Analysis of Building Energy Savings Potential for Metal Panel Curtain Wall Building by Reducing Thermal Bridges at Joints Between Panels

AbstractTo achieve national greenhouse gas reduction in the building sector, heating and cooling energy in buildings should be reduced. The government has strengthened regulations on insulation performance for building energy savings. However, the building envelope has various thermal bridges. In particular, a metal panel curtain wall comprises a number of thermal bridges at joints between the panels and the fixing units, thus degrading the overall thermal performance. To reduce building energy, it is necessary to reduce thermal bridges in building envelopes. This study aims to analyze the energy saving potential achieved by reducing thermal bridges. For this, the insulation performance and building energy needs of the existing and alternative metal panel curtain wall were evaluated. The alternative metal panel curtain wall that uses plastic molds at joints between panels and the thermally-broken brackets was suggested to reduce heat loss through thermal bridges. As results, the effective U-value of the alternative metal panel curtain wall was reduced by 72% compared with the existing metal panel curtain wall. In addition, annual heating energy needs of the alternative metal panel curtain wall building was reduced by 26%, and annual total energy needs was reduced by 6% because annual cooling energy needs of it slightly increased compared with the existing metal panel curtain wall. In conclusion, the alternative metal panel curtain wall considerably influenced the savings in building energy needs by reducing thermal bridges

miRNA regulation of cytotoxic effects in mouse Sertoli cells exposed to nonylphenol

Background: It is known that some environmental chemicals affect the human endocrine system. The harmful effects of endocrine disrupting chemical (EDC) nonylphenol (NP) have been studied since the 1980s. It is known that NP adversely affects physiological functions by mimicking the natural hormone 17 beta-estradiol. In the present study, we analyzed the expression of miRNAs and their target genes in mouse Sertoli TM4 cells to better understand the regulatory roles of miRNAs on Sertoli cells after NP exposure. Methods: Mouse TM4 Sertoli cells were treated with NP for 3 or 24 h, and global gene and miRNA expression were analyzed using Agilent mouse whole genome and mouse miRNA v13 arrays. Results: We identified genes that were > 2-fold differentially expressed in NP-treated cells and control cells (P < 0.05) and analyzed their functions through Gene Ontology analysis. We also identified miRNAs that were differentially expressed in NP-treated and control cells. Of the 186 miRNAs the expression of which differed between NP-treated and control cells, 59 and 147 miRNAs exhibited 1.3-fold increased or decreased expression at 3 and 24 h, respectively. Network analysis of deregulated miRNAs suggested that Ppara may regulate the expression of certain miRNAs, including miR-378, miR-125a-3p miR-20a, miR-203, and miR-101a, after exposure to NP. Additionally, comprehensive analysis of predicted target genes for miRNAs showed that the expression of genes with roles in cell proliferation, the cell cycle, and cell death were regulated by miRNA in NP-treated TM4 cells. Levels of expression of the miRNAs miR-135a* and miR-199a-5p were validated by qRT-PCR. Finally, miR-135a* target gene analysis suggests that the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) following exposure to NP exposure may be mediated by miR-135a* through regulation of the Wnt/beta-catenin signaling pathway. Conclusions: Collectively, these data help to determine NP's actions on mouse TM4 Sertoli cells and increase our understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the adverse effects of xenoestrogens on the reproductive system.This work was supported an Eco-Technopia 21 project grant from the Ministry of Environment (Development of Decision Method of Chromosomal Abnormality in Reproductive System by Toxic Substances at the Korea Institute of Toxicology)

UniPrimer: A Web-Based Primer Design Tool for Comparative Analyses of Primate Genomes

Whole genome sequences of various primates have been released due to advanced DNA-sequencing technology. A combination of computational data mining and the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay to validate the data is an excellent method for conducting comparative genomics. Thus, designing primers for PCR is an essential procedure for a comparative analysis of primate genomes. Here, we developed and introduced UniPrimer for use in those studies. UniPrimer is a web-based tool that designs PCR- and DNA-sequencing primers. It compares the sequences from six different primates (human, chimpanzee, gorilla, orangutan, gibbon, and rhesus macaque) and designs primers on the conserved region across species. UniPrimer is linked to RepeatMasker, Primer3Plus, and OligoCalc softwares to produce primers with high accuracy and UCSC In-Silico PCR to confirm whether the designed primers work. To test the performance of UniPrimer, we designed primers on sample sequences using UniPrimer and manually designed primers for the same sequences. The comparison of the two processes showed that UniPrimer was more effective than manual work in terms of saving time and reducing errors

An experimental study on the shear property dependency of high-damping rubber bearings

This paper investigates the characteristics of high-damping rubber bearings (HDRBs) through various prototype tests. The characteristics were dependent on the displacements, number of load cycles, frequencies, vertical pressure, temperature, shear deformation capability, and vertical stiffness. The prototype tests showed that the displacement was the most influential factor on the characteristics of the HDRB. The effective stiffness and equivalent damping of the HDRB decreased with the displacement and increased with the frequency. The effective stiffness decreased at higher vertical pressure, while the equivalent damping increased. The equivalent damping was more dependent on the vertical pressure than the effective stiffness. The results show that careful examination is required to design the effective stiffness and equivalent damping ratio while considering the dependencies of the design displacement and excitation velocity

Observation of superabsorption by correlated atoms

Emission and absorption of light lie at the heart of light-matter interaction. Although the emission and absorption rates are regarded as intrinsic properties of atoms and molecules, various ways to modify these rates have been sought in critical applications such as quantum information processing, metrology and light-energy harvesting. One of the promising approaches is to utilize collective behavior of emitters as in superradiance. Although superradiance has been observed in diverse systems, its conceptual counterpart in absorption has never been realized. Here, we demonstrate superabsorption, enhanced cooperative absorption, by correlated atoms of phase-matched superposition state. By implementing an opposite-phase-interference idea on a superradiant state or equivalently a time-reversal process of superradiance, we realized the superabsorption with its absorption rate much faster than that of the ordinary ground-state absorption. The number of photons completely absorbed for a given time interval was measured to be proportional to the square of the number of atoms. Our approach, breaking the limitation of the conventional absorption, can help weak-signal sensing and advance efficient light-energy harvesting as well as light-matter quantum interfaces.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Expression of GA733-Fc Fusion Protein as a Vaccine Candidate for Colorectal Cancer in Transgenic Plants

The tumor-associated antigen GA733 is a cell-surface glycoprotein highly expressed in colorectal carcinomas. In this study, 3 recombinant genes were constructed as follows: GA733 tagged to the ER retention sequence KDEL (GA733K), GA733 fused to the immunoglobulin Fc fragment (GA733-Fc), and GA733-Fc fused to the ER retention sequence (GA733-FcK). Agrobacterium-mediated transformation was used to generate transgenic plants expressing recombinant genes. The presence of transgenes was confirmed by genomic PCR. Western blot, confocal immunofluorescence, and sandwich ELISA showed the expression of recombinant proteins. The stability, flexibility, and bioactivity of recombinant proteins were analyzed and demonstrated through N-glycosylation analysis, animal trials, and sera ELISA. Our results suggest that the KDEL retained proteins in ER with oligomannose glycan structure and enhanced protein accumulation level. The sera of mice immunized with GA733-FcK purified from plants contained immunoglobulins which were at least as efficient as the mammalian-derived GA733-Fc at recognizing human colorectal cancer cell lines. Thus, a plant system can be used to express the KDEL fusion protein with oligomannose glycosylation, and this protein induces an immune response which is comparable to non-KDEL-tagged, mammalian-derived proteins

Struvite Crystallization of Anaerobic Digestive Fluid of Swine Manure Containing Highly Concentrated Nitrogen

In this study, the optimal operation factors for struvite crystallization for removing and recovering nitrogen and phosphorus from anaerobic digestive fluid of swine manure containing highly concentrated nitrogen was determined. Every experiment for the struvite crystallization reaction was conducted by placing 1,000 mL of digestion fluid in a 2,000 mL Erlenmeyer flask at various temperatures, pH, and mixing speed. Except for special circumstances, the digestion fluid was centrifuged (10,000 rpm, 10 min) and then the supernatant was used for the experiment at room temperature and 100 rpm. The optimal mole ratio of PO43−:Mg2+ was 1:1.5, and the pH effect ranging from 9 to 11 was similar, when mixed for 1 hour. Under this condition, the removal efficiency of NH4+-N and PO43−-P was 40% and 88.6%, respectively. X-shaped crystal was observed by light and scanning electron microscopy. In addition, struvite crystal structure was confirmed through X-ray diffraction analysis

Treatment of a Sequential Giant Fusiform Aneurysm of the Basilar Trunk

We report an exceptional case of a de novo giant fusiform aneurysm of the basilar trunk, which developed shortly after the therapeutic occlusion of the right internal carotid artery for a fusiform carotid aneurysm. It would appear to be appropriate to call this entity a sequential giant fusiform aneurysm. The patient was successfully treated with endovascular occlusion of the giant basilar trunk aneurysm following bypass surgery