Four Metaphors on Knowledge and Change in Construction

Refurbishment\ua0activities comprise a high proportion of construction industry output in most developed countries. There is no international consensus among statisticians as how to define\ua0refurbishment\ua0or renovation of buildings (Mansfield, 2002). The UK Office for National Statistics publishes data indicating that the volume of ‘repair and maintenance’ corresponded to about 60 per cent of new work during 2014 and 2015. ‘Repair and maintenance’ was roughly equally divided between housing and non-housing, and\ua0it\ua0is probable that much of this was\ua0refurbishment. There are no obvious reasons why ongoing investment in existing buildings should decline and the potential for increasing environmental sustainability by improving energy performance in the building stock remains considerable. The EU Energy Efficiency Directive (2012/27/EU) adopted in 2012 includes a requirement for member states to develop long-term renovation strategies for their national building stocks

Data mining on existing game selling platforms 現成的電玩遊戲售賣平台內的數據探索

This project involves building a website to let people access game information as consolidated from a range of popular game selling platforms. This information includes not only comparisons among the prices offered on various game selling platforms, but also other information such as the publishers and system requirements... 本項目旨在發展一個單一網站平台，藉此整合及發佈多個廣受歡迎的遊戲銷售資訊，方便玩家進行比較。這些資訊不僅包括同一款遊 戲在不同銷售平台上的格價參考，也會列出發行商、系統要求等訊 息。 Award: Silver 奬項: 銀

GPER-induced signaling is essential for the survival of breast cancer stem cells.

G protein-coupled estrogen receptor-1 (GPER), a member of the G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) superfamily, mediates estrogen-induced proliferation of normal and malignant breast epithelial cells. However, its role in breast cancer stem cells (BCSCs) remains unclear. Here we showed greater expression of GPER in BCSCs than non-BCSCs of three patient-derived xenografts of ER- /PR+ breast cancers. GPER silencing reduced stemness features of BCSCs as reflected by reduced mammosphere forming capacity in vitro, and tumor growth in vivo with decreased BCSC populations. Comparative phosphoproteomics revealed greater GPER-mediated PKA/BAD signaling in BCSCs. Activation of GPER by its ligands, including tamoxifen (TMX), induced phosphorylation of PKA and BAD-Ser118 to sustain BCSC characteristics. Transfection with a dominant-negative mutant BAD (Ser118Ala) led to reduced cell survival. Taken together, GPER and its downstream signaling play a key role in maintaining the stemness of BCSCs, suggesting that GPER is a potential therapeutic target for eradicating BCSCs

Acute immune thrombocytopenic purpura in an adolescent with 2009 novel H1N1 influenza A virus infection

AbstractAlthough both leukopenia and thrombocytopenia are not uncommon hematological findings among patients with novel 2009 H1N1 influenza virus infection, immune thrombocytopenic purpura has rarely been shown to be associated with this novel influenza A infection. Here, we describe a previously healthy adolescent who presented with fever, influenza-like symptoms and acute onset of generalized petechiae and active oral mucosa bleeding on the third day of his illness. Severe leukopenia and thrombocytopenia were found. There was neither malignancy nor blast cells found by bone marrow aspiration. Real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction was positive for novel 2009 H1N1 influenza infection. Novel influenza-associated atypical immune thrombocytopenic purpura was diagnosed. The patient recovered uneventfully after oseltamivir and methylprednisolone therapy

The impact of system matrix dimension on small FOV SPECT reconstruction with truncated projections

Purpose: A dedicated cardiac hybrid single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)/CT scanner that uses cadmium zinc telluride detectors and multiple pinhole collimators for stationary acquisition offers many advantages. However, the impact of the reconstruction system matrix (SM) dimension on the reconstructed image quality from truncated projections and 19 angular samples acquired on this scanner has not been extensively investigated. In this study, the authors aimed to investigate the impact of the dimensions of SM and the use of body contour derived from adjunctive CT imaging as an object support in reconstruction on this scanner, in relation to background extracardiac activity. Methods: The authors first simulated a generic SPECT/CT system to image four NCAT phantoms with various levels of extracardiac activity and compared the reconstructions using SM in different dimensions and with/without body contour as a support for quantitative evaluations. The authors then compared the reconstructions of 18 patient studies, which were acquired on a GE Discovery NM570c scanner following injection of different radiotracers, including 99mTc-Tetrofosmin and 123I-mIBG, comparing the scanner\u27s default SM that incompletely covers the body with a large SM that incorporates a patient specific full body contour. Results: The simulation studies showed that the reconstructions using a SM that only partially covers the body yielded artifacts on the edge of the field of view (FOV), overestimation of activity and increased nonuniformity in the blood pool for the phantoms with higher relative levels of extracardiac activity. However, the impact on the quantitative accuracy in the high activity region such as the myocardium, was subtle. On the other hand, an excessively large SM that enclosed the entire body alleviated the artifacts and reduced overestimation in the blood pool, but yielded slight underestimation in myocardium and defect regions. The reconstruction using the larger SM with body contour yielded the most quantitatively accurate results in all the regions of interest for a range of uptake levels in the extracardiac regions. In patient studies, the SM incorporating patient specific body contour minimized extracardiac artifacts, yielded similar myocardial activity, lower blood pool activity, and subsequently improved myocardium-to-blood pool contrast (p\u3c0.0001) by an average of 7% (range 0%-18%) across all the patients, compared to the reconstructions using the scanner\u27s default SM. Conclusions: Their results demonstrate that using a large SM that incorporates a CT derived body contour in the reconstruction could improve quantitative accuracy within the FOV for clinical studies with high extracardiac activity

Carrier dynamics and recombination in silicon doped InAs/GaAs quantum dot solar cells with AlAs cap layers

The effects of doping InAs quantum dots (QDs) with Si on charge carrier dynamics and recombination in the InAs/GaAs quantum dot solar cells with AlAs cap layers was investigated. Non-radiative and radiative recombination paths in the doped cells were identified by changes in emission intensity, longwavelength photovoltage (PV) as well as time-resolved PV and photoluminescence (PL) measurements. We find that the reduction of long-wavelength PV and PL with n-doping is due to the electron population of the QD ground states and shrinkage of the depletion layer. The time constants, derived from the timeresolved PV, grow non-monotonically with increasing of the doping density in the QDs due to redistribution of electrostatic potential in the intrinsic region of p-i-n diode and electron population of EL2 defect states of GaAs barriers. We also find that the ground state emission from the InAs QDs decreases with n-doping. The results show that PL traces depends on carrier dynamic in the top QD layers populated partially with electrons from ionized impurities, whereas PV transients were found to be strongly dependent on recombination via QD and defect states located outside the depletion layer. We conclude that the non-radiative recombination of photogenerated electrons and holes via defects is suppressed due to the spatial separation by the local electric fields in and around doped AlAs/InAs QDs, as the potential profile of the intrinsic region is modulated spatially by built-in charges. The interpretation of experimental data suggests limiting mechanisms in the InAs/GaAs quantum dot solar cells operation and sheds light on possible approaches for their further improvement

Application of boundary detection information in breast tomosynthesis reconstruction

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/135006/1/mp1968.pd