A Novel Nanocomposite with Photo-Polymerization for Wafer Level Application

©2008 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or distribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE. This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.A novel nanocomposite photo-curable material which can act both as a photoresist and a stress redistribution layer applied on the wafer level was synthesized and studied. In the experiments, 20-nm silica fillers were modified by a silane coupling agent through a hydrolysis and condensation reaction and then incorporated into the epoxy matrix. A photo-sensitive initiator was added into the formulation which can release cations after ultraviolet exposure and initiate the epoxy crosslinking reaction. The photo-crosslinking reaction of the epoxy made it a negative tone photoresist. The curing reaction of the nanocomposites was monitored by a differential scanning calorimeter with the photo-calorimetric accessory. The thermal mechanical properties of photo-cured nanocomposites thin film were also measured. It was found that the moduli change of the nanocomposites as the filler loading increasing did not follow the Mori–Tanaka model, which indicated that the nanocomposite was not a simple two-phase structure as the composite with micron size filler. The addition of nano-sized silica fillers reduced the thermal expansion and improved the stiffness of the epoxy, with only a minimal effect on the optical transparency of the epoxy, which facilitated the complete photo reaction in the epoxy

LOOKING FOR THE LOST WATER --- RENEWAL OF XIAN-YU-KOU RIVERFRONT IN BEIJING

Beijing as a historic city now is going through with dramatic changes. There is always the confliction between preservation and new development. It is against this background that my thesis is attempted to study and propose a sensitive development whose intent would be to treasure and preserve design philosophy embodied in the old city fabric. The proposed site Xian-yu-kou area in Beijing used to be a commercial place for over 500 years. A historic river, which was filled early last century, not only stimulated the development of the whole area, but also was the generator of its unique urban fabric. Now as many traditional neighborhoods, this area is facing both physical and environmental issues. My thesis is to pursue a reinterpretation of the historical urban context: by restoring the most important urban element - the old river and redevelop the waterfront amenities to revitalize this whole historic neighborhood

MagicBrush: A Manually Annotated Dataset for Instruction-Guided Image Editing

Text-guided image editing is widely needed in daily life, ranging from personal use to professional applications such as Photoshop. However, existing methods are either zero-shot or trained on an automatically synthesized dataset, which contains a high volume of noise. Thus, they still require lots of manual tuning to produce desirable outcomes in practice. To address this issue, we introduce MagicBrush (https://osu-nlp-group.github.io/MagicBrush/), the first large-scale, manually annotated dataset for instruction-guided real image editing that covers diverse scenarios: single-turn, multi-turn, mask-provided, and mask-free editing. MagicBrush comprises over 10K manually annotated triplets (source image, instruction, target image), which supports trainining large-scale text-guided image editing models. We fine-tune InstructPix2Pix on MagicBrush and show that the new model can produce much better images according to human evaluation. We further conduct extensive experiments to evaluate current image editing baselines from multiple dimensions including quantitative, qualitative, and human evaluations. The results reveal the challenging nature of our dataset and the gap between current baselines and real-world editing needs.Comment: NeurIPS 2023; Website: https://osu-nlp-group.github.io/MagicBrush

Tricin protects rats from ovariectomized-induced osteoporosis by enhancing Wnt/β-catenin pathway

Purpose: To investigate the effects of tricin on ovariectomized-induced osteoporosis, and unravel theunderling mechanism of action.Methods: An osteoporosis rat model was established by conducting ovariectomy (OVX). Changes in the microstructure of the trabecular bone were visualized using Hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining, and a three-point bending test was employed to assess the biomechanical stability of the femurs, after the administration of tricin (20 and 40 mg/kg). Subsequently, bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) were isolated and treated with tricin (7 and 15 μM). Alizarin red staining was performed to assess mineralization, and Runt-related transcription factor 2 (RUNX2); osteocalcin (OCN) and collagen type I alpha 1 (Col1a1) were quantified using western blot analysis. The Wnt/β-catenin pathway related proteins, i.e., Wnt3a, β-catenin, glycogen synthase kinase-3 β (GSK-3 β) were determined.Results: Ovariectomy induced thinner and discontinuous trabecular bone, with increased marrow cavities, while application of tricin significantly improved the density and regularity meshwork, but reduced marrow cavities. Tricin also enhanced biomechanical competence as seen in the upregulated maximum load, stiffness, young modulus and maximum stress compared with OVX group (p < 0.01). Furthermore, tricin increased calcification in BMSCs, and significantly upregulated the expressions of RUNX2, OCN and COL1A1 when compared with OVX group (p < 0.01). It promoted Wnt/β-catenin signaling by enhancing Wnt3a and β-catenin, while inhibiting GSK3β expression, compared with OVX group (p < 0.05 or p < 0.01).Conclusion: Tricin exerts protective effects against OVX-induced osteoporosis by enhancing Wnt/β-catenin pathway. Thus, tricin is a potential therapeutic agent for the management of osteoporosis

Atomic and Specificity Details of Mucin 1 O-Glycosylation Process by Multiple Polypeptide GalNAc-Transferase Isoforms Unveiled by NMR and Molecular Modeling

IF/00780/2015 PTDC/BIA-MIB/31028/2017 UIDP/04378/2020 UIDB/04378/2020 LA/P/0140/2020 SFRH/BD/140394/2018 PD/BD/142847/2018 PD00065/2013 DL 57/2016 ROTEIRO/0031/2013-PINFRA/22161/2016 BFU2016-75633-P PID2019-105451GB-I00 E34_R17 LMP58_18 to R.H-G RTI2018-099592-B-C21 ITN, GA-642157 COST Action GLYCONanoProbes (CA18132) ERC-2017-AdG, project number 788143-RECGLYCANMR RTI218-094751-B-C21) DNRF107The large family of polypeptide GalNAc-transferases (GalNAc-Ts) controls with precision how GalNAc O-glycans are added in the tandem repeat regions of mucins (e.g., MUC1). However, the structural features behind the creation of well-defined and clustered patterns of O-glycans in mucins are poorly understood. In this context, herein, we disclose the full process of MUC1 O-glycosylation by GalNAc-T2/T3/T4 isoforms by NMR spectroscopy assisted by molecular modeling protocols. By using MUC1, with four tandem repeat domains as a substrate, we confirmed the glycosylation preferences of different GalNAc-Ts isoforms and highlighted the importance of the lectin domain in the glycosylation site selection after the addition of the first GalNAc residue. In a glycosylated substrate, with yet multiple acceptor sites, the lectin domain contributes to orientate acceptor sites to the catalytic domain. Our experiments suggest that during this process, neighboring tandem repeats are critical for further glycosylation of acceptor sites by GalNAc-T2/T4 in a lectin-assisted manner. Our studies also show local conformational changes in the peptide backbone during incorporation of GalNAc residues, which might explain GalNAc-T2/T3/T4 fine specificities toward the MUC1 substrate. Interestingly, we postulate that a specific salt-bridge and the inverse γ-turn conformation of the PDTRP sequence in MUC1 are the main structural motifs behind the GalNAc-T4 specificity toward this region. In addition, in-cell analysis shows that the GalNAc-T4 isoform is the only isoform glycosylating the Thr of the immunogenic epitope PDTRP in vivo, which highlights the relevance of GalNAc-T4 in the glycosylation of this epitope. Finally, the NMR methodology established herein can be extended to other glycosyltransferases, such as C1GalT1 and ST6GalNAc-I, to determine the specificity toward complex mucin acceptor substrates.publishersversionepub_ahead_of_prin

Urban Multi-scale Environmental Predictor - an extensive tool for climate services in urban areas

The city based climate service tool UMEP (Urban Multi-scale Environmental Predictor) is a coupled modelling system that combines models essential for urban climate processes and is developed as an extensive QGIS plugin. An application is presented to illustrate its potential, specifically of the identification of heat waves and cold waves in cities. The tool has broad utility for applications related to outdoor thermal comfort, urban energy consumption, climate change mitigation etc. It includes tools to: enable users to input atmospheric and surface data from multiple sources, prepare meteorological data for use in urban areas, undertake simulations and consider scenarios, and compare and visualize different combinations of climate indicators

Urban Multi-scale Environmental Predictor (UMEP) : An integrated tool for city-based climate services

UMEP (Urban Multi-scale Environmental Predictor), a city-based climate service tool, combines models and tools essential for climate simulations. Applications are presented to illustrate UMEP's potential in the identification of heat waves and cold waves; the impact of green infrastructure on runoff; the effects of buildings on human thermal stress; solar energy production; and the impact of human activities on heat emissions. UMEP has broad utility for applications related to outdoor thermal comfort, wind, urban energy consumption and climate change mitigation. It includes tools to enable users to input atmospheric and surface data from multiple sources, to characterise the urban environment, to prepare meteorological data for use in cities, to undertake simulations and consider scenarios, and to compare and visualise different combinations of climate indicators. An open-source tool, UMEP is designed to be easily updated as new data and tools are developed, and to be accessible to researchers, decision-makers and practitioners. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.Peer reviewe

Petrophysical Properties Characterization of Ordovician Utica Gas Shale in Quebec, Canada

With multiple techniques, the following measurements and analysis were made to characterize the Ordovician Utica shale samples: mineralogy, porosity, microstructure, and surface wettability etc. The test of mercury injection apparatus showed that the pore size of Utica shale is 15-200 nm. X-ray diffraction (XRD) mineralogy analysis and Energy-Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) indicated that in Utica shale non-clay minerals are dominated by calcite and quartz, while clay minerals by illite and chlorite. With the images from scanning electron microscope (SEM), the surface microstructure examination showed various types of pores exist in Utica shale, such as intragranular, intergranular, organic etc. And the pores in organic matter (kerogen) were found in nanometer size (10 to 50 nm). A three-dimensional tomography model and a geometry model of the pores space using FIB-SEM imaging tomography were reconstructed with 250 SEM images. It provides visual insights into the petrophysical properties of Utica shale. Finally, the wettability tests displayed that Utica shale has weak-water wet to intermediate wettability

Petrophysical properties characterization of Ordovician Utica gas shale in Quebec, Canada

Abstract: With multiple techniques, the following measurements and analysis were made to characterize the Ordovician Utica shale samples: mineralogy, porosity, microstructure, and surface wettability etc. The test of mercury injection apparatus showed that the pore size of Utica shale is 15−200 nm. X-ray diffraction (XRD) mineralogy analysis and Energy-Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) indicated that in Utica shale non-clay minerals are dominated by calcite and quartz, while clay minerals by illite and chlorite. With the images from scanning electron microscope (SEM), the surface microstructure examination showed various types of pores exist in Utica shale, such as intragranular, intergranular, organic etc. And the pores in organic matter (kerogen) were found in nanometer size (10 to 50 nm). A three-dimensional tomography model and a geometry model of the pores space using FIB-SEM imaging tomography were reconstructed with 250 SEM images. It provides visual insights into the petrophysical properties of Utica shale. Finally, the wettability tests displayed that Utica shale has weak-water wet to intermediate wettability. Key words: Ordovician Utica shale, petrophysical properties, mineral composition, microstructure, surface wettabilit