Benchmarks of subcriticality in accelerator-driven system at Kyoto University Critical Assembly

Basic research on the accelerator-driven system is conducted by combining U-235-fueled and Th-232-loaded cores in the Kyoto University Critical Assembly with the pulsed neutron generator (14 MeV neutrons) and the proton beam accelerator (100 MeV protons with a heavy metal target). The results of experimental subcriticality are presented with a wide range of subcriticality level between near critical and 10,000 pcm, as obtained by the pulsed neutron source method, the Feynman-alpha method, and the neutron source multiplication method

Factors Affect Students’ Satisfaction In Blended Learning Courses In A Private University In Vietnam

Blended learning, a combination of online and offline learning, is believed to enhance students’ self-learning, and help increase their learning performances. To successfully operate a blended learning system, increasing the learners’ satisfaction seems to be an important task. Moreover, there should be a duty to understand the self-efficacy of a student to encourage them to participate in this course (Chen & Yao, 2016). As a result, knowing the internal or external factors that influence student satisfaction in blended learning is critical for the effective design of blended learning courses in the future (Graham, Henrie, & Gibbons, 2013). In this study, a 76-item survey questionnaire with a five-level Likert scale was administered to 2403 students, in which 453 returned but just 345 responses were qualified for data analysis. The questionnaire was adapted from the previous studies by Reid (1984), Wu, Hsia, Liao, & Tennyson (2008), Ali (2011), Azawei (2017). The results divulged that a) social environment and cognitive factors had significantly positive correlations with students’ satisfaction in a BL course, in which social factors have a higher relation, b) learning climate and perceived usefulness are the two factors having the most significant impact on student satisfaction, while c) students’ learning styles have the lowest correlation, but positive to the other variables. The pedagogical implications and limitations of study are also discussed

Scleroderma, Stress and CAM Utilization

Scleroderma is an autoimmune disease influenced by interplay among genetic and environmental factors, of which one is stress. Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is frequently used to treat stress and those diseases in which stress has been implicated. Results are presented from a survey of patients with scleroderma. Respondents were a convenient sample of those attending a national conference in Las Vegas in 2002. Findings implicate stress in the onset, continuation and exacerbation of scleroderma. The implication is that CAM providers may be filling an important patient need in their provision of services that identify and treat stress and its related disorders

Investigating the diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi from Gymnema sylvestre and Curcuma longa in Vietnam

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are soil eukaryotes that belong to phylum Glomeromycota and have symbiosis with the vast majority of higher plants’ roots. AM fungi are believed to be coevolved with terrestrial plants, the abundance and diversity of AM fungal communities as a result are host plant dependent. A survey of AM fungi from the rhizospheres of medicinal plants in Northern Vietnam including gurma Gymnema sylvestre and turmeric Curcuma longa was carried out. From the extracted total DNAs of the medicinal plants’ rhizosphere soil samples, 35 mycorrhizal fungal species were identified by analyzing small subunit rRNA gene sequences. Result revealed that genus Glomus is the most abundant in the AM communities of G. sylvestre and C. longa, followed by Gigaspora and Acaulospora. Besides, AM species belonging to genera Scutellospora, Diversispora and Rhizophagus were observed in almost all rhizosphere soil samples. The spore counting by wet sieving and decanting method uncovered a variation in AM spore density of gurma and turmeric rhizosphere. In general, AM species were found more abundantly and more diverse in collected rhizome soil samples of C. longa (27 species belonging to 10 genera) than of G. sylvestre (17 species found belonging to 7 genera). The observed difference in AM communities of G. sylvestre and C. longa supports evidence for the dependence of AM fungal species on host plants, and indicates that AM fungi may have relation to the host plants’ secondary metabolite production

Charge separation: From the topology of molecular electronic transitions to the dye/semiconductor interfacial energetics and kinetics

Charge separation properties, that is the ability of a chromophore, or a chromophore/semiconductor interface, to separate charges upon light absorption, are crucial characteristics for an efficient photovoltaic device. Starting from this concept, we devote the first part of this book chapter to the topological analysis of molecular electronic transitions induced by photon capture. Such analysis can be either qualitative or quantitative, and is presented here in the framework of the reduced density matrix theory applied to single-reference, multiconfigurational excited states. The qualitative strategies are separated into density-based and wave function-based approaches, while the quantitative methods reported here for analysing the photoinduced charge transfer nature are either fragment-based, global or statistical. In the second part of this chapter we extend the analysis to dye-sensitized metal oxide surface models, discussing interfacial charge separation, energetics and electron injection kinetics from the dye excited state to the semiconductor conduction band states

Spatiotemporal evolution of SARS-CoV-2 Alpha and Delta variants during large nationwide outbreak of COVID-19, Vietnam, 2021

We analyzed 1,303 SARS-CoV-2 whole-genome sequences from Vietnam, and found the Alpha and Delta variants were responsible for a large nationwide outbreak of COVID-19 in 2021. The Delta variant was confined to the AY.57 lineage and caused >1.7 million infections and >32,000 deaths. Viral transmission was strongly affected by nonpharmaceutical interventions

Functional Remineralization of Dentin Lesions Using Polymer-Induced Liquid-Precursor Process

It was hypothesized that applying the polymer-induced liquid-precursor (PILP) system to artificial lesions would result in time-dependent functional remineralization of carious dentin lesions that restores the mechanical properties of demineralized dentin matrix. 140 µm deep artificial caries lesions were remineralized via the PILP process for 7–28 days at 37°C to determine temporal remineralization characteristics. Poly-L-aspartic acid (27 KDa) was used as the polymeric process-directing agent and was added to the remineralization solution at a calcium-to-phosphate ratio of 2.14 (mol/mol). Nanomechanical properties of hydrated artificial lesions had a low reduced elastic modulus (ER = 0.2 GPa) region extending about 70 μm into the lesion, with a sloped region to about 140 μm where values reached normal dentin (18–20 GPa). After 7 days specimens recovered mechanical properties in the sloped region by 51% compared to the artificial lesion. Between 7–14 days, recovery of the outer portion of the lesion continued to a level of about 10 GPa with 74% improvement. 28 days of PILP mineralization resulted in 91% improvement of ER compared to the artificial lesion. These differences were statistically significant as determined from change-point diagrams. Mineral profiles determined by micro x-ray computed tomography were shallower than those determined by nanoindentation, and showed similar changes over time, but full mineral recovery occurred after 14 days in both the outer and sloped portions of the lesion. Scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive x-ray analysis showed similar morphologies that were distinct from normal dentin with a clear line of demarcation between the outer and sloped portions of the lesion. Transmission electron microscopy and selected area electron diffraction showed that the starting lesions contained some residual mineral in the outer portions, which exhibited poor crystallinity. During remineralization, intrafibrillar mineral increased and crystallinity improved with intrafibrillar mineral exhibiting the orientation found in normal dentin or bone

TextANIMAR: Text-based 3D Animal Fine-Grained Retrieval

3D object retrieval is an important yet challenging task, which has drawn more and more attention in recent years. While existing approaches have made strides in addressing this issue, they are often limited to restricted settings such as image and sketch queries, which are often unfriendly interactions for common users. In order to overcome these limitations, this paper presents a novel SHREC challenge track focusing on text-based fine-grained retrieval of 3D animal models. Unlike previous SHREC challenge tracks, the proposed task is considerably more challenging, requiring participants to develop innovative approaches to tackle the problem of text-based retrieval. Despite the increased difficulty, we believe that this task has the potential to drive useful applications in practice and facilitate more intuitive interactions with 3D objects. Five groups participated in our competition, submitting a total of 114 runs. While the results obtained in our competition are satisfactory, we note that the challenges presented by this task are far from being fully solved. As such, we provide insights into potential areas for future research and improvements. We believe that we can help push the boundaries of 3D object retrieval and facilitate more user-friendly interactions via vision-language technologies.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2304.0573

Constitutive activation of glycogen synthase kinase-3β correlates with better prognosis and cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors in human gastric cancer

Background: Aberrant regulation of glycogen synthase kinase-3 beta (GSK-3 beta) has been implicated in several human cancers; however, it has not been reported in the gastric cancer tissues to date. The present study was performed to determine the expression status of active form of GSK-3 beta phosphorylated at Tyr(216) (pGSK-3 beta) and its relationship with other tumor-associated proteins in human gastric cancers. Methods: Immunohistochemistry was performed on tissue array slides containing 281 human gastric carcinoma specimens. In addition, gastric cancer cells were cultured and treated with a GSK-3 beta inhibitor lithium chloride (LiCl) for immunoblot analysis. Results: We found that pGSK-3 beta was expressed in 129 (46%) of 281 cases examined, and was higher in the early-stages of pathologic tumor-node-metastasis (P < 0.001). The expression of pGSK-3 beta inversely correlated with lymphatic invasion (P < 0.001) and lymph node metastasis (P < 0.001) and correlated with a longer patient survival (P < 0.001). In addition, pGSK-3 beta expression positively correlated with that of p16, p21, p27, p53, APC, PTEN, MGMT, SMAD4, or KAl1 (P < 0.05), but not with that of cyclin D1. This was confirmed by immunoblot analysis using SNU-668 gastric cancer cells treated with LiCl. Conclusions: GSK-3 beta activation was frequently observed in early-stage gastric carcinoma and was significantly correlated with better prognosis. Thus, these findings suggest that GSK-3 beta activation is a useful prognostic marker for the early-stage gastric cancer.Hirakawa H, 2009, ONCOL REP, V22, P481, DOI 10.3892/or_00000460Dar AA, 2009, ONCOGENE, V28, P866, DOI 10.1038/onc.2008.434Holmes T, 2008, STEM CELLS, V26, P1288, DOI 10.1634/stemcells.2007-0600Wang Q, 2008, CELL DEATH DIFFER, V15, P908, DOI 10.1038/cdd.2008.2Takahashi-Yanaga F, 2008, CELL SIGNAL, V20, P581, DOI 10.1016/j.cellsig.2007.10.018Pan MH, 2007, J AGR FOOD CHEM, V55, P7777, DOI 10.1021/jf071520hShakoori A, 2007, CANCER SCI, V98, P1388, DOI 10.1111/j.1349-7006.2007.00545.xZheng HC, 2007, ANTICANCER RES, V27, P3561Saegusa M, 2007, J PATHOL, V213, P35, DOI 10.1002/path.2198Ma C, 2007, CANCER RES, V67, P7756, DOI 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-06-4665Forde JE, 2007, CELL MOL LIFE SCI, V64, P1930, DOI 10.1007/s00018-007-7045-7Li YW, 2007, J BIOL CHEM, V282, P21542, DOI 10.1074/jbc.M701978200Ding QQ, 2007, CANCER RES, V67, P4564, DOI 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-06-1788Kunnimalaiyaan M, 2007, MOL CANCER THER, V6, P1151, DOI 10.1158/1535-7163.MCT-06-0665Soto-Cerrato V, 2007, MOL CANCER THER, V6, P362, DOI 10.1158/1535-7163.MCT-06-0266Cao Q, 2006, CELL RES, V16, P671, DOI 10.1038/sj.cr.7310078Yang CH, 2006, PRECIS AGRIC, V7, P33, DOI 10.1007/s11119-005-6788-0Crew KD, 2006, WORLD J GASTROENTERO, V12, P354Mai W, 2007, ONCOLOGY-BASEL, V71, P297, DOI 10.1159/000106429Tan J, 2005, CANCER RES, V65, P9012, DOI 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-05-1226Shakoori A, 2005, BIOCHEM BIOPH RES CO, V334, P1365, DOI 10.1016/j.bbrc.2005.07.041Farago M, 2005, CANCER RES, V65, P5792Ghosh JC, 2005, CLIN CANCER RES, V11, P4580Liao XB, 2003, MOL CANCER THER, V2, P1215Lee HS, 2003, J PATHOL, V200, P39, DOI 10.1002/path.1288Doble BW, 2003, J CELL SCI, V116, P1175, DOI 10.1242/jcs.00384Gotoh J, 2003, CARCINOGENESIS, V24, P435Goto H, 2002, ORAL ONCOL, V38, P549Lee HS, 2001, INT J CANCER, V91, P619D`Amico M, 2000, J BIOL CHEM, V275, P32649, DOI 10.1074/jbc.M000643200Endoh Y, 2000, J PATHOL, V191, P257Wu LY, 1998, J NATL MED ASSOC, V90, P410WOODGETT JR, 1984, BIOCHIM BIOPHYS ACTA, V788, P339