Wu-Yang Monopoles and Non-Abelian Seiberg-Witten Equations

Some exact solutions of the SU(2) Seiberg-Witten equations in Minkowski spacetime are given.Comment: 6 pages, LATEX file, no figures. To appear in Mod. Phys. Lett.

Calcium-dependent mechanisms in the chicken retina

Multiple classes of retinal amacrine cells use L-type Ca2+ channels to mediate synaptic transmission. I have used whole cell voltage clamp recordings from primary cultures of amacrine cells to investigate the regulation of these channels. In this study, I show that inhibiting mitochondrial calcium uptake (MCU) caused a reversible reduction in the Ca2+ current amplitude. Replacing external Ca2+ with Ba2+ minimized the effects of blocking MCU indicating that the Ca2+ influx is the primary source of the inhibition. With 1,2-bis-(o-aminophenonxy)ethane-N,N,N’,N’-tetraacetic acid (BAPTA) in the recording pipette, MCU inhibition caused an increase in the current amplitude indicating that the fast buffering capability of BAPTA minimizing the Ca2+-dependent inactivation of the channels, revealing a Ca2+-dependent enhancement, possibly through protein kinase A (PKA) activity. The effect of a PKA inhibitor was consistent with this possibility. Inhibiting the calcium-induced calcium release (CICR) also decreased the Ca2+ current amplitude. These results indicate that MCU, PKA and CICR are critical to maintain the availability of L-type Ca2+ channels for depolarization-dependent signaling in amacrine cells. Production of nitric oxide (NO) by neuronal and endothelial nitric oxide synthases (nNOS; eNOS) is another Ca2+-dependent mechanism in the retina. In the chicken retina, I demonstrate the cell-autonomous nature of the NO signal by comparing the pattern of NO production to the expression of NOS. The NO indicator fluorescence dye, DAF was used to detect the pattern of NO production. A NOS inhibitor L-NAME suppressed the DAF signal suggesting that the source of DAF-signal was due to NOS activity. I also demonstrate the presence of NOS-immunoreactivity in the chicken retina. Neuronal NOS and eNOS antibodies labeled photoreceptors, amacrine cells and cells in the ganglion cell layer (GCL). Anti-e NOS also labeled horizontal cells, a small subset of bipolar cells and Müller cells. Different subsets of amacrine cells were labeled in dorsal and ventral retina with anti-nNOS. Endothelial NOS labeling did not show difference in dorsal and ventral retina but expression was more wide spread than nNOS. These results suggest that the potential for NO production is wide spread in the avian retina

Describing Creativity in Design Across Disciplines

Creativity is an essential aspect of design thinking. Being able to describe creativity and creative processes is important for developing future designers. While much research has been undertaken describing creativity in design, there is very little investigating how creativity and creative thinking varies across disciplines. A coding scheme involving six separate codes was developed initially from the literature, refined and then used to describe how creativity and creative thinking was apparent in the DTRS 10 datasets of Junior Industrial Design, Graduate Industrial Design, Mechanical Engineering, Choreography and Entrepreneurship. Based on this analysis, conclusions on how creativity and creative thinking varied across the datasets were also reached. It was found that while all datasets analyzed included Process, Product and Press codes, how these were identified in the data varied. The three Personal codes were only identified in three of the datasets. This research has implications for investigating how to develop creativity and creative thinking skills in all designers

A Real Time Image Processing Subsystem: GEZGIN

In this study, a real-time image processing subsystem, GEZGIN, which is currently being developed for BILSAT-1, a 100kg class micro-satellite, is presented. BILSAT-1 is being constructed in accordance with a technology transfer agreement between TÜBITAK-BILTEN (Turkey) and SSTL (UK) and planned to be placed into a 650 km sunsynchronous orbit in Summer 2003. GEZGIN is one of the two Turkish R&D payloads to be hosted on BILSAT-1. One of the missions of BILSAT-1 is constructing a Digital Elevation Model of Turkey using both multi-spectral and panchromatic imagers. Due to limited down-link bandwidth and on-board storage capacity, employment of a realtime image compression scheme is highly advantageous for the mission. GEZGIN has evolved as an implementation to achieve image compression tasks that would lead to an efficient utilization of both the down-link and on-board storage. The image processing on GEZGIN includes capturing of 4-band multi-spectral images of size 2048x2048 8- bit pixels, compressing them simultaneously with the new industry standard JPEG2000 algorithm and forwarding the compressed multi-spectral image to Solid State Data Recorders (SSDR) of BILSAT-1 for storage and down-link transmission. The mission definition together with orbital parameters impose a 6.5 seconds constraint on real-time image compression. GEZGIN meets this constraint by exploiting the parallelism among image processing units and assigning compute intensive tasks to dedicated hardware. The proposed hardware also allows for full reconfigurability of all processing units

Artificial intelligence in design education: evaluating ChatGPT as a virtual colleague for post-graduate course development

This article explores the ability of ChatGPT to function as a virtual colleague in helping to design materials for higher education design students. Using a self-study methodology, two university educators attempted to collaborate with ChatGPT to create course materials targeted at higher education design students, before reflecting on its strengths and weak- nesses during the process. Contextualising ChatGPT as the latest acute example of digital disruptors that design practices and processes have faced, the authors evaluated its current and potential threats and opportunities for the creation of design-focused learning content. The authors found that ChatGPT was a competent partner with regard to saving time, structuring textual content and documentation, and as a brainstorming tool. However, ChatGPT’s weaknesses included content generation that was often generic, usually requir- ing much human prompting, cajoling, and manual editing to produce desirable outcomes. Overall, ChatGPT was found to excel at its stated functionality as a language model, with some potentially useful functionality for the creation of higher education design course materials and outlines, as well as limitations. The reflections discussed can be used to inform design educators who may want to work with ChatGPT when designing course materials. However, acknowledging limitations and potential ethical challenges, the authors’ caution that educators may have to evaluate for themselves whether ChatGPT’s potential advantages outweigh its disadvantages

Protective Effects of Resveratrol against Chronic Immobilization Stress on Testis

Objective. The aim of this study was to investigate protective effects of resveratrol, a strong antioxidant, against possible negative effects of chronic immobilization stress on testes of male rats histochemically, immunohistochemically, ultrastructurally, and biochemically. Material and Methods. Male Wistar rats were divided into 4 groups (n = 7). Group I, control group (C), was not exposed to stress. Group II, stress group (S), was exposed to chronic immobilization stress. In Group III, low dose resveratrol + stress group (LRS), rats were given 10 mg/kg/day resveratrol just before the stress application. In Group IV, high dose resveratrol + stress group (HRS), rats were given 20 mg/kg/day resveratrol just before the stress application. For chronic immobilization stress application animals were put in the plastic tubes (6 cm in diameter, 15 cm in length) during 32 days for 6 hours. All animals were sacrificed 18 hours after the last stress application. Results. Histochemical and ultrastructural investigations showed that in stress group there was germ cell deprivation in seminiferous tubules and increase of connective tissue on interstitial area. No significant changes were seen in low and high dose resveratrol groups. After immunohistochemical investigations, TUNEL (+) and Active Caspase-3 (+) cells were increased in seminiferous tubules of stress group compared with those control group, but they were decreased in low and high dose resveratrol groups. According to biochemically results, MDA, GSH, and testosterone levels in stress group showed no significant difference when compared with those of the other groups. Conclusion. The chronic immobilization stress increases oxidative stress and apoptosis and causes histological tissue damages; resveratrol can minimize the histological damage in testes significantly

Changing the Mindset of Engineering Educators to Teach Design Studios

© 2020, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at the University of Technology Sydney recruited and established a ‘Learning and Teaching Design’ team. One of the primary aims of this team was to change the mindset of engineering academics to deliver a curriculum that produced More Innovative Design-Abled Students and Staff (MIDAS). To model what an inspiring pedagogy might look like, a set of short, intensive, summer school offerings were designed and delivered. These ‘MIDAS Summer Studios’ aimed to strategically shift the culture of education and to revolutionise how students learn engineering and information technology. In order to confirm that each of the MIDAS Summer Studios and their studio leaders delivered a calibrated student learning experience, a series of training workshops were delivered to ensure the language used by studio facilitators remained consistent. During these workshops, the participants were encouraged to adopt some values and principles. This study reports how these values have been effective in transforming engineering education in one Australian university

Treatment With Recombinant Tumor Necrosis Factor–Related Apoptosis-Inducing Ligand Alleviates the Severity of Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetes

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the potential therapeutic effect of recombinant human tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) treatment in a model of type 1 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Recombinant TRAIL was added in vitro to primary human and mouse peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and isolated human islets to evaluate the expression of the immunoregulatory gene SOCS1. Diabetes was induced by five consecutive daily injections of low-concentration (50 mg/kg) streptozotocin (STZ) in C57 black mice (n = 24). A group of these mice (n = 12) was co-injected with recombinant TRAIL (20 microg/day) for 5 days, and the diabetic status (glycemia and body weight) was followed over time. After 6 weeks, circulating levels of insulin, TNF-alpha, and osteoprotegerin (OPG) were measured, and animals were killed to perform the histological analysis of the pancreas. RESULTS: The in vitro exposure of both PBMCs and human islets to recombinant TRAIL significantly upregulated the expression of SOCS1. With respect to STZ-treated animals, mice co-injected with STZ+TRAIL were characterized by 1) lower levels of hyperglycemia, 2) higher levels of body weight and insulinemia, 3) a partial preservation of pancreatic islets with normal morphology, and 4) a lower expression of both systemic (TNF-alpha and OPG) and pancreatic (vascular cell adhesion molecule [VCAM]-1) inflammatory markers. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, these data demonstrate that the administration of recombinant TRAIL ameliorates the severity of STZ-induced type 1 diabetes, and this effect was accompanied by the upregulation of SOCS1 expressio