Rotating Black Holes and Coriolis Effect

In this work, we consider the fluid/gravity correspondence for general rotating black holes. By using the Petrov-like boundary condition in near horizon limit, we study the correspondence between gravitational perturbation and fluid equation. We find that the dual fluid equation for rotating black holes contains a Coriolis force term, which is closely related to the angular velocity of the black hole horizon. This can be seen as a dual effect for the frame-dragging effect of rotating black hole under the holographic picture.Comment: 5 page

Aluminum alters NMDA receptor 1A and 2A/B expression on neonatal hippocampal neurons in rats

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>High aluminum (Al) content in certain infant formula raises the concern of possible Al toxicity on brain development of neonates during their vulnerable period of growing. Results of in vivo study showed that Al content of brain tissues reached to 74 μM when oral intake up to 1110 μM, 10 times of that in the hi-Al infant formula.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Utilizing a cultured neuron cells in vitro model, we have assessed Al influence on neuronal specific gene expression alteration by immunoblot and immunohistochemistry and neural proliferation rate changes by MTT assay.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Microscopic images showed that the neurite outgrowth of hippocampal neurons increased along with the Al dosages (37, 74 μM Al (AlCl₃)). MTT results also indicated that Al increased neural cell viability. On the other hand, the immunocytochemistry staining suggested that the protein expressions of NMDAR 1A and NMDAR 2A/B decreased with the Al dosages (p < 0.05).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Treated hippocampal neurons with 37 and 74 μM of Al for 14 days increased neural cell viability, but hampered NMDAR 1A and NMDAR 2A/B expressions. It was suggested that Al exposure might alter the development of hippocampal neurons in neonatal rats.</p

Monodansylpentane as a Blue-Fluorescent Lipid-Droplet Marker for Multi-Color Live-Cell Imaging

Lipid droplets (LDs) are dynamic cellular organelles responsible for the storage of neutral lipids, and are associated with a multitude of metabolic syndromes. Here we report monodansylpentane (MDH) as a high contrast blue-fluorescent marker for LDs. The unique spectral properties make MDH easily combinable with other green and red fluorescent reporters for multicolor fluorescence imaging. MDH staining does not apparently affect LD trafficking, and the dye is extraordinarily photo-stable. Taken together MDH represents a reliable tool to use for the investigation of dynamic LD regulation within living cells using fluorescence microscopy

BUILDING A FACEBOOK EMBEDDED PICTURE BOOK DESIGN LEARNING PLATFORM AND UNDERSTANDING ITS USE INTENTIONS

Electronic reading is a process of digitalizing not only the content and reading devices but also the publication and distribution of books. With the development of e-books, more attention has been paid to use of e-books in education. Through online communities and innovative learning models, digital content providers can offer plenty of resources to help learners at all levels and promote the effectiveness of their self-regulated learning. The objective of this study is to build a cloud-based learning platform that integrates designs of electronic picture books and the social functions of Facebook. Students of multimedia design can upload their works to this platform and learn from each other through idea sharing and discussion. This platform is expected to help students create works with better quality and more creativity. Besides, this study also investigates the learning behavior and use intentions of students on this platform based on “Social Interaction Theory” and “Uses and Gratifications Theory”. This study attempts to capture students’ needs and how they are related to their learning outcomes. Results of this study contribute to the development of cloud-based learning and can be a reference for design of learning materials and improvement of teaching models

Local Implicit Normalizing Flow for Arbitrary-Scale Image Super-Resolution

Flow-based methods have demonstrated promising results in addressing the ill-posed nature of super-resolution (SR) by learning the distribution of high-resolution (HR) images with the normalizing flow. However, these methods can only perform a predefined fixed-scale SR, limiting their potential in real-world applications. Meanwhile, arbitrary-scale SR has gained more attention and achieved great progress. Nonetheless, previous arbitrary-scale SR methods ignore the ill-posed problem and train the model with per-pixel L1 loss, leading to blurry SR outputs. In this work, we propose "Local Implicit Normalizing Flow" (LINF) as a unified solution to the above problems. LINF models the distribution of texture details under different scaling factors with normalizing flow. Thus, LINF can generate photo-realistic HR images with rich texture details in arbitrary scale factors. We evaluate LINF with extensive experiments and show that LINF achieves the state-of-the-art perceptual quality compared with prior arbitrary-scale SR methods.Comment: CVPR 2023 camera-ready versio

Porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) infection decreases the efficacy of an attenuated classical swine fever virus (CSFV) vaccine

The Lapinized Philippines Coronel (LPC) vaccine, an attenuated strain of classical swine fever virus (CSFV), is an important tool for the prevention and control of CSFV infection and is widely and routinely used in most CSF endemic areas, including Taiwan. The aim of this study was to investigate whether PCV2 infection affects the efficacy of the LPC vaccine. Eighteen 6-week-old, cesarean-derived and colostrum-deprived (CDCD), crossbred pigs were randomly assigned to four groups. A total of 105.3 TCID50 of PCV2 was experimentally inoculated into pigs through both intranasal and intramuscular routes at 0 days post-inoculation (dpi) followed by LPC vaccination 12 days later. All the animals were challenged with wild-type CSFV (ALD stain) at 27 dpi and euthanized at 45 dpi. Following CSFV challenge, the LPC-vaccinated pigs pre-inoculated with PCV2 showed transient fever, viremia, and viral shedding in the saliva and feces. The number of IgM+, CD4+CD8-CD25+, CD4+CD8+CD25+, and CD4-CD8+CD25+ lymphocyte subsets and the level of neutralizing antibodies against CSFV were significantly higher in the animals with LPC vaccination alone than in the pigs with PCV2 inoculation/LPC vaccination. In addition, PCV2-derived inhibition of the CSFV-specific cell proliferative response of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) was demonstrated in an ex vivo experiment. These findings indicate that PCV2 infection decreases the efficacy of the LPC vaccine. This PCV2-derived interference may not only allow the invasion of wild-type CSFV in pig farms but also increases the difficulty of CSF prevention and control in CSF endemic areas

A close association of body cell mass loss with disease activity and disability in Chinese patients with rheumatoid arthritis

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the association of body cell mass loss with disease activity and disability in rheumatoid arthritis patients. INTRODUCTION: Rheumatoid cachexia, defined as the loss of body cell mass, is important but under-recognized and contributes to morbidity and mortality in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. METHODS: One hundred forty-nine rheumatoid arthritis patients and 53 healthy, non-rheumatoid arthritis control subjects underwent anthropometric measurements of body mass index and waist and hip circumferences. Bioelectrical impedance analysis was used to determine the subjects' body compositions, including fat mass, skeletal lean mass, and body cell mass. The disease activity of rheumatoid arthritis was assessed using C-reactive protein serum, the erythrocyte sedimentation rate and the 28-joint disease activity score, while disability was evaluated using a health assessment questionnaire. RESULTS: Rheumatoid arthritis patients had lower waist-to-hip ratio (0.86 ± 0.07 vs. 0.95 ± 0.06; p<0.001) and lower skeletal lean mass indexes (14.44 ±1.52 vs. 15.18 ± 1.35; p = 0.002) than those in the healthy control group. Compared with rheumatoid arthritis patients with higher body cell masses, those with body cell masses lower than median had higher erythrocyte sedimentation rates (40.10 ± 27.33 vs. 25.09 ± 14.85; p<0.001), higher disease activity scores (5.36 ± 3.79 vs. 4.23 ± 1.21; p = 0.022) and greater disability as measured by health assessment questionnaire scores (1.26 ± 0.79 vs. 0.87 ± 0.79; p = 0.004). CONCLUSIONS: The loss of body cell mass is associated with higher disease activity and greater disability in rheumatoid arthritis patients. Body composition determined by bioelectrical impedance analysis can provide valuable information for a rheumatologist to more rapidly recognize rheumatoid cachexia in rheumatoid arthritis patients