Neutron Stars

We study the gravitational wave signals emitted from phase-transition induced collapses of rapidly rotating neutron stars to strange stars by performing 3D numerical simulations. Our preliminary results suggest that the complete conversion of neutron stars to strange stars would occur within a fraction of millisecond. We also find that the gravitational waves generated from the collapse process may be detectable by the advanced LIGO for reasonable source distance. In addition, the study such gravitational wave signals would put useful constraint on the parameters of QCD

Calibration and Irradiation Study of the BGO Background Monitor for the BEAST II Experiment

Beam commissioning of the SuperKEKB collider began in 2016. The Beam Exorcism for A STable experiment II (BEAST II) project is particularly designed to measure the beam backgrounds around the interaction point of the SuperKEKB collider for the Belle II experiment. We develop a system using bismuth germanium oxide (BGO) crystals with optical fibers connecting to a multianode photomultiplier tube (MAPMT) and a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) embedded readout board for monitoring the real-time beam backgrounds in BEAST II. The overall radiation sensitivity of this system is estimated to be $(2.20\pm0.26)\times10^{-12}$ Gy/ADU (analog-to-digital unit) with the standard 10 m fibers for transmission and the MAPMT operating at 700 V. Our $\gamma$-ray irradiation study of the BGO system shows that the exposure of BGO crystals to $^{60}$Co $\gamma$-ray doses of 1 krad has led to immediate light output reductions of 25--40%, and the light outputs further drop by 30--45% after the crystals receive doses of 2--4 krad. Our findings agree with those of the previous studies on the radiation hard (RH) BGO crystals grown by the low thermal gradient Czochralski (LTG Cz) technology. The absolute dose from the BGO system is also consistent with the simulation, and is estimated to be about 1.18 times the equivalent dose. These results prove that the BGO system is able to monitor the background dose rate in real time under extreme high radiation conditions. This study concludes that the BGO system is reliable for the beam background study in BEAST II

Dark-Matter Admixed Neutron Stars

We study the hydrostatic equilibrium configuration of an admixture of degenerate dark matter and normal nuclear matter by using a general relativistic two-fluid formalism. We consider non- self-annihilating dark matter particles of mass ~ 1 GeV. The mass-radius relations and moments of inertia of these dark-matter admixed neutron stars are investigated and the stability of these stars is demonstrated by performing a radial perturbation analysis. We find a new class of compact stars which consists of a small normal matter core with radius of a few km embedded in a ten-kilometer- sized dark matter halo. These stellar objects may be observed as extraordinarily small neutron stars that are incompatible with realistic nuclear matter models.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

The acceptability and digestibility of microcapsules by larvae of Crassostrea virginica.

The acceptability and digestibility of microcapsules with gelatin-acacia and nylon-protein walls to larvae of Crassostrea virginica were assessed. Larvae were observed to ingest and digest the microcapsules. Gelatin-acacia microcapsules were more digestible than the nylon-protein microcapsules. Results indicated that both types of microcapsules supported some growth of larvae. Larvae fed cod liver oil encapsulated by gelatin-acacia walls grew as rapidly as larvae fed algae. Results also indicated that microcapsule concentration affected growth rate

Trajectory optimization and resource allocation for UAV base stations under in-band backhaul constraint

The application of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to emerging communication systems has attracted a lot of research interests due to the advantages of UAVs, such as high mobility, flexible deployment, and cost-effectiveness. The UAV-carried base stations (UAV-BS) can provide on-demand service to users in temporary or emergency events. However, how to optimize the communication performance of a UAV-BS with a limited-bandwidth wireless backhaul is still a challenge. This paper focuses on improving the spectrum efficiency of a UAV-BS while guaranteeing user fairness under in-band backhaul constraint. We propose to maximize the minimum user rate among all the users served by the UAV-BS by jointly optimizing the allocation of bandwidth and transmit power, as well as the trajectory of the UAV-BS. As the formulated problem is non-convex, we propose an efficient algorithm to solve it suboptimally based on the alternating optimization and successive convex optimization methods. Computer simulation results show that the proposed algorithm achieves a significantly higher minimum user rate than the benchmark schemes

Diabetes self-management experience: a focus group study of Taiwanese patients with type 2 diabetes

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/74770/1/j.1365-2702.2007.01962.x.pd