Roger Yonchien Tsien (February 1, 1952 - August 24, 2016)

Roger Yonchien Tsien (1952-2016; Elected ForMemRS 2006) displayed precocious childhood talents in chemistry. After graduating from Harvard University in chemistry and physics in 1972, he pursued a PhD programme in the Physiological Laboratory, Cambridge, under Prof. Richard Adrian’s supervision with Marshal Scholarship support. His thesis “The design and use of organic chemical tools in cellular physiology” won the Gedge Prize, and a Comyns Berkeley Research Fellowship by Gonville and Caius College supporting his postdoctoral work developing Ca2+-sensitive electrodes and fluorescent probes measuring cellular [Ca2+]. His novel tetracarboxylate quin-2 readily accessed cells as its subsequently cleavable acetomethoxy-ester and signalled in the physiological [Ca2+] range. At Berkeley, further improved ratiometric and strongly fluorescent probes included the Ca2+-sensing indo-1, fura-2 and fluo-3, sensors for other strategic ions, and molecules that could photolytically uncage key intracellular regulators. At San Diego, design of fluorescent protein complexes build from the cAMP-binding phosphokinase A was followed by Nobel prizewinning work expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP) and developing spectral GFP variants forming fluorescent resonance energy transfer (FRET) pairs. Their conjugation with further proteins specifically binding particular ions or molecules under study permitted measurement of these by optical methods. Further detector protein complexes such as DsRED, fluorescent at longer wavelengths were to complement GFP. These interests culminated in the development of chemical tools with potential diagnostic and therapeutic clinical applications through their optical and magnetic resonance signals. His scientific work bequeathed a lasting wealth of chemical tools invaluable for physiological investigation with both current and future applicability.Not acknowledged: this is a bibliographical memoir commissioned by the Royal Society

A quorum-based commit and termination protocol for distributed database systems

A quorum-based commit and termination protocol is designed with the goal of maintaining high data availability in case of failures. The protocol proposed is resilient to arbitrary concurrent site failures, lost messages, and network partitioning. The major difference between this protocol and existing ones is that the voting partition processing strategy is taken into consideration in the design. As a result, the protocol is expected to maintain higher data availability.published_or_final_versio

Modelling coupled water and heat transport in a soil–mulch–plant–atmosphere continuum (SMPAC) system

Author name used in this publication: K. W. Chau2006-2007 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalAccepted ManuscriptPublishe

IN2LAMA: INertial lidar localisation and mapping

© 2019 IEEE. In this paper, we introduce a probabilistic framework for INertial Lidar Localisation And MApping (IN2LAMA). Most of today's lidars are based on spinning mechanisms that do not capture snapshots of the environment. As a result, movement of the sensor can occur while scanning. Without a good estimation of this motion, the resulting point clouds might be distorted. In the lidar mapping literature, a constant velocity motion model is commonly assumed. This is an approximation that does not necessarily always hold. The key idea of the proposed framework is to exploit preintegrated measurements over upsampled inertial data to handle motion distortion without the need for any explicit motion-model. It tightly integrates inertial and lidar data in a batch on-manifold optimisation formulation. Using temporally precise upsampled preintegrated measurement allows frame-to-frame planar and edge features association. Moreover, features are re-computed when the estimate of the state changes, consolidating front-end and back-end interaction. We validate the effectiveness of the approach through simulated and real data

Effects of Ixeris Chinensis (Thunb.) Nakai boiling water extract on hepatitis B viral activity and hepatocellular carcinoma

Background: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and hepatocellular carcinoma are major diseases that affect the Taiwanese population. Therefore, the development of an alternative herbal medicine that can effectively treat these diseases is a research target. In this study, we tested Ixeris Chinensis (Thunb.) Nakai boiling water extract (ICTN BWE) in vitro and analysed its effects on the HBV and liver cancer.Materials and Methods: We used a human liver cancer cell line (Hep3B, a cell line that continuously secretes HBV particles into a medium) as an experimental model for the screening of various ICTN BWE concentrations and their effects on the HBV in vitro.Results: Our results showed that 75 μg/mL ICTN BWE downregulated the relative expression of the hepatitis B virus surface antigens (HBsAg) to 77.1%. Using the human liver cancer cell lines HuH-7 and HepG2, and 3-(4,5- dimethylthiazol-zyl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT) and tumour clonogenic assays, we then showed that ICTN BWE inhibits hepatocellular carcinoma growth.Conclusion: Fluorescent microscopy of DAPI(4',6-Diamidino-2-phenylindole)-stained nuclei and DNA fragmentation assays confirmed the inhibitory effects of ICTN BWE on liver tumour cell growth through induction of apoptosis.Keywords: herbal medicine, Ixeris Chinensis (Thunb.) Nakai, antihepatocellular carcinoma, apoptosis, antihepatitis B viru

Progenitor-like cells derived from mouse kidney protect against renal fibrosis in a remnant kidney model via decreased endothelial mesenchymal transition

Showing A quantification of GFP-positive cells in the lung after intravenous injection of MKPCs in five-sixths nephrectomized mice (y axis shows the number of cells, while the x axis (FL1-H) shows the fluorescence intensity; M1 is the area of GFP-positive cells) and B immunohistochemistry of the lung after intravenous injection of MKPCs into a mouse that underwent five-sixths nephrectomy. Few GFP positive cells were found in the lung at the first day but there were no GFP-positive cells at week 14. (TIFF 2253 kb

Risk of liver cancer in patients with hepatitis B or C

Key Messages1. Among hepatitis B virus carriers, infection with genotype C significantly increases the risk of developing hepatocellular cancer compared to those without this genotype.2. Among hepatitis C virus carriers, infection with genotype 1b increases the risk of hepatocellular cancer two fold compared to controls without this genotype.3. Such increased risk should be explained as risk over and above the existing risk associated with each infection.4. Hepatitis C virus genotypes1a and 2a are associated with decreased risk of hepatocellular cancer.published_or_final_versio

Estradiol induces apoptosis via activation of miRNA-23a and p53: implication for gender difference in liver cancer development

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Building an Improved Internet of Things Smart Sensor Network Based on a Three-Phase Methodology

© 2013 IEEE. In recent years, the Internet of Things (IoT) has allowed the easy, intelligent, and efficient connection of many devices used in daily life by means of numerous smart sensors which communicate with each other using wireless signals. The rapid development of the IoT has been a result of recent advances in sensing technology. This paper proposes a three-phase methodology to improve the quality of experience for IoT system technologies. The proposed method employs the concepts of simple routing and two well-known multi-criteria decision-making method (MCDM) techniques: The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). First, all simple routings are obtained using the proposed depth-first search technology (DFS). AHP is applied to analyze the structure of the problem and to obtain weights for various selected criteria in the second phase. In the third phase, TOPSIS is utilized to rank the simple routings, which are simple paths. A case study example is provided to demonstrate the proposed three-phase methodology. The results from the numerical experiments show that the proposed methodology can successfully achieve the aim of this paper

From channels to systems: Ca(2+) -sensitive K(+) currents, alternans and cardiac arrhythmia.

C.L.-H.’s work is funded by the Medical Research Council (MR/M001288/1), Wellcome Trust (105727/Z/14/Z), British Heart Foundation (PG/08/116), the McVeigh Benefaction and SADS UK