Physiological and Molecular Processes Associated with Long Duration of ABA Treatment

Plants need to respond to various environmental stresses such as abiotic stress for proper development and growth. The responses to abiotic stress can be biochemically demanding, resulting in a trade-off that negatively affects plant growth and development. Thus, plant stress responses must be fine-tuned depending on the stress severity and duration. Abscisic acid, a phytohormone, plays a key role in responses to abiotic stress. Here, we investigated time-dependent physiological and molecular responses to long-term ABA treatment in Arabidopsis as an approach to gain insight into the plant responses to long-term abiotic stress. Upon ABA treatment, the amount of cellular ABA increased to higher levels, reaching to a peak at 24 h after treatment (HAT), and then gradually decreased with time whereas ABA-GE was maintained at lower levels until 24 HAT and then abruptly increased to higher levels at 48 HAT followed by a gradual decline at later time points. Many genes involved in dehydration stress responses, ABA metabolism, chloroplast biogenesis, and chlorophyll degradation were strongly expressed at early time points with a peak at 24 or 48 HAT followed by gradual decreases in induction fold or even suppression at later time points. At the physiological level, long-term ABA treatment caused leaf yellowing, reduced chlorophyll levels, and inhibited chloroplast division in addition to the growth suppression whereas short-term ABA treatment did not affect chlorophyll levels. Our results indicate that the duration of ABA treatment is a crucial factor in determining the mode of ABA-mediated signaling and plant responses: active mobilization of cellular resources at early time points and suppressive responses at later time points.11Ysciescopu

Validation of Stereophotogrammetry of the Human Torso

The objective of this study was to determine if measurements of breast morphology computed from three-dimensional (3D) stereophotogrammetry are equivalent to traditional anthropometric measurements obtained directly on a subject using a tape measure. 3D torso images of 23 women ranged in age from 36 to 63 who underwent or were scheduled for breast reconstruction surgery were obtained using a 3dMD torso system (3Q Technologies Inc., Atlanta, GA). Two different types (contoured and line-of-sight distances) of a total of nine distances were computed from 3D images of each participant. Each participant was photographed twice, first without fiducial points marked (referred to as unmarked image) and second with fiducial points marked prior to imaging (referred to as marked image). Stereophotogrammetry was compared to traditional direct anthropometry, in which measurements were taken with a tape measure on participants. Three statistical analyses were used to evaluate the agreement between stereophotogrammetry and direct anthropometry. Seven out of nine distances showed excellent agreement between stereophotogrammetry and direct anthropometry (both marked and unmarked images). In addition, stereophotogrammetry from the unmarked image was equivalent to that of the marked image (both line-of-sight and contoured distances). A lower level of agreement was observed for some measures because of difficulty in localizing more vaguely defined fiducial points, such as lowest visible point of breast mound, and inability of the imaging system in capturing areas obscured by the breast, such as the inframammary fold. Stereophotogrammetry from 3D images obtained from the 3dMD torso system is effective for quantifying breast morphology. Tools for surgical planning and evaluation based on stereophotogrammetry have the potential to improve breast surgery outcomes

3D Symmetry Measure Invariant to Subject Pose During Image Acquisition

In this study we evaluate the influence of subject pose during image acquisition on quantitative analysis of breast morphology. Three (3D) and two-dimensional (2D) images of the torso of 12 female subjects in two different poses; (1) hands-on-hip (HH) and (2) hands-down (HD) were obtained. In order to quantify the effect of pose, we introduce a new measure; the 3D pBRA (Percentage Breast Retraction Assessment) index, and validate its use against the 2D pBRA index. Our data suggests that the 3D pBRA index is linearly correlated with the 2D counterpart for both of the poses, and is independent of the localization of fiducial points within a tolerance limit of 7 mm. The quantitative assessment of 3D asymmetry was found to be invariant of subject pose. This study further corroborates the advantages of 3D stereophotogrammetry over 2D photography. Problems with pose that are inherent in 2D photographs are avoided and fiducial point identification is made easier by being able to panoramically rotate the 3D surface enabling views from any desired angle

TOPO-Joint: Reliability-based topology optimization framework for 3D-printed building joints

A Reliability-based Topology Optimization framework with the integration of a parametric design process and additive manufacturing technique is proposed in this paper. The proposed method is applied to design architectural and structural joints subjected to uncertain load and material property. Optimal joint designs from various architectural and structural design consideration are discussed through numerical applications. A study is conducted on the comparison between deterministic and reliability-based topology optimization approaches

Battery-operated portable PCR system with enhanced stability of Pt RTD.

This paper reports an outdoor-use polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology in which stability of resistance temperature detectors (RTDs) is remarkably improved. A thin-film RTD made of non-annealed Pt shows accuracy degradation because the resistance of the RTD tends to decrease during the PCR operation. Thus, the annealing process is applied to the Pt RTD to improve the stability, which is a prerequisite to the accurate measurement of the absolute temperature. Both heaters and the RTD are fabricated on a thin quartz substrate whose melting temperature is high enough for annealing. The performances in the PCR time and power consumption are enhanced by reducing the size of the heater chips with no degradation in the temperature uniformity. A spring-loaded electrode is employed to simplify the procedure of electrical connection to the thermal controller and loading/unloading of the PCR chip. The contact area of the electrical connection is so small that the conductive thermal resistance increases; thereby small heat dissipation can be exploited for low-power operation. The stability of the RTD is experimentally confirmed in terms of resistance variation over repeated PCR operations (four times). The least variation of 0.005%, which corresponds to a negligible temperature variation of 0.038 °C for the PCR, is achieved from the RTD annealed for 5 min at 450 °C. The gel-electrophoresis result indicates that the PCR performance of the proposed system using a film-type PCR chip is comparable to that of a conventional system using a vial tube despite its low power consumption