Uses of cardiomyocytes generated from induced pluripotent stem cells

Embryonic stem (ES) cells are naturally derived from early stage embryos and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells are reprogrammed from somatic cells with overexpression of four reprogramming factors, Oct4, Sox2, Klf4 and c-Myc. Both ES cells and iPS cells are pluripotent stem cells with capabilities of indefinite self-renewal and can be differentiated into almost all cell types of the body, which make them valuable for studying early developmental biology, for modeling and as therapy for human diseases. Specifically, human iPS cells could be utilized to generate patient-specific lineages for a variety of translational research. In this review, we describe the cardiac differentiation from ES cells, iPS cells, and the current progress of using iPS cell-derived cardiomyocytes for heart disease modeling and for the development of therapeutic strategies. In addition, we summarize the recent direct reprogramming of cardiomyocytes from fibroblast cells, which provides another method for potential heart disease therapy

VALIDITY OF A MAKER-BASED LOCATOR FOR MEASURING IN VIVO THREEDIMENSIONAL SCAPULAR STATIC POSES USING STEREOPHOTOGRAMMETRY

The study aimed to (1) develop a marker-based scapular locator for measuring scapular poses and (2) to design an in vivo experimental procedure for this static marker-based measurement method to decrease measurement errors, and (3) to validate this scapular locator and the experimental procedure. Six young male adults were implanted into the spine of the scapula with two bone-pins that were attached with a cluster of four retroreflective markers (bone markers). The scapular poses were measured simultaneously using the developed scapular locator and the bone markers. The results showed that very high validity for scapular rotations and for the acromial angle (AA), the root of spine (RS) and the inferior angle (IA) of the scapular translation were achieved. Two main reasons contributed to the results: (1) the adjustable scapular locator and (2) careful palpation of the bony landmarks over the scapula

CFVS: Coarse-to-Fine Visual Servoing for 6-DoF Object-Agnostic Peg-In-Hole Assembly

Robotic peg-in-hole assembly remains a challenging task due to its high accuracy demand. Previous work tends to simplify the problem by restricting the degree of freedom of the end-effector, or limiting the distance between the target and the initial pose position, which prevents them from being deployed in real-world manufacturing. Thus, we present a Coarse-to-Fine Visual Servoing (CFVS) peg-in-hole method, achieving 6-DoF end-effector motion control based on 3D visual feedback. CFVS can handle arbitrary tilt angles and large initial alignment errors through a fast pose estimation before refinement. Furthermore, by introducing a confidence map to ignore the irrelevant contour of objects, CFVS is robust against noise and can deal with various targets beyond training data. Extensive experiments show CFVS outperforms state-of-the-art methods and obtains 100%, 91%, and 82% average success rates in 3-DoF, 4-DoF, and 6-DoF peg-in-hole, respectively

An Integrated Edge and Fog System for Future Communication Networks

Put together, the edge and fog form a large diverse pool of computing and networking resources from different owners that can be leveraged towards low latency applications as well as for alleviating high traffic volume in future networks including 5G and beyond. This paper sets out a framework for the integration of edge and fog computing and networking leveraging on ongoing specifications by ETSI MEC ISG and the OpenFog Consortium. It also presents the technological gaps that need to be addressed before such an integrated solution can be developed. These noticeably include challenges relating to the volatility of resources, heterogeneity of underlying technologies, virtualization of devices, and security issues. The framework presented is a Launchpad for a complete solution under development by the 5G-CORAL consortium.This work has been partially funded by the H2020 collaborative Europe/Taiwan research project 5G-CORAL (grant num. 761586

Predictors of betel quid chewing behavior and cessation patterns in Taiwan aborigines

BACKGROUND: Betel quid, chewed by about 600 million people worldwide, is one of the most widely used addictive substances. Cessation factors in betel quid chewers are unknown. The present study explores prevalence and the quit rate of betel quid chewing in Taiwan aborigines. Our goal was to delineate potential predictors of chewing cessation. METHODS: A stratified random community-based survey was designed for the entire aborigines communities in Taiwan. A total of 7144 participants were included between June 2003 and May 2004 in this study. Information on sociodemographic characteristics, such as gender, age, obesity, education years, marital status, ethnicity, and habits of betel quid chewing, smoking and drinking was collected by trained interviewers. RESULTS: The prevalence of betel quid chewers was 46.1%. Betel quid chewing was closely associated with obesity (OR = 1.61; 95% CI: 1.40–1.85). Betel quid chewers were most likely to use alcohol and cigarettes together. Quit rate of betel quid chewers was 7.6%. Betel quid chewers who did not drink alcohol were more likely to quit (OR = 1.89; 95% CI: 1.43–2.50). Alcohol use is a significant factor related to cessation of betel quid chewing, but smoking is not. CONCLUSION: Taiwan aborigines have a high prevalence of betel quid chewers and a low quit rate. Alcohol use is strongly association with betel quid chewing. Efforts to reduce habitual alcohol consumption might be of benefit in cessation of betel quid chewing

Experimental quantum computational chemistry with optimised unitary coupled cluster ansatz

Simulation of quantum chemistry is one of the most promising applications of quantum computing. While recent experimental works have demonstrated the potential of solving electronic structures with variational quantum eigensolver (VQE), the implementations are either restricted to nonscalable (hardware efficient) or classically simulable (Hartree-Fock) ansatz, or limited to a few qubits with large errors for the more accurate unitary coupled cluster (UCC) ansatz. Here, integrating experimental and theoretical advancements of improved operations and dedicated algorithm optimisations, we demonstrate an implementation of VQE with UCC for H_2, LiH, F_2 from 4 to 12 qubits. Combining error mitigation, we produce high-precision results of the ground-state energy with error suppression by around two orders of magnitude. For the first time, we achieve chemical accuracy for H_2 at all bond distances and LiH at small bond distances in the experiment. Our work demonstrates a feasible path towards a scalable solution to electronic structure calculation, validating the key technological features and identifying future challenges for this goal.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures in the main text, and 29 pages supplementary materials with 16 figure

Matrix Metalloproteinase-8 Mediates the Unfavorable Systemic Impact of Local Irradiation on Pharmacokinetics of Anti-Cancer Drug 5-Fluorouracil

Concurrent chemoradiation with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) is widely accepted for cancer treatment. However, the interactions between radiation and 5-FU remain unclear. Here, we evaluated the influence of local irradiation on the pharmacokinetics of 5-FU in rats. The single-fraction radiation was delivered to the whole pelvic fields of Sprague-Dawley rats after computerized tomography-based planning. 5-FU at 100 mg/kg was prescribed 24 hours after radiation. A high-performance liquid chromatography system was used to measure 5-FU in the blood. Matrix metalloproteinase-8 (MMP-8) inhibitor I was administered to examine whether or not RT modulation of 5-FU pharmacokinetic parameters could be blocked. Compared with sham-irradiated controls, whole pelvic irradiation reduced the area under the concentration versus time curve (AUC) of 5-FU in plasma and, in contrast, increased in bile with a radiation dose-dependent manner. Based on protein array analysis, the amount of plasma MMP-8 was increased by whole pelvic irradiation (2.8-fold by 0.5 Gy and 5.3-fold by 2 Gy) in comparison with controls. Pretreatment with MMP-8 inhibitor reversed the effect of irradiation on AUC of 5-FU in plasma. Our findings first indicate that local irradiation modulate the systemic pharmacokinetics of 5-FU through stimulating the release of MMP-8. The pharmacokinetics of 5-FU during concurrent chemoradiaiton therapy should be rechecked and the optimal 5-FU dose should be reevaluated, and adjusted if necessary, during CCRT