Teaching Practicum

In this paper, I’m going to give a brief background about Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993; Massachusetts’s performance relative to international community; an overview and history of Worcester Public Schools and the Tahanto regional high school which is the school I was doing the teaching practicum. After the whole introduction of these backgrounds I’m going to talk about the professional standards for teachers in Massachusetts. On the last pages of my paper, I give some ideas of my WPI education and my classroom. These two parts include how WPI education helped me in my classroom and how WPI change my education career

Biological Models With Time Delay

This MQP can be divided into three main chapters. For each chapter, we studied three different mathematical models, which are the Logistic Growth model, the SIR model and the Chemostat model. These biological mathematical models all have time delay in part of their processes. Based on the specific phenomenological assumptions, we have different ways of building up the model through ordinary differential equations. The goal of this project is to investigate three models with time delay. We will also perform global sensitivity analysis for each model and study how uncertainty in the output of each model can be attributed to different sources of uncertainty in the model input. Applications for each model with time delay will be provided in this project with numerical results

Biological Models With Time Delay

This MQP can be divided into three main chapters. For each chapter, we studied three different mathematical models, which are the Logistic Growth model, the SIR model and the Chemostat model. These biological mathematical models all have time delay in part of their processes. Based on the specific phenomenological assumptions, we have different ways of building up the model through ordinary differential equations. The goal of this project is to investigate three models with time delay. We will also perform global sensitivity analysis for each model and study how uncertainty in the output of each model can be attributed to different sources of uncertainty in the model input. Applications for each model with time delay will be provided in this project with numerical results

Annealing novel nucleobase-lipids with oligonucleotides or plasmid DNA based on H-bonding or π-π interaction:Assemblies and transfections

Lipid derivatives of nucleoside analogs have been highlighted for their potential for effective gene delivery. A novel class of nucleobase-lipids are rationally designed and readily synthesized, comprising thymine/cytosine, an ester/amide linker and an oleyl lipid. The diversity of four nucleobase-lipids termed DXBAs (DOTA, DNTA, DOCA and DNCA) is investigated. Besides, DNCA is demonstrated to be an effective neutral transfection material for nucleic acid delivery, which enbles to bind to oligonucleotides via H-bonding and π-π stacking with reduced toxicity in vitro and in vivo. Several kinds of nucleic acid drugs including aptamer, ssRNA, antisense oligonucleotide, and plasmid DNAs can be delivered by DXBAs, especially DNCA. In particular, G4-aptamer AS1411 encapsulated by DNCA exhibits cellular uptake enhancement, lysosome degradation reduction, cell apoptosis promotion, cell cycle phase alteration in vitro and duration prolongation in vivo, resulting in significant anti-proliferative activity. Our results demonstrate that DNCA is a promising transfection agent for G4-aptamers and exhibites bright application prospects in the permeation improvement of single-stranded oligonucleotides or plasmid DNAs

A unified fisher’s ratio learning method for spatial filter optimization

To detect the mental task of interest, spatial filtering has been widely used to enhance the spatial resolution of electroencephalography (EEG). However, the effectiveness of spatial filtering is undermined due to the significant nonstationarity of EEG. Based on regularization, most of the conventional stationary spatial filter design methods address the nonstationarity at the cost of the interclass discrimination. Moreover, spatial filter optimization is inconsistent with feature extraction when EEG covariance matrices could not be jointly diagonalized due to the regularization. In this paper, we propose a novel framework for a spatial filter design. With Fisher's ratio in feature space directly used as the objective function, the spatial filter optimization is unified with feature extraction. Given its ratio form, the selection of the regularization parameter could be avoided. We evaluate the proposed method on a binary motor imagery data set of 16 subjects, who performed the calibration and test sessions on different days. The experimental results show that the proposed method yields improvement in classification performance for both single broadband and filter bank settings compared with conventional nonunified methods. We also provide a systematic attempt to compare different objective functions in modeling data nonstationarity with simulation studies.Accepted versio

Spatial filter adaptation based on the divergence framework for motor imagery EEG classification

10.1109/EMBC.2014.69439692014 36th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBC 20141847-185

Dynamic crosslinked polymeric nano-prodrugs for highly selective synergistic chemotherapy

To achieve highly selective synergistic chemotherapy attractive for clinical translation, the precise polymeric nano-prodrugs (PPD-NPs) were successfully constructed via the facile crosslinking reaction between pH-sensitive poly(ortho ester)s and reduction-sensitive small molecule synergistic prodrug (Pt(IV)-1). PPD-NPs endowed the defined structure and high drug loading of cisplatin and demethylcantharidin (DMC). Moreover, PPD-NPs exhibited steady long-term storage and circulation via the crosslinked structure, suitable negative potentials and low critical micelle concentration (CMC), improved selective tumour accumulation and cellular internalization via dynamic size transition and surficial amino protonation at tumoural extracellular pH, promoted efficient disintegration and drug release at tumoural intracellular pH/glutathione, and enhanced cytotoxicity via the synergistic effect between cisplatin and DMC with the feed ratio of 1:2, achieving significant tumour suppression while decreasing the side effects. Thus, the dynamic crosslinked polymeric nano-prodrugs exhibit tremendous potential for clinically targeted synergistic cancer therapy

pH-triggered dynamic erosive small molecule chlorambucil nano-prodrugs mediate robust oral chemotherapy

Currently, the dynamic erosive small molecule nano-prodrug is of great demand for oral chemotherapy, owing to its precise structure, high drug loading and improved oral bioavailability via overcoming various physiologic barriers in gastrointestinal tract, blood circulation and tumor tissues compared to other oral nanomedicines. Herein, this work highlights the successful development of pH-triggered dynamic erosive small molecule nano-prodrugs based on in vivo significant pH changes, which are synthesized via amide reaction between chlorambucil and star-shaped ortho esters. The precise nano-prodrugs exhibit extraordinarily high drug loading (68.16%), electric neutrality, strong hydrophobicity, and dynamic large-to-small size transition from gastrointestinal pH to tumoral pH. These favorable physicochemical properties can effectively facilitate gastrointestinal absorption, blood circulation stability, tumor accumulation, cellular uptake, and cytotoxicity, therefore achieving high oral relative bioavailability (358.72%) and significant tumor growth inhibition while decreasing side effects. Thus, this work may open a new avenue for robust oral chemotherapy attractive for clinical translation