Search results for: Hong Yang Yu

Authors: Zhuohan Li, Jing Yang, Yaoyuan Cui

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The gut-brain axis (GBA), a communication network between gut microbiota and the brain, benefits for investigation of brain diseases. Currently, organ chips are considered one of the potential tools for GBA research. However, most of the available GBA chips have limitations in replicating the three-dimensional (3D) growth environment of cells and lack the required cell types for barrier function. In the present study, a microfluidic chip was developed for GBA interaction. Blood-brain barrier (BBB) module was prepared with HBMEC, HBVP, U87 cells and decellularized matrix (dECM). Intestinal epithelial barrier (IEB) was prepared with Caco-2 and vascular endothelial cells and dECM. GBA microfluidic device was integrated with IEB and BBB modules using 3D printing interconnecting microchannel scaffolds. BBB and IEB interaction on this GBA chip were evaluated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) exposure. The present GBA chip achieved multicellular three-dimensional cultivation. Compared with the co-culture cell model in the transwell, fluorescein was absorbed more slowly by 5.16-fold (IEB module) and 4.69-fold (BBB module) on the GBA chip. Accumulation of Rhodamine 123 and Hoechst33342 was dramatically decreased. The efflux function of transporters on IEB and BBB was significantly increased on the GBA chip. After lipopolysaccharide (LPS) disrupted the IEB, and then BBB dysfunction was further observed, which confirmed the interaction between IEB and BBB modules. These results demonstrated that this GBA chip may offer a promising tool for gut-brain interaction study.

Keywords: decellularized matrix, gut-brain axis, organ-on-chip, three-dimensional printing.

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Authors: Hye Lin Yang, Clifton R. Emery

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Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of intimate partner violence on child abuse, whether patriarchal attitude and informal social control moderate the relationship between intimate partner violence and child abuse. This study was conducted with data from The Seoul Families and Neighborhoods Study (SFNS). The SFNS is a representative random probability 3-stage cluster sample of 541 cohabiting couples in Seoul, South Korea collected in 2012. To verify research models, Random effect analysis were used. All analyses were performed using the Stata program. Results: Crucial findings are the following. First, intimate partner violence showed a significantly positive relationship with Child abuse. Second, there are significant moderating effects of informal social control on intimate partner violence - child abuse. Third, there are significant moderating effects of patriarchal attitude on intimate partner violence - child abuse. In other words, Patriarchal attitude is a significant risk factor of child abuse and informal social control is a significant Protection factor of child abuse. Based on results, the policy and practical implications for preventing child abuse, promoting informal social control were discussed.

Keywords: Intimate partner violence, child abuse, informal social control, patriarchal attitude

Procedia PDF Downloads 287

Authors: Yuan Yang, Mickey Lam

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Oral dissolvable films have been considered as a unique alternative approach to conventional oral dosage forms. The films could be administrated via the gastrointestinal tract as conventional dosages or through sublingual/buccal mucosa membranes, which could enhance drug bioavailability by avoiding the first-pass effect and improving permeability due to high blood flow and lymphatic circulation. This work has described a state-of-art technic using nano-emulsion/nano-suspension as a precursor for the film to enhance the bioavailability of BCS class II drugs. The drug molecules are consequentially processed through the emulsification, gelation, and film-casting processes. The gelation process is critical to stabilizing the nano-emulsion for the film-casting as well as controlling the drug release process. Furthermore, the size of the nanoparticle on the film has a strong correlation with the size of the micelles in the precursor and the condition of the gelation process. It has been discovered that nanoparticle from 200 nm to 300 nm has shown the highest permeability for sublingual administration. In one example shown in work, the bioavailability of a low solubilize drug has been increased from 10% to 24% via sublingual administration of the film. The increasing of the bioavailability was thought to be associated with the enhancement of the diffusion process of the drug in the saliva layer above the mucosa membrane and the fact that the presents of the emulsifier help lose the rigid junction of the mucosa cells.

Keywords: oral dissolvable film, nano-suspension, nano-emulsion, bioavailability

Procedia PDF Downloads 158

Authors: Tsung-Han Lin, Chia-Han Yang

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Recently, it’s obvious that many hotels not only provide customized service, but offer local culture to give customers different experiences. Luxury decoration and fancy equipment are not enough anymore. Customers expect that hotels not just as an accommodation, but connecting to their trips. Therefore, culture becomes significant when developing marketing strategy for hotels. Tainan, located in south of Taiwan, is the city full of culture that some hospitality industries promote their hotels exactly base on culture. Historic Tainan (台南; táinán), is a city of ancient monuments, delicious food and, above all, temples: there are more gods worshipped and more festivals and rituals observed in Tainan than in any other place in Taiwan. The oldest and most absorbing parts of Tainan are historic Anping, on the west side of town by the sea, and the cultural zones in the heart of the old city; the latter were created specifically to make things easier for visitors, with city information, signs and maps tailored to each zone and well-marked in English. The Chihkan, Dong-an Fang, Five Canals and Confucius Temple cultural zones contain the richest concentration of sights – reckon on spending at least two days to do them justice. As a result, the study aims to analyze the significance of culture on marketing strategies and C and H two hotels in Tainan city as case studies conducting the comparison of cultural marketing and experience marketing to provide a framework for hotels to develop their marketing strategies.

Keywords: cultural marketing, hospitality, historical city, Tainan city

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Authors: Mai M. Farid, Ximeng Yang, Tomoharu Kuboyama, Yuna Inada, Chihiro Tohda

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Intro: Trigonella foenum-graecum (Fenugreek), from Fabaceae family is a well-known plant traditionally used as food and medicine. Many pharmacological effects of Trigonella foenum- graecum seeds extract (TF extract) were evaluated such as anti-diabetic, anti-tumor and anti-dementia effects using in vivo models. Regarding the anti-dementia effects of TF extract, diabetic rats, aluminum chloride-induced amnesia rats and scopolamine-injected mice were used previously for evaluation, which are not well established as Alzheimer’s disease models. In addition, those previous studies, active constituents in TF extract for memory function were not identified. Method: This study aimed to clarify the effect of TF extract on Alzheimer’s disease model, 5XFAD mouse that overexpresses mutated APP and PS1 genes and determine the major active constituent in the brain after oral intake of TF extract. Results: Trigonelline was detected in the cerebral cortex of 5XFAD mice after 24 hours of oral administration of TF extract by LC-MS/MS. Oral administration of TF extract for 17 days improved object location memory in 5XFAD mice. Conclusion: These results suggest that TF extract and its active constituents could be an expected therapeutic candidate for Alzheimer’s disease.

Keywords: Alzheimer's disease, LC-MS/MS, memory recovery, Trigonella foenum-graecum Seeds, 5XFAD mice

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Authors: Zhao Yang Liu, Jing Tao

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The Asian long-horned beetle, Anoplophora glabripennis (Motschulsky) (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Lamiinae), is a wood-borer and polyphagous xylophages native to Asia and killing healthy trees. As it causes serious danger to trees, the beetle has been paid close attention in the world. However, the genetic markers limited, especially microsatellite. In this study, 24 novel simple sequence repeat (SSR) molecular markers, a powerful tool for genetic diversity studies and linkage map construction, were developed and characterized from whole genome shotgun sequences. We developed SSR loci of 2 to 6 repeated and perfect units including 9895 points, the density of SSRs was found one SSR per 56.57 kb and the abundance of SSR was 0.02/kb, besides 140 types of repeats motifs were found. Half of the 48 pairs SSR primers (containing 4 di-, 7 tri-, 2 tetra- and 11 hexamers SSRs) we selected randomly from 1222 pairs of primers were polymorphism. The number of alleles for these markers in 48 individuals varied from 3 to 21 with an average of 7.71, the number of effective alleles ranged from 1.22 to 9.97 with an average of 3.54. Besides this, the polymorphic information content (PIC) ranged from 0.18 to 0.89 with a mean of 0.65, And Shannon's Information index (I) ranged from 0.46 to 2.62 with an average of 1.44. The results suggest that the method for screening of SSR in the whole genome is feasible and efficient. SSR markers developed in this study can be used for population genetic studies of A. glabripennis. Moreover, they may also be helpful for the development of microsatellites for other Coleoptera.

Keywords: SSR markers, Anoplophora glabripennis, genetic diversity, whole genome

Procedia PDF Downloads 375

Authors: Yuguang Gao, Qiang Yang, Yanpeng Zhang, Mingtao Deng

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To enhance the safety, quality and efficiency of healthcare services provided by surgical doctors, we propose a comprehensive approach to the performance evaluation of individual doctors by incorporating insights from performance data as well as views of different stakeholders in the hospital. Exploratory factor analysis was first performed on collective multidimensional performance data of surgical doctors, where key factors were extracted that encompass assessment of professional experience and service performance. A two-level indicator system was then constructed, for which we developed a weighted interval-valued spherical fuzzy analytic hierarchy process to analyze the relative importance of the indicators while handling subjectivity and disparity in the decision-making of multiple parties involved. Our analytical results reveal that, for the key factors identified as instrumental for evaluating surgical doctors’ performance, the overall importance of clinical workload and complexity of service are valued more than capacity of service and professional experience, while the efficiency of resource consumption ranks comparatively the lowest in importance. We also provide a retrospective case study to illustrate the effectiveness and robustness of our quantitative evaluation model by assigning meaningful performance ratings to individual doctors based on the weights developed through our approach.

Keywords: analytic hierarchy processes, factor analysis, fuzzy logic, performance evaluation

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Authors: Zhou Yang, Heli Sun, Jianbin Huang, Jizhong Zhao, Shaojie Qiao

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Traffic prediction is essential in a multitude of ways in modern urban life. The researchers of earlier work in this domain carry out the investigation chiefly with two major focuses: (1) the accurate forecast of future values in multiple time series and (2) knowledge extraction from spatial-temporal correlations. However, two key considerations for traffic prediction are often missed: the completeness of raw data and the full context of the prediction timestamp. Concentrating on the two drawbacks of earlier work, we devise an approach that can address these issues in a two-phase framework. First, we utilize the raw trajectories to a greater extent through building a VLA table and data compression. We obtain the intra-trajectory features with graph-based encoding and the intertrajectory ones with a grid-based model and the technique of back projection that restore their surrounding high-resolution spatial-temporal environment. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to study direct feature extraction from raw trajectories for traffic prediction and attempt the use of raw data with the least degree of reduction. In the prediction phase, we provide a broader context for the prediction timestamp by taking into account the information that are around it in the training dataset. Extensive experiments on several well-known datasets have verified the effectiveness of our solution that combines the strength of raw trajectory data and prediction context. In terms of performance, our approach surpasses several state-of-the-art methods for traffic prediction.

Keywords: traffic prediction, raw data utilization, context building, data reduction

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Authors: Kahsay Tadesse Mawcha, Na Zhang, Xu Yiying, Chang Jiaying, Wenxiang Yang

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Fusarium crown rot (FCR) diseased wheat seedlings were collected from different wheat-growing counties in seven different regions (Baoding, Cangzhou, Handan, Hengshui, Langfang, Shijiazhuang, and Xingtai) in Hebei province, China from 2019 to 2020. One-hundred twenty-two Fusarium isolates were isolated from crown rot diseased wheat seedlings and identified morphologically, confirmation was undertaken molecularly, and species-specific PCR was utilized to verify the morphological identification of F. psuedograminearum, F. graminearum, F. asiaticum, and F. culmorum. The predominant Fusarium species associated with wheat crown rot in the Hebei province were F. psuedograminearum, F. graminearum, F. asiaticum, and F. culmorum with isolation frequency of 85.25%, 12.30%, 1.64%, and 0.81%, respectively. All the Fusarium strains isolated from the different wheat-growing fields were qualitatively tested for toxigenic chemotypes using toxin-specific primers and chemotaxonomically classified into DON, 3-ADON, 15-ADON, and NIV. Among F. psuedograminearum identified, 84.62% were classified as DON chemotypes, 6.73% as 15-ADON chemotypes, 3.84% as 3-ADON chemotypes, and 4.81% of them had NIV as detected by the toxin-specific PCR results. Most of the F. graminearum isolates produced 15-ADON, and only two isolates had NIV chemotypes. F. asiaticum and F. culmorum produce chemotype of 15-ADON and 3-ADON, respectively. Pathogenicity test results showed that F. pseudograminearum and F. graminearum had strong pathogenicity, and F. asiaticum and F. culmorum had moderate pathogenicity to wheat in Hebei province.

Keywords: crown rot, pathogen, wheat, Fusarium species, mycotoxin

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Authors: Hongbin Yang, Mingxue Liao, Changwen Zheng, Mengyao Kong, Chaohui Liu

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Microfacet-based reflection models are widely used to model light reflections for rough surfaces. Microfacet models have become the standard surface material building block for describing specular components with varying roughness; and yet, while they possess many desirable properties as well as produce convincing results, their design ignores important sources of scattering, which can cause a significant loss of energy. Specifically, they only simulate the single scattering on the microfacets and ignore the subsequent interactions. As the roughness increases, the interaction will become more and more important. So a multiple-scattering microfacet model based on specular V-cavity is presented for this important open problem. However, it spends much unnecessary rendering time because of setting the same number of scatterings for different roughness surfaces. In this paper, we design a geometric attenuation term G to compute the BRDF (Bidirectional reflection distribution function) of multiple scattering of rough surfaces. Moreover, we consider determining the number of scattering by deterministic heuristics for different roughness surfaces. As a result, our model produces a similar appearance of the objects with the state of the art model with significantly improved rendering efficiency. Finally, we derive a multiple scattering BRDF based on the original microfacet framework.

Keywords: bidirectional reflection distribution function, BRDF, geometric attenuation term, multiple scattering, V-cavity model

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Authors: Ergun Sakalar, Kubra Bilgic

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In the last decades, real-time PCR has become a reliable tool preferred to use in many laboratories for pathogen detection. This technique allows for monitoring target amplification via fluorescent molecules besides admit of quantitative analysis by enabling of convert outcomes of thermal cycling to digital data. Sensitivity and traceability of real-time PCR are based on measuring of fluorescence that appears only when fluorescent reporter dye bound to specific target DNA.The fluorescent reporter systems developed for this purpose are divided into two groups. The first group consists of intercalator fluorescence dyes such as SYBR Green, EvaGreen which binds to double-stranded DNA. On the other hand, the second group includes fluorophore-labeled oligonucleotide probes that are separated into three subgroups due to differences in mechanism of action; initial primer-probes such as Cyclicons, Angler®, Amplifluor®, LUX™, Scorpions, and the second one hydrolysis probes like TaqMan, Snake assay, finally hybridization probes, for instance, Molecular Beacons, Hybprobe/FRET, HyBeacon™, MGB-Eclipse, ResonSense®, Yin-Yang, MGB-Pleiades. In addition nucleic acid analogues, an increase of probe affinity to target site is also employed with fluorescence-labeled probes. Consequently, abundant real-time PCR detection chemistries are chosen by researcher according to the field of application, mechanism of action, advantages, and proper structures of primer/probes.

Keywords: fluorescent dye, food safety, molecular probes, nucleic acid analogues

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Authors: Lei Danyang, Lu Jialiang

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As nightlife is getting richer in urban area, urban nightscape has become an increasingly important part of the urban landscape. Understanding urban nightscape from the perspec­tive of pedestrian perception is very important to improve the livability and walkability of a city. The purpose of this study is to analyze the nightscapes of two different urban forms. The research methods are literature investigation and field investigation. From analyzing the lighting, sensory ex­perience, and night activities, this research studies the two streets, Pei Ho Street and Yen Chow Street West in Sham Shui Po. Results revealed that the two streets are on the two extremes of the two characters of the night and a better balance needs to be found between them. Because of the different land usage and stakeholders, the two streets should play different roles in the nightscape, so their balance points are also different. On the one hand, Pei Ho Street, which has a strong commercial atmos­phere, should not only retain its vitality and diversity but also ensure its function of relaxation at night; on the other hand, in Yen Chow Street West, it is necessary to develop its potential of reconnecting people with the darkness of the night while ensur­ing its safety. These findings may not only provide policymak­ers with information to help them improve the nightscape and livability of the Sham Shui Po area but also help bridge the gap between research and design. In the future, more attention should be paid to pedestrian preference and nightscape perception of vulnerable groups.

Keywords: Hong Kong, pedestrian perception, Sham Shui Po, urban form, urban nightscape

Procedia PDF Downloads 133

Authors: Malik Muhammad Arslan, Muneeb Ullah, Dai Shihan, Faizan Khan, Xiaodong Yang

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Internet Service Providers are driving endless demands for higher bandwidth and data throughput as new services and applications require higher bandwidth. Users want immediate and accurate data delivery. This article focuses on converting old conventional networks into passive optical networks based on time division and wavelength division multiplexing. The main focus of this research is to use a hybrid of time-division multiplexing and wavelength-division multiplexing to improve network efficiency and performance. In this paper, we design an 80 Gbps Passive Optical Network (PON), which meets the need of the Next Generation PON Stage 2 (NGPON2) proposed in this paper. The hybrid of the Time and Wavelength division multiplexing (TWDM) is said to be the best solution for the implementation of NGPON2, according to Full-Service Access Network (FSAN). To co-exist with or replace the current PON technologies, many wavelengths of the TWDM can be implemented simultaneously. By utilizing 8 pairs of wavelengths that are multiplexed and then transmitted over optical fiber for 40 Kms and on the receiving side, they are distributed among 256 users, which shows that the solution is reliable for implementation with an acceptable data rate. From the results, it can be concluded that the overall performance, Quality Factor, and bandwidth of the network are increased, and the Bit Error rate is minimized by the integration of this approach.

Keywords: bit error rate, fiber to the home, passive optical network, time and wavelength division multiplexing

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Authors: Hyun-Soo Seol, In-Gun Kim, Hyun Seok Hong, Dong-Woo Kang, Ju Lee

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Rotor of Spoke-Type PMSM is divided into permanent magnet and rotor core. Moreover, rotor core is composed of pole-piece, Bridge and rib. Piece between the permanent magnet N and S poles is pole-piece. Bridge and rib hold pole-piece. In the case of pole-piece and bridge, it is essential structure of Spoke-Type PMSM. However, Rib can be selected by the designer depending on the operating conditions and constraints. If rib is present in the rotor, rib which acts in the leak path generates a leakage flux. Although the leakage flux reduces the torque in low speed, it expands speed range in high speed. So, there is a relationship of trade off. Viewed from the standpoint of permanent magnet demagnetization, since the magnetic flux by the stator winding leaks to the rib, it is an advantage. In addition, rib affects the safety factor of the rotor. For application required high speed operation, since the securing the safety factor of the rotor is important, rib structure is advantageous. On the other hand, in the case of the application that does not require high speed operation, it is desirable to increase the output power by designing without rib. In this paper, Effects on rib structure is analyzed in detail and this paper provides designer with information about rotor design of spoke-type PMSM according to rib structure.

Keywords: spoke-Type PMSM, rotor shape, rib, operation range

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Authors: Jie Dong, Binjie Hu, Andrzej W Pacek, Xiaogang Yang, Nicholas J. Miles

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The effect of the shape of the vessel bottom and the length of baffles on the velocity distributions in a turbulent and in a transitional flow has been simulated. The turbulent flow was simulated using standard k-ε model and simulation was verified using LES whereas transitional flow was simulated using only LES. It has been found that both the shape of tank bottom and the baffles’ length has significant effect on the flow pattern and velocity distribution below the impeller. In the dished bottom tank with baffles reaching the edge of the dish, the large rotating volume of liquid was formed below the impeller. Liquid in this rotating region was not fully mixing. A dead zone was formed here. The size and the intensity of circulation within this zone calculated by k-ε model and LES were practically identical what reinforces the accuracy of the numerical simulations. Both types of simulations also show that employing full-length baffles can reduce the size of dead zone formed below the impeller. The LES was also used to simulate the velocity distribution below the impeller in transitional flow and it has been found that secondary circulation loops were formed near the tank bottom in all investigated geometries. However, in this case the length of baffles has smaller effect on the volume of rotating liquid than in the turbulent flow.

Keywords: baffles length, dished bottom, dead zone, flow field

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Authors: Xiaoming Yang, Abby Folberg, Carey Ryan, Lwetzel, Tgoering

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We examined gender differences in entrepreneurial career interests drawing on goal congruity theory, which posits that people adopt gender-stereotypic goal orientations in response to social pressures to conform to traditional gender roles. Aspiring entrepreneurs (N = 351) first wrote three to five sentences about what they believed made an entrepreneur successful. They then completed measures of agentic and communal goal orientations (i.e., male and female stereotypic orientations, respectively) and indicated their interests in starting ventures in stereotypically feminine (e.g., salon), masculine (e.g., auto-repair) and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM; e.g., software developer) ventures. Qualitative analyses demonstrated that participants ascribed agentic and, more specifically, dominance, attributes to entrepreneurs; few participants ascribed communal attributes (e.g., warmth). Bifactor structural equation modeling indicated that, as expected, agentic goal orientations included dimensions of competence, self-direction, and dominance orientations and communal goal orientations were unidimensional. Further, as expected, dominance and communal orientations partially accounted for gender differences in all three career types. We discuss implications for entrepreneurial education and practice from a goal congruity perspective and the use of bifactor modeling to improve the measurement of goal orientations.

Keywords: gender, entrepreneurship, gender stereotypes, agentic and communal goal orientations, entrepreneurship education

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Authors: Qing Zhang, Jiachen Nie, Yujia Wen, Guanyuan Kou, Peng Yu, Kun Xia, Qin Yang, Li Ding

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BACKGROUND: A facility layout problem (FLP) is an NP-complete (non-deterministic polynomial) problem, which is hard to obtain an exact optimal solution. FLP has been widely studied in various limited spaces and workflows. For example, cafeterias with many types of equipment for troops cause chaotic processes when dining. OBJECTIVE: This article tried to optimize the layout of troops’ cafeteria and to improve the overall efficiency of the dining process. METHODS: First, the original cafeteria layout design scheme was analyzed from an ergonomic perspective and two new design schemes were generated. Next, three facility layout models were designed, and further simulation was applied to compare the total time and density of troops between each scheme. Last, an experiment of the dining process with video observation and analysis verified the simulation results. RESULTS: In a simulation, the dining time under the second new layout is shortened by 2.25% and 1.89% (p<0.0001, p=0.0001) compared with the other two layouts, while troops-flow density and interference both greatly reduced in the two new layouts. In the experiment, process completing time and the number of interference reduced as well, which verified corresponding simulation results. CONCLUSIONS: Our two new layout schemes are tested to be optimal by a series of simulation and space experiments. In future research, similar approaches could be applied when taking layout-design algorithm calculation into consideration.

Keywords: layout optimization, dining efficiency, troops’ cafeteria, anylogic simulation, field experiment

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Authors: Hyunuk Kim, Yang No Yun, Muhammad Sohail, Jong-Ho Moon, Young Cheol Park

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Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), which are emerging absorbents assembled from metal ions and organic ligands, have attracted attention for their permanent porosity and design of tunable pore size. These microporous materials showed interesting properties for CO₂ storage and separation. In particular, MOFs with high surface area and open metal sites showed the remarkable adsorption capacity and selectivity for CO₂. [Mg₂ (DOBDC)] (DOBDC = 2,5-dioxidobenzene-1,4-dicarboxylate) (MOF-74 or CPO-27) is a well-known absorbent showing an exceptionally high CO₂ sorption capacity at low partial pressure and room temperature. In this work, we synthesized [M₂(DOBDC)(DMF)₂] (M = Mg, Co, Ni) and determined their single-crystal structures by X-ray crystallography. The removal of coordinated guest molecules generates Lewis acidic sites and showed high CO₂ adsorption affinity. Both CO₂ adsorption capacity and surface area are much higher than reported values in literature. To fabricate MMMs, microcrystalline [M₂ (DOBDC)(DMF)₂] was synthesized by microwave reaction and dispersed in PDMS solution. The MMMs with a various amount of [M₂ (DOBDC)(DMF) ₂] in PDMS were fabricated by a solution casting method. [M₂ (DOBDC)(DMF)₂]@PDMS membrane showed higher CO2 permeability and CO₂/N₂ selectivity than those of PDMS. Therefore, we believe that MMMs combining polymer and MOFs provide new materials for CO₂ separation technology.

Keywords: metal-organic frameworks, mixed matrix membrane, CO2/N2 separation, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)

Procedia PDF Downloads 195

Authors: Yang-Gyun Kim, Eun-Taek Woo, Myeong-Gon Lee, Yun-Hyun Cho, Seung-Ho Han

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For the sustainable development of wind energy, energy industries have invested in the development of highly efficient wind turbines such as an axial flux permanent magnet (AFPM) generator. The AFPM generator, however, has a history of overheating on the surface of the stator, so that power production decreases significantly. A proper cooling system, therefore, is needed. Although a convective-type cooling system has been developed, the size of the air blower must be increased when the generator’s capacity exceeds 2.5 MW. In this paper, we proposed a newly developed conductive-type cooling system using a heat pipe wound to the stator of a 2.5 MW AFPM generator installed on an offshore wind turbine. The numerical results showed that the temperatures on the stator surface using convective-type cooling system and the proposed conductive-type cooling system at thermal saturation were 60 and 76°C, respectively, which met the requirements for power production. The temperatures of the permanent magnet cased by the radiant heating from the stator surface were 53°C and 66°C, respectively, in each case. As a result, the permanent magnet did not reach the malfunction temperature. Although the cooling temperatures in the case of the conductive-type cooling system were higher than that of the convective-type cooling system, the relatively small size of the water pump and radiators make a light-weight design of the AFPM generator possible.

Keywords: wind turbine, axial flux permanent magnet (AFPM) generator, conductive-type cooling system

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Authors: So Youn Park, Yi Sle Lee, Ki Whan Hong, Chi Dae Kim

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The role of metabolism in the pathogenesis of osteoarthritis is an emerging field. Metabolic alterations may be a role in osteoarthritis (OA) pathogenesis, and these changes influence joint destruction via several cytokine. Especially, in OA patients, levels of IL-1β are elevated in the synovial fluid, synovial membrane, subchondral bone, and cartilage. The IL-1β is activated by NLRP3 inflammasomes, and NLRP3 inflammasomes are cytosolic complexes that drive the production of other inflammatory cytokines, including IL-1β. In this study, we examined that SIRT1 suppresses IL-1β through inhibiting NLRP3 inflammasomes and SIRT1 ameliorates osteoarthritis. OA fibroblasts were isolated from synovium of OA patients. IL-1β and NLRP3 were detected in synovium of OA patients by immunohistochemistry. Lipopolysaccharides (LPS) stimulated the expression of active IL-1β mRNA in OA fibroblasts and combination of LPS, and adenosine triphosphate increased more the expression of active IL-1β in OA fibroblasts. The level of IL-1β was measured by western blot and ELISA assay. NLRP3 inflammasomes complex were measured by western blot. SIRT1 did not inhibit expression of NLRP3 inflammasome. So caspase-1, apoptotic speck-like protein containing a caspase recruitment domain (ASC) and NLRP3 protein were expressed in OA fibroblasts. But SIRT1 suppressed activation of IL-1β by inhibiting activity of caspase-1 via NLRP3 inflammasome in OA fibroblasts under LPS plus ATP stimulation. These results suggest that SIRT1 is a modulator of NLRP3 inflammasomes in OA fibroblasts and ameliorate IL-1β, so expression of SIRT1 in OA fibroblast may be a potential strategy for OA inflammation treatment.

Keywords: osteoarthritis, inflammasome, SIRT1, IL-1beta

Procedia PDF Downloads 186

Authors: YU Kaijun, Liang Dong, Zhang Yarong, Jin Zhenzhou, Yang Zhaobao

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For the impact monitoring of distributed structures, the traditional positioning methods are based on the time difference, which includes the four-point arc positioning method and the triangulation positioning method. But in the actual operation, these two methods have errors. In this paper, the Multi-Agent Blackboard Coordination Principle is used to combine the two methods. Fusion steps: (1) The four-point arc locating agent calculates the initial point and records it to the Blackboard Module.(2) The triangulation agent gets its initial parameters by accessing the initial point.(3) The triangulation agent constantly accesses the blackboard module to update its initial parameters, and it also logs its calculated point into the blackboard.(4) When the subsequent calculation point and the initial calculation point are within the allowable error, the whole coordination fusion process is finished. This paper presents a Multi-Agent collaboration method whose agent framework is JADE. The JADE platform consists of several agent containers, with the agent running in each container. Because of the perfect management and debugging tools of the JADE, it is very convenient to deal with complex data in a large structure. Finally, based on the data in Jade, the results show that the impact location method based on Multi-Agent coordination fusion can reduce the error of the two methods.

Keywords: impact monitoring, structural health monitoring(SHM), multi-agent system(MAS), black-board coordination, JADE

Procedia PDF Downloads 166

Authors: Feng Yang

Abstract:

Machine learning (ML), especially deep learning (DL), has been extensively applied to many applications in recently years and gained great success in solving different problems, including scientific problems. However, conventional ML/DL methodologies are purely data-driven which have the limitations, such as need of ample amount of labelled training data, lack of consistency to physical principles, and lack of generalizability to new problems/domains. Recently, there is a growing consensus that ML models need to further take advantage of prior knowledge to deal with these limitations. Physics-informed machine learning, aiming at integration of physics/domain knowledge into ML, has been recognized as an emerging area of research, especially in the recent 2 to 3 years. In this work, physics-informed ML, specifically physics-informed neural network (NN), is employed and implemented to estimate the displacements at x, y, z directions in a solid mechanics problem that is controlled by equilibrium equations with boundary conditions. By incorporating the physics (i.e. the equilibrium equations) into the learning process of NN, it is showed that the NN can be trained very efficiently with a small set of labelled training data. Experiments with different settings of the NN model and the amount of labelled training data were conducted, and the results show that very high accuracy can be achieved in fulfilling the equilibrium equations as well as in predicting the displacements, e.g. in setting the overall displacement of 0.1, a root mean square error (RMSE) of 2.09 × 10−4 was achieved.

Keywords: deep learning, neural network, physics-informed machine learning, solid mechanics

Procedia PDF Downloads 138

Authors: Soo Hong Da, Ng Zheng Yao, Burra Venkata Durga Kumar

Abstract:

The Healthcare sector is a business that consists of providing medical services, manufacturing medical equipment and drugs as well as providing medical insurance to the public. Most of the time, the data stored in the healthcare database is to be related to patient’s information which is required to be accurate when it is accessed by authorized stakeholders. In distributed systems, one important issue is concurrency in the system as it ensures the shared resources to be synchronized and remains consistent through multiple read and write operations by multiple clients. The problems of concurrency in the healthcare sector are who gets the access and how the shared data is synchronized and remains consistent when there are two or more stakeholders attempting to the shared data simultaneously. In this paper, a framework that is beneficial to distributed healthcare sector concurrent environment is proposed. In the proposed framework, four different level nodes of the database, which are national center, regional center, referral center, and local center are explained. Moreover, the frame synchronization is not symmetrical. There are two synchronization techniques, which are complete and partial synchronization operation are explained. Furthermore, when there are multiple clients accessed at the same time, synchronization types are also discussed with cases at different levels and priorities to ensure data is synchronized throughout the processes.

Keywords: resources, healthcare, concurrency, synchronization, stakeholders, database

Procedia PDF Downloads 138

Authors: Chao Yang, Rosalind Bueckert, Jeff Schoenau, Axel Diederichsen, Hossein Zakeri, Tom Warkentin

Abstract:

Pea is a very popular pulse crop that widely grew in Western Canadian prairie. However, the N fixation capabilities of these pea lines were not well evaluated under local environmental conditions. In this study, 2 supernodulating mutants Frisson P64 Sym29, Frisson P88 Sym28 along with their wild parent Frisson, 1 hypernodulating mutant Rondo-nod3 (fix+) along with its wild parent Rondo, 1 non-nodulating mutant Frisson P56 (nod-) and 2 commercial pea cultivar CDC Meadow and CDC Dakota which are widely planted in Western Canada were selected in order to evaluate the capabilities of their BNF, biomass, and yield production in symbiosis with R. leguminosarumbv. viciae, Our results showed different environmental conditions and variation of pea lines could both significantly impact days to flowering (DTF), days to podding (DTP), biomass and yield of tested pea lines (P < 0.0001), suggesting consideration of environmental factors could be important when selecting pea cultivar for local farming under different soil zones in Western Canada. Significant interaction effects between environmental conditions and pea lines were found on pea N fixation as well (P = 0.001), suggesting changes in N fixation capability of the same pea cultivar when grown under different environmental conditions. Our results provide useful information for farming and better opportunity for selection of pea cultivars with higher N-fixing capacity during breeding programs in Western Canada.

Keywords: Canadian prairie, environmental condition, N fixation, pea cultivar

Procedia PDF Downloads 333

Authors: Bao Shu-Feng, Lou Yan, Dong Zhi-Liang, Mo Hai-Hong, Chen Ping-Shan

Abstract:

For soft foundation filled by newly dredged mud, after improved by Vacuum Preloading Technology (VPT), the soil strength was increased only a little, the effective improved depth was small, and the ground bearing capacity is still low. To analyze the causes in depth, it was conducted in laboratory of several comparative single well model experiments of VPT. It was concluded: (1) it mainly caused serious clogging problem and poor drainage performance in vertical drains of high content of fine soil particles and strong hydrophilic minerals in dredged mud, too fast loading rate at the early stage of vacuum preloading (namely rapidly reaching-80kPa) and too small characteristic opening size of the filter of the existed vertical drains; (2) it commonly reduced the drainage efficiency of drainage system, in turn weaken vacuum pressure in soils and soil improvement effect of the greater partial loss and friction loss of vacuum pressure caused by larger curvature of vertical drains and larger transfer resistance of vacuum pressure in horizontal drain.

Keywords: newly dredged mud, single well model experiments of vacuum preloading technology, poor drainage performance of vertical drains, poor soil improvement effect, causes analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 273

Authors: Min Sang Lee, Hee Jae Shin, In Pyo Cha, Sun Ho Ko, Hyun Kyung Yoon, Hong Gun Kim, Lee Ku Kwac

Abstract:

The prepreg process among the CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic) forming methods is the short term of ‘Pre-impregnation’, which is widely used for aerospace composites that require a high quality property such as a fiber-reinforced woven fabric, in which an epoxy hardening resin is impregnated. the reality is, however, that this process requires continuous researches and developments for its commercialization because the delamination characteristically develops between the layers when a great weight is loaded from outside. to supplement such demerit, three lamination methods among the prepreg lamination methods of CFRP were designed to minimize the delamination between the layers due to external impacts. Further, the newly designed methods and the existing lamination methods were analyzed through a mechanical characteristic test, Interlaminar Shear Strength test. The Interlaminar Shear Strength test result confirmed that the newly proposed three lamination methods, i.e. the Roll, Half and Zigzag laminations, presented more excellent strengths compared to the conventional Ply lamination. The interlaminar shear strength in the roll method with relatively dense fiber distribution was approximately 1.75% higher than that in the existing ply lamination method, and in the half method, it was approximately 0.78% higher.

Keywords: carbon fiber reinforced plastic(CFRP), pre-impregnation, laminating method, interlaminar shear strength (ILSS)

Procedia PDF Downloads 363

Authors: Liu Xiaohan

Abstract:

Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) is a human herpesvirus and is closely related to many malignancies of lymphocyte and epithelial origins, such as gastric cancer, Burkitt’s lymphoma, and nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). NPC is a malignant epithelial tumor which is 100% associated with EBV latent infection. Most of the NPC cases are densely populated in southern China, especially in Guangdong and Hong Kong. To our knowledge, overexpression of pro-inflammatory cytokines may result in a loss of balance of the immune system and cause damage to human bodies. Interleukin-6 (IL6) is a pro-inflammatory cytokine which plays an important role in tumor progression. In addition, gene expression is regulated by both transcriptional and post-transcriptional pathways, while post-transcriptional regulation is an important mechanism to modulate the mature mRNA level in mammalian cells. AU-rich element binding factor 1 (AUF1)/heterogeneous nuclear RNP D (hnRNP D) is known for its function in destabilizing mRNAs, including cytokines and cell cycle regulators. Previous studies have found that overexpression of hnRNP D would lead to tumorigenesis. In this project, our aim is to determine the role played by hnRNP D in EBV-infected cells and how our anti-EBV agents can affect the function of hnRNP D. The results of this study will provide a new insight into how the pro-inflammatory cytokine expression can be regulated by EBV.

Keywords: interleukin 6 (IL6), epstein-barr virus (EBV), nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC, epstein-barr nuclear antigen-1 (EBNA1)

Procedia PDF Downloads 52

Authors: Phan Hong, David Lishner, Matthew Hanson

Abstract:

Sixty-five children across four school research sites participated in the present experiment, which was designed to examine whether mindfulness promotes eating enjoyment and diverse eating behaviors in preschool- and early elementary-age children. Children, ages 3-9 years old, were randomly assigned to a 4-week mindfulness intervention condition or a 4-week exposure, control condition. Each week for four days, children received one of four different foods (celery, cauliflower, kidney beans, or garbanzo beans). Children either received instructions to mindfully engage with the food or were given the food and allowed to eat without mindfulness prompts from the researchers. Following the eating exercise, they recorded the amount eaten and rated their enjoyment level. Across all sessions, researchers modeled eating behaviors for the children by eating all the offered food. Results suggested that a brief mindfulness intervention promoted more diverse eating behaviors and more overall food consumption of typically not preferred and unfamiliar foods (celery, cauliflower, and garbanzo beans), compared with an exposure, control condition in preschool children and elementary-age children. However, food enjoyment ratings did not significantly differ between the two conditions for any of the foods. Implications of the finding for addressing eating behavior of young children are considered.

Keywords: children, control trial, eating behavior, eating enjoyment, mindfulness, schools

Procedia PDF Downloads 215

Authors: Ming-Yang Guo, Cheng-Xian Wu, Wei-Xiang Chen, Chun-Yuan Lin, Yen-Jen Lin, Ann-Shyn Chiang

Abstract:

With more and more Drosophila Driver and Neuron images, it is an important work to find the similarity relationships among them as the functional inference. There is a general problem that how to find a Drosophila Driver image, which can cover a set of Drosophila Driver/Neuron images. In order to solve this problem, the intersection/union region for a set of images should be computed at first, then a comparison work is used to calculate the similarities between the region and other images. In this paper, three encoding schemes, namely Integer, Boolean, Decimal, are proposed to encode each image as a one-dimensional structure. Then, the intersection/union region from these images can be computed by using the compare operations, Boolean operators and lookup table method. Finally, the comparison work is done as the union region computation, and the similarity score can be calculated by the definition of Tanimoto coefficient. The above methods for the region computation are also implemented in the multi-core CPUs environment with the OpenMP. From the experimental results, in the encoding phase, the performance by the Boolean scheme is the best than that by others; in the region computation phase, the performance by Decimal is the best when the number of images is large. The speedup ratio can achieve 12 based on 16 CPUs. This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology under the grant MOST 106-2221-E-182-070.

Keywords: Drosophila driver image, Drosophila neuron images, intersection/union computation, parallel processing, OpenMP

Procedia PDF Downloads 226

Authors: Ahmed A. D. Sarhan, Hong Wan Ping, M. Sayuti

Abstract:

In this current era of competitive machinery productions, the industries are designed to place more emphasis on the product quality and reduction of cost whilst abiding by the pollution-preventing policy. In attempting to delve into the concerns, the industries are aware that the effectiveness of existing lubrication systems must be improved to achieve power-efficient and pollution-preventing machining processes. As such, this research is targeted to study on a plausible solution to the issue in grinding titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) by using nanolubrication, as an alternative to flood grinding. The aim of this research is to evaluate the optimum condition of grinding force and surface roughness using MQL lubricating system to deliver nano-oil at different level of weight concentration of Silicon Dioxide (SiO2) mixed normal mineral oil. Taguchi Design of Experiment (DoE) method is carried out using a standard Taguchi orthogonal array of L16(43) to find the optimized combination of weight concentration mixture of SiO2, nozzle orientation and pressure of MQL. Surface roughness and grinding force are also analyzed using signal-to-noise(S/N) ratio to determine the best level of each factor that are tested. Consequently, the best combination of parameters is tested for a period of time and the results are compared with conventional grinding method of dry and flood condition. The results show a positive performance of MQL nanolubrication.

Keywords: grinding, MQL, precision grinding, Taguchi optimization, titanium alloy

Procedia PDF Downloads 261