In vitro expanded human CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells suppress effector T cell proliferation.

Regulatory T cells (Tregs) have been shown to be critical in the balance between autoimmunity and tolerance and have been implicated in several human autoimmune diseases. However, the small number of Tregs in peripheral blood limits their therapeutic potential. Therefore, we developed a protocol that would allow for the expansion of Tregs while retaining their suppressive activity. We isolated CD4+CD25 hi cells from human peripheral blood and expanded them in vitro in the presence of anti-CD3 and anti-CD28 magnetic Xcyte Dynabeads and high concentrations of exogenous Interleukin (IL)-2. Tregs were effectively expanded up to 200-fold while maintaining surface expression of CD25 and other markers of Tregs: CD62L, HLA-DR, CCR6, and FOXP3. The expanded Tregs suppressed proliferation and cytokine secretion of responder PBMCs in co-cultures stimulated with anti-CD3 or alloantigen. Treg expansion is a critical first step before consideration of Tregs as a therapeutic intervention in patients with autoimmune or graft-versus-host disease

SWING: A system for visualizing web graphs

A Web graph refers to the graph that is used to represent relationships between Web pages in cyberspace, where a node represents a URL and an edge indicates a link between two URLs. A Web graph is a very huge graph as growing with cyberspace. This paper presents a pipeline for extracting web information from cyberspace to a web graph and layout techniques for making the web graph more readable. As the size of computer screen is limited, only a small part of the Web graph can be displayed. Several layout techniques should be adapted and combined effectively for web graph visualization. The visualization process incorporates graph drawing algorithms, layout adjustment methods, as well as filtering and clustering methods in order to decide which part of the Web graph should be displayed and how to display it based on the user's focus in navigation

An interactive speech training system with virtual reality articulation for Mandarin-speaking hearing impaired children

The present project involved the development of a novel interactive speech training system based on virtual reality articulation and examination of the efficacy of the system for hearing impaired (HI) children. Twenty meaningful Mandarin words were presented to the HI children via a 3-D talking head during articulation training. Electromagnetic Articulography (EMA) and graphic transform technology were used to depict movements of various articulators. In addition, speech corpuses were organized in listening and speaking training modules of the system to help improve language skills of the HI children. Accuracy of virtual reality articulatory movement was evaluated through a series of experiments. Finally, a pilot test was performed to train two HI children using the system. Preliminary results showed improvement in speech production by the HI children, and the system was recognized as acceptable and interesting for children. It can be concluded that the training system is effective and valid in articulation training for HI children. © 2013 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

A Lightweight Authentication Scheme for Transport System Farecards

Proximity Integrated Circuit Cards (PICC) are widely used for public transport fare collection. The stored contents in the card can only be accessed or modified after the card is able to authenticate the Proximity Coupling Device (PCD) or reader using a shared secret key. We propose a new authentication scheme that is not based on shared secret keys. Instead, authentication is based on the card and reader being able to compute an identical pairwise key using their own private keying material obtained from the same source. The computation is done off-line and does not require the participation of a third party. It uses simple modular arithmetic operations over a small binary extension field, achieving fast computation speed using the limited resources in cards. In addition, should the keys be stolen from the cards or readers, the security of the other parts of the system cannot be compromised

UV-Diagram: A Voronoi Diagram for Uncertain Spatial Databases

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Ventral striatum activity in response to reward: differences between bipolar I and II disorders.

addresses: MRC Center for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics, Institute of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences, Cardiff University, UK. [email protected]: PMCID: PMC3640293types: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tThis is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non commercial and is otherwise in compliance with the license. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ and http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/legalcode.Copyright © 2013 by the American Psychiatric AssociationThe official published article is available online at http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=1676088Little is known about the neurobiology of bipolar II disorder. While bipolar I disorder is associated with abnormally elevated activity in response to reward in the ventral striatum, a key component of reward circuitry, no studies have compared reward circuitry function in bipolar I and bipolar II disorders. Furthermore, associations among reward circuitry activity, reward sensitivity, and striatal volume remain underexplored in bipolar and healthy individuals. The authors examined reward activity in the ventral striatum in participants with bipolar I and II disorders and healthy individuals, the relationships between ventral striatal activity and reward sensitivity across all participants, and between-group differences in striatal gray matter volume and relationships with ventral striatal activity across all participants

Effects of stitching on delamination of satin weave carbon-epoxy laminates under mode I, mode II and mixed-mode I/II loadings

The objective of the present study is to characterize the effect of modified chain stitching on the delamination growth under mixed-mode I/II loading conditions. Delamination toughness under mode I is experimentally determined, for unstitched and stitched laminates, by using untabbed and tabbed double cantilever beam (TDCB) tests. The effect of the reinforcing tabs on mode I toughness is investigated. Stitching improves the energy release rate (ERR) up to 4 times in mode I. Mode II delamination toughness is evaluated in end-notched flexure (ENF) tests. Different geometries of stitched specimens are tested. Crack propagation occurs without any failure of stitching yarns. The final crack length attains the mid-span or it stops before and the specimen breaks in bending. The ERR is initially low and gradually increases with crack length to very high values. The mixedmode delamination behaviour is investigated using a mixed-mode bending (MMB) test. For unstitched specimens, a simple mixed-mode criterion is identified. For stitched specimens, stitching yarns do not break during 25% of mode I ratio tests and the ERR increase is relatively small compared to unstitched values. For 70% and 50% of mode I ratios, failures of yarns are observed during crack propagation and tests are able to capture correctly the effect of the stitching: it clearly improves the ERR for these two mixed modes, as much as threefold

De-pollution efficacy of photocatalytic roofing granules

Photocatalytic building surfaces can harness sunlight to reduce urban air pollution. The NOx abatement capacity of TiO2-coated granules used in roofing products was evaluated for commercial product development. A laboratory test chamber and ancillary setup were built following conditions prescribed by ISO Standard 22197-1. It was validated by exposing reference P25-coated aluminum plates to a 3 L min−1 air flow enriched in 1 ppm NO under UVA irradiation (360 nm, 11.5 W m−2). We characterized prototype granule-surfaced asphalt shingles and loose granules prepared with different TiO2 loadings and post-treatment formulations. Tests performed at surface temperatures of 25 and 60 °C showed that NOx abatement was more effective at the higher temperature. Preliminary tests explored the use of 1 ppm NO2 and of 1 ppm and 0.3 ppm NO/NO2 mixtures. Specimens were aged in a laboratory accelerated weathering apparatus, and by exposure to the outdoor environment over periods that included dry and rainy seasons. Laboratory aging led to higher NO removal and NO2 formation rates, and the same catalyst activation was observed after field exposure with frequent precipitation. However, exposure during the dry season reduced the performance. This inactivation was mitigated by cleaning the surface of field-exposed specimens. Doubling the TiO2 loading led to a 50–150% increase in NO removal and NOx deposition rates. Application of different post-treatment coatings decreased NO removal rates (21–35%) and NOx deposition rates (26–74%) with respect to untreated granules. The mass balance of nitrogenated species was assessed by extracting granules after UV exposure in a 1 ppm NO-enriched atmosphere

Computing Topology Preservation of RBF Transformations for Landmark-Based Image Registration

In image registration, a proper transformation should be topology preserving. Especially for landmark-based image registration, if the displacement of one landmark is larger enough than those of neighbourhood landmarks, topology violation will be occurred. This paper aim to analyse the topology preservation of some Radial Basis Functions (RBFs) which are used to model deformations in image registration. Mat\'{e}rn functions are quite common in the statistic literature (see, e.g. \cite{Matern86,Stein99}). In this paper, we use them to solve the landmark-based image registration problem. We present the topology preservation properties of RBFs in one landmark and four landmarks model respectively. Numerical results of three kinds of Mat\'{e}rn transformations are compared with results of Gaussian, Wendland's, and Wu's functions

Wnt-C59 arrests stemness and suppresses growth of nasopharyngeal carcinoma in mice by inhibiting the Wnt pathway in the tumor microenvironment

Wnt/β-catenin signaling is responsible for the generation of cancer stem cells (CSCs) in many human tumors, including nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Recent studies demonstrate that Wnt or PORCN inhibitor, Wnt-C59, inhibits tumor growth in MMTV-WNT1 transgenic mice. The effect of Wnt-C59 in human tumors is not clear. In this study, the NPC cell lines investigated manifest heterogeneous responses to Wnt-C59 treatment. Wnt-C59 decreased tumor growth of SUNE1 cells in mice immediately following the administration of Wnt-C59. Mice injected with HNE1 cells did not develop visible tumors after the treatment of Wnt-C59, while control mice developed 100% tumors. Wnt-C59 inhibited stemness properties of NPC cells in a dosage-dependent manner by arresting sphere formation in both HNE1 and SUNE1 cells. Thus, Wnt-C59 has the potential to eradicate CSCs in human tumors. Active β-catenin and Axin2 proteins were strongly expressed in stromal cells surrounding growing tumors, confirming the importance of Wnt signaling activities in the microenvironment being driving forces for cell growth. These novel findings confirm the ability of Wnt-C59 to suppress Wnt-driven undifferentiated cell growth in NPC. Both anti-Wnt signaling and anti-CSC approaches are feasible strategies in cancer therapy.published_or_final_versio