PexRAP inhibits PRDM16-mediated thermogenic gene expression

How the nuclear receptor PPARγ regulates the development of two functionally distinct types of adipose tissue, brown and white fat, as well as the browning of white fat, remains unclear. Our previous studies suggest that PexRAP, a peroxisomal lipid synthetic enzyme, regulates PPARγ signaling and white adipogenesis. Here, we show that PexRAP is an inhibitor of brown adipocyte gene expression. PexRAP inactivation promoted adipocyte browning, increased energy expenditure, and decreased adiposity. Identification of PexRAP-interacting proteins suggests that PexRAP function extends beyond its role as a lipid synthetic enzyme. Notably, PexRAP interacts with importin-β1, a nuclear import factor, and knockdown of PexRAP in adipocytes reduced the levels of nuclear phospholipids. PexRAP also interacts with PPARγ, as well as PRDM16, a critical transcriptional regulator of thermogenesis, and disrupts the PRDM16-PPARγ complex, providing a potential mechanism for PexRAP-mediated inhibition of adipocyte browning. These results identify PexRAP as an important regulator of adipose tissue remodeling

Ex-Ante PLM Misfit Analysis Methodology: A Cognitive Fit Approach

Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems have been introduced by companies to facilitate their new product development process to shorten the product time to market, reduce the product development cost, and meet the dynamic demands of customers. However, PLM implementation is not an easy job and some of the attempted projects failed. A common problem encountered in adopting PLM packages has been the issue of misfits, i.e., the gaps between the specifications offered by a PLM package and those required by the adopting organization, which easily causes the project to fail. Current approaches for the ex-ante analysis of PLM misfits are extremely limited. This paper develops a methodology grounded in the extended cognitive fit theory for the misfit analysis. This approach can assist in identifying and representing consistent set of information for functions and workflow processes across business requirements and the PLM package. Particularly, Petri nets that are of graphical representations and easy to understand are employed to model the function-embedded workflow process. A case study is presented to examine the feasibility of this approach. We conclude that with our methodology, PLM analysts or adopting organizations can systematically identify potential misfits and the degree of misfit between the business requirements and PLM packages in an ex-ante analysis to mitigate the risks in PLM implementations

Feasibility Study on Using Low Grade Silicon Carbide and Stone Sludge to Fabricate Eco Bricks

The aim of this study was to introduce 5% up to 40% of low grade silicon carbide (LGSC), with construction excavated soil before the soil being reused as raw material in Eco brickmaking. Furthermore, stone sludge was added to mix with LGSC to fabricate eco bricks. The results indicated that the use of 10% granite sludge, 30% LGSC and 5% brick waste clinkers could produce grade-2 eco bricks in sintering temperature 1,050°c, however 30% granite sludge was substituted to obtain the same grade eco bricks. Water absorption of eco bricks has increased during the addition ratio of LGSC increased. However, the compressive strength increased while water absorption decreased during the operation temperature increased from 1,020°c. to 1,050°c

News-based soft information as a corporate competitive advantage

This study establishes a decision-making conceptual architecture that evaluates decision making units (DMUs) from numerous aspects. The architecture combines financial indicators together with a variety of data envelopment analysis (DEA) specifications to encapsulate more information to give a complete picture of a corporate’s operation. To make outcomes more accessible to non-specialists, multidimensional scaling (MDS) was performed to visualize the data. Most previous studies on forecasting model construction have relied heavily on hard information, with quite a few works taking into consideration soft information, which contains much denser and more diverse messages than hard information. To overcome this challenge, we consider two different types of soft information: supply chain influential indicator (SCI) and sentimental indicator (STI). SCI is computed by joint utilization of text mining (TM) and social network analysis (SNA), with TM identifying the corporate’s SC relationships from news articles and SNA to determining their impact on the network. STI is extracted from an accounting narrative so as to comprehensively illustrate the relationships between pervious and future performances. The analyzed outcomes are then fed into an artificial intelligence (AI)-based technique to construct the forecasting model. The introduced model, examined by real cases, is a promising alternative for performance forecasting. First published online 21 November 201

Understanding the Impact of Service Failure and Recovery Justice on Consumers’ Satisfaction and Repurchase Intention

This research attempts to explore the impacts of different types of justice and their interactions on the satisfaction toward service failure recovery. We attempt to classify justices into hygiene, motivator, or asymmetric variable, based on the concept of asymmetric effect and two factors theory proposed by Herzberg. Specifically, we predict that procedural and distributive justices are hygiene or performance factor and interpersonal justice is motivator. In addition, based on expectancy-disconfirmation theory (EDT), we also attempt to understand the interaction between paired justices by arguing that motivator can generate more effect when hygiene factor or performance factors meet initial expectation. An experiment, with 3x2x2 between-subjects factorial design consisting of three factors to represent different levels of justice provided by online retailer, will be conducted to test the proposed hypotheses. A two-step approach will be used to (1) confirmation the types (hygiene, performance, or motivator) that each justice dimension belongs to, (2) understand the impact of each justice on satisfaction, and (3) test whether motivator will generate more effect when hygiene and performance factor are satisfied

Clinical parameters associated with absence of endocervical/transformation zone component in conventional cervical Papanicolaou smears

AbstractObjectiveTo study clinical factors predicting the absence of endocervical/transformation zone (EC/TZ) components of conventional cervical Papanicolaou (Pap) smears.Materials and methodsThe medical charts of patients who received Pap smears between March 2006 and August 2006 in the hospital were reviewed. The results of their Pap smears were retrieved while their demographic and clinical information were obtained from the medical charts. After excluding 378 cases with incomplete demographic data and 1397 cases with a history of pelvic irradiation, pelvic malignancy, and hysterectomy, 5662 cases were enrolled for data analysis. The relationship between clinical parameters and the absence of EC/TZ component was analyzed by Pearson Chi-square tests with Yates continuity correction and binary logistic regression tests.ResultsThe incidence of satisfactory but absence of EC/TZ component was 8.7% (491/5662). Pregnancy increased the absence of EC/TZ component [odds ratio (OR}: 2.84, 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.14–3.77, p<0.0001]. Postpartum status and endocervical polyps decreased incidence (OR: 0.61, 95% CI: 0.38–0.98, p = 0.043 and OR: 0.33, 95% CI: 0.25–0.44, p<0.0001, respectively).ConclusionsPregnancy is the only clinical factor associated with increased incidence of absence of EC/TZ cells. For these pregnant women undergoing a Pap smear, a more effective strategy may be needed to get a satisfactory smear with adequate EC/TZ components

Apoptosis Induction in Primary Human Colorectal Cancer Cell Lines and Retarded Tumor Growth in SCID Mice by Sulforaphane

We have investigated the anticancer effects of the dietary isothiocyanate sulforaphane (SFN) on colorectal cancer (CRC), using primary cancer cells lines isolated from five Taiwanese colorectal cancer patients as the model for colorectal cancer. SFN-treated cells accumulated in metaphase (SFN 6.25 μM) and subG1 (SFN 12.5 and 25 μM) as determined by flow cytometry. In addition, treated cells showed nuclear apoptotic morphology that coincided with an activation of caspase-3, and loss of mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨm). Incubations at higher SFN doses (12.5 and 25 μM) resulted in cleavage of procaspase-3 and elevated caspase-2, -3, -8, and -9 activity, suggesting that the induction of apoptosis and the sulforaphane-induced mitosis delay at the lower dose are independently regulated. Daily SFN s.c. injections (400 micromol/kg/d for 3 weeks) in severe combined immunodeficient mice with primary human CRC (CP1 to CP5) s.c. tumors resulted in a decrease of mean tumor weight by 70% compared with vehicle-treated controls. Our findings suggest that, in addition to the known effects on cancer prevention, sulforaphane may have antitumor activity in established colorectal cancer

MG63 Osteoblast-Like Cells Exhibit Different Behavior when Grown on Electrospun Collagen Matrix versus Electrospun Gelatin Matrix

Electrospinning is a simple and efficient method of fabricating a non-woven polymeric nanofiber matrix. However, using fluorinated alcohols as a solvent for the electrospinning of proteins often results in protein denaturation. TEM and circular dichroism analysis indicated a massive loss of triple-helical collagen from an electrospun collagen (EC) matrix, and the random coils were similar to those found in gelatin. Nevertheless, from mechanical testing we found the Young's modulus and ultimate tensile stresses of EC matrices were significantly higher than electrospun gelatin (EG) matrices because matrix stiffness can affect many cell behaviors such as cell adhesion, proliferation and differentiation. We hypothesize that the difference of matrix stiffness between EC and EG will affect intracellular signaling through the mechano-transducers Rho kinase (ROCK) and focal adhesion kinase (FAK) and subsequently regulates the osteogenic phenotype of MG63 osteoblast-like cells. From the results, we found there was no significant difference between the EC and EG matrices with respect to either cell attachment or proliferation rate. However, the gene expression levels of OPN, type I collagen, ALP, and OCN were significantly higher in MG63 osteoblast-like cells grown on the EC than in those grown on the EG. In addition, the phosphorylation levels of Y397-FAK, ERK1/2, BSP, and OPN proteins, as well as ALP activity, were also higher on the EC than on the EG. We further inhibited ROCK activation with Y27632 during differentiation to investigate its effects on matrix-mediated osteogenic differentiation. Results showed the extent of mineralization was decreased with inhibition after induction. Moreover, there is no significant difference between EC and EG. From the results of the protein levels of phosphorylated Y397-FAK, ERK1/2, BSP and OPN, ALP activity and mineral deposition, we speculate that the mechanism that influences the osteogenic differentiation of MG63 osteoblast-like cells on EC and EG is matrix stiffness and via ROCK-FAK-ERK1/2