CR3 and Dectin-1 Collaborate in Macrophage Cytokine Response through Association on Lipid Rafts and Activation of Syk-JNK-AP-1 Pathway

Copyright: © 2015 Huang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited Acknowledgments We are grateful to the Second Core Laboratory of Research Core Facility at the National Taiwan University Hospital for confocal microscopy service and providing ultracentrifuge. We thank Dr. William E. Goldman (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC) for kindly providing WT and ags1-null mutant of H. capsulatum G186A. Funding: This work is supported by research grants 101-2320-B-002-030-MY3 from the Ministry of Science and Technology (http://www.most.gov.tw) and AS-101-TP-B06-3 from Academia Sinica (http://www.sinica.edu.tw) to BAWH. GDB is funded by research grant 102705 from Welcome Trust (http://www.wellcome.ac.uk). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Molecular cloning and characterization of a thioredoxin from Taiwanofungus camphorata

Abstract Background Thioredoxin (Trx) is reduced by thioredoxin reductase. Trx is used in ribonucleoide reduction, assimilatory sulfate reduction, in modulation of protein sulfhydryl groups, and refolding proteins. Results A TcTrx (Tc: Taiwanofungus camphorata) cDNA (640 bp, GenBank AY838902.1) encoding a putative thioredoxin (Trx) of 135 amino acid residues with calculated molecular mass of 16.17 kDa was cloned from Taiwanofungus c amphorata. The deduced amino acid sequence containing a motif (Cys-Gly-Pro-Cys) that is highly conserved among the reported Trxs. A three dimensional structural model of the TcTrx has been created based on the known structure of Malassezia sympodialis Trx (MsTrx, PDB ID: 2j23). To characterize the TcTrx, the codon optimized coding region was subcloned into an expression vector and transformed into Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The recombinant His8-tagged TcTrx was expressed and purified by Ni affinity chromatography. The purified enzyme showed a band of approximately 32 kDa (expected dimeric form) on a 12% SDS-PAGE. The molecular mass determined by MALDI-TOF is 33.16 kDa which suggests that the purified enzyme is a dimeric enzyme. Furthermore, the enzyme exhibited TcTrx activity via insulin assay. The Michaelis constant (K M ) value for insulin was 3.78 × 10−2 mM. The enzyme’s half-life of deactivation was 13 min at 45°C. The enzyme was most active at pH 7. Conclusions A three dimensional structural model of T. camphorata Trx based on its TcTrx cDNA sequence. The active form of the TcTrx has been successfully expressed in yeast. The enzyme possesses Trx activity and is capable of reduction of disulfide bonds during the formation of newly synthesized proteins. </jats:sec

A Study of Developing a System Dynamics Model for the Learning Effectiveness Evaluation

[[abstract]]This study used the research method of system dynamics and applied the Vensim software to develop a learning effectiveness evaluation model. This study developed four cause-and-effect chains affecting learning effectiveness, including teachers’ teaching enthusiasm, family involvement, school’s implementation of scientific activities, and creative teaching method, as well as the system dynamics model based on the four cause-and-effect chains. Based on the developed system dynamic model, this study performed simulation to investigate the relationship among family involvement, learning effectiveness, teaching achievement, creative teaching method, and students’ learning interest. The results of this study verified that there are positive correlations between family involvement and students’ learning effectiveness, as well as students’ learning effectiveness and teachers’ teaching achievements. The results also indicated that the use of creative teaching method is able to increase students’ learning interest and learning achievement.[[journaltype]]國外[[incitationindex]]SCI[[ispeerreviewed]]Y[[booktype]]電子版[[countrycodes]]US

Geometrically Adaptive Milling of Fan Blade Assembly Weld Fillets

Modern aeroengine design focuses on reducing overall weight and improving component service life. For fan blade assemblies, the blades and hub/shaft are attached by the most common dovetail (or fir tree) attachment design, which experiences fretting fatigue at the joint resulting in lower reliability and higher repair difficulty. A new joining design that connects blade /disk by welding and eliminates the attachment, has been implemented in military and commercial aeroengines. This joining design is most suitable for large diameter fan blades where single piece machining is impractical and time consuming. The joined blade requires post-process machining to remove excess weld material. However, because of varying assembly geometry, joints must be individually measured and tool paths consequently adjusted to match actual surface locations. The objective of this thesis is to develop an automated and geometrically adaptive post-process weld machining system. This thesis proposes a solution that integrates surface digitization, computer aided design (CAD) and computer aided manufacturing (CAM) systems, to accommodate the part-to-part variation issue. The integrated system includes precise laser digitizing, geometric modelling, tool path customizing, coordinate registration and CNC machining. The core algorithm was designed on the open and object-oriented C++ ACIS/HOOPS kernel. The customized tool paths are prepared based on the misalignment distance measured by laser digitizing, and a custom developed mathematical correction algorithm that can be implemented on a typical personal computer. At present, the machining process is designed for a three-axis machine tool. Suggested future works include implementation on a five-axis machine, and feed rate optimized tool paths.Master of Applied Science (MASc

Highly efficient coherent optical memory based on electromagnetically induced transparency

Quantum memory is an important component in the long-distance quantum communication system based on the quantum repeater protocol. To outperform the direct transmission of photons with quantum repeaters, it is crucial to develop quantum memories with high fidelity, high efficiency and a long storage time. Here, we achieve a storage efficiency of 92.0(1.5)\% for a coherent optical memory based on the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) scheme in optically dense cold atomic media. We also obtain a useful time-bandwidth product of 1200, considering only storage where the retrieval efficiency remains above 50\%. Both are the best record to date in all kinds of the schemes for the realization of optical memory. Our work significantly advances the pursuit of a high-performance optical memory and should have important applications in quantum information science.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, supplementary materials: 12 pages, 4 figure