Flow cytometric fluorescence pulse width analysis of etoposide-induced nuclear enlargement in HCT116 cells

Fluorescence pulse width can provide size information on the fluorescence-emitting particle, such as the nuclei of propidium iodide-stained cells. To analyze nuclear size in the present study, rather than perform the simple doublet discrimination approach usually employed in flow cytometric DNA content analyses, we assessed the pulse width of the propidium iodide fluorescence signal. The anti-cancer drug etoposide is reportedly cytostatic, can induce a strong G2/M arrest, and results in nuclear enlargement. Based on these characteristics, we used etoposide-treated HCT116 cells as our experimental model system. The fluorescence pulse widths (FL2-W) of etoposide-treated (10 μM, 48 h) cells were distributed at higher positions than those of vehicle control, so the peak FL2-W value of etoposide-treated cells appeared at 400 while those of vehicle control cells appeared at 200 and 270. These results were consistent with our microscopic observations. This etoposide-induced increase in FL2-W was more apparent in G2/M phase than other cell cycle phases, suggesting that etoposide-induced nuclear enlargement preferentially occurred in G2/M phase cells rather than in G0/G1 or S phase cells

Cost-Effective Design of Mesh-of-Tree Interconnect for Multi-Core Clusters with 3-D Stacked L2 Scratchpad Memory

3-D integrated circuits (3-D ICs) offer a promising solution to overcome the scaling limitations of 2-D ICs. However, using too many through-silicon-vias (TSVs) pose a negative impact on 3-D ICs due to the large overhead of TSV (e.g., large footprint and low yield). In this paper, we propose a new TSV sharing method for a circuit-switched 3-D mesh-of-tree (MoT) interconnect, which supports high-throughput and low-latency communication between processing cores and 3-D stacked multibanked L2 scratchpad memory. The proposed method supports traffic balancing and TSV-failure tolerant routing. The proposed method advocates a modular design strategy to allow stacking multiple identical memory dies without the need for different masks for dies at different levels in the memory stack. We also investigate various parameters of 3-D memory stacking (e.g., fabrication technology, TSV bonding technique, number of memory tiers, and TSV sharing scheme) that affect interconnect latency, system performance, and fabrication cost. Compared to conventional MoT interconnect that is straightforwardly adapted to 3-D integration, the proposed method yields up to (times 2.11) and (times 1.11) improvements in terms of cost efficiency (i.e., performance/cost) for microbump TSV bonding and direct Cu–Cu TSV bonding techniques, respectively

Runtime 3-D Stacked Cache Management for Chip-Multiprocessors

These-dimensional (3-D) memory stacking is one of the most promising solutions to memory bandwidth problems in chip multiprocessors. In this work, we propose an efficient runtime 3-D cache management technique which takes advantage of the lower latencies through vertical interconnect as well as the runtime memory demand of applications which varies dynamically with time. Experimental results show that the proposed method offers performance improvement by up to 26.7% and on average 13.1% compared with the private cache organization

Temperature-Aware Runtime Power Management for Chip-Multiprocessors with 3-D Stacked Cache

The advent of 3-D fabrication technology makes it possible to stack a large amount of last-level cache memory onto a multi-core die to reduce off-chip memory accesses and, thus, increases system performance. However, the higher power density (i.e., power dissipation per unit volume) of 3-D integrated circuits (ICs) might incur temperature-related problems in reliability, leakage power, system performance, and cooling cost. In this paper, we propose a runtime solution to maximize the performance (i.e., instruction throughput) of chip-multiprocessors with 3-D stacked last-level cache memory, without thermal-constraint violation. The proposed method combines runtime cache tuning (e.g., cache-way partitioning, cache-way power-gating, cache data placement) with per-core dynamic voltage/frequency scaling (DVFS) in a temperature-aware manner. Experimental results show that the integrated method offers 23% performance improvement on average in terms of instructions per second (IPS) compared with temperature-aware runtime cache tuning only

A Power-Efficient 3-D On-Chip Interconnect for Multi-Core Accelerators with Stacked L2 Cache

The use of multi-core clusters is a promising option for data-intensive embedded applications such as multi-modal sensor fusion, image understanding, mobile augmented reality. In this paper, we propose a power-efficient 3-D on-chip interconnect for multi-core clusters with stacked L2 cache memory. A new switch design makes a circuit-switched Mesh-of-Tree (MoT) interconnect reconfigurable to support power-gating of processing cores, memory blocks, and unnecessary interconnect resources (routing switch, arbitration switch, inverters placed along the on-chip wires). The proposed 3-D MoT improves the power efficiency up to 77% in terms of energy-delay product (EDP)

Photodynamic Therapy

In 1903, Von Tappeiner and Jesionek [...

Use of Underwater-Image Color to Determine Suspended-Sediment Concentrations Transported to Coastal Regions

The amount of suspended sediment transported from rivers to the ocean fluctuates over time, with a substantial increase occurring during storm events. This surge in sediment poses numerous challenges to coastal areas, highlighting the importance of accurately assessing the sediment load to address these issues. In this study, we developed and experimentally verified a novel method for suspended-sediment-discharge quantification in estuaries and coasts using underwater imaging. Specifically, red clay samples with different particle sizes were introduced into separate tanks containing clean water. After adequate mixing, the concentration, particle size, turbidity, and water quality were measured and analyzed using LISST-200x and EXO2 Multiparameter Sonde sensors. To maintain constant lighting conditions, a camera box was created for filming. Based on the experimental results, a turbidity–concentration relationship formula was derived. The proposed regression equation revealed that the relationship between the turbidity and estimated suspended-sediment concentration was significantly affected by the particle size, and the prediction results were underestimated under high-concentration conditions. Using blue, green, and gray band values, a multiple regression model for estimating suspended-sediment concentrations was developed; its predictions were better than those obtained from the turbidity–concentration relationship. Following efficiency improvements through additional approaches considering underwater-image filming conditions and characteristics of actual streams, estuaries, and coasts, this method could be developed into an easily usable technique for sediment-discharge estimation, helping address sediment-related issues in estuaries and coastal regions

Prediction of Suspended Sediment Concentration Based on the Turbidity-Concentration Relationship Determined via Underwater Image Analysis

Sediment measurement data are essential for sediment transport analysis and therefore highly important in overall river planning. Extant sediment measurement methods consume considerable manpower and time and are limited by factors including economic reasons and worker risks. This study primarily aimed to predict the changes in SSC (Suspended Sediment Concentration) and turbidity by examining the change in color in underwater images. While maintaining a constant flow in a channel, the turbidity and concentration were measured under different SSC. Multiple regression models were developed using turbidity measurement results, and they exhibited high explanatory powers (adjusted R2 > 0.91). Furthermore, upon verification using the verification dataset of the experimental results, an excellent predictive power (RMSE ≈ 0.4 NTU) was demonstrated. The model with the highest predictive power, which was inclusive of red and green bands and showed no underlying multicollinearity was used to predict turbidity. Finally, the turbidity and suspended sediment concentration relationship determined from the experimental results was used to estimate the sediment concentration from the color changes in the underwater images. The concentrations that were predicted by the model showed satisfactory results, compared to the measurements (RMSE ≈ 21 ppm). This study indicated the feasibility of continuous SSC monitoring using underwater images as a new measurement method

A High-throughput and Low-Latency Interconnection Network for Multi- Core Clusters with 3-D Stacked L2 Tightly-Coupled Data Memory

Abstract — The performance of most digital systems today is limited by the interconnect latency between logic and memory, rather than by the performance of logic or memory itself. Threedimensional (3-D) integration using through-silicon-vias (TSVs) may provide a solution to overcome the scaling limitations by stacking multiple memory dies on top of a many-core die. In this paper, we propose a Mesh-of-Trees (MoT) network to support high-throughput and low-latency communication between processing cores and 3-D stacked multi-banked shared L2 data memory. Compared to conventional MoT network [5] that is straightforwardly adapted to 3-D integration, the experimental results show that the proposed network significantly improves the number of operations per second. We also investigate the architecture parameters of 3-D memory stacking (e.g., number of tiers to be stacked, TSV sharing, etc.) that affect the interconnection network as well as the system performance and fabrication cost, which permits to explore trade-offs among different 3-D memory stacking architectures. I