Effects of Design

Surfactants are needed to create stable suspensions of carbon nanotubes. Increasingly, these surfactants are given additional functionalities, resulting in bigger and more complex molecules with several subunits. We investigate the effect of assembly of these subunits for a class of perylene- based functional surfactants. The subunits that all surfactants are based on are a perylene core, hydrophilic polyglycerol dendrons, and alkyl chains of different orientations and lengths. The assembly of these subunits affects both the molecules' performance as a surfactant and the efficiency of the energy-transfer complexes formed by the nanotube and surfactant through a π–π stacking mechanism. This results in a best practice guide for designing functional surfactants with π–π stacking cores, and affords more general insights that are applicable to non π–π stacking systems as well

Excitation characteristics of different energy transfer in nanotube-perylene complexes

We report the properties of perylene-nanotube complexes that form efficient energy transfer systems. Most perylene-derivatives yield similar ratios between transfer and direct luminescence (0.66 ± 0.04). The photoluminescence spectra of the free compounds and the transfer complex are similar indicating that perylene and nanotubes act as separate systems. A further increase in interaction yields 40% higher transfer rates and luminescence excitation spectra that indicate a change in stacking of the perylene on the nanotube wall. All measurements are consistent with a transfer mechanism based on a dipole-dipole interaction at a distance much smaller than the Förster radius

In vivo and ex vivo regulation of visfatin production by leptin in human and murine adipose tissue : role of mitogen-activated protein kinase and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase signaling pathways

Visfatin is an adipogenic adipokine with increased levels in obesity, properties common to leptin. Thus, leptin may modulate visfatin production in adipose tissue (AT). Therefore, we investigated the effects of leptin on visfatin levels in 3T3-L1 adipocytes and human/murine AT, with or without a leptin antagonist. The potential signaling pathways and mechanisms regulating visfatin production in AT was also studied. Real-time RT-PCR and Western blotting were used to assess the relative mRNA and protein expression of visfatin. ELISA was performed to measure visfatin levels in conditioned media of AT explants, and small interfering RNA technology was used to reduce leptin receptor expression. Leptin significantly (P < 0.01) increased visfatin levels in human and murine AT with a maximal response at leptin 10–9 M, returning to baseline at leptin 10–7 M. Importantly, ip leptin administration to C57BL/6 ob/ob mice further supported leptin-induced visfatin protein production in omental AT (P < 0.05). Additionally, soluble leptin receptor levels rose with concentration dependency to a maximal response at leptin 10–7 M (P < 0.01). The use of a leptin antagonist negated the induction of visfatin and soluble leptin receptor by leptin. Furthermore, leptin-induced visfatin production was significantly decreased in the presence of MAPK and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase inhibitors. Also, when the leptin receptor gene was knocked down using small interfering RNA, leptin-induced visfatin expression was significantly decreased. Thus, leptin increases visfatin production in AT in vivo and ex vivo via pathways involving MAPK and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase signaling. The pleiotropic effects of leptin may be partially mediated by visfatin

Effects of Parent Role Modeling Behaviors in Correlation to Child Overweight and Obesity in Preschool-aged Children

OBJECTIVE: Parents have been proven to shape their children’s health through their growing years.1-6 Extensive research has been done on the correlation between adolescent’s health status and parent’s role modeling behaviors. However, little research has been done in preschool-aged children. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine if parenting style with food and meal behaviors was associated with body mass index (BMI) and weight status in preschool-aged children (3-5 years).METHODS: This study is a part of South Dakota State University’s iGrow Readers study. For this study, a total of 229 child/parent dyads participated from 14 recruited daycare centers across the Midwest. All heights and weights were recorded at pre-, post-, and follow-up data collection points. At pre-assessment, parents were given the Parent Survey, which contained information regarding their demographic and nutrition lifestyle.RESULTS: A total of 194 parents completed section I, which contained information regarding nutrition-related parent role modeling behaviors, in the Parent Survey. The average child age was 3.6 years. Characteristics of parents included predominantly mothers (83.5%) with an average age of 34.27 years with an Associate’s/Bachelor’s degree (51.2%) making over $60,00 a year (76.1%). No significance was found between parent role modeling behaviors and child weight status. However, few positive role modeling behaviors were reported by parents within the survey. Three of the most commonly reported negative behaviors include eating while angry (86.5%), eating from the pan (86.5%), and consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (75%).CONCLUSION: Although no significant association was found between parent role modeling nutrition behaviors and preschool-aged child’s weight status, this study does show the most frequently modeled nutrition behaviors that may have a negative influence on their child’s health. Further research is needed upon this topic and the long-term implications of these modeling behaviors

Evaluation of on-site logistics at different types of construction projects

There is a reduced level of attention to logistics in the construction sector according to the literature. Even though studies have shown that improved logistical measures have provided benefits it is still not implemented at a large scale across the sector. Consequently, the same challenges can be found across projects. The aim of the thesis is therefore to find out if a set of solutions can be found to solve multiple logistical challenges in construction projects. This was done by first performing an empirical and literature background study to find out what challenges exist in construction projects. In the empirical study, four ongoing construction projects, with different characteristics, were scrutinized. It was found that all sites had challenges regarding the handling of deliveries to the construction site and material handling. As an example of this, all sites reported that there was no system to, for instance, keep track of when deliveries had arrived, where they had been placed, and what they contained. After these challenges had been identified through a systematic analysis, possible solutions were explored. In total, three solutions were studied and included the services provided by TPL providers Myloc and Qlocx as well as the implementation of a logistics plan. With the aim of investigating applicability, the solutions were then presented back to the case company. The study concluded that these solutions would be applicable in practice and provide value to many of the case companies' projects. By adding accessible information to the material flow and providing certainty of when and where material is being delivered the TPL services proved valuable to solve challenges regarding coordination and planning. Further, the CLP was deemed a good tool to initiate projects to organize and structure the intended flow of logistics at construction sites. By documenting the logistical setup, the organization can take steps towards standardizing logistics methods across their future projects

Kuali OLE – Activities in Germany

Presentation of Kuali OLE with the title "Kuali OLE – Activities in Germany" within the scope of the Kuali Days UK in Londo

simple diffusion: End-to-end diffusion for high resolution images

Currently, applying diffusion models in pixel space of high resolution images is difficult. Instead, existing approaches focus on diffusion in lower dimensional spaces (latent diffusion), or have multiple super-resolution levels of generation referred to as cascades. The downside is that these approaches add additional complexity to the diffusion framework. This paper aims to improve denoising diffusion for high resolution images while keeping the model as simple as possible. The paper is centered around the research question: How can one train a standard denoising diffusion models on high resolution images, and still obtain performance comparable to these alternate approaches? The four main findings are: 1) the noise schedule should be adjusted for high resolution images, 2) It is sufficient to scale only a particular part of the architecture, 3) dropout should be added at specific locations in the architecture, and 4) downsampling is an effective strategy to avoid high resolution feature maps. Combining these simple yet effective techniques, we achieve state-of-the-art on image generation among diffusion models without sampling modifiers on ImageNet