Considering facilities management (FM) at the early design stage could potentially reduce the efforts for maintenance during the operational phase of facilities. Few efforts in construction industry have involved facility managers into the design phase. It was suggested that early adoption of facilities management will contribute to reducing the needs for major repairs and alternations that will otherwise occur at the operational phase. There should be an integrated data source providing ...

The serine protease inhibitor (SERPIN) B1 is expressed in numerous human tumors, but little is known regarding its role in the pathophysiology of glioma. In this paper, we report that SERPINB1 expression was down-regulated in high-grade human glioma tissue samples and glioblastoma cell lines. To investigate the role of SERPINB1 in glioma migration and invasion, we generated human glioma cell lines in which SERPINB1 was either overexpressed or depleted. Overexpression of SERPINB1 ...

Intracellular tension is the most important characteristic of neuron polarization as well as the growth and regeneration of axons, which can be generated by motor proteins and conducted along the cytoskeleton. To better understand this process, we created Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET)-based tension probes that can be incorporated into microfilaments to provide a real-time measurement of forces in neuron cytoskeletons. We found that our probe could be used to assess the ...

Antisense oligodeoxynucleotides strategies have been used both to study normal gene function and to block gene expression therapeutically. We have previously shown that a number of antisense oligonucleotides against hepatitis B virus (HBV) mRNA are able to inhibit viral gene expression in vitro. Here we report the establishment of an animal model producing HBV markers in athymic nude mice and inhibition of HBV gene expression and replication by antisense DNA in vivo. 2.2.15 cells (Hep-G2 ...

The present study aimed to investigate the effects of maternal dietary butyrate supplementation on energy metabolism and mitochondrial biogenesis in offspring skeletal muscle and the possible mediating mechanisms. Virgin female rats were randomly assigned to either control or butyrate diets (1 % butyrate sodium) throughout gestation and lactation. At the end of lactation (21 d), the offspring were killed by exsanguination from the abdominal aorta under anaesthesia. The results showed ...

Woodpecker can beat trees 20-25 times per second and lasts for several seconds, with a 1200 g deceleration, but it appears that they never get brain concussion. How does the stress wave propagate from the beak tip to brain and how does a woodpecker protect itself from brain damage? In this paper, we establish a finite element model of typical woodpecker head based on its X-ray tomography images and conduct the numerical analysis of the impact response of the woodpecker's head by using a ...

This paper investigates detection of patterns in brain waves while induced with mental stress. Electroencephalogram (EEG) is the most commonly used brain signal acquisition method as it is simple, economical and portable. An automatic EEG based stress recognition system is designed and implemented in this study with two effective stressors to induce different levels of mental stress. The Stroop colour-word test and mental arithmetic test are used as stressors to induce low level and high ...

In this paper a new method is proposed for choosing the best wavelet base for speech signal. The wavelets of Haar, Daubechies, Meyer, Biorthgonal, Coiflets, Symlets are used for speech signal. The wavelet decomposition is used to decompose speech signals into five levels. Low-frequency part of the signal was reconstructed. By calculating the maximum error and mean error of the reconstructed signal, the result shows that Haar wavelet is not suitable for speech signal and Dmey is the best ...

BACKGROUND: In our previous study, we had shown that high diastolic blood pressure (DBP) was positively related to well-developed coronary collateral circulation (CCC). This study sought to find out the more precise relationship between DBP and CCC.

METHODS AND RESULTS: To investigate this, we conducted a study of 671 patients with single chronic total occlusion of coronary artery. The DBP of the patients was divided into six groups: ≤ 65 mmHg, >65-≤ 75 mmHg, >75-≤ 85 mmHg, >85-≤ 95 ...

This paper is concerned with the existence of global solutions to the Cauchy problem of a hyperbolic-parabolic coupled system with large initial data. To this end, we first construct its local solutions by the standard iteration technique, then we deduce the basic energy estimate by constructing a convex entropy-entropy flux pair to this system. Moreover, the L∞-estimates and H2-estimates of solutions are obtained through some delicate estimates. In our results, we do not ask the far ...

The parasitic motion of a parallel four-bar mechanism (PFBM) is undesirable for designers. In this paper, the rigid joints in PFBM are replaced with their flexural counterparts, and the center shift of rotational flexural pivots can be made full use of in order to compensate for this parasitic motion. First, three schemes are proposed to design a family of ultraprecision linear-motion mechanisms. Therefore, the generalized cross-spring pivots are utilized as joints, and six ...

Following a rice or wheat harvest, a large amount of crop residue (straw) is retained in fields. The straw is often incorporated into the soil in order to increase the soil organic carbon storage and to reduce soil erosion. However, it has become apparent that the incorporated straw can significantly alter soil shear properties, which can dramatically affect energy inputs for tilling and other soil management practices. In this study, laboratory-remolded wheat straw-soil samples were ...